Watersmeet (34 page)

It seemed as if the battle would never end. Rueshlan bled from gashes all over his body, and his left arm dangled uselessly at his side. His hooves were worn down to his ankles from exposure to the poisonous mud. He had lost his sword and dagger, leaving only a small dirk for a weapon. His raven hair had fallen out in clumps where he had been struck by Charach’s breath.

But Charach was horribly wounded, too. Rueshlan’s sword had opened huge rents in the Worm’s sides and black blood stained most of its body. Its tail was left twitching on the ground, the tendons severed. And many of its eyes were blinded by arrows.

How can either of them survive one more blow?
Abisina thought numbly. She longed to look away, but knew she would never take her eyes from her father while he still stood.

As dusk fell on the field, Rueshlan galloped forward despite his crippled legs. He attacked from the left where most of the Worm’s eyes had been taken out. The Worm’s head swung desperately around as it sensed Rueshlan’s approach, but Rueshlan ducked underneath its chest and drove his dirk deep into the White Worm’s soft belly.

At first, the onlookers didn’t know what happened. Rueshlan was racing across the plain, and a cry went up from the Vranians who thought that he was retreating. Their shouts were stopped by the sight of the Worm falling. As Charach struck the ground, black smoke rose, shrouding the Worm’s carcass in darkness.

Bellows, shrieks, and howls rose from the Vranian side of the battlefield. Rudderless without their leader, Charach’s minions—the minotaurs and hags, the überwolves and trolls—beat a tumultuous retreat to the trees, disappearing into the forest like shadows chased by the light of the morning. The Vranians and centaurs remained, but they looked around the battlefield bewildered.

Abisina hardly noticed the Vranians. Just beyond the billows of noxious smoke, Rueshlan stumbled and fell.

“He’s down! He’s down! Go, Kyron!” she cried.

They were the first to reach him. Rueshlan lay on his side, his head in the mud, his torn and bloody shoulder hunched over so that Abisina couldn’t see his face. She tumbled from Kyron’s back onto the ground beside him.

“Father! Father!” She reached a hand toward him, desperate to see his face and yet unwilling to confirm her worst fears.

Then he groaned. “He’s alive!” she shouted, and as she pulled his head onto her lap, he transformed from centaur to man. “Help me!” she called. All who were able to walk, or crawl, made their way to their fallen leader.

Abisina’s momentary hope turned to despair as he was laid on his back and she could see the extent of his wounds.

“Father! I’m here! Please, Father!”

At her cry, his eyes fluttered open, cloudy, but he tried to focus as she said again, “Father.”

“Abisina,” he managed. “I’m sorry. I thought I could keep my promise.”

“Shhh,” she whispered, smoothing back strands of his hair. “It’s over now, and you
have
kept your promise. You’re here with me, and Charach is dead.”

“I couldn’t let another one fall, Abisina. Can you understand?”

“Yes,” Abisina choked as she wiped her own tears off her father’s face. “I understand.” She pressed her cheek against his.

As she did, the necklace—of Vigar, of Rueshlan, and of Sina—tumbled forward and caught the last ray of light.

Rueshlan’s eyes cleared for a moment as the pendant glittered above him. For another few breaths, he looked at his daughter. Then he was gone.

A high keening broke across the battlefield, echoed in a ululating wail from the fairies descending the trees, carrying the news of Rueshlan’s death. Abisina could not bring herself to join the wordless cry, yet it filled her, lifted her, gave voice to the emptiness that had opened inside her.

But the cry of grief soon transformed to a cry of rage, and when Abisina looked at the faces around her, they were twisted with hatred. Swords, axes, and daggers, clotted with blood, were raised toward the sky.

Rage eclipsed her emptiness, giving her something solid to hang onto, rising like a wave that would carry her forward.

“Make them pay!” Across the battlefield, the cry was taken up. The rumble of the centaur; the clear tones of fauns; the multiple timbres of the humans and dwarves; the haunting voices of the fairies: “Make them pay!”

And the words came back to them from across the river of poison dividing the armies. The Vranians, Icksyon, and his band found the purpose that had momentarily eluded them. Their hate-filled screams rang out with the same cry: “Make them pay!”

On both sides, soldiers shook their weapons, the injured ones forced themselves to their feet, Elders and Council members called curses down on the enemy: “Make them pay!”

The words rose in Abisina, who still sat with her father’s head in her lap.
Make them pay! For every infant left outside the walls. For every outcast man, woman, and child. For the dwarves, centaurs, fairies, and fauns killed in the name of Vran. For every life lost on this battlefield. But mostly make them pay for Vigar, for Sina, and for Rueshlan.

Easing her father’s head to the ground, Abisina got to her feet. She opened her mouth to join the cacophony—

“Human.”

Haret stood, arms crossed, eyebrows lowered. His axe head was broken, his sword was lost, his right arm bled—but he would not let her pass until she heard him. “
You
wear the necklace now.”

The necklace.

She felt it again—a weight around her neck.

Abisina grabbed it, ready to yank it off, fling it from her, but as her fingers closed on the cool metal, the screams, the keening, the groans of the dying stilled.

And in the quiet, Vigar spoke:
Charach is everyone’s enemy.

The wearers of the necklace: Vigar, Rueshlan, Sina—
and
Haret. She had forgotten that he, too, had worn the necklace.

She met her friend’s eyes.

“Abisina, you know what you must do.”

And at last, she did.

She lifted the necklace and held it before her. Though the sun was down and the moon had not yet risen, the pendant began to shine—softly—but with each step, the light grew.

She moved as if in a dream. She stepped through the folk of Watersmeet arrayed against the Vranians. Without hesitation, she entered the murky air rising from the ground around Charach’s body.

The fumes parted: her eyes, her breath, her boots untouched by the poison.

The image of Abisina—green eyes blazing, dark hair rippling down her back, a beacon of light in her hands—closed the mouths of Vrania and Watersmeet. Silence spread across the battlefield.

Abisina stopped between the two armies. She held the brilliant necklace over her head so that followers of Vran and of Vigar could see the strands of Obrium twisting into one. Slowly she turned to each army, the light of the necklace illuminating the many faces she recognized: Findlay, bloodied but standing; Surl, favoring a foreleg; Corlin, clinging to a leafless oak branch; Elodie, with her bow and empty quiver; Elder Theckis, his own pendant missing; Hoysta, supported by her axe; Icksyon, clutching a broken sword; Frayda, grief etched on her face.

Abisina spoke:

“Vrania! Charach is dead! Charach—who destroyed your villages and slaughtered your families! Will you keep fighting for him? Will you carry your hate away from this field and retreat behind your walls, nursing your vengeance until a new Charach rises? Or will you learn from this suffering? Will you join with Watersmeet?

“And Watersmeet, have you forgotten? Rueshlan promised we would fight as long as Charach stands. But Charach lies there!” She pointed to the blackened earth. “This morning Rueshlan reminded us of who we are: We are descendents of Vigar. Remember his words, Watersmeet!

“Look at me—Vrania, Watersmeet! You are both part of me: my mother was Vranian; my father, the Keeper of Watersmeet, was a man and a centaur. I, too, have heard the call of fear, vengeance, and hate. But look around you! This is where that path leads.”

On either side, weapons were lowered by some while others clutched theirs tighter. As Abisina continued to turn and turn and turn, flooding the plain with the necklace’s light, she dared to hope. There were other Charachs. But right now, this one was defeated. And she was the daughter of Rueshlan and Sina. They both had spent their lives fighting Charach in their own ways. She could do the same.

She would use whatever gifts she had inherited from them so that she, too, deserved to wear the necklace.

Abisina lifted the necklace higher, light spilling before her, showing her the way.

The Green Man had not been seen on either side of the Obrun Mountains for countless generations. There was no record of him in Watersmeet’s library; he had even passed out of stories and legends. But he had been in this land before, and he returned to pay his respects to Rueshlan.

The grieving folk of Watersmeet had watched and wept as Rueshlan’s funeral pyre burned for three days. They were joined by refugees from the southern lands and a handful of Vranians who had responded to Rueshlan’s call for peace and unity. Just before dawn on the third morning, the pyre was no more than a smoldering pile of ash and all eyes were on Abisina. She stood—Haret at her side—watching the dwindling flames, holding her father’s necklace as she had since the first spark had been touched to the tower of wood. The folk waited for Rueshlan’s daughter to lead them home.

But before the last flame went out, the Green Man was there: a giant of a man with green skin, eyes, and lips. His body and head were covered with leaves. Vines snaked from his mouth toward the ground and took root. Although none could name him, they knew what he was: the patron of all that grows, dies, and is reborn.

The crowd fell back as the Green Man approached the pyre. Abisina did not stir until he knelt beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. Slowly, slowly she lifted her eyes to his. Some say he spoke with words, others that she understood him without speech. The Green Man then reached into the remains of the fire, filled his cupped hands with ash, and brought them to his lips. He blew the ash first to the south and then to the north, creating two great, churning clouds. For a moment, the twin thunderheads glowered down on the gathered folk, but as the sun broke over the horizon, the gray turned to gold. With another breath, the Green Man sent the glittering ash spinning away.

Dazzled by the sparkling clouds, few saw the Green Man brush the last bit of ash from his hands and onto the ground at his feet. But Abisina saw it—saw a golden tendril sprout from the trampled soil and begin to grow. When the folk pulled their eyes away from the now distant ash-glow, a tree with golden leaves and white luminescent bark had reached the Green Man’s waist. When it brushed his chin, golden leaves trailing gracefully toward the ground, the Green Man spoke in a deep, rumbling voice that made the leaves covering his body whisper beneath his words: “I give this land the Seldar tree, born of great pain. Watersmeet, Vrania, fairies, folk of the north and the south, attend the lesson it holds for you.”

Without another word, he turned away and strode north.

A miracle awaited both armies as they made their way home. Seldar groves dotted the landscape, white bark and golden leaves shining through even the darkest foliage, easing the load of grief so many carried from the battlefield.

The folk of Watersmeet and the fairies found a second miracle. As they reached the place where they would begin the climb to the Low Col, they were met instead by a deep cut chiseled through the mountain range, forming a road broad enough for twenty centaurs to walk abreast. Sheer walls stretched up from the road into the sky, blocking the sun except at high noon.

Both miracles brought the possibility of unity to the divided land: the road promised contact and communication between the north and south as never before. And no one could look at a Seldar and not be moved. From these trees, the land took a new name: Seldara. But though the barrier of the Obruns was breached, and though the people were united in their love of the Seldar, Vigar’s—and Rueshlan’s—vision of true unity had not yet been realized. . . .