EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (221 page)

I had thought my friend was dead. This show of affection, this joyous clinging to another life, it might trigger the side effects of my curse, it might count from the point of view of those who had damned me as communication, but any pain, all the pounding in my head and churning of my belly was worth it.

Fade’s chest began to vibrate and soon my whole aching body reverberated with the strength of his purr. Apparently there are some things even a curse cannot ruin.

Drake was still a pink rabbit, but Bill and Rahiel were hale and well when I arrived back at the witch’s cottage. The crocodile men were little more than smoking ruins of bone and hide, and the clearing no longer had the façade of a perfect summer home. Apples had been stripped from branches and wide furrows of earth marred the mossy forest floor. Some of the trees were still smoking, and the air had taken on the scent of apple pie and campfires.

“Killer? Good gods above and below. What happened to you?” Rahiel flew toward me.

I looked down at myself. My vambraces were gone. Blood, drying now to a rusty brown, coated my arms and legs. My skin showed in patches through my ruined trousers and my leather hauberk was smeared with swamp mud and more drying blood and pocked in places from either the crocodile man’s acid or the witch’s fire. I carried my bow in one hand and my quiver in the other, swinging it by its ruined straps. I could only imagine what my face looked like. I knew there were cuts on my throat from the vines and if my brown hair was as matted and tangled as it felt, nothing short of one of Rahiel’s epic, spell laced braiding sessions would salvage it.

You should see the other bitch
. Since I couldn’t quip and already felt weak and ill, I shrugged.

“Is the witch dead?”

I nodded. Pain blackened my vision for a moment. Fine, nodding was too much. I got it.

“Good. Can you make it back to Azyrin and Makha?” Rahiel grabbed up bunny-Drake by the scruff of his neck and tucked him in front of her on Bill’s back, swaddling him in her skirts.

I answered her this time by my usual method. I turned and led the way.

It was an agonizing and long journey back to the village. Rahiel assured us that she had a scroll in her things at the Guild chapterhouse that could get Drake back to normal again.

Azyrin looked much better. We had only been gone a few hours, but his prayers must have been heard. He took one look at me and this time insisted I take a potion. It dulled the pain but also sent my head spinning off into memories and thoughts I wanted to avoid. Fade stayed close to me, his fur brushing against my exposed legs as we staggered our exhausted way back to the town.

“It is done,” Azyrin told an incredulous Hewgrim. The old man looked as though his splinted leg was the only thing stopping him from grabbing one of us and spinning us around. Maybe all of us. As terrible as his hopelessness had been to witness, his returning joy bolstered even my tired spirit.

The curse had fled with the last of the witchs’ lives. Birds sang, insects buzzed, and the town insisted on feasting us with what little they had left to give. Azyrin and Makha convinced them to hold off for a few days.

I spent the first day healing. The potion and the fighting had drained me to true exhaustion and I slept six fitful, dream-soaked hours. A hot bath and a clean set of clothing improved my mood. It took two soaks, half a bar of soap, and finally both Rahiel and Drake attacking my curls with combs to get my hair out of its tangles and no longer stinking of swamp sludge.

Rahiel had found the scroll she needed and turned Drake back into a human. I think only the memory of how ready he was to slay us both back by that cottage kept the pixie-goblin alive, especially with the endless teasing from Makha who had taken to calling him things like “Rosie” and “Bunbun.”

“I can’t believe you turned me into a bunny,” he muttered as we helped clean the redfish a cautiously friendly Deohan and I had netted earlier that morning.

“I apologized. Not only that, but I offered to do your camp chores for a month. Quit whining.”

“A pink bunny,” Drake hissed. “My manly image is damaged forever.”

“Nonsense. You would have to be a man first for that to happen. Besides, what is so wrong with pink? Bill is pink.”

“Exactly! You’re provin’ my point.”

Deohan and I exchanged a glance, and I raised my eyebrows to try and tell him not to worry about this. This was normal and good. Splinters damned, it was wonderful.

That night we gathered in the square. Tables had been pulled out of the inn and set up on the newly scrubbed flagstones. Colorful paper lamps burned instead of greasy fires and the smell of death and despair was almost cleansed from the place. There were too many empty seats on the benches and too many scarred faces to hold up a true façade of normalcy, but laughter rang out more than groans and it was a start.

I took a spoonful of the purple rice and brought it to my mouth with some trepidation. It smelled a little fishy, but when I sucked some off the copper spoon I found the texture creamy and the actual taste almost nutty. It went well with the redfish we’d caught, which Deohan had cooked in a clay pot covered in coals along with pearl onions and white peppercorn.

“Here, here!” Hewgrim banged his spoon against his cup. “Five cheers for our rescuers! Five cheers for the Gryphonpike Companions!”

My friends and I sat still amidst the enthusiastic cheering that seemed to flow around us with tangible strength. Makha and Azyrin held hands and she leaned her head on his broad shoulder. Drake slung one arm around Edan’s shoulder as the initiate banged his own cup on the table. Rahiel fanned her wings and blushed yellow.

My curse won’t let me tally anything or write at all. Not that it matters since I have no way of knowing what counts as a good deed, which action is weighed against my crime and which is not.

But that night, as I stared upward, past the red, blue, green, and gold lanterns on their poles, past the rooftops and up into the starry summer sky, I knew. This day. The fights and injuries to get here. They counted.

Even over the din, as the cheers died down but didn’t quite die out, I heard a soft roar. Fade, too, was cheering, though he had no desire to come into the square when so many strangers gathered here. And I knew he, too, was staring up at the summer moon as it tinged the starlight purple with its glow. Tonight I was one night closer to home and however many nights it took from here, I was not alone.

Afterword

A
NNIE
B
ELLET
IS
THE
AUTHOR
of
The Twenty-Sided Sorceress
,
Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division
and the
Gryphonpike Chronicles
series. She holds a BA in English and a BA in Medieval Studies and thus can speak a smattering of useful languages such as Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Welsh.  
 

For more information on other books in
The
Gryphonpike Chronicles
, please go to her website:
http://overactive.wordpress.com/

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tinyurl.com/anniebellet

E
NCRYPTED

Lindsay Buroker

Prologue

T
IKAYA
K
OMITOPIS
SLID
ONE
FINGER
down the encrypted message while she translated the plain text letters onto a fresh page. She smiled. Her new key was working.

As she revealed more lines, giddiness stirred in her belly. She forced herself not to rush, not to get ahead of herself. Finish translating the message, then read it.

Tikaya tuned out the susurrus of voices in the war room. She ignored the sweat moistening her freckled hands and the mugginess of the salty air that failed to stir the leaves in the palm trees outside the window. A wisp of blonde hair escaped her long braid and dangled before her spectacles, but she ignored it too.

Only after she copied the Turgonian admiral’s signature did she grab the paper with both hands, devouring the message.

Tikaya shoved her bamboo chair back so quickly it toppled to the floor. She glanced about the desk-filled room. Everyone had stopped work to watch the door where her supervisor stood with the president. Their graying heads tilted toward each other, some discussion on their lips.

She blinked. When had the president arrived?

Then elation sent her racing across the room, sandals slapping the wood floor. Perfect. He should know first.

“Mr. President?” she called, though he was already looking her way. “I have—”

Her hip rammed the corner of a desk. She flailed for balance, tripped over her own feet, and pitched forward. The president caught her in an awkward embrace. Mortified, she lurched backward and found her feet as heat swarmed her cheeks.

“Professor Komitopis,” he said gently, amusement in his blue eyes. “Do you surf?”

Tikaya stared at him in bewilderment, then over his head and out the open door. In the bay, a steamer rumbled toward the docks while a few students straddled surfboards near the beach.

“No, sir,” she said, letting puzzlement into her tone.

“Don’t start,” the president said.

Her supervisor snickered. Oh. She was being teased for her clumsiness. The men’s eyes held no spite, but that did little to abate the heat plaguing her cheeks. It was bad enough she stood two inches taller than either man; she had to stumble around like a drunken sea lion in front of them too?

“You have a message?” the president asked.

The importance of the note flooded back to her. “Yes, yes. The war, sir. It’s over.”

The president’s eyes widened.

“Or it will be in a couple weeks,” Tikaya said. “Listen: ‘Admiral Dufakt, by his Ancestrally Ordained Imperial Highness Emperor Raumesys’s order’—I love it when they use that long title in their encrypted communications. You don’t even need frequency analysis when you’ve got such an obvious key phrase. Every time they—”

“Tikaya,” her supervisor whispered. “The message.”

“Oh, pardon, sirs. The Turgonian emperor says, ‘warships are to stand ready to facilitate troop removal and diplomat transportation for treaty negotiations.’” She tapped the page. “That’s the official part that went out fleet wide, and this second paragraph came on another page. I believe it’s a personal message between admirals.

“‘That’s it Dufakt. With Fleet Admiral Starcrest’s death, we’ve gone from dominating the Nurian forces to scrambling to survive encounters with those ancestors-cursed wizard ships. Having the Kyattese cryptanalyst hand over so many of our decrypted missives to the Nurian government exacerbated our problems. How an island full of scientists managed to steal so many of our correspondences, I’ll never know, but I do wish Starcrest had lived to punish them, especially since taking over their piddling nation was his idea. We’ll recoup and get the Nurians next time. Send along your recommendations for promotions. Signed Acting Fleet Admiral Mourncrest.’”

“Good news, yes, indeed,” the president said.

His head tilted to the side, eyes far away for a moment, and Tikaya recalled he was a telepath. He must be getting a message from some aide back in his office. Or maybe his wife wanted him to stop for groceries on the way home. Tikaya had never studied the mental sciences and did not know how likely that was, but she smirked at the thought of the president popping into the market for sugar and bananas.

When his eyes focused on Tikaya again, concern hooded them, and her amusement evaporated. His tone turned grim when he spoke: “Step outside with me, please, Professor.”

Tikaya handed the note to her supervisor, and an uneasy flutter vexed her stomach as she trailed the president.

A breeze wafted in from the ocean, making it feel cooler outside despite the sun radiating off the sidewalk. Seagulls squawked in response to a steam horn blasting in the bay. The president stopped in the shade of a jackfruit tree.

“The work you’ve done for us this last two years has been phenomenal, Tikaya. I’m grateful, and if our nation knew about it they would be too.”