Lisana was nodding silently.
‘Nevare, you must try to be stronger! You must fight him and take control of your body again. Come back to Gettys. Look at you. You’ve lost the fat. You could be a real soldier now.’
‘Epiny, think! I could also be hanged for escaping from my cell, once they realized that they hadn’t killed me the first time. There is nothing left for me back in Gettys.’
‘He can not prevail against Soldier’s Boy,’ Lisana said quietly. ‘His time is past. He had his chance and he failed. His solutions have not solved anything. It is time for him to let go, to become a part of Soldier’s Boy and time for Soldier’s Boy to try his way. They need to unite their strengths.’
Epiny’s face changed. Her expression hardened and something very like hatred shone in her eyes. ‘I will not let you destroy him,’ she said. ‘He will fight you and I will fight you. We are stronger than you know. He will take back his body, and he will come back to us. I know he will.’
Lisana shook her head. She spoke calmly, patiently. ‘No. He will not. You would be wiser to listen to him. Go home. Take care of what is yours. When your child is born, leave this place and go back to your own lands.’
Epiny stared at Lisana levelly. ‘I won’t give up on Nevare. If you want me to leave, you will have to give me back my cousin.’
Lisana didn’t smile nor snarl. Her face was impassive. ‘I believe that when they are one, they will succeed where both failed before. I believe that then he will accept whatever magical task he must do, and that when he does it, the intruders will leave our land. What I am offering you is a chance to save yourself and your child. Go now, before you are driven out. I do not know how the magic will rid our lands of the intruders, but I do not think it will be gentle. Gentleness and persuasion have been tried without success. The time for that is past.’
‘I won’t give up on Nevare,’ Epiny repeated. She said it as if perhaps Lisana had not heard her or had not been paying attention. ‘I don’t believe he will give up. He will keep trying, and when he is strong enough, he will take back his life from Soldier’s Boy, and he will come back to us.’
I tried to think of some response.
She smiled at me and added, ‘And if he does not, then come next summer, when the days are long and hot and the forest is dry, I will burn your forest. All of it.’ She was suddenly calm. She folded her hands together and held them in front of her. She did not look at me at all. Her face and hands were dirty, her dress smudged and torn and her hair was falling down all around her face. But it was as if all her sorrow and pain had drained out of her, as if nothing were left but the determination; she was like a shining steel blade drawn from its worn scabbard.
‘This is the gratitude of a Gernian,’ Lisana observed coldly. ‘The magic kept its word to you. I have shown you your cousin, alive as promised, and even interceded that you might say farewell to him. I have offered you a chance to escape to the west with your baby. And in return, you threaten to destroy us.’
I knew that Soldier’s Boy could not hear Lisana’s words, and yet he seemed to reply to them. ‘I will kill her now,’ Soldier’s Boy announced, and Olikea, grim-faced, nodded.
Epiny probably did not understand the words he spoke in Speck, but she recognized the threat. It did not move her. ‘You can kill me,’ Epiny said. ‘I doubt it would be difficult for you.’ She lifted her chin, as if baring her throat to him. Her eyes remained locked with Lisana’s. Epiny didn’t say anything else. Yet danger hovered in the air, unspoken and all the more worrisome that it was undefined.
‘Kill her,’ Olikea said quietly. There was fear and desire in her voice. ‘Use this.’ She drew a knife from a sheath on her belt and offered it to him. It had a black, glittering blade; obsidian. A memory stirred. It was as sharp as a razor, a knife fit for a mage who must not touch iron.
Soldier’s Boy took it from her, then looked about helplessly, as if seeking guidance. He could not hear Lisana. He could not seek her guidance and Epiny’s fearless acceptance of her position clearly bothered him. I saw him decide there was something he didn’t know. I wondered if there were, or if Epiny was bluffing. I longed to ask her and knew I could not even look as if I wondered. I tried for a small smile to match hers. I probably failed.
Soldier’s Boy decided. He struck with the knife.
I felt his decision a split moment before he acted. Two things happened in the next instant. I stopped him. I didn’t know how I did it, but I stopped him in mid-lunge. It startled him, and worse, it burned more of his small reserve of magic. I’d actually used his magic against him, to prevent him injuring Epiny. I was as surprised as he was.
And Epiny, despite her ungainly pregnancy, ducked down abruptly and then lunged towards the hatchet that Olikea had dropped. She hit the ground harder than she had planned; I heard her grunt of pain. But she came up gripping the hatchet, her teeth bared in triumph. ‘Let’s see what happens when you get hit with cold iron!’ she threatened him, and she threw it, as hard as she could, at Soldier’s Boy’s head. It made a nasty solid noise as the butt of it hit his forehead. He dropped. I do not know if it was the force of the impact or the iron hitting his body, but he shuddered, twitched, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Likari’s mouth hung open in an ‘O’ of shock. Olikea screamed like a scalded cat and rushed Epiny.
And I watched, helpless. Not only was I disembodied, but the only body I could have hoped to affect was unconscious. Olikea was taller than Epiny, heavier, accustomed to more physical activity and unencumbered by clothes or pregnancy. She flung herself on Epiny as a cat leaps on prey. Epiny dodged to one side but still went down beneath her onslaught. Both women were shrieking, the most unhallowed sound that I had ever heard. Epiny used language I would not have suspected her of knowing, and fought with a strength and ferocity that astounded me. She fought to defend her unborn child as much as herself. Olikea was on top but Epiny writhed in her grip to face her and drew first blood, raking her nails down Olikea’s face and breast. For all that Epiny’s clothing encumbered her, it also protected her from casual damage, and when Epiny rolled to one side, drew her leg up and then managed to kick Olikea in the belly, her boots became a definite advantage.
As Olikea gasped, Epiny crawled frantically away. I thought she was trying to escape, but as Olikea recovered and went after Epiny, my cousin once more snatched up the fallen hatchet. Olikea, thinking herself threatened, grabbed the flint knife that still rested in Soldier’s Boy’s slack hand. But Epiny did not come at her; instead, she pressed the blade of her weapon to Soldier’s Boy’s throat. ‘Back off!’ she snarled. ‘Back off, or neither of us gets him. He’ll be dead.’ They did not share a language, but the threat was as obvious as the blade held to his throat.
In that moment, I suddenly realized that it was me they were fighting over. I was astounded.
Olikea froze. Epiny remained as she was, crouching over Soldier’s Boy, the cold iron of the hatchet not quite touching his throat. She looked feral and predatory, hunkered over my body. Then she caught her breath, gave a small grunt of pain and put her hand on her belly and rubbed it softly, almost reassuringly.
‘You won’t kill him,’ Olikea asserted after a moment. ‘He is your cousin.’
Epiny stared at her, and then looked at me. I translated for her. ‘She says you won’t kill me because I’m your cousin.’
‘No,’ Epiny retorted bluntly. ‘Right now, he isn’t. My cousin is over there.’ With her empty hand, she pointed to my disembodied essence hovering near Lisana. ‘This, this creature in his body is something that Tree Woman and the magic made. It might have been part of my cousin once, but she twisted it into something completely foreign to what Nevare is. And rather than see that creature masquerading as Nevare, I will kill him. Without compunction. I will not let this beast pretend he is Nevare Burvelle.’
I watched Olikea listen to the flood of foreign words. None of them were needed; she knew all she needed to know by the blade that hovered over my throat.
Lisana