Gallel's Heir Prologue: River Flowing

Both nations and lives rise and fall on misguided fear---Sirah Anath Sorrel of Dunaya

Dylin clung to the mane, cheek against Jewel’s foaming silver neck. Brightness hung high over foliage, the intensity as constant as a frantic heartbeat, as steady as pounding hooves on the path. Trees and the tang of horse sweat enveloped her through dappled green and red and brown shades around them.

Freedom. The thought caused her to press Jewel’s flanks harder.

Taking a steadying breath, she let her wari, her spirit's life force, flow into Jewel, to strengthen and quicken her pace. Dylin gasped as she struggled to hang on. Sweat trickled into cuts on her arms and chest, the stinging a release of tension. She closed her eyes and drank the trembling sensation, like gulping vigor from the Ancestors. The pain cleared her head and sweet breath filled her lungs.

Uneasiness tickled her thoughts.

Merchants had told her of marvelous places with no mountains, where the sky touched the horizon, like it did on the ocean, as flat as the water but without the churning. Hard to imagine such a thing, but the merchants assured her that’s what it looked like. She would press through these mountains and see the flat land soon enough and know she was free.

The mare faltered, foam slicking her dappled gray withers. Dylin’s heart pounded in her throat, but she held back Jewel’s reins to a stop. Shivering, the mare snorted and lowered her head to some grass in the path. A shrill cry echoed again through the trees; either a dog’s scream, or an owl looking for its breakfast. Hard to tell at such a distance.

Reins slipping through stiff fingers, Dylin dismounted. Nausea churned, and she spat onto the soil.

The sky dimmed a shade.

Dylin’s breath caught, her surroundings more as an essence of a dream. It was a grassy place, with birds singing in the scarlet and auburn trees and autumn flowers shooting up underfoot. A little pool bubbled at the side of the river. A perfect place to bathe a baby and play in the water.

If she and the tiny life within her were free to do such a thing.

It took both hands to tie Jewel’s reins loosely to a branch.

“Ancestors smite him,” swore Dylin. She stomped around the clearing three times, then kicked a rock into the river. Her back spasmed and tickled with the sudden pain in her toes, but at least she felt more awake for the moment. “Agh. Why can’t you run longer?” Jewel’s nostrils flared; she looked at Dylin innocently, snorted, then dipped her lips into the pool. Dylin scowled. “I can’t expect you to run forever. Unfortunately.”

Squatting, she rinsed her face in the pool. She took a drink, then cursed when her sleeves got wet. Stretching her tense back, she removed her kaftan and set it on a bush to drip, then cupped water to her face.

Breathe.

The water cooled her burning arms. They seemed so thin as she opened her saddlebag and took out some cheese. Filthy, too. Intricate, random patterns of red or pale lines crossed them, some scabbed over, some fresh, some completely healed to white lines. She wore long sleeves to cover them most of the time; people never questioned her clothing even in warm weather. The lines on her arms and chest were her secret, her testimony of strength.

A flat, mossy stone protruded over the river next to the pool; she leaned back against a boulder and winced as sore muscles pressed. The river rushed past.

“Sirah Anath,” Dylin whispered, her body melting into fatigue as she slipped into the wildflower-specked grass, “please take care of my baby. Give me strength to flow like water, free of Tutang forever, fast, easy…” Well, maybe not so easy. The water crashed against rocks, and perhaps those wouldn’t be any better than Tutang. The cascades sucked the water down, just as he sucked her wari. The river was infinite, Dylin wasn’t.

Evening deepened as Dylin's mind drifted. A pale woman's face shimmered at the edges of thought.

Shrieks sliced the river’s monotone and Dylin jolted. Two hounds, black fur and brown underbellies glistening, bounded into the clearing, the silver star of Gallel plain on their harnesses. She leaped to Jewel, yanked the halter free, and kicked the mare into a run before she could think of how frightened she was. Another dog sprang onto the bank.

The air cooled, but heat emanated from Jewel’s muscles.

The reality of the dogs, the possibility of her capture, the hope of freedom, juxtaposed with the terror, twisted Dylin’s mind. Numbed her. With dogs right at her heels, hiding would be impossible. Breathing proved difficult.

The dogs wouldn’t harm Dylin---Tutang, at least, was an effective dog trainer---but the hunters might when they arrived. The prospect was terrible. Panic returned. Her arms itched to be gouged, to carry her away from this terror.

“Smite me,” she murmured. “Why, Anath, why?” Her mind swirled dizzily as she clung to Jewel’s mane. She kicked Jewel’s flanks to a harder gallop.

The life spark in her womb slumbered gently.

A thought struck her; the vague, uneasy feeling, which had clung for days to the nape of her neck, clarified and she clutched the reins and mane sickly, fiercely: Of course she was closer to Galia and Gallel than she’d thought. In her panic a week ago, she’d skipped one of the maps in her book.

She kicked until foam rained from the mare's flesh, kicked and wouldn’t let her rest. Jewel’s nostrils flared to bursting, the animal gasped arrhythmically with the faltering hooves, and Dylin kept her running, even if only at a labored trot uphill where the road led. Shandell, she only glanced at the town sign, with its stone buildings and staring faces, blurred past in dusky darkness. Jewel jolted through its streets without a pause. The people of the city would remember her description when Tutang’s hunters asked after a black-haired girl and a silver horse — they would remember being pushed aside — but terror drove her ahead.

To flow like the river…

Outside the city, the road narrowed, with a mountain shooting up at the right, and a grassy chasm falling sharply at the left. The river flowed at the bottom. Dylin panted. Faster. Couldn’t Jewel go faster. The mare tripped and reared, and tumbled down the ravine. Jewel’s scream ripped the air.

Dylin fell with her, cradling her face from sharp stones that caught her fall. Breathless, numb, and half covered with rushing water, Dylin crawled to the rocky bank where Jewel screamed and thrashed. Shock silenced Dylin. Jewel’s forelegs twisted at wrong angles, broken and useless. Food and clothing, stockings, underwear from the saddlebag, lay strewn up the ravine. The saddlebag itself had ripped from the mare and lay twenty paces uphill. The moon, hazy with clouds, lit the night hillside dim as dread.

She knelt at the mare’s side, hugged her head. Jewel, a gentle creature, had given her joy and smiled in her horse way whenever they were together. Dylin had pushed her too hard and poor Jewel had lost her footing.

Howls from the city reverberated.

She trickled healing wari into the mare’s soul. Jewel’s breath rasped. She was a big animal, and Dylin was weary already. She could take the beast's pain away, but not heal her. With more experience, perhaps she would know how to. She had been forced to leave Amara much too soon for an apprentice, long before Dylin could hope to be any use to anyone. The mare would still die, a long and panicked, if painless, death.

She could stop her heart, end it quickly for her, and gain energy from captured wari to keep walking.

“I’m sorry, Jewel. May the Escort take you home.” She placed shaking hands over Jewel’s heart and touched her wari to Jewel’s. Terror trembled Jewel’s every nerve, as pain shot through her bones. The heart beat too fast. “Be calm,” she whispered. The heartbeat slowed, the breath smoothed. “Calm.” That was spoken both for the mare, and for Dylin.

Jewel relaxed. Before death stiffened the mare’s flesh, Dylin pinched Jewel’s eyes closed so she wouldn’t have to see her stare at nothing. The heartbeat slowed to a peaceful stop. When Dylin kissed her gray nose, her tears dripped onto Jewel’s velvet face.

Dylin stood with renewed, if nauseating, strength, then collapsed into a fit of vomiting. If only she had the courage of an assassin, she would never suffer any weakness. Strong now, but jerking, she took a step, two steps forward. Her dress hung in tatters on abraded skin. A third step. She quickened her pace when she looked back at Jewel’s broken body. Trees loomed ahead in shadows. Welcome cover.

The air filled with silence. Dylin breathed deep, cool air pulling her lungs into steadiness. With the calm came release of numbness, and pain enveloped her. Each step sent shocks through her body. She took another step, and another. She now had nothing but her own footsteps. Another step, slower.

She slipped sideways into the river; mud covered her, but she managed to keep free of the rushing water as she stood. She couldn’t get far without Jewel. Another step. Heavy. Tiny Lianna’s life spark felt so heavy inside her. Lianna, the only good thing to come from Tutang.

Another step. Another baying, closer.

The trees embraced her, shaded her from the dimmed moon. If protected from the moon, she could be protected from Tutang’s hounds. Two more steps. A wooden structure appeared in a small clearing, a barn. A barn had cover. Animal smell. Animal waste would cover her scent.

She had envied the water, and now her limbs trembled like liquid in a glass.

She entered the barn; the interior smelled surprisingly clean. Smite the farmers who cleaned so well. Stalls stood empty. The horses and cattle must have been out to pasture. Haystacks and bags of feed filled the barn’s dark corners.

Dylin collapsed. She stretched her arm, searching. The rough texture of the floorboards. Prickling hay. A nail. Her fingers clutched the last like a tool of salvation. Fingers trembling, she dug at her left arm with the sharp iron, ripped the flesh. Her chest convulsed, her mind focused on the release, her terror and tension bubbling to the surface like so much steam. Her breathing slowed as blood flowed over the floor and her mind relaxed, wandered.

Tutang’s despicable face.
Mother laughing at Dylin’s immaturity.
Amara’s embrace and tears.
The little embryo pulsing with life.
Lianna’s name, meaning Heart’s Salvation.

A woman in a pale, flowing gown reached out to Dylin. “My dear, be at peace. Your daughter’s future is bright. You need not worry. Let it be.”

Dylin gasped, and her fingers released the nail. Her tongue filled her mouth like sand.

The dogs sounded closer. Dylin lay on the threshing floor, still except for twitching fingers. Three bayings and a howl. Closer. They knew their quarry was nearby. Howls came from every direction, like a whirlpool in which she struggled and drowned. She sucked air, relishing every moment of freedom. Closer. They must be in the barn’s clearing; men’s shouts and horses’ stomps came only as vibrations of sound, the meaning of the men’s words unclear.

A bang and a light. A lantern, more voices. Black dogs with stiff fur and pointed ears shrouded her; their footpads vibrated the floor. Four dogs, or twenty. Smelly, cold snouts nudged her, licked her flesh and blood, and Dylin was too weak to move.

“This is her.” The voice sounded familiar, one of Tutang’s guards, but the thought fled. “She looks bad, sir.”

“Don’t worry about her, Serio. If her neck ain’t broken, we can take her back.” The man, Serio, pulled three dogs to his side. Only three, not twenty. “Not surprising she looks bad if she fell down that cliff. Horse prob’ly tripped in the dark.”

“Them cuts ain’t from a fall,” said Serio.

The other man knelt beside Dylin, metal buckles clanking. “Stupid girl. Don’t you know that dogs track by smell? And nothing much smells more than blood.” He shook his head. “I realize you ain't really trying to kill yourself, but why? Why you done this?”

Anger, desperation, gave Dylin the courage to leap onto him, to claw him, cling to his neck, and her eyes brightened with her attempt to drain wari from him. The man tossed her aside easily as he would a rat. “Sorry, my Lady,” he said. “We can’t let you leave without giving an heir to the Kel.” As if she didn’t already know that. She leaped at him again, and again he pushed her to the floor, a bit rougher. “We’d like to be on the road by morning. It’s been furiously dark tonight, and I don’t think the Kel would want us to break our necks like you almost did. ”

“We’ll be fine by moonlight,” said Serio.

“Shut up, I’m not traveling through that soup out there.”

“Get your eyes checked, how can you be a tracker with such bad night vision?”

Their meaningless words confused her as they continued, so she spoke. “Please.” Her voice sounded like another’s, old, raspy. She struggled to sit up, struggled like she lifted the world. Her head was heavier than any other part of her. She knelt before them, head bowed. “Don’t take me back. Pretend that you didn’t find me. He will have another child. Amber would be more happy for her child to be his heir… please…”

“I’m sorry, my Lady,” said Serio. His eyes softened in the lantern light. “I know it’s a horrible thing, but we have our orders. Choosing heirs is not our problem. You can come back here if you want, after you produce an heir. It’s a simple enough thing. It’s your duty to Galia.”

He rubbed his head and shook it. “We couldn’t hide the fact that you fell down the cliff, anyway. Your saddlebag came from Gallel. Any idiot would recognize palace insignia this close to Galia. Word gets around, my Lady.”

“Take the saddlebag. Hide it. Pretend that I’m dead, that you found my bones. No one knows about it yet.”

Serio laughed sadly, touched her head with gentle fingers. “I’m sorry, my Lady. Everyone who’s passed the north road in the last hour would’ve seen your accident, and there’s been plenty of traffic. Seen your things, anyway, bright as the moonlight is. Can’t really do much with the horse, either.”

“Say that we’re both dead, then.”

“We’d have to present your body to prove it,” said the other man, “otherwise the Kel would have us keep looking. Even with all your blood here.”

“Keep looking, then. Please. Please!” The last word was a groan. She sprawled onto the floor, smeared her blood.

“Sorry, my Lady.” Serio lifted Dylin from the floor, ripped a strip of cloth from his own shirt and wrapped it around her arm. He then bound her arms and feet with a leather thong.

Nothing Dylin attempted would make a difference, other than causing more harm to herself and to Lianna. She should weep, but only numbness filled her as the men carried her to a stack of hay and threw what smelled like a horse blanket on her. Staring at the rafters, she maneuvered her hands so she could create a line on her right arm with her fingernail. Blood flowed freely until she passed out again.

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