Dark Moon Defender

  None of them spoke up on Ellynor’s behalf, either to claim she was not a mystic or to argue that it didn’t matter. That made him angry—weren’t some of these women her friends? Wouldn’t the Riders defend Justin if he had been accused of some crime?—and he toyed with the idea of denouncing them for their faintheartedness. But Kirra had told him not to create a disturbance, and so he remained silent and relatively tame during both of these visits.

  The rest of the time, there wasn’t much to do. The room was too small to permit true pacing, even allowing for the fact that Ellynor’s steps were so much shorter than his own. The chain didn’t afford him freedom to walk the length of the room, anyway. Mostly he just sat, resting his back against the wall and stretching his undersized legs in front of him. He was more tired than he liked to admit; if he thought he’d have an hour of peace, he’d actually try to get some sleep. But he wanted to be alert in case another set of novices came through the door, or Kirra suddenly reappeared at the window.

  He couldn’t keep himself from constantly trying to imagine where Kirra and Ellynor were. There had been no commotion from the courtyard in the twenty minutes after they left the room, so he assumed they had successfully slipped out of the gates. Were they still in the forest? Just breaking clear of the trees on the eastern border? Had they found Senneth yet? When would Ellynor finally be safe?

  He was thirsty, so he got up once to drink from a small jug by the dead fire. Hungry, too, but clearly the Daughters were not going to waste food on a woman condemned to death. Eventually he needed to empty his bladder—and he stood for a moment, staring ruefully down at the chamber pot that he wouldn’t be able to use in his accustomed fashion. Damned inconvenient to be a woman, all things considered.

  DARKNESS fell with a complete and ominous suddenness. Justin had rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, half listening to the sounds from the corridor outside the locked door. He was sitting in a most unladylike pose, legs drawn up and spread apart, an arm resting on one knee, the skirts of his robe hiked up to show his ankles and quite an indecent length of his slim calves. That might shock the next cadre of young girls who were ushered into the room, required to look him over, and asked if he didn’t deserve to die. It might be all he would do to make them uneasy; he wasn’t sure, the next time, he’d even bother giving them his soulless glare. He was conserving his energy for the next chapter of this adventure, the flight away from the convent.

  Just at that minute, the room went dark. His eyes flew open. Not moving from where he sat, he visually checked the high window. There was a gilding of rosy gold along the deep embrasure, but it was fading fast. The sun had obviously just dropped completely out of view behind the horizon.

  Some people might call this night.

  He no longer felt any inclination to sleep. Adrenaline was coursing through him, making his muscles sing. He wouldn’t have said he was afraid, but he recognized that he was quickly skidding into the territory of very real danger. It all depended on whether or not the Lestra believed in the ritualistic power of midnight, or whether all she required to enact her justice was nightfall. There was no moon to wait for, not tonight; would she have any reason at all to set back the hour of his execution?

  A clanking in the hall, and Justin turned his head toward the door. Those weren’t the footsteps of novices in their sturdy shoes and flowing robes. Those were the tramping feet of soldiers, wearing heavy boots and scraping their scabbards against the wall. Justin listened, trying to gauge numbers. Four at least, he thought. Someone cursed and someone laughed, and there was a rattle at the door.

  Five men walked in, wearing formal black-and-silver livery. Justin could see the moons embroidered on their sashes, the moonstones set into the occasional ring or pin. They were here on official business.

  They were here to escort him down to his funeral pyre.

  “Rise to your feet, mystic,” snarled the man in the lead, who was gray-haired and iron-faced, the sort of bastard who could run any barracks with dispassionate efficiency. Three of the others also looked seasoned and tough, but the fourth was young, maybe Justin’s age, and trying desperately to keep an indifferent look on his face. He wasn’t used to participating in murder, Justin thought. He was the weak one, the one Justin would have tried to coerce or win over—if he’d had any time, any room, to make a play for freedom.

  But he was bound and unarmed and completely without opportunities. Slowly he rose to his insignificant height, the hems of the white robes settling around his feet. He could feel the loose knot of Ellynor’s hair coming undone, just a little. He wondered how exact Kirra’s reproduction had been. He wondered if the Lirren clan marks had been painted onto the hair he wore, and if anyone would notice if they hadn’t.

  “The time has come for you to die,” the lead guard said. “Take hold of her arms.”

  One of the older soldiers grabbed his left arm fairly roughly, and it was all Justin could do not to lash out with a fast kick to the groin. That would only earn him a swift punch in reprisal, and he didn’t want to take any extra punishment if he didn’t have to. In case he did see a chance to run, in case there was an opportunity that, at the moment, seemed almost impossible to conceive of . . .

  The younger man took hold of his right arm more gently, giving Justin a long, meaningful stare. Justin felt his eyes narrow. In his experience, someone who was uncomfortable with the notion of an execution tried to look anywhere but at the person condemned to die. This young man, whose well-modeled features marked him as at least partially noble, might be trying to send him a message of some sort. Was he upon friendly terms with Ellynor? She had said the Lestra discouraged fraternizing between novices and guards, but surely relationships developed now and then. Ellynor had not mentioned any guards with whom she was especially close—and this was surely a strange time to feel jealousy!—but perhaps there was some help here. Perhaps there was something Justin could turn to his advantage.

  Not immediately, however. The leader of the group unlocked the chain from around the rope, and then he jerked his head for the door. Immediately, the two guards began to haul Justin across the floor. He had to put some effort into matching their pace, since he could not take his usual long stride. He would have to remember this—how fast he usually walked, how hard it must be for Ellynor to keep up.

  He would have to keep to a moderate stroll, the next time he was with Ellynor.

  If he was ever again with Ellynor.

  They dragged him down two sets of stairs and through the great hall that Tayse had described for him. It was deserted, but he soon learned why. Every soul who lived on the convent grounds—the hundreds of novices and maybe half as many guards—appeared to be gathered in the courtyard outside. A couple dozen flambeaux had been scattered around to illuminate this ceremony. By their light Justin could make out the mass of white robes, the occasional spot of green and violet, the black uniforms of the guards. He only got a quick, blurred impression of the faces—some of the women weeping, some of the women turned away, some of the men curious, some elated, some a little afraid.

  One tall torch was planted in the ground just a few feet away from the stake and its surrounding piles of fuel, but it cast enough light to throw the whole execution site into stark relief. The smell of fresh-cut cedar sent a sharp spice into the evening air. Justin realized with a start that it was cold out, a deeply bitter midwinter night. The stars stared down, blinking with curiosity or horror. The moon, of course, was nowhere to be seen, hiding her face from the sight of yet another mystic perishing at her command.

  It was clear to Justin that he was going to die. His own small detail of guards was escorting him through a double row of soldiers lined up from the convent door to the first bundle of fuel laid in front of the stake. The two guards still had a tight hold on his arms. Could he break free of both of them? And if he could, how far could he run before one of the others caught him? Still, it might be preferable, if he was going to die, to die in a bruta
l fight, kicking and punching and inflicting a certain satisfying damage. Ellynor’s body was not built for violence, and, of course, the rope around his wrists would drastically limit the kinds of blows he could land, but he still possessed Rider instincts and Rider reflexes. He could probably take out at least one or two of the Lestra’s soldiers before he was brought down. If they killed him in the scuffle, so much the better. It was not death itself that frightened him. Any Rider would say he was willing to die in service of someone he had sworn to protect, and Justin was glad to sacrifice his life for Ellynor’s. But to die by fire . . . almost any other end would be better.

  The guard to Justin’s left slackened his grip, and Justin reacted instinctively. He yanked his left arm free, slammed his tied hands into the man on his right, and suddenly he was free. Running—curse these skirts and his short legs!—dodging outstretched hands, plowing his head deep into the stomach of a guard who raced up to try and capture him. Someone grabbed him from behind and he snatched the man’s wrist, tried to fling the soldier over his shoulder. But this feminine shape wasn’t made for such maneuvers—his balance was centered in his hips—he tried to adjust his stance, tried to fend off the clutching hands. Someone clouted him from behind and the world went dizzy. Before he could recover, hands were all over his body, and he was being dragged backward, through the murmuring crowd, toward the implacable, inescapable pillar of wood.

  He twisted and bit and kicked and fought, but they slammed his back against the stake and held him in place with six great loops of rope. They left his hands tied before him, clearly unwilling to risk whatever power he might unleash if they slipped off the moonstone bonds even long enough to retie his hands behind his back. That would have made him laugh, if he had been capable of laughing. He was not a mystic, and the gems were not moonstones. Neither of them possessed any power at all.

  The brief battle had caused his heart to start pounding; now his breath quickened even more. The ropes bound him tightly to the stake, passing just over and under his breasts, around his waist, his thighs, his ankles. Four of the soldiers stepped back through the laid fuel, out to the circle of onlookers. A fifth one remained, tightening the knots. It was the young one, the soldier who had looked him so wretchedly in the eye.

  The young man’s hands checked the ropes around Justin’s chest, slid down his arm to test the binding around his wrists. To his utter astonishment, Justin felt a cool, slim length of metal insinuate itself between his palms. By the Bright Mother’s red eye, the guard had slipped him a dagger. If only he’d had this a minute ago!

  “Not even a mystic should have to die by fire,” the young man breathed in his ear. “Thrust the blade in your heart when the flames are too high.”

  Not waiting for Justin to speak a word, he spun on his heel and stepped out of the circle of firewood. Two other guards kicked a few logs back in place so that there was no gap at all. Three soldiers approached from three different directions, each bearing a lit torch. They came to a halt, standing beside the piled wood, waiting for a signal.

  Calming his breath, Justin fingered the dagger, which was short but well-honed. He didn’t see how this changed the odds any, though as soon as the fire was high enough and no one could see him, he was going to use it to slit the ropes around his wrists. Could he cut through the other bonds in time? Could he leap through the wall of flame, knife in hand, and battle his way to freedom? It was certainly worth a desperate try.

  A shape moved up through an alley of novices, and Justin recognized the short, sturdy form of Coralinda Gisseltess. As usual, she was dressed in black robes heavily embroidered in silver; she glittered like a winter sky. She came to a halt a few feet away from him but did not even give him a second glance. Instead, she turned her back, raised her arms above her head, and addressed the crowd.

  “Great and benevolent Mother watch over us all, protect us all, keep us safe from harm,” she intoned, and her voice was beautiful and almost hypnotic. “Turn away those who would injure us, mystics who would enchant us, enemies who would see us dragged into despair. Keep your bright silver eye upon us always. And those who would offer us harm, send to their deaths.”

  She made a half turn and over her shoulder addressed the men holding the torches. “Light the fire.”

  Justin took a hard breath, unable to keep his muscles from tensing against his bonds. The wood was dry and possibly treated; it caught instantly in a flare of yellow and gold. The cold shot back, jumpy as a startled cat. Justin felt the heat on his hands, his exposed face, intolerable already and starting to build. The flames crackled and the logs spit. Cedar and smoke thickened the air to the point that he could hardly breathe it.

  He had very little time. If his clothes caught fire, he would be in agony. Working as quickly as he could, he used the little knife to saw at the ropes around his wrists. He didn’t have much of an angle—this would take too long. Perhaps, after all, he was better off simply pressing the hilt tightly between his palms and plunging the blade with all the force he could manage straight into his heart.

  The heat had made his hands so sweaty it was hard to reposition the knife. He worked his fingers and twisted his palms and somehow managed to get the dagger turned so that he had it in the position he wanted. His thumbs and his forefingers were on either side of the blade; he could hold it steady as he drove it home.

  He lifted his hands and rested the knife tip against his chest. A great yellow spark separated itself from the fire, drifted above his head, and landed like a butterfly on his laced knuckles. He waited for the sting of the ember against his skin, but there was no burn. Almost no sensation at all.

  The ember danced on his folded hands, spreading its dusty black and gold wings. Not a spark, after all, but no butterfly, either—a moth, drawn like all of its kind to certain death in a gorgeous fire.

  The moth shifted its impossibly delicate legs and Justin felt magic skitter across his skin.

  By the Wild Mother’s woolly head, it was Kirra, come to rescue him from the hot heart of death.

  He dropped the knife and shouted her name so that she knew he recognized her. Instantly, he felt the cold tingle of sorcery course along his bones, in direct contrast to the hungry heat pressing in from all directions. He concentrated, holding himself as still as he could, opening his mind, trying to make himself a pure funnel to receive whatever power she poured into him. Would she change him into the same shape she held now, or would she make him some other creature who could more quickly escape this inferno? Something that could fly—that was the most obvious choice. And she knew he understood how to be a bird, whereas he had never been an insect of any sort—

  He felt his bones contract, he felt his skin roughen and his mouth purse out and narrow down. The ropes dropped from his hands—they were not hands—he lifted his arms to get a better look and they rose on either side of him in feathered wedges. He could not hold back a triumphant caw of exhilaration as he drove his wings down hard and felt them grab a shaky purchase on the heated, undulating air. He was practically clawing his way above the fire, his balance imperfect and one wing singed by a sudden leap of flame, but he was above the pyre, he was aloft in the cool air, he was flapping his way over the convent walls, too low to the ground to glide.

  Disorienting and confusing to fly in the dark through a tangled weave of trees. Where was Kirra? Justin banked and tried to turn around, wondering how well her tiny moth’s body could keep up with his bird’s wingspan, but then he saw her. Now she was a hawk as well, darting straight toward him through the cluttered mesh of branches. She offered a single cry—welcome or inquiry or instruction to follow—and flew right past him, then aimed upward to break free of the chancy terrain of the forest.

  Justin followed, his wings working by instinct, his mind only faintly aware of the shifts his body made to skip from one wind current to the next. Overhead, the frozen stars watched in astonishment or dismay. But the Black Mother smiled, pleased at the outcome of this night’s adventure. She
exhaled her breath in a tiny puff of air and buoyed Justin through every mile of his flight.

  THEY had been aloft maybe thirty minutes, and Justin was so weary he thought he might tumble from the sky, when Kirra dropped sharply toward the ground. His predator’s eyes could make out the campsite below—six horses, four humans, one of those humans pointing and waving at the air. Who could spot spring hawks flying silently by night? Who could guess that these were ensorceled creatures returned from hazardous missions? Cammon, of course, Justin decided, as he angled down, wings outstretched to slow his descent, and legs tensed for impact.