Cold Steel

“Doctor! Why do you mumble? What am I seeing there, a sword and a shadow…” In his grievously wounded state, Lord Marius had slipped partway into the threads that bind the worlds. “Camulos’s Balls! It is Cat Barahal! Have you crept in to kill me? Is this what became of Amadou?”

Doctor Asante’s two assistants were busy preparing the table for the surgery. I unwrapped the shadows and crossed to kneel beside the couch. “I told you the truth about Amadou Barry.”

“He was ever a fool about that girl,” he murmured, eyes rolling back at a stab of pain.

The doctor said, “We need to operate.”

Desperate, I grasped Lord Marius’s uninjured hand. “Please. I’m looking for my husband. I heard he was last seen going to aid some cold mages seconded to your battalion.”

“Ah!” Was that a wince of physical agony, or had he seen a sight he dreaded to tell me of?

My heart pinched until I could not breathe and thought I might faint. “Tell me!”

“He never once drew his sword although I know cold steel in the hand of a cold mage need only draw blood to cut life from the body. His one concern was to kill fire, to save as many lives as he could. I think he must have spared twenty cold mages who would otherwise have been burned like torches by the enemy’s fire mages. He could have escaped into Lutetia, but he came after us because there were three young cold mages seconded to my troop, and he knew they would be killed or enslaved.” He winced. “He bore the brunt of magical attacks whose impact I could neither see nor understand. As we were surrounded and made our last stand, the truth is that he collapsed.”

A tear seared my cheek. “Dead?”

“He was never hit by any physical weapon. More like he collapsed from exhaustion.”

“Blessed Tanit!” I murmured. “Too much cold magic for too long with no rest.”

“Then I was wounded,” mumbled Lord Marius in a fevered recollection. “The red-haired fire mage took him. Threw his limp body over a horse and rode off with his company.”

My heart stopped.

“Where?” I cried.

“I did not see…” He passed out.

“If I do not amputate the arm, he will die.” Doctor Asante took my arm, then kissed me on the forehead, as a mother might. Finally she released me and turned to her patient.

In a daze I walked to the door. In the passageway I leaned against the wall. My legs had stopped working. Out of the sitting room issued the grinding scrape of a saw punctuated by the grunts and gasps of a man trying not to scream. Driven on as if lashed by a whip, I staggered back to the north courtyard and there sagged against the well in utter despair and confusion. Despite everything, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep.

Bee tugged me awake. “You can’t believe who I found.”

I bolted up. “Vai!”

“No. Juba!”

“Juba? Haübey!” The spark of hope dimmed, then flared. “Has Rory returned yet? What if he couldn’t find the basket?”

“Calm down, dearest.” She pressed her forehead against mine and bent her will to soothe my heart as her gaze pinned mine with bitter intensity. “Calm down.”

She led me into the barn. Rory was sitting in a quiet corner, holding the hand of a dying man. He smiled, indicating the basket and satchel at his side. Bee grabbed them and made me follow her farther in.

Haübey worked by lamplight in a stall carpeted with straw. An oil lamp held by a Taino soldier made a shimmering splendor of the trickling streams of blood oozing across the chest of a wounded man. With a precise stitch Haübey was sewing up a frightful gash that ran from the man’s shoulder to below his breastbone. Despite the urgency that nipped at my heels like wolves, I had the decency to wait.

The Taino prince Haübey, called Juba by Europans, resembled his brother Caonabo in every particular except that his black hair fell only to his shoulders rather than halfway down his back. His air of intensity sat in marked contrast to Caonabo’s reserved demeanor. Also, Haübey had a fresh scar over his right eye. I had forgotten he was a healer. Although not a fire mage like his brother, he had been trained in a behique’s knowledge even if he had not the full store of a behique’s power.

Bee’s gaze was fixed on Haübey as if judging where to aim her axe blow the best to split his head in two. “I haven’t shown myself to him yet. I felt no fear in confronting the general, yet I hesitate now.” Her fingers crushed my hand until I grunted in pain.

Finishing, he rose as he wiped blood off his hands. He nodded curtly, if absently, at me, then looked again. “The fire bane’s lost woman! I had heard you walked with the general.” His gaze tracked past me, and his eyes widened. “Beatrice!” He uttered her name so throbbingly that, had I not been heartless, exhausted, and desperately in search of my beloved, I should have blushed. “Why are you not in Sharagua with my brother?”