Chapter 6 (Amazonia V)
Kal-El went first, his senses alive to the sounds around him. His ears seemed to have a life of their own - heightened hearing was something that had happened to him before. While training or in battle or when there was danger afoot, his ears seemed to become warm with a rush of blood and picked up sounds he did not even know he heard. Just now, Kal-El was aware of the nocturnal sounds of the woods, the uneven breathing of a wounded creature and the heartbeats of the Elf - Diana and James, his squire. How vastly different each beat was. James' heart beat quickly, almost as though he was always scared. The Elf-lady's heart on the other hand, by Rao, her heart beats sounded so clear and steady and strangely reassuring....
"Stop," shrieked James, "There is a body there."
Diana's gaze fixed on the heap of rags beside the track. She could make out the startling breadth of the man's shoulders under the torn tunic, glimpse the bare thickness of a muddied thigh. She knelt down amongst the wet bracken, checking for signs of life.
"Don't! Lady, stop. You do not know who he is, or what. An outlaw, most like, a wolf's head. There could be others, waiting for you to go near the trees-"
But the figure of the man drew her, as though she were caught on an invisible thread. She watched the dark shape: motionless, damaged, infinitely mysterious.
She stayed near him. Still, damp-laden air closed in around her like a heavy curtain, cutting her off from the road, from the angry, fearful shouts of the squire, James. Such sounds and the ordinary world had no meaning. There was only the man lying beside the forest, half concealed among the trees as though he were part of them.
Only that and the sense of danger.
He was a mess. Her breath choked in her throat. There was blood mixed in with the mud, some dried against the skin and the clothes, turned rust-brown and black. Some oozing fresh, as though he had been moving, quite recently. That was what had drawn her attention: the movement. Movement and the pale gleam of uncovered flesh.
He did not move anymore. The patch of naked skin belonged to the strong sinuous length of his leg stretched out in the damp bracken beside her. She stared at the gaping cloth, the taut swell of muscle exposed beneath; at the blackened slashing line of what could only be a sword cut. Her hands clenched.
Naught about him was what she had expected. She had thought him one of the poor, starving wretches who haunted the countryside in the wake of the War Lords raids. Heaven knew there were enough of them. But swelling muscles did not belong to starving men and while his wounds could be those of a robber's helpless victim, she felt in her bones that this man had fought. And there had been a skirmish, quite recently, which the War Lords had won. She had heard their boasts.
She touched the crashed cloth of his tunic. It was well spun and soft to the touch. He wore chain mail with finely forged links - the finest that the most worthy only could wear. She recognized the workmanship - there was only one other forge besides that of her people that could make that chain mail. And only the wealthiest lords could afford to wear it.
The man was wounded. He was completely alone. All of that meant nothing. She knew what he was.
He was lying facedown, his body slightly twisted, one arm stretched out in front of him. The broad battered width of his hand was wrapped-nay, clamped- round a tree root, as though if he could no longer walk forward, he would crawl. She fancied she could still see the whiteness of his knuckles caused by the sheer unadulterated power of that grip-a legendary Warrior with the strength of ten men in one hand. The dark cloth of his tunic grated against her fingers.
A Warrior's hand. She respected that. She knew all the legends, of course. And if this was the Warrior, of whom many spoke, there was much to learn and much to teach. She knew the sign by which he would be known. Only the son of night would choose to flaunt his mastery of shadows, to use the shifting shapes to his own advantage, to bear the dreaded symbol of a night creature - the bat - so feared that some said its eyes glowed unnaturally when it spotted its prey, and it lived on blood alone.
She turned the Warrior over, needing only to confirm that this was indeed the one that they called The Dark Knight. A man so dark, so deep, so unfriendly, he could win battles merely by appearing on the scene. On his chain mail, the links were designed to bear show his coat of arms - a winged bat, in full fight atop his war helmet.
Something thudded onto the earth beside her. Kal-El. She could hear his indrawn breath.
As Kal-El knelt besides her, to look more closely at the man - he felt stirrings of recognition. He knew this man from somewhere, somehow. The dark tunic he wore seemed to tug at the reaches of his memory, there was a familiarity of kinship that Kal-El could not quite place.
"I cannot see anyone. There is not a sound." His voice echoed in the stillness of the woods - while he searched his memory for any traces of the man in front of him. He had heard Diana's heartbeat quicken and sensed the change in her demeanor. Excitement barely at bay and a sense of wonder. Kal-El was disturbed by a strange new feeling. Here, then, was a man who could interest the Elf-lady. Why then was he, Kal-El, uneasy?
It was so strange, the dense waiting silence. Dampness seeped through Diana's knees from the cold earth.
"I still say you should come away, Lady. Leave him. He could have pestilence, anything. Kal-el, please listen to me. There is little enough you can do for him. You have next to naught yourself, please...", James was still trying to get them away from this fearsome body before them.
The gruffness in his voice caught at her. He touched the edge of her cloak.
The temptation to give in to that mixture of pleading and rough good sense was almost overwhelming. The battered man was a stranger, worse, walked in the shadow of the night.
In truth, the mage of her mother's people had not specified the type of Warriors for the quest. The ones who hoped to reach beyond the pale mists of time and dared to lift the veil of illusion needed only to be true of heart, courageous and deemed worthy of lifting the prize. Worthiness would be determined by participation and elimination in the challenge of challenges, a test designed by the mage - Penelope. Both male and female would need to bond together to liberate the Cup of Ages. It had been ordained since the beginning of time when the Dragon Lords and the War Lords had been one, that the Cup of Ages would be hidden from sight. Their forces had combined to create a place without time, beyond the Earths to exist in a dimension parallel to all existence where every thought was false and not all was what it seemed to be.
The High Lords had never thought that over time, they would no longer be united and the very Earths themselves would be divided. It was the battle of Ahmagedon that had divided them so sorely.
Diana knew the old stories - had grown up learning them, could tell the tales herself. She herself hoped to be the one to liberate the Cup of Ages. And she would be, she vowed, silently. Had she not passed the severest of tests set by the Queen and her Royal Council? Had she not participated, masked so that none could accuse her, Diana, her mother's daughter of seeking undue favours? Only she knew that her mother had not wanted her to participate, had not wanted to risk injury to a beloved daughter. Only Diana knew her mother's inner thoughts.
She sighed now, she was not yet ready to face her mother. She had not disobeyed her, yet had not told her that she was leaving Themyscira. And now, her self-imposed mission was almost complete. To find the Champion of the Knights of Kandor and bring him to Themyscira. Ah, but what was she to do with The Dark Knight? She could not in good conscience leave him behind - he was wounded.
She let go of the man's sleeve, wiping her hand clean. Dried leaves shed cold and dampness against her skin. Mud and...blood.
What if he died?
James's nervous breathing at her shoulder struggled against the silence, an intrusion like her own breath. The very shadows of the trees pressed against them.
"Come away." That was Kal-El.
She could not tear her gaze from the stranger, from the heavy outstretched warrior's hand.
Her own hand slid forward, evading Kal-El, reaching out until her fingers touched the stranger's flesh. She could feel each separate knuckle of that fierce grip. His skin was freezing. She could not pry his fingers free.
"I cannot leave him." She scarce knew whether she had spoken aloud.
Kal-El's eyes widened as he saw the man's coat of arms and the sword cut across the bared thigh. In that moment, the stranger moved.
His eyes were the color of night, dark shadows and black light, so deep they did not seem to belong to a world-dweller but to a spirit, a wood-wose. Deep beyond imagining.
Diana had the sensation of falling. She was leaning low, close to him, her body stretched out across his. Now the rolling movement as he turned brought her nearer still, so near they touched at almost every point.
Sudden fire seemed to erupt around her, despite the cold-wild, fast forest fire. The wood-dark eyes burned into hers. The spine-crawling silence of the air beat against her ears.
"Who are you?" His speech was not that of Metria, like that of Kal-El. It was not Themysciran as hers was. The words, deep as the earth's fastness, seemed not to break the tingling silence, but to be part of it. His voice demanded an answer. Yet it hurt him to speak. She could tell that from the tautness of his mouth, the heaviness of his breath.
That did not take away one iota of the danger.
"I am Diana."
Her own voice seemed bright against the stillness, yet not out of place, part of the dangerously charged air between them.
"Diana?"
Huntress. It was not a usual name. It was, had been, a proud mother's choice.
The choice of a Queen for a princess of the realm.
Her mouth tightened. None would believe that now from the clothes she wore. Her head and her face were almost completely hidden, swathed in a linen veil so coarse she would once have considered it scarcely fit for a cleaning cloth. Only the cloak was good. But the brooch at her shoulder was of gold and silver.
"A hunter, then."
His gaze held hers, deep and disconcerting.
Her appearance appealed to no man. She did not want it to.
"It is well."
It was all that the man said. But then his face, scratched, bearded, coated with dirt and dried blood, smiled. She saw the gleam of even teeth, the bright, taut rise of his cheekbones dappled in sunlight. And his eyes.
Kal-El. She had forgotten about him. Now, his fingers tightened on the edge of her cloak, trying to draw her away.
"Lady, come away."
At the sound of another voice, the black gaze flickered past her to the grimness of James' face. And beyond that to O'Brien. She caught the gleam of... what? Acknowledgment? An admission that James was right?
The night black gaze turned back to her. She saw the bloodied mouth move, trying to form the words. All at once, the strained face seemed not that of an otherworldly spirit, but man-kindred, human and therefore vulnerable despite its evident will. The painful breath swelled mortal lungs, so that the laboring chest brushed her breasts through the layers of her clothing and his.
She felt the touch of another person's flesh and she felt the pain he felt, through the inadequate barrier of her skin. It reached inside her as though all that tortured effort hurt her body as much as his.
He would ask for her aid. He must. She knew, with a startling completeness, that she would not refuse him. The urge to reassure him, to respond to the humanness that she saw, to tell him he was not alone, cut through mind and flesh.
"It is all right. I will not leave you. I will help you-"
"Nay." The word was forced out of him, like an act of will, and she understood what she should have known the moment she had seen his hand. He would not beg for anything.
"You must leave me-" Not a reproach, not a plea. It was a command.
"No-"
"You will. Diana, Huntress. You must go. I will bring you danger."
Danger. Her skin, the very air around her, shivered with it.
"But I cannot..." Her voice seemed breathless, strengthless. She still had hold of his hand. Her fingers tightened on the frozen flesh. She might as well have held stone. But then the strength came to her, out of the stillness of the air.
"No." She tried to hold the shifting brightness of his eyes, to tell him without words what the breathless tingling air told her. Things she did not know herself.
That there was more to this than a chance meeting of strangers, that a bond had been made, though of what kind or how was beyond her understanding.
But the deep-night gaze slid beyond her to fasten on Kal-El.
"See her away-"
"No..." she began, but the gaze was gone, far beyond both of them, into some realm she could not follow. She watched the thick black lashes drift closed, cutting her off. She could not hold his gaze, could not hold him. She let go of his hand.
She stood up, the brown earth rocking beneath her feet, Kal-El beside her.
"Do we take him with us?" The words were gentle, laced through with an anger she could almost smell.
It was not Kal-El's fault he sounded harsh. The world had been harsh to him, more harsh than he could well bear.
She could not afford to upset Kal-El. Kal-El was destined for the quest - that had been foretold. She could not bring an unknown and dangerous Warrior into Themyscira, she could not return with the Dark Knight.
She looked at the cut on the muddied swell of his thigh. He was not her responsibility. She had more responsibility than she knew how to endure. She should leave this man, this stranger, this warrior-creature to his own fate.
Diana saw the truth of that. Even the stranger had seen it.
She knew what her decision was. She straightened up.
She would have to be quick. Very, very quick.
It was not quick at all.
When James turned the makeshift raft between the high wooden gates of what had once been a royal estate of Metria, it was beginning to lighten. Rain had started, thin and dismal, and it fell on to the ruins of the stronghold with the bleak, bone-numbing chill that said winter's grip would never end.
Besides her, Kal-El's thoughts went back to his time on the crusades - a series of battles so fierce, against the War Lords, that only the best trained knights were chosen. And the knights of many kingdoms fought under the single banner of the One Great Lord. Each knight had his own symbol by which he was known for names were dangerous. Indeed if you knew a man's name, you could own his soul and so, in the crusades, no names were used. This broken man was indeed The Dark Knight - a fierce warrior who had made the darkness his friend. Kal-El had fought by his side, each protecting the other's back in battle. They had shared meals and battle strategy, but had yet to bare their souls to each other. The Dark Knight had once been the proud hearth-companion of King Gordon.
Gordon's men were all gone from here, those blue-garbed, arrogant, reckless, high-hearted warriors whose shouts and boasts and songs had made the rafters ring with noise. They huddled round their now-powerless king in Gotamworth, or held on grimly to whatever of their estates remained to them. Or were dead.
Dead as this wounded stranger would be if Diana had left him.
She and Kal-El unloaded the makeshift raft in the dark. James had got a fire going and they put him beside the fire. Diana straightened her back. She had one panful of hot water and the last of the nettle soap.
She thought he would die.
"Suppose I had better help you with him. He might come round. Happen you could want another man here then."
She stared at the cold, dead-white skin, the darkness of the rough-spiked beard,
the stark lines that made up the face of a warrior. She could see the power in him so clearly, it seared through her bones.
She thought of how the stranger's hand had looked. Clamped like a fist, as though it belonged to someone driven beyond what it was possible to endure.
But he had not given up.
She reached out. Fire crackled behind her, flames sending light shooting up the rough wattle walls. Her head whipped round.
James dropped more wood on the fire. The air swirled. Pitch hissed in the fire. James's shadow wavered and then light raced along the wall as he stuck the torch into the iron bracket. The flame trailed black smoke in the wind and then the door shut.
"May you find healing and peace. May-" She stopped. She was speaking her thoughts aloud, the way she did sometimes because she was so alone.
What was his truth?
He had wanted her to go away, but she had been foolhardy, nay, reckless enough to ignore that warning. If it had been such.
It was too late to heed the warning now. Her hands clenched on the wet wool until they hurt, until the coldness of it seeped into her bones.
There was no reaction.
"Ought to be dead," said O'Brien, "if he is that wet and cold. Wonder why he is not?"
She suppressed the faint glimmer of a smile.
"It cannot be his fate." Or perhaps he would not allow it.
Kal-El's gentle fingers straightened an outstretched knee.
"Looks bad, that."
She and Kal-El worked together. She did not ask why he had decided to help her. She was just grateful that he had. They worked in silence.
All the dirt washed off. It was not the ingrained dirt of someone who had known nothing beyond the forest's fastness all his life. It soaked away, and all that was left was the glowing wealth of his skin. And hardened muscle.
She had applied herbs to his wounds: agrimony, garlic and elder-flower in a salve created by her mother's healer and bound them with clean cloths.
She had not been wrong. The muscles in his arms and his back stood out like cords. He was bigger than Heremod, who had been King Burgred's champion swordsman. The damaged thigh was thickened with saddle muscles. His hands were callused across the palms. She would swear that was from gripping a sword hilt, not a plow handle. There were little purple and silver nicks across the knuckles that came from constant fighting.
He was a warrior.
And for that he had her respect.
But what was he doing here?
Tresstom, Lord of Doma, arrived on a snowy horse at the head of a troop of grim-faced men. He was dressed in a fine woollen tunic of woad blue, with soft, dark leather breeches. The spurs attached to his boot-heels shone like stars. He was a good-looking young man, with fair hair that shone in the sun, and fair skin.
As Queen Hippolyta came to greet him, the gaze he turned upon her was more like a hound's toward its master than a future son-in-law toward his mother-in-law, as he bent over her hand, kissing her fingers and whispering preposterous compliments to her,
Phillipus, the Queen's General, sighed inwardly. If Diana wanted a man who was her slave, then Hippolyta had chosen well.
While he stood back and waited to be introduced, Tresstom was busy looking around for his proposed bride, his puppy-dog eyes full of meaning.
Reyna, who was standing behind Phillipus, murmured something derogatory under her breath. "Now, now, Reyna" Phillipus said in mock reprimand. "We cannot all be creatures of intelligence."
"Phillipus! Where is Diana? Find her and bring her to us - Lord Tresstom of Doma awaits her pleasure."
But it was Diana's closest friend, Jenova who had different news for them all. Diana was not in Themyscira.
Tresstom looked up. His eyes widened at the sight of Jenova talking to Hippolyta and then as quickly narrowed. There was no mistaking the gleam of anger and jealousy in them. He tightened his mouth. In a heartbeat he had turned from a handsome, charming young man into a small boy who has had some bauble taken from him and doesn't know whether to scream or cry.
