Rosalea could hear the sounds of footsteps on the stairs, but there was no light. Then, suddenly there was stabbing light that made her eyes almost want to water after the pitch dark. The owner of the torch moved forward, and Rosalea squinted at him. “Did the dragon come?”
“No,” he said in a voice that felt somehow familiar sounding to her, but she could not pinpoint why. “I am here to help,” he said.
Her eyes adjusted to the light, and amber-brown eyes met hers. Changer, she realized. She saw a face that looked familiar, but she could not say how, searching hers. He was silent, and she was silent, trying to remember him.
“Can magic not break these binds?”
“I cannot do it,” Rosalea said.
He openly frowned and made a musing noise before he set the torch down and held out his hand. A dwarven blade, from the runes etched into the metal, that had lots of wear and had probably been handed down through his family, appeared in his hands. He stood straight and brought the sword hard against the chain above the manacle on her right leg. She screamed as it moved, the muscles in her leg crying out from the force and sudden movement.
He grabbed her mouth and covered it, “Quiet!” he said. She nodded, but her eyes watered. He got held out his hand and summoned a clean bit of leather to it from earth storage. “Bite down,” he said.
Rosalea nodded and did just that. She gingerly tested moving her right leg, and she realized he had managed to cut through the inferior chain with a lot of strength and one blow.
“Brace,” he commanded and she nodded, biting down and holding in the scream as best as she could when he cut the chain on her other leg. She was trailing six inches or more, but she could move.
There was a commotion outside. “Where is Bryson? He was standing guard!”
“He never leaves his post!”
“Are we under attack?!”
There was no time to be clever with her hands. They were strung out, the chain in the air, and so he just went for the bolts in the wooden wall and cut the wood away. Chain, bolt, and wood dangled from her wrists. More voices came after the first ones in alarm for Bryson. They opened the door, “He’s bleeding on the ground in here!”
Her changer companion cursed under his breath. “I know you are not well, but you must find your strength. I cannot fight them and carry you from here.”
She did not know what to do. Fen was gone and with her wolf-soul, her magic. She tried her muscles again, but the pain was too great for her to keep at it too long.
“Can you not use your magic? Call the plants and weather as you once did?”
She looked at him – what or when was he talking about?
The issue dropped as the door was broken through. He scooped up the torch and lunged at the men coming down with them. Her companion was deadly with his sword, she saw the dwarven blade flash in the torch light as it sliced through one man to dance and plunge into the next. His torch smacked one guard in his face, burning him badly, incapacitating him and dropping him to the ground. He dropped the torch again and grabbed her by her wrist and drug them out of the shop and into the street… she could barely move her legs to keep her feet and the pain was intense. She could feel her muscles popping and straining, the fibers in them tearing. He was strong though, and so with her half awkward movements, and his strength they made it out of the house.
He hesitated once they were out, and he spun, cutting arrows flying at them out of the air. I do not think even Nerric could do that, and he had drilled constantly. She realized he was not sure where to go. “Do you shapeshift?” She shook her head no. He groaned, dropped his blade back into earth storage, picked her up, running despite the added weight of her body, and managed to leap atop a stack of wood piled near the wall of a house. He pushed her up on the roof, lifted himself up, yelping as an arrow landed in the wood shingles between his fingers, and picked her up.
“Hang onto me,” he grumbled, scooping her up onto his back and clambering onto a roof. He dropped his sword back into earth storage and just ran for all that he was worth and leaped for the next house roof.
She clenched her teeth as she was jarred by him and did her best to hang on anyway. Every limb was fire and pain from being locked in place for so long. They soon reached the city wall… and one of the stairways to the top portion and he leaped to the stairs. However, they were nearly eight feet away, and Rosalea was sure he could not reach it with her weight in his arms. All the same, he leaped.
Rosalea cried out as she was dumped on the stairs and slid over to the wall, nearly tumbling down the rest, but just catching herself. He managed to get his arms over the edge of two… and lifted himself up with his arms.
A man in armor rushed him just as he found his feet, but the blade was back in his hand after he pivoted back, and he rammed it through a weak point in the armor. Rosalea saw the mark on his face as he paled and fell from the wall into the street below. This wall is only two stories high or so… they really think that would keep out mystics if they wanted in?
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Arrows began flying at them now that they were clear of potential citizens of the city – so he jumped. She screamed – the fall was surely going to break his legs – if not kill one or both of them.
But, somehow, the earth rose up to meet them, dropping them down. There was a horse waiting near them, dancing anxiously as arrows rained around them. He threw her across the animal’s shoulders and vaulted aloft. Rosalea couldn’t keep her seat, and so the horse beneath them danced with anxiety as arrows hailed down on them.
We need help… maybe… she put back her head and howled, like she was still a wolf, like she still had Fen and had a right to howl.
The horse skittered forward, and Rosalea nearly slid off the side, so the man holding her pulled her up into his lap and crushed her to his chest with one arm.
There was an answering howl for her. Please help, she thought as she took another breath and howled again.
Men on horses gave chase, and the horse she was riding sidled near the ravine with the river at the bottom trying to avoid arrows.
An arrow hit one of them with a thunk. Rosalea didn’t think it was her. As the horse fell and pitched her off, she realized that either it or her rescuer had been hit. It does not matter, she thought as air rushed passed her, I am falling.
She didn’t end up striking any of the outcroppings. Ordinarily, that would have been lucky. But her muscles were locked up and uncooperative, and she fell a long way into the murky river. The thin layer of ice broke and she was swept under. The shock of the cold caused her to involuntarily gasp some of it in, and she knew she was probably dead this time.
Then, something had her by the arm. It punctured through her and then let go, grabbing onto the manacle around her wrist. She hauled up short with a pain that popped her shoulder from the joint, and the manacle bit into her wrist horribly as she was lifted out and dropped on the mossy bank.
“Nakai…” she said with the most profound relief that she had felt in her whole life. “Save the man, he rescued me.” Relief and adrenaline counterbalanced pain, for a minute.
He nodded and sprinted down the bank. Rosalea gave herself permission to just lay there and be cold and out of it.
***
Taigan was not pitched from Honor until he slid off the side of the ravine. He was cursing himself for letting Rosalea go, but his instincts had made him hang on for himself. But, as they fell through the air, he was separated from his writhing gelding, arrow deep in his side. They killed him, Taigan thought coldly.
Just as he almost hit the water, earth rose up like it had when he was forced to make the insane jump from the wall, and exploded everywhere as his gelding hit it and it was soft an displaced.
Something grabbed him like a vice by the ankle mere inches from the water and stopped his descent in a way that slowed it first, and he thought he was looking at darkness incarnate for a moment. He was lucky his boot was so sturdy, or he would have been pretty injured by that maneuver. He was dropped unceremoniously on the bank, and Honor was herded toward him, for as best as he could limp. His weakly thrashing horse was put down beside him. “You possessing a liana suggests you can heal. You should try,” the inky black wolf said as he moved quickly downstream.
He clambered to his horse and pulled the arrow, putting his hands over him. It was a lucky shot because it was not immediately lethal, and Taigan was able to repair the punctured organ and close it over. He sat with relief. He was being inspected by a white wolf. She cocked an ear, “Get up, come help Rosalea.”
He nodded, and she would herd him down stream. Rosalea was on the ground, and the blue moonlight showed was bleeding pretty profusely from the wrist. He saw a little pearly white of bone against her thumb. He wondered for a moment if he had just traded Honor’s life for Rosalea’s hand.
“I… let me do the best I can,” he said, kneeling down to him.
Rosalea looked whiter than ever, but she still managed a soft, “Thank you,” to him.
A black and white wolf paced anxiously back and forth as Taigan reached out and gently touched the arm…
Healing Honor and shape changing and all that swapping in and out of earth storage has left me low. So, what I think I should do until I can rest some, is at least work to cover the bone, and then bandages until morning.
“Wait,” Taj said, landing awkwardly near him because the poor bird could not see well. “Ask them to take the manacle off.”
“Can one of you remove these?”
“I can,” said the white wolf, moving forward - and one by 0ne each manacle bent away from Rosalea’s joints.
Taigan put his hands on her shoulders then and reached deep into his white river. A bite, he saw on her forearm. She is all wet, so they grabbed her out of the water. This is my fault. He poured healing magic into the injury from the manacle flaying her wrist and kept going until he felt himself dizzy, until the very edge of his life.
“I… will … have to do… the … later,” he managed, flopping onto his side, trusting the wolves to continue helping and looking after them as they had before now. After all, they were forest gods, which meant that they were good.
***
“Well… I guess now two humans live with us,” Bazil said in a bemused tone. “And a horse?”
“Looks that way, since Rosalea is still pretty hurt.” Amalia said softly. Neither human was conscious.
“But he’s Uryan,” Nakai said with wide eyes.
They all looked at Taj, who became like a stone. The voiceless creature could not communicate with them, and his familiar was out cold right now.
“Well, we best get out of here,” Bazil suggested. “I don’t want to be shot at. I am content with just proving Raisa wrong after all.”
“And her little Nauru might stop crying.”
Amalia huffed. “She did not get any poison samples obviously, so unless she saw the plants, all of this was just her getting nearly killed.”
“Sometimes risks go that way,” Bazil said with a grin as he used a little magic to put the human over his shoulders.
Nakai focused on the horse, he was guilty about the marks he had put on Rosalea.
Amalia was so relieved to see the little brat she could not even be mad. She settled the little one on her shoulders, and they all three headed home… luckily not stopped by more humans or Nakai.
If they called the dragon, they are going to be disappointing it, she thought. She hoped the red beast didn’t throw some sort of tantrum and escalate things even more. Especially… especially if they had all been seen moving through Conall’s territory. After Raisa described the trap she had seen when Sasha had been asked to come with her… well, Amalia harbored some dark suspicions about the other pack’s leader.