Sanyare: The Winter Warrior (The Sanyare Chronicles Book 4) Page 8

  “We should split up,” she said with a swallow. “We’ll cover more ground faster. And then we can leave this horror behind us.”

  “Are you sure?” Daenor’s eyes tightened in concern.

  Rie nodded. She could handle this, and the faster they were done, the better.

  Daenor brushed a hand across Rie’s cheek. “You are, without a doubt, the strongest woman I know.”

  Rie’s lips lifted in a wan smile. “Let’s get this done with. If there’s anyone alive, we have to find them. Time is critical, now.”

  With one last caress, Daenor turned back to the main hallway and proceeded deeper into the cave. When he turned left at a fork in the tunnel, Rie turned right.

  Sometime later, Rie was brought up short in a small room off the main hall. The body of a woman huddled in the corner, her shoulders turned away from the door even as her head lay back at an awkward angle, neck broken. Bloody scratches covered her back, her wool wrap torn and soaked in red. Something about the way she was positioned—her arms curled around something small, her body pressed against the wall—had Rie aching to turn away. Some instinct in her primitive hindbrain warned her that what she was about to see would haunt her forever.

  But she couldn’t turn away. She had to bear witness.

  She took a step forward, ducking her head low to avoid the ceiling beams. Another step.

  The baby lay in its mother’s arms, swaddled tight in a white wool blanket. Its eyes were closed, its lips blue. A single streak of blood marred the pale skin of its cheek, perhaps its mother’s final kiss.

  Help her, a woman’s voice spoke in a heavily accented version of the common tongue. She’s not yet gone. Save her.

  Rie looked around the room. Garamaen and Daenor were searching other parts of the complex, but the wolves had done their damage.

  Rie closed her eyes, sought the connection to the souls of the dead. Not the souls of the Daemon Realm—she wouldn’t make that mistake again—but those that haunted this plane of existence.

  The mother’s soul materialized in front of her mind’s eye, the final soul string vibrating with barely contained tension. She wasn’t going to leave her baby, even in death.

  Immaterial eyes implored Rie to take action. Save her. Please. Make her warm again.

  Rie swallowed a lump, even as the tears fell freely and silently from her eyes. This woman’s sacrifice humbled her, and she would do her best to honor the request.

  Carefully, gently shifting the baby out of her mother’s arms, Rie cradled the infant close to her body. The child was barely bigger than her hand, its weight hardly noticeable. Placing a finger next to the child’s chin, Rie felt for a pulse. It was faint and uneven, but it was there. She had to get the blood flowing.

  Rie rubbed her palm against the child’s back through the blanket, hoping friction would build enough heat to start the warming process. Did her lips move? Rie couldn’t be sure. They seemed a little less blue.

  Skin-to-skin. She needs to hear a heartbeat, even if it’s not my own.

  That was the treatment for hypothermia, wasn’t it? Rie hated to lose the warmth of the baby’s blanket, but she had to give it a try. Unbuckling her own vest first, Rie pulled up her thermal layers to reveal bare skin. Then, keeping the blanket around the child’s back, she pulled away the layers of wool to place its body next to her own.

  Rie brought her fur cloak around them both, containing their combined heat as best she could as she continued to rub the child’s back.

  Warmth. Rie contained the ability to increase temperature with a touch. Obviously, she didn’t want to burn the child, but if she could warm her own skin a few degrees, she might improve the baby’s chances of absorbing heat.

  Rie closed her eyes again, searching for the control necessary to warm, but not burn. Sweat trickled down her brow, mixing with the tears. Determination warred with hopelessness as the baby failed to stir. Rie couldn’t even feel it breathing.

  Fearing she’d failed, Rie sank into her consciousness once more, searching for the fragile soul attached to the child. There it was, hovering just over the physical body, all three soul strings were still attached, but the soul itself was slightly askew from the physical form, as if the child’s soul was searching for her mother’s.

  No, sweet girl, the mother murmured. Stay. Grow strong. Her incorporeal form brushed a hand across the infant’s head, rubbing her thumb in a circle on the child’s forehead. I love you. I will always be with you.

  The baby whimpered. Rie’s eyes snapped open. A weak cry. Rie grinned, the tears streaking her cheeks warming with joy.

  A moment more, and the baby lifted its chin. It pressed its cheek into the flesh of Rie’s breast, rooting for milk. Unfortunately, it was a meal Rie’s body couldn’t provide. But the baby was alive.

  Put her to my breast. There’s still milk. Help her get to it.

  Rie grimaced, feeling as if she was violating the dead. Would the milk even still be good?

  Do it. Save her.

  Rie unwrapped the woman’s cloak, exposing disproportionately large breasts given the height of the woman. She wrapped the baby once more in its blanket and did her best to hold the infant up against its mother. The baby latched on, her mouth working quickly to draw down the last of the nourishing fluid.

  Thank you. Protect her. Care for her.

  “I’ll take her to your people in the city,” Rie said, feeling a bit foolish for speaking out loud.

  Footsteps approached the room. “Rie? Are you here?” Daenor called. His voice was ragged, as if he too struggled to maintain his composure.

  “Here,” Rie replied. She turned back to the place where the mother’s soul had been, but she was gone. The reaper must have finally arrived to take her to the gates.

  The baby let go of its mother just as Daenor entered the room. His eyebrows lifted and mouth gaped. “Is that . . . .“

  “A survivor.” Rie cradled the baby once more to her chest, but the child had fallen into a deep sleep. “I think the wolves had left her for dead, either not seeing her, or believing she would die of exposure without her mother’s care. She nearly did.”

  Her color was back, her lips plump and pink, so Rie was feeling good about her chances of survival. At least for the moment.

  Daenor approached slowly, his gaze intent on the baby’s face. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered.

  “Here, take her.” Rie leaned forward, careful not to jostle the child too much as she transferred the baby to the crook of Daenor’s arm. She didn’t stir. If anything, she snuggled deeper into the soft leather of his coat.

  Rie readjusted her clothes, doing her best to cover or move the buckles of her vest so they wouldn’t press into the baby’s face or bother her when she carried her.

  “I’ve got you, sweet girl,” Daenor murmured, gaze soft. “I’ve got you.”

  Rie swallowed down another lump of emotion. Here was a hard man, gone soft and protective over the tiniest infant. And he used the same nickname as the mother. Suddenly, Rie realized she hadn’t actually asked what to call the baby, and the mother was already gone.

  “We should call her Breneidis,” Rie said. The name meant survivor, and if anyone deserved it, this child did.

  “Bren for short. I like it,” Daenor agreed. He brushed a finger across the girl’s cheek. She smiled, snuggling close.

  “It seems you have another female fan,” Rie grinned.

  “Cute as she is, I have to admit I don’t mind. But don’t worry, Sweetling. You still have my heart.”

  Rie’s breath hitched. She wondered if she would ever get used to his casual endearments. She hoped not.

  “We’ll need something to make a sling for her, to carry her while keeping our hands free.”

  Rie glanced around, taking in the room’s surroundings for the first time. She’d been so focused on the mother’s body, and then the baby, she hadn’t really seen anything else in the room. Poor judgment on her part. She could have easily been
ambushed.

  But the enemy was long gone, the threat level low but the shock level high. She supposed she could be given a pass, this one time.

  In any case, it looked like they were in some sort of large craft room. A spinning wheel with rough yarn had been knocked over, a basket of finished thread lying next to it. On the other side of the room, a weaver’s loom stood empty, waiting for its next project. But on the shelf behind the loom, a stack of neatly folded linens caught Rie’s eye. Perhaps she could make some kind of wrap out of a long length of the cloth. It would serve a double duty, keeping little Bren warm, while also tying her safely to Rie’s—or perhaps Daenor’s—chest.

  “Do you want to carry her?” Rie asked, shifting aside a few baskets filled with weaving materials to get to the linens. Bren seemed to enjoy Daenor so much she hated to take the girl away from his warmth, even if Rie ached to hold the child again.

  “No, you’d better take her. Your cloak will cover the both of you better than this coat when we go outside.”

  Rie took the linens from the shelf. Unraveling it, she realized it wasn’t so much a sheet, as a bolt of fine wool cloth. Perfect.

  Deciding on a simple sling to hold the child, Rie cut a length about as long as she was tall. She tied a knot in the end, and placed it over one shoulder, creating a pocket in the bottom to hold Bren.

  “Okay, let me take her,” Rie said.

  Daenor handed the sleeping babe over with one last caress. Rie shifted her tiny body to cradle her in the sling without obstructing her airways. She pulled the knot tight, checking to make sure everything was secure. She put on her cloak, and followed Daenor back out into the main cavern, then out into the snow.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  GARAMAEN RESTED ON a stone ledge outside of the caverns. His gaze was tired, his eyes downcast. His face was drawn and pale, pinched in pain. Whether physical or emotional Rie couldn’t tell, but there was a heaviness to his shoulders that Rie hadn’t seen before, even after his injury during the tribunal. He looked up at the sound of their approach.

  “Anything?” There was no hope left in his eyes. Rie hoped her revelation would change that.

  Rie nodded, giving Greg a wobbly smile. “One survivor.”

  She opened her cloak, revealed the babe nestled in the sling. The pixies buzzed over to take a peek, and Possn landed on the sling, gazing at Bren with a small smile.

  Garamaen blew out a breath. “Well, that’s something, at least.”

  “This wasn’t just an attack on the village,” Daenor said. “This was an ambush. And a statement. They left nothing behind.”

  “They broke into these people’s homes. Tore them out of their beds. Gave them no chance to defend themselves,” Rie added.

  Garamaen rubbed a weary hand across his face. “I know. And it’s my fault. Perhaps I should have killed Fenrir all those years ago, but it wouldn’t have ended the conflict.” He lifted his eyes, his gaze meeting Rie’s for the first time. “We make choices in this life. Every choice has a consequence, some good, some bad, some immediate, some delayed for thousands of years. Remember that as you parse the possible futures, there’s more at stake than you’ll ever realize.”

  He was commenting on her own choice in the Battle of the Arches, Rie knew that, but the point was well-taken. She couldn’t pretend an omniscience that she didn’t have.

  “We do the best we can with the information we have at hand,” Rie replied. “But Fenrir must die, now. The damage wrought here . . . ,” Rie glanced around the village, swallowing hard against the senseless death of civilians, “. . . it can’t be allowed to stand.”

  “There are rules of engagement in war. This is genocide,” Daenor’s voice was hard and unforgiving.

  They’d all seen war. They’d all seen death, but this was worse than anything Rie had seen in her century of life.

  “Where is his lair?” Rie asked.

  “You mean his prison of two thousand years?” Garamaen waved a hand in the direction of the valley. “Two or three hours hike that direction. Between the peaks. There’s a cave hidden behind cleverly placed boulders. It will be hard to spot.”

  “We should get going then. We can’t waste the daylight. I’d rather not stay overnight in the wolf’s den,” Daenor said.

  “We can’t take Bren,” Rie replied. “Who will care for her while we’re gone?”

  “I could watch her,” Possn offered. “I bet we could even find some goat milk for her.”

  “Your offer is welcome, but she has to be kept warm against a body.”

  “I will remain here,” Garamaen said. “I’m afraid I will just slow you down.” His shoulder slumped, weariness drawing him down. He looked small and frail, like an old man in a younger man’s body.

  “What if the wolves return?” Rie demanded. “Bren should be taken back to the city. To her people.”

  “We don’t have the time to go all the way down the mountain,” Daenor argued. “Fenrir has already destroyed at least two villages. Perhaps more if he left no survivors. How would anyone know? We can’t let him strike another.”

  “Daenor is right, and I am the best choice to stay. I won’t let the wolves get to her. If necessary, I’ll barricade myself deep in the caverns with a wall of fire between us and the wolves. You’re both physically stronger than I am right now.”

  “And if we find Fenrir?”

  Garamaen shook his head, desolation written across his face. “Kill him. But I doubt he’ll be there. Would you return to your prison?”

  Rie supposed not.

  “Then give me the babe and go. But one word of warning; Fenrir can’t be touched by magic. You won’t be able to sense his aura or drain his energy. Nor will you be able to predict his actions. Physical damage is the only way to affect him. And if he bites you, he will consume your magic.”

  “Wonderful,” Rie murmured as she passed Bren to her mentor and gave him the sling to hold her. “Are there any advantages he doesn’t have?”

  “He has no combative magic of his own,” Greg replied, a sad smile at the corner of his lips. “Just physical size, speed, and strength. Your best bet, if you come across him, is to try to get away. We’ll need to outsmart him, fight him on our terms, but first we need to know how he got out, and where to find him now. Or, if that’s not possible, what his next move will be.”

  “He’ll attack another village.” Daenor said.

  “Yes, but which one? And can we ambush him there?”

  Rie refastened her cloak and armor, pulling each of the khukuris in turn, checking to make sure everything was ready. “Let’s go.”

  There was no time to waste.

  ***

  Three bells later, they reached the foothills of the peak where Fenrir had been contained. Another bell after that, and they were still searching for the cavern. Garamaen hadn’t been kidding when he’d said it would be difficult to find.

  “He should have come with us,” Daenor grumbled. “This is ridiculous. We’ll never find it.”

  “He said to look for an unnatural stack of rocks.”

  “Beneath the snow? How are we supposed to see that?”

  “Oh, stop bickering,” Niinka said, pulling herself out of Rie’s hood. “We’ll find it.”

  The irony. Niinka, of all people chastising Rie and Daenor. She and Hiinto rarely paused their harassment of each other, though they had been unusually quiet on this trip. Maybe because of the gravity of their situation.

  But the pixie pulled up her wing covering and zipped out to search the rocks. Hiinto and Gikl were quick to follow, though Tiik and Possn had remained with Garamaen and the baby.

  Rie trudged along the base of the cliff, looking for any odd-shaped hill or ridge that might be the stone formation Garamaen had mentioned. Daenor paralleled her, a few paces up the mountain. It had to be here somewhere. They couldn’t be too far off of Garamaen’s directions.

  Hiinto was the first to return, bobbing and weaving through the air as his wings threatened
to give out. Rie pulled aside her hood, letting the pixie crawl into the fur without question. The temperature had dropped a few more degrees in the shadows of the mountain, and she was surprised Niinka and Gikl continued to search. They had to be freezing.

  Half a bell later, and Niinka returned. Her cloak and face were covered in red. “I found another one of those alpine weasels.” Her wide grin suggested it had been delicious.

  “What about the cavern?” Rie asked. If they didn’t find it soon, they were going to have to turn back without any new information.

  “Oh, I found it ages ago.” She landed on Rie’s shoulder, crawling toward her position next to Rie’s neck.

  “Not covered in blood, you don’t.” Rie lifted a hand to block Niinka’s access to her hood. “Finish cleaning off first. And tell me where we’re supposed to go.”

  “Fine, fine. Another thirty paces up the hill and to the right. Daenor’s almost found it.” Niinka licked the blood off her hands and wiped her face. “Is that good enough?”

  Rie rolled her eyes, but it was probably the best she would get out of the carnivore.

  “I wish you would have told us sooner,” she said, letting Niinka pass into her cloak.

  “I would’ve lost the weasel!”

  “Daenor,” Rie called, laughter underlying her words. “Niinka says up and to the right.”

  “She found it?”

  “She thinks so.”

  “I did! It’s pretty obvious when you look inside.”

  “But where’s that stack of rocks we were supposed to be looking for?” Daenor asked.

  Rie shrugged. It had been two thousand years since Garamaen trapped Fenrir in his lair. The landscape would have changed in that time. She crawled up the rocky slope, using her hands to keep balance when the terrain got too steep. She met Daenor at the entrance to the cave.

  There, they paused, listening for movement or sound from inside.

  “There’s no one home,” Niinka said, exasperated. “You can go in.”

  Daenor slid his sword from the sheath on his back, Rie following suit with her khukuri blades. No matter what Niinka believed, they were entering the lair of a dangerous predator. They couldn’t be too careful.