Angel's Truth (Angelwar Book 1) Read online

  ‘I do, my lady.’

  ‘Good.’ Kalashadria crouched over him and lowered her voice. ‘Now let’s get you away from these gawpers before you bleed out.’

  ‘The church,’ he said, head slowly tilting left. ‘Seems a fitting place.’

  Kalashadria sheathed her sword back into its scabbard and reached down, clasping her hand around Tol’s forearm. ‘Try not to scream,’ Kalashadria whispered as she pulled him to his feet. He groaned, but quietly, much to her relief. She looped his arm over her shoulder and led him across the square. The villagers parted before them, silent as Kalashadria helped him stagger to the church, its twin doors wide open. A man in fine robes leant against the door jamb, his face pale and grey. He opened his mouth as Kalashadria drew level, but she silenced him with a glance. ‘See that we are not disturbed,’ she told the priest as she stepped over the threshold. ‘And find clean water, linen, needle and thread.’

  The priest followed her inside. ‘Close the doors.’

  After a moment the muted voices of the villagers broke the silence.

  *

  The church was a small, whitewashed stone building, with a nave that stretched to the far wall where a rickety wooden dais was capped by a listing lectern. A poorly-built staircase huddled in the far right corner which Kalashadria assumed led to the priest’s rooms. She half-dragged Tol down the aisle, six rows of backless pews on either side. She stopped at the base of the dais and gently lowered him down so he faced the doors, his back partly supported by the low wooden platform.

  He mumbled something as Kalashadria sank to her haunches in front of him, his words slurred as if drunk.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The cure,’ he said, his voice barely audible. ‘There’s a flask in my pack.’ He lifted his head, though Kalashadria could see the pain it caused him, and smiled thinly. ‘I prepared more. Just in case.’

  Kalashadria nodded. ‘Save your strength,’ she told him. ‘And do not even think about dying on me.’

  Tol tried to smile, but his feeble efforts only resulted in a grimace of pain. ‘You meant what you said? About me being your knight?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘every word.’ She put on a disapproving frown and added, ‘But that means you’re going to have to start acting like a knight: spend less time in taverns, less time gambling, and tell fewer lies.’

  Tol winced. ‘My memories.’

  ‘Your memories,’ she confirmed, her face softening into a smile. ‘You have led a rather exciting life for one so young.’

  ‘I’m seventeen,’ he protested, ‘nearly eighteen.’

  ‘There is no shame in being young,’ she told him gently. ‘Frustration, though, that I understand; adults who refuse to admit that we have joined their ranks, stubbornly holding out to the last.’

  ‘You’re my age?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Kalashadria laughed, ‘I am much older than that.’ She leaned in close. ‘Not counting the years asleep, I am three hundred and seven years old,’ she whispered, ‘but that is still young to my people – barely an adult.’

  ‘You look good,’ he coughed. ‘Don’t look more than two-fifty.’

  Kalashadria laughed lightly as footsteps announced the priest’s return. She reached for the dagger sheathed at Tol’s waist and slid it free. ‘I think it’s time we got you out of those clothes.’

  He grinned. ‘You don’t need excuses,’ he said, ‘to get me naked.’

  He said it, of course, just as the priest reached them with supplies. Kalashadria felt her cheeks colour and bit back a curse as she turned to the priest. ‘You have everything?’

  The priest stammered that he had brought everything and Kalashadria sent him out again, this time to find Tol’s furs and pack, which had been discarded at the foot of the hill before their ascent to the village. Alone, she set to work, cleaning and binding Tol’s lesser wounds, and stitching the more serious injuries. She had left Tol’s trousers on, the wounds on his thighs mostly superficial and only one requiring any stitching. By the time the shaken priest returned, bent double under Tol’s pack, the job was all but done, only the final injury to his left shoulder remaining. The tide of blood stemming from the wound had slowed, but the boy was pale and cold now, drifting in and out of consciousness. Kalashadria put her hand to his chest, ignoring the half-congealed blood her fingers sank into as she felt his heartbeat, slow and ponderous.

  ‘Leave us,’ she told the priest. ‘If anyone enters without my leave, I will take their head.’ She turned her gaze on the frightened priest for a moment. ‘And then yours.’

  ‘This is going to hurt,’ she told Tol, moving to sit on the dais that she had propped him against. With needle and thread she went to work on his back, knitting the wound together as swiftly as she could and trying to ignore the pained whimpers that came from her patient.

  In moments it was done, and Kalashadria slid off the dais, pouring the last of the water into the entry wound on Tol’s front. The sword’s passage didn’t appear to have struck anything vital, and if an artery had been nicked he would have died before reaching the church. It was hard to see properly, though, and Kalashadria couldn’t be entirely sure her skills could save her knight. Maybe with the right tools, she mused, but with little more than needle or thread his chances were slim. It’s a wonder these people ever fight, she thought. You’d think that when even minor wounds can kill, men would think twice before starting fights or making war. Still, Kalashadria knew the men that started wars were rarely the same men that prosecuted them. This was so even in the ancient history of the Anghl’teri. Although we like to pretend we’ve grown up since then. And her people had enjoyed unbroken peace and prosperity for centuries until, when war had been all but forgotten, a final conflict was thrust upon them, one that would end only when one side or the other was utterly eradicated.

  We are not so different from the humans after all.

  ‘This is going to hurt,’ Kalashadria said as she pulled him away from dais and lowered him onto his back. She leaned over him, strands of hair tickling his blood-smeared chest as it rose and fell to an unheard dirge. He saved my life. I owe him his.

  Kalashadria picked up his dagger again and held her open palm over Tol’s wound. ‘This is going to be even worse,’ she said, slicing the meat of her palm and making a fist, a slow trickle of bloody raindrops splashing into the puckered hole in his shoulder.

  He screamed as the first drop worked its way into his blood, and Kalashadria felt the searing agony through their link, a thousand burning needles burrowing into the back of her brain. Mercifully, he passed out after a few moments and the tight bundle of pain that nestled in the back of her awareness faded away.

  When it was done, she wrapped some linen around her hand then stitched his wound. She propped Tol’s head up on his winter furs, and checked his pulse. It was slow, but steady now, and gaining momentum. It had been a gamble, but it seemed that the boy would live.

  There would, she was sure, be consequences to what she had done.

  51.

  Consciousness stole over Tol like a thief, slow and subtle and pregnant with misdirection. Memory returned with unhurried leisure, fevered dreams mingling with flashes of his battle with the demon so that it was hard to tell dream from reality.

  ‘Welcome back.’

  Tol turned his head, and found himself within a tiny church, empty except for one other occupant. Kalashadria. That part, at least, hadn’t been a dream.

  ‘Ugh,’ he managed to say, his throat dry and sore.

  ‘I was starting to think you wouldn’t wake,’ she told him, somehow managing to make it sound like a rebuke. She unstoppered one of Tol’s leather water skins and held it out to him.

  Tol struggled to prop himself up on his elbows, but his arms failed him, a deep pain coursing through his left shoulder. He let out a small groan, stifling it as Kalashadria’s strong fingers slipped under his back and raised him into a sitting position. She spun him on his rump and eased Tol’s back aga
inst the foot of the dais. During this time Tol had realised several important things. First, he was naked from the waist up; second, everywhere hurt, as if he’d dropped from the sky and broken every bone in his body; and third, it was dark outside.

  ‘Thanks,’ he croaked, taking the skin from Kalashadria. He took several deep draughts from the skin before lowering it from his lips and staring suspiciously at his companion. ‘Church run out of wine?’

  ‘You nearly died,’ Kalashadria said, ‘water will do for the moment.’ Her tone was stern, but Tol could just make out the hint of a smile curling the corners of her mouth. He smiled, surprised when it was returned by the angel.

  ‘How long have I been out?’ he asked as his eyes roved over his naked torso. His wounds – of which there fewer than he would have guessed – were all neatly stitched, the bruises surrounding them turned yellow-purple, already past the first stage of healing. His shoulder was the worst, a greenish-black bruise the size of a child’s head surrounding the sword wound like a roiling sea. The skin, he noticed, already seemed to be healing, and itched like ants were dancing underneath the surface. ‘How many days?’

  Kalashadria’s face was unreadable, and she didn’t answer for a moment, just sitting cross-legged in front of him like some tempestuous sage. Finally, she sighed and asked, ‘How much do you remember?’

  ‘It’s all fuzzy,’ Tol said, shaking his head and instantly regretting it as the world lurched sideways. ‘There was this dream… I dreamed about the end of the world.’

  Kalashadria brushed a strand of hair over her ear. ‘The world is still here. As are you.’

  ‘Not my world,’ Tol said, choosing his words carefully. ‘It was a world with two suns.’

  ‘Valharis,’ Kalashadria said softly. She closed her eyes. ‘My homeworld.’

  Tol glanced down at his body again, saw the healing wounds. When he looked back to Kalashadria, her eyes were again open, her face blank as she returned his gaze. Apart from some yellow bruising around her nose – no doubt where the demon had struck her – the angel looked as well as when she had first stormed out of the sky at Karnvost. Tol’s eyes flicked to her left hand as its fingers flexed nervously. Except for that, he thought, taking in the bandage swaddling Kalashadria’s palm.

  ‘How long?’ he asked.

  ‘It is still the same day,’ she said. ‘You slept for most of it, though you woke once or twice. You were quite insistent about burying the Sudalrese warrior outside. You kept saying that he saved me.’

  Tol nodded slowly. ‘He bought me time to reach the demon.’ His finger traced the puckered skin below his shoulder, eyes flicking again to Kalashadria’s hand. ‘It wasn’t a dream at all, was it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You did for me what I did for you.’

  Kalashadria nodded, confirming Tol’s suspicions. ‘You had lost a lot of blood. It… it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do not thank me,’ she said, her face a taut mask of anger. ‘What I have done is foolish, and more likely a curse than a gift. It would have been kinder to let you pass.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It was a desperate gamble, and I truly did not think it would work,’ she said. The angel sighed, idly scratching a dirt stain on her knee. ‘Your body has absorbed my blood… and been changed by it. If I am right, you will heal faster than other humans—’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Be silent,’ Kalashadria snapped. ‘You will be changed in other ways also, though how much I cannot say.’ She looked at him forlornly. ‘Unless killed, you will likely live longer than others, age slower. Do you understand now? You will outlive your wife, perhaps your children, too. Not a gift, Tol Kraven, not a gift at all.’

  The despair in the angel’s voice touched Tol, and he felt her pain almost as keenly as if it were his own. He reached forward and took her hand in his. ‘Men in my family never live long,’ he said gently, ‘not with the history of our name.’

  ‘You cannot know that,’ Kalashadria said. ‘What if you do live long enough to marry and—’

  ‘I will deal with that if it ever happens,’ Tol said quickly. ‘And if I ever have children I will cherish every day with them and thank you with my dying breath for giving me the chance to watch them grow up, the chance to protect them. I could never hate you for saving me,’ he said with a faint smile, ‘and even if you still think it a curse, well, it’s still not as bad as what I did to you with the blood, is it?’ The smile bloomed into a mischievous grin. ‘In fact, by giving me a longer life you’ve really just made it worse for yourself – more years with me in your head.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

  Tol could see from her face that she had though. And did it anyway. ‘There are easier ways to tell me you love me, you know.’

  ‘I do not—’ Kalashadria broke off as she saw the huge smile plastered across Tol’s face. ‘You should not tease armed women,’ she warned him, unable to help the smile curving her lips.

  ‘Who’s teasing?’ Tol asked innocently, bursting into a fit of laughter a moment later as Kalashadria’s face fell. ‘Ah, that hurts,’ he said, clasping his shoulder as he shook with laughter.

  ‘Serves you right.’

  ‘So,’ he said as he finally stopped chuckling, ‘serious question.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So now am I going to grow wings?’

  ‘Really?’ Kalashadria asked as he howled with laughter. ‘That’s what you ask?’ She shook her head. ‘I liked you better when you were asleep.’

  *

  It was still dark outside when Kalashadria woke Tol with a gentle shake. After a cold meal and draining the rest of his water skin, Tol had donned the spare clothes from Sir Brounhalk’s pack. Even standing and shucking off his trousers had drained him of energy, and Kalashadria had forced him back to his makeshift bed on the church floor. He had fallen asleep with the angel chuckling quietly at seeing him in clothes that were far too big for him. ‘Like a child playing dress-up,’ she had chortled while he struggled to dress.

  ‘As amusing as you look,’ Kalashadria told him as Tol got back to his feet, ‘these might fit you better; I sent the priest to scrounge some from the villagers.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Tol mumbled as he took the folded trousers and tunic. They were brown and plain, but serviceable and clean.

  ‘No need to thank me,’ Kalashadria said, ‘I used your silver coins to pay for them.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Both.’

  Tol winced. Two ducals could buy several sets of clothes that wouldn’t leave him looking like he’d just escaped from a farm. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered, changing quickly. As Tol stuffed himself into the tunic he noticed that his supplies had been neatly repacked into Sir Brounhalk’s weathered backpack.

  ‘We’re leaving?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kalashadria said, handing Tol his sword and belt. ‘Soldiers from a nearby fort came asking questions this afternoon. They must have seen the battle, or at least Klanvahdor’s arrival. The villagers must have told them what happened, because I saw them at the window peering in.’

  ‘Midfort,’ Tol said, ‘it’s only a league or two from here. They’ll probably have sent a bird to the capital.’ He buckled his sword belt, adjusting its straps so it sat comfortably on his hip. ‘You’re coming with me, aren’t you?’

  ‘A little way,’ Kalashadria said, ‘but it is time for me to return home. Thanks to you I am healed, but if I linger the sickness will return.’ She held up a hand to forestall Tol’s protest, already on his lips. ‘And you do you not have enough blood left for another round of healing. It is time, my friend.’

  Tol nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He put on his boots, feeling empty inside, and then hefted Brounhalk’s pack onto his uninjured shoulder. Their journey had been hard, and on several occasions he could have quite happily strangled Kalashadria; her condescension, haug
hty mannerisms, and habit of unveiling one mystery for every two she created, had all pushed Tol to the limits of his patience. Which isn’t one of my strong points, he admitted. But now, just as they were getting to know each other, it was time for them to part ways, and Tol found he loathed the idea of being separated from her.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he mumbled, unable to meet the angel’s gaze. ‘Time’s a-wasting.’

  *

  Kalashadria stopped Tol with a firm hand on his shoulder, the orange glow of dawn already blooming on the horizon. They had travelled in silence through the rest of the night and were now approaching the last inn before Kron Vulder, the capital less than a day’s march east.

  Tol turned to face her. ‘Will I ever see you again?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Kalashadria. ‘If you need me, speak my name as you did before and Alimarcus will hear.’ She smiled sadly. ‘But only if you truly need me, Tol. It is a dangerous flight just to say hello.’

  ‘Okay,’ he mumbled. It was alarming how well she seemed to know him, calling for her at the first opportunity had already crossed his mind.

  ‘I meant what I said,’ she told him. ‘You must find a way to deny Demmegrahk’s followers victory in the war that is starting on the edge of the desert. If the church falls, your people and mine will soon follow.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘And keep that book safe,’ Kalashadria said. ‘It is right that some of your knights know the truth behind your church, but it is not something to be shared lightly.’ She squeezed his shoulder. ‘The list of the full names of those who hold the watch is more precious still,’ she said. ‘Should anything happen to me, Alimarcus will wake another and although Alimarcus believes I should not have intervened, Galandor’s instructions compel the worldholme to report each instance of our full names being recited.’