Slight and Shadow (Fate's Forsaken: Book Two) (50 page)

When Elena still didn’t move, Nadine stepped forward and took her gently around the arm. “Come — we will go see him together. You will have to tell me what
corn
is, but we will find him.”

Elena’s glare melted into a look of worry, and she held Nadine’s hand very tightly as they walked away. Kael was still puzzling over the strangeness of it all when Kyleigh nearly knocked him over.

“Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his middle. “I know you have no idea what you’ve done — but thank you.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” And perhaps it was the warmth he suddenly felt that made him add: “Though I wish you’d tell me, so I could do it again.”

The second the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them.

Kyleigh pulled away. The beginning of a laugh bent her lips, and he prepared himself to be humiliated. But then quite suddenly, her mouth clamped shut and her face went serious. She brushed the wrinkles out of his shirt before she stepped around him and began marching for the gates.

A man stood at the end of the passageway. His chest was bare and he wore a pair of very tight-fitting trousers. As Kyleigh passed, she held a finger to the man’s face. “Not one word,” she hissed.

He smirked in reply.

His eyes watched Kael with an unnatural focus as he passed, almost as if he could see the blood racing beneath his skin. He couldn’t help but think the glow in the man’s eyes made them look a bit familiar … but he couldn’t figure out where he’d seen them before.

*******

Aerilyn and her archers helped the wounded men limp off the battlefield. Sometimes it would take three or four of them just to help one giant, but they worked tirelessly. When Aerilyn spotted Kael, she waved him over and showed him where the most seriously wounded men were.

Kael stopped their bleeding and sealed up the deepest parts of their wounds. There were so many of them that he knew he would have to save his strength. Once he got a man patched up enough to walk, Kyleigh would lead him to the barns — where the lady giants waited with herbs and bandages.

The afternoon sun burned hot, and smoke trailed up from the ground in places. Kael didn’t think he saw a single man without a scrape or a bruise. His stomach dropped and tears pressed against his eyes as he walked among the dead.

He saw faces he recognized: the faces of giants he’d slaved with, of pirates he’d fought beside. He remembered their smiles, the movement of their brows and how their skin had creased about their eyes.

Now, they seemed like masks of the men they once were — with their expressions frozen and their eyes so deadly calm. They were like the statues in Lysander’s mansion: noble and cold, with the last lines of their story already written out. All the while he worked, he tried to keep himself focused on the living … but it was hard to forget the dead.

A line of giants emerged from the barn, with shovels propped over their shoulders, and they began to dig graves on either side of the road. While they worked, others bent to collect the bodies of their friends.

They cradled them gently, holding them in their arms as if they were little more than tired children. The giants’ steps were heavy as they carried the dead towards their final rest.

Kael picked his way across the Fields twice over, searching for any wounded men the archers might’ve missed. He bent and pressed his fingers against every neck he passed, feeling for a pulse. His heart sank a little further each time the coldness answered him.

It was a heavy moment when he realized nothing more could be done. He left the giants to their somber work and dragged himself back to the barns. It was there he heard a voice that lifted his spirits considerably:

“Now, now — I had every intention to pillage and carry on while you were away, but things got complicated!” Uncle Martin insisted.

He stood outside of Eastbarn, leaning on his polished oak cane. At that moment, he seemed to be in the middle of a very heated conversation with Lysander. When he thrust the point of his cutlass under Lysander’s nose, the captain had the good sense to lean away from it.

“
Complicated
? You’ve been sacking ships since before I was born!” Lysander said back. “You know very well what you were supposed to be doing — and don’t tell me that you forgot, because I won’t believe you. You seemed to remember well enough to hide your ship in a different port —”

“I didn’t say I
forgot
,” Uncle Martin cut in, waving his sword dangerously close to Lysander’s nose. “Forgetting something isn’t complicated. It’s as simple as downing a cup of grog —”

“You were drunk!” Lysander knocked the sword away from his face as Uncle Martin huffed indignantly. “You got into the cellars again, didn’t you?”

“I did no such —”

“You stole the key from Bimply, and you packed your ship full of grog!”

“It was for
morale
.” Uncle Martin thrust his sword into its sheath with such vigor that it nearly snapped his belt. “After you left us all behind — bored and heartbroken, I might add — well, I had to do something to get the men’s spirits up! And what’s better than spirits for lifting spirits? We never actually
meant
to come after you.” He looked away and, twirling his moustache thoughtfully, he muttered: “There was a reason we had to come to the plains, but I … well, I find I can’t remember what it was.” He marched off across the courtyard, and Lysander followed at a stomp.

“Perhaps you can’t remember because you were
drunk
!”

“Accusations!” Uncle Martin barked, waving his cane. “Blind finger-pointing and imputation!”

Kael left them to their argument and slipped inside of Eastbarn, intending to help wherever he could. But the lady giants already had things well in hand: they’d set up the stalls into makeshift hospitals and had the wounded laid out across the pallets. They bandaged scrapes and bruises, mixed poultices from herbs they’d plucked from the Fields — and flatly refused to put up with any sort of heroism.

The giants who’d charged their enemies with such terrible fury were now being made to sit quietly while the women stitched them up. They sat cross-legged and grumbled quite a bit, but if they so much as reached to fuss at their wounds, they’d get their hands slapped away.

“Ho there, wee Kael!” a light voice hailed him.

He turned and saw Clairy walking briskly down the aisle, a roll of clean bandages in her arms. Now that she was awake, Kael thought he could certainly see her resemblance to Brend — particularly in the mischievous glint behind her eyes.

He started to thank her for everything she’d done, but she stopped him. “No, I want to thank
you
, wee thing — for bringing my Jonathan to me.” Her fingers almost wrapped the whole way around his arm when she squeezed it. “I’m more than a bit taken with him, and I plan to make him an honest rogue,” she added with a wink. “Once that clodded brother of mine sees it, that is.”

Then without warning, she bent and kissed him on the cheek. His face burned even after Clairy swept past him.

Jonathan followed along at her heels. His face was swollen and his knees were bent under the weight of a large, steaming pot, but he still managed to give Kael a rather suggestive wink as he passed.

Darrah met him on his way out. She said that Brend had been looking for him, and wanted to speak with him straight away. Kael wasn’t sure that he was in the mood to put up with Brend, but he went back to Westbarn, anyways.

When he didn’t see Brend in the aisle, he went to check their stall. His pallet had been ripped apart and flung to every end of the room.
Deathtreader
was nowhere to be found. His stomach sank.

So Gilderick had managed to get a hold of the journal, as well.

Just when Kael didn’t think things could get any worse, he stepped out of the stall — and was nearly crushed under the weight of a massive arm. A familiar, thick scent filled his nostrils as his head was forced into the depths of Brend’s shirt.

“There you are, wee rat! I’ve been looking for you.”

Kael managed to wriggle out of his hold, only to run into Declan — who looked as if he’d just flung himself into the pond. His trousers were dripping wet and moisture clung to his chest and limbs. But at least he’d managed to scrub all of the blood from his face.

He wore a tiny smile as he helped Kael get to his feet. “I didn’t think you wee men had much fight in you, but you’ve proved me wrong. The plains are in giant hands once again.”

“I’m glad I could help,” Kael muttered as he brushed the dirt off his pants. “What do you plan to do, now? Will your Prince finally show his face?”

The giants weren’t fooled: they exchanged quick smirks, but didn’t answer him.

Kael thought they’d chosen a rather frustrating time to be clever. “How will I know the plains will be in good hands unless I know who the Prince is?” he countered. “I won’t leave until you tell me.”

“Well, if it’ll get you off of our lands, then I suppose we’ve got no choice,” Brend said with a smirk.

“Who is it, then?”

Brend said nothing — though he
did
break into a rather annoyingly-wide smile. Then he spread his arms out beside him, as if he was daring Kael to guess.

“Oh, for mercy’s sake,” he groaned, when he saw the answer shining in Brend’s eyes. “No — it can’t be. It just
can’t
.”

“Oh, but it is, wee rat!” Brend said with a laugh. “I’m the son of the Prince’s cousin — the last male of his noble line. Most folk would think it was a mightily grand thing to count a Prince among his friends.”

“Well, most folk don’t know him like I do.”

Declan and Brend guffawed loudly at this. Then they grabbed Kael by either shoulder and led him outside. “Come along, wee rodent,” Brend said cheerily. “The Prince needs to settle his debts — and you’re going to help him.”

So Kael spent the rest of the day following Declan and Brend around, helping them repay his friends for their help. And though he hated to admit it, the more he listened to Brend, the more he began to sound like a Prince.

When Nadine told him of the mots’ troubles, Brend gave them everything they needed to grow their own food: seed, tools, and training. He arranged for a group of giants to take the mots around the Fields and teach them everything they knew about farming — and Brend himself showed them how to care for the grain.

All Jake asked for was permission to study the plains. He thought he might write a book about them one day, and he wondered if the giants might allow him to come back for a visit. Brend did better than that: he made Jake an official friend of the giants, declaring that wherever he traveled, there would be food and a warm bed waiting for him. And he could come and go as often as he pleased.

Kael thought that Brend was being rather generous, and he was a bit surprised, considering how insufferable he could be. Then they came to Jonathan.

He bowed so deeply that his nose nearly scraped the ground and, without a moment’s thought, asked outright for Clairy.

Of course, Brend refused.

“But I swear I won’t kill you,” he amended, when Clairy glared at him.

They argued for several minutes, bellowing back and forth. It didn’t matter how loudly Brend roared, Clairy never backed down. She held Jonathan’s head tightly to her chest, threatening to run away with him if Brend didn’t see reason. Kael wasn’t sure if Jonathan was about to suffocate or have his head ripped off when Darrah finally stepped in.

She dragged Brend aside — and after a good amount of scolding, he returned with his ears burning red.

“Fine, you’ve got permission to marry my sister, you clod — ah, wee fiddler, ” he grumbled, when Darrah shot him a severe look. “But you aren’t to take her from me, understood? If you’re to marry her, then you’ll stay right here. I’ve only just got her back, and I won’t have you carting her off to squat under those great leafy tents of yours any time soon.”

Jonathan agreed. Then with a loud whoop, he jumped straight into Clairy’s arms — where he kissed her soundly on the lips. Brend looked mad enough to swing for him when Darrah wrapped her hands in his.

It was amazing how quickly he softened.

Once that had been taken care of, Kael led them off to speak to the pirates. At first, Lysander insisted that they didn’t want any sort of payment. “You’ve helped me free my people, and that’s more than any of us could’ve hoped for,” he said.

The giants were trying to convince him to ask for something else when Uncle Martin suddenly burst in, shouting from the tops of his lungs. He stepped past the giants and thrust his cane in the middle of Lysander’s chest.

“It’s all coming back, I remember now — the Duke’s been murdered! That’s right,” he said, when Lysander’s mouth dropped open. “I’m afraid your little plan has come thoroughly unraveled. The Duke’s been murdered, and the merchants were so furious that they’ve stripped Colderoy of his office. They’ve already elected a new high chancellor, and I’ll bet you can’t guess who it is.”

Lysander groaned and slapped a hand to his face. “Please say it isn’t —”

“Chaucer,” Uncle Martin cut in. “Colderoy’s out, and Chaucer’s in. And if you think he isn’t bitter about your vote-tampering, then you’d better guess again! Chaucer’s hardly got the seat warmed on the chancellor’s chair, and he’s already waged a war on all things pirate. He’s convinced the merchants to have their ships travel in fleets —
fleets
, I tell you!”