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So I stand. Waiting for my death. With my sword raised. And never a waver.
Then the moment breaks. The shadhavar flicks its eyes down. Its head follows – a half bob of acknowledgement. And then the enormous, apparently indestructible, gigantic equus…
Turns. Trots. Canters. Gathers speed. Gallops and leads into the shadowy underbrush. It is gone.
I let out the breath I was holding most deliberately. I expected it to be my last; I wanted to savour it. So I take a few more, really just enjoying the experience of my chest heaving in rhythm, of the stillness and the silence when warfare ends suddenly and unexpectedly.
The burbling groans behind me ruin the moment. Of course.
Turning around, I half-hobble back over to where Zakariya is staked firmly to the clearing’s soil. The patchwork healing I’ve done on my knee lets me put my foot down, albeit gingerly. A couple of steps is all it takes to reach him.
The base of the horn, shining like a white-flame torch in the moonlight, still looks razor sharp. ‘Just pull it out for the sake of all that’s holy!’ Zakariya screams at me, apparently conveniently forgetting my hands won’t just heal instantly if I slice them to ribbons.
Or that I only have one hand working.
I tear a strip of fabric from Zakariya’s shirt. His screaming curses only make it all the more satisfying. With my teeth, while trying to ignore how proximate it has been to the fool of a man’s skin, I wrap it around my hand. Then I grip the top of the horn and work it free.
I might possibly lever it back and forth a little more than is strictly necessary. Oops. I’m only a silly woman, after all.
By the time I work it out completely, Zakariya is, of course, once more entire and whole due to having drunk from the Aab-Al-Hayaat. He leaps to his feet.
‘Quick, Kandicha!’ There’s a manic gleam to his eyes, a fury there. I wonder if it’s really at the shadhavar, whether it’s not truly aimed at himself. ‘Get after that demon spawn accursed creature. It’s disarmed by all that’s holy! Kill it!’
I lean my right armpit on the top of the horn that cracked away smoothly. No slicing razors there, at least. I use it like a crutch stick. Stare at the bloodied mangled wreck that is my upper arm. Track down to where my whole right leg feels as though someone drained away my inner fluids and replaced them with liquid fire. Work across the ground and up to the fully healed idiot who is hopping about in rage from foot to foot in front of me. Test lean on the horn some more, see how much of my weight it can support. Enough, I decide.
So with great deliberation and even greater force, I swing my right foot up hard enough into his testicles as to make sure they explode. Even as my kneecap does the same.
Worth it, I think to myself as the blackness finally overwhelms me. Totally worth it.
Chapter Nine
Mount Lebanon, 3 May 1211
It takes two minutes for Zakariya to heal, of course. Probably not even that. He’s complete by the time I come back from the world within. And he didn’t slit my throat while I was unconscious. Quite astounding. He does keep his distance though.
Two minutes for him to heal. Two days for me. Sleeping by the fire. Zakariya makes that. Gathers fallen brushwood and builds it with care and attention. Threading sticks through and over to form a stable structure. Lights it with effort.
I lie, holding my sword, my eyes fixed on his actions. He looks over. Briefly.
‘You won’t need that, lalla.’ The words are soft. Emotionless. Or else the emotions themselves are as soft, as quiet as the words, so that I can’t hear them in his tone. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’
About time you were less useless, is all I have time to think before I go again, back into the dreamless otherness.
When I come back round next, it is daytime. The light makes shadow-play waves of the treetop branches, dancing their shaded dappling across the glade. Light washes across the space, fighting with the gloam of the tight-knit forest surrounding us.
The fire is still lit. And now there is what looks like a brace of coney rabbits, skinned and roasting on it. The smell is joyous, that browning change that tells you a meal is made and ready to be celebrated. Occasional sizzling fat drops are the only sound other than distant birdsong.
It is peaceful. And even Zakariya’s presence cannot spoil that. In fact, considering I can only assume it was he who hunted and cooked the rabbits, he is almost welcome. Assuming he gives me some of the meal he has prepared.
He does. All of it. He brings me the meat, carefully cut from the bone, presented on a clean piece of fabric he must have carried secreted about his person. Certainly nothing we are wearing would be suitable for serving food on or could even be vaguely considered as clean.
‘It is yours,’ he insists when I attempt to pass him what remains. ‘Your need is greater. I cannot starve. Perhaps it would do me good to go hungry for a while again.’
Hmm. Interesting. But not as interesting as the meal he has prepared, which, simple though it may be, is beyond heavenly. The taste is like a mouthful of spiced bread after a week-long fast. It explodes on my tongue. So I’ll happily take another explosion on as my burden. I’ll not deny him his right to fast. To contemplate.
We sit in a silence that, if not companionable, is closer than it has been at any other point since the Guardian sent us forth. I assume, at first, this is part of his new contemplative state. It turns out I am correct. But what he is contemplating takes me by surprise.
‘When we return…’ The words are startling. I didn’t expect them. The sudden breakage of silence is a cold-water morning bath. And that it took me by surprise makes me realise how much I have relaxed. How much I believed he would keep me safe.
