lower tunic.
He turned to Desma, wincing from the pain - and the raging storm of terror in his mind.
'I am the Chief of Dervine now.'
Desma stared at him for a long moment, her face a mixture of abject horror and resigned acceptance. Then, slowly, she nodded, tears springing to her green eyes.
'Those men ? is Dervine at war with Paik Ford now?'
Chief Levin swallowed. 'Worse,' he said. 'Flaran is at war with Peterin.'
Desma's face hardened: a pallid slate of terror. 'Good thing I told you about the noises, then,' she said blankly.
'All of Flaran owes you a debt,' Chief Levin said. 'But now isn't -'
He was interrupted by his own legs giving way. He tumbled to the floor, his fall cushioned by the stray bed feathers, as silver stars exploded in his vision again.
'You're wounded,' Desma cried. 'Badly. You're all cut up! I have potions and bandages in my saddlebags, just wait a moment ?'
'I can heal myself,' Lev said sternly, trying to breathe through the stinging of every cut and slice on his body. 'Desma, I need you to ride into town first. Wake Mother Ignacia, and get her to ring the bell in the spire. Make sure everyone assembles in the square. I want every man, woman and child there. Once the bell is ringing, get to Stehr's farm and get him to have a Pekron ready for me when I arrive in town.'
Desma nodded. 'Yes, Chief.' She stepped towards the stable door, then reached into the inside of her tunic and withdrew something.
The crown of flowers.
'You kept that?' Lev spluttered thickly. He spat a globule of blood onto the stone.
'Of course I did,' Desma said, kneeling down beside him. 'You gave it to me.'
She broke each of the small lilac flowers from the crown, placing them strategically on the largest cuts on Lev's body, before placing the bare crown of twigs and stems on his head.
'These will help you heal,' she said firmly. 'I'll be right back to fix you up.'
She fled out into the yard for the stables.
Chief Levin slumped on the bloodied bed feathers and shook, his body racked with sobs that didn't reach his eyes. After years dormant, his warrior reflexes had returned without missing a beat. He could kill a man as easily as look at him.
And now was no time to bury those reflexes.
The war was just beginning.
About the Author
Holden Sheppard is a Perth-based fiction writer originally from Geraldton, Western Australia. His short stories have been published in?Indigo Journal?and?page seventeen. He has also written for the ABC's?The Drum,?DNA Magazine?and?FasterLouder.
A graduate of Edith Cowan University's Creative Writing program, in 2015 Holden received an?ArtStart?grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. During 2016, he undertook an Australian Society of Authors mentorship to develop his first novel.
Holden spends his spare time reading, listening to rock music, working out, playing video games and watching (or quoting) sitcoms. He may be the only writer in history to switch to decaf and live to tell the tale, and he's quit smoking more times than he cares to admit.
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