Thornbear (Book 1) (33 page)

The thought of Irene being carried ever farther away erased any thoughts he had of retreat.
Relax,
he told himself and then he shut down his mind, surrendering his conscious thought and falling deeper into the empty place that his teacher had drilled into him. His eyes took in the room, marking the furniture and other obstacles. Then he stepped forward.

He outweighed her by at least seventy pounds or more, but she held the advantage in speed and weapons. He needed to get close.

They circled the room for a minute or more before he got within range. He took several more hard blows to his arms, but he drove her back, forcing her into the corner. A low table there limited her options for escape, but she let him maneuver her there anyway. When he closed for the finishing blow, he knew what would happen.

She saw the attack coming and once again her lithe form took flight as she dropped her weapons and flowed sideways into a handspring. His truncheon took her in the stomach and she crashed to one side, hitting the wall.

He gave her no chance to recover, kicking the table upward to slam into her as she rose from the floor.

If his weapon had connected with the spot below her sternum she wouldn’t have recovered, but it had landed too low, hitting the abdominals rather than her diaphragm. The table bruised her but she still reached her feet and moved into his towering charge.

Lightning fast, a kick sent his weapon hand up, the truncheon flying away and then she punished his torso with three hard jabs. Her knee came up and Gram narrowly avoided having his manhood badly bruised.

Still, barehanded he was nearly as fast; his size and strength made the outcome inevitable. Finding his balance, he blocked her next punches and for a few seconds the two of them traded rapid fire jabs and blocks. Calm and implacable, his right hand struck her head and he tried to catch her by the hair. Once he had a grip on her it would be over.

She dipped down, trying to avoid the grab, and her hood came away in his fingers.

A familiar face lay underneath. It was Alyssa.

Gram froze, but she wasn’t suffering from the same shock. Rocketing upward her open palm struck his chin, sending his head back and knocking him from his feet.

“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” she told him. Her hair was tied into a tight bun on top of her head and reaching up she tugged at it, pulling it free to cascade down around her while Gram scrambled backward, trying to clear his head.

“Why?” he asked, gaping at her with pain in his eyes.

She approached as he stood, his legs like jelly beneath him. Falling into a crouch she tried to sweep his unsteady legs out from under him but he stumbled back, just managing to get away. Leaping back up, Alyssa lunged at him. It was a poor choice on her part and reflexively he caught her by the wrist, yanking her in close.

She struggled with him, but his strength was too great. He felt a sharp pain in his wrist but he ignored it as he twisted her arm back and forced her to the floor, one forearm hard against the back of her neck. He had her helpless now, his weight on her back and one arm pinned painfully.

“Why?” he repeated. “Why would you do this?”

A strange numbness was traveling up his arm and he saw something small fall from her hand as he pressed harder on her arm.

“Answer me!”

“You fought well,” she said, “but this fight is mine.”

His mind went back, and he remembered her undoing her hair a moment before. A foolish move in a fight, but she had had a reason for it. The long bloody needle she had dropped was poisoned.

Growling he tried to push harder but the arm she had pricked was weaker and his chest felt strange. “Traitor,” he cursed, but the word came out slurred. His eyes cast about, seeking a weapon he could use before his strength vanished but there was nothing close.

The needle,
he thought, but his fingers scrabbled awkwardly as he tried to grab it. Her arm was free now and levering herself up with it and one leg, she sent him falling to one side.

His arm was rigid now and his breathing labored. A cold pain crept through his body as his muscles contracted painfully, rendering him impotent, helpless. She crouched over him, looking down with sad eyes.

“You’re dying,” she said. “The poison causes a state like tetany, causing the voluntary muscles to lock up first, but your breathing will stop soon. You have to fight hard, focus on your breathing.”

His eyes were the only thing that would move now, bulging as he fought to draw breath. He saw her hands, working quickly to untie a pouch at her waist. She drew out a small vial and then she rolled his head, fighting against his rigid muscles to get the back of his head against the floor and pry his stubborn lips apart. Unstopping the vial she poured a thick liquid into his mouth. Some of it dribbled away, but more seeped in around his tightly clenched teeth.

“This is the antidote. But it will take time to work. You won’t be able to move for hours, and when you do, your body will feel as though you’ve been beaten and bruised from head to toe.” Standing up she took hold of his feet and began to drag him toward the stairs. The smell of smoke was getting stronger.

The next fifteen minutes were painful as she dragged him feet first down the wooden stairs, his head hitting against each step as they descended.

“They’ve set fire to the house,” she informed him. “It will destroy everything, including the gate back to the castle. Once you recover you’ll have to make your way back on foot.”

He stared at her, willing his thoughts at her, wishing she could hear him.
Why are you doing this!?
She was oblivious however, and she left him inside the house, near the door that led outside. He could hear her talking to someone there, but the sound of crackling flames and burning timbers from above drowned out her words. A few minutes later she returned and began to drag him outside.

“I told them I was checking the house, to make sure the gate would be disabled. They think you’re dead already,” she said. “I never wanted it to happen like this. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

His eyes glared at her accusingly as he struggled to breathe.

“The antidote has an unfortunate side effect as well. It will make you very sleepy, but you mustn’t fall asleep. If you do, your breathing will stop and you won’t wake up. You have to stay awake long enough for it to counter the poison.” Her eyes were wet. “Please.”

Gram was furious inside. He couldn’t imagine falling asleep; all he wanted was the use of his body again. If he had had the power of his arms he would have throttled her.

“They won’t hurt her,” she added. “Our purpose was to take her, not kill her. Irene will be well treated. I promise you.”

She dragged him farther, pulling him away from the house until he was sheltered by a rocky outcrop. “You should be safe here. Just don’t let yourself sleep.

I will never sleep again,
he thought,
not until I’ve choked the life out of you with my bare hands.
His eyes rolled from side to side as he tried to take in his surroundings.

Alyssa studied him, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry, Gram. I didn’t want it to happen like this. I would have preferred never to see you again, and to leave our memories together untouched. With Celior’s mercy, we will never meet again.” She stood and looked down on him.

“You should know, you were the best I’ve ever fought, and the only one I’ve ever loved—but duty comes first.”

Then she was gone. Gram was left staring at the uncaring sky, watching clouds float by while he fought for each breath.

Chapter 31

Lying in a mountainside meadow in spring might have been a pleasant experience under different circumstances. Aside from his emotional turmoil, the most obvious unpleasantness was the cold. In spring the mountain never got much past something that might be called mildly warm and being in the shadow of the rocks meant that he was cold.

Paralysis, while distressing, was something his long afternoons with Cyhan had made tolerable; he was pretty used to spending long periods without being able to scratch his nose. Physical discomfort he could deal with.

Slowly suffocating, struggling to draw each breath, while alone and trying to resist alternate bouts of drowsiness and stark terror—that was something new. Gram didn’t think there was a name for the feeling of this new experience, it would probably require a new word, but he didn’t have time to think of one.

He was too busy trying to stay alive.

His heart was pounding and his eyes flew open as he frantically forced his lungs to draw air again. He had drifted off once more. The worst part of it was how peaceful it was; the numbness of the poison blunted much of his body’s natural response to suffocation. When the drowsiness closed his eyes the only thing that served to wake him was the beating of his heart, and even that seemed muted.

I can’t die yet.

In his mind’s eye he saw Irene once more being carried away, limp across a stranger’s shoulder. She had trusted him. If he had gone with them immediately, rather than try to fetch his things first, it might have gone differently. Maybe he would have delayed their attackers long enough for all of them to escape. If he had paid attention to his earlier observation, the silence of the birds, he might have kept them from this situation altogether.

They were waiting then, gathering around the house. They probably had a set time, so that they could time their attack after the raid in Arundel, when they knew any defenders would be drawn away.
And they knew how to find the house because I told them. Because I told her.

Gram knew this was his fault and he burned with equal parts shame and outrage. But he was tired, so very tired. Blackness passed over him again, like a warm blanket that could protect him from the cold of the ground beneath him.

“Gram! Gram!”

Something was hitting his face. He opened his eyes, annoyed, and drew another deep breath. His heart was pounding again, a sure sign he had stopped breathing. The fuzzy features of a small bear loomed into view. Grace was there, beating at his cheeks with her small paws.

He wanted to tell her to leave him alone, but his mouth didn’t work. Nothing worked. Only his eyes, and when he remembered, his lungs.

“What’s wrong with you? Talk to me!” she said, sounding worried and desperate.

The bear moved out of view as she examined his body from head to toe. When she came into view again he could see that her cloth body was scorched and dirty.
She must have come through the house,
he noted.

“You have a long shallow cut along your ribs, but it’s not very big. It has already stopped bleeding. Why can’t you move?”

She checked his arms.

“There’s a small spot near your wrist, but it might not even be a wound. Looks more like a bug bite,” she announced.

She waited beside him, tapping him with small paws whenever his eyes closed. What might have been an hour passed, but she never left. Eventually she grew bored and began to talk again.

“Conall and your sister got out safely. They nearly ran over me in the hallway. That’s how I knew what was going on. Conall told me that you were still in the house. He also said that…Irene was…” She stopped then, unable to continue.

She’s not dead,
Gram wanted to shout.

“I should have been here,” said Grace woefully. “This was my job. I was supposed to protect the family. If I had been here, instead of running about the castle, none of this would have happened.”

Gram wanted to laugh. The thought of a stuffed animal protecting them was ridiculous, but the pain in Grace’s voice was real.

“If they hadn’t already been dead when I got here, I would have killed them all,” she growled, her small voice sounding fierce. “But
you
did that didn’t you? You were there when I should have been.”

There was nothing you could do,
thought Gram. He wanted to hug her, to give her some small comfort.

“I found Lilly,” she said, her voice flat. “She was going to be married. Did you know?”

He had not known that. It was the sort of thing that had probably been talked about but he wouldn’t have paid much attention.
Carissa probably knew.

“All those years, she spent the best part of her youth taking care of the family. She hardly took any time for herself, but she had found someone, someone patient enough to wait for her. Now she’s dead because I was too busy satisfying my own selfish curiosity instead of being here.” Grace buried her head against his chest. “David—I can’t imagine how much this will hurt him, and Peter. Poor Peter, he doted on his sister.”

Peter Tucker, Lilly’s brother, was the chamberlain of Castle Cameron, but Gram wasn’t certain which David she meant.
David Summerland?
He was about the right age, and he was in the castle often enough to know Lilly. He was a tailor in Washbrook. Gram hardly knew him. He was a quiet, gentle man, just the sort to love someone like Lilly.
They would have made a good pair.

His hand twitched, responding to his impulse to stroke the small bear.

“Your hand moved!”

It had. It also hurt like hell. With the return of that tiny bit of mobility had come some sensation. His hand ached, and as feeling returned to his arm, the pain spread. His arms and legs felt as though he had been tied down and beaten with clubs. His torso joined the chorus of misery soon after.

“Ohh,” he groaned.

Grace patted him, sending waves of agony through him. “You’re getting better. What happened? Can you talk?” She shook him and although her small body couldn’t move him much, it was enough to make him want to scream.

“By all the dead gods! Please stop!” he tried to yell, but all that came out was a garbled mess. Gram’s ribs spasmed as he tried to talk and his mouth gaped.

She continued to shake and pat him, making the next quarter of an hour a painful experience. Eventually he regained enough motor control to tell her, “Schtop, pleashh. It hurtsh. Don tousch me.”