Simban Page 4

  Except for Aethen. He was the first who had seemed to see her, to love her for who she was. Having him had made her feel special, as if she was worth something because he loved her.

  She knew it was stupid to put her worth in the hands of a male, but she didn’t care. He had told her he loved her, and she thought she’d loved him.

  And when he had left her for Irianna, it was the final proof that she didn’t have anything special.

  She’d tried to deny it, but she could see it in her parents’ eyes. See it in the eyes of her friends, her acquaintances.

  She’d had a chance with Aethen, but she’d lost him because she wasn’t enough. Her sister was a traitor, yes, but she wouldn’t have had the opportunity if Irielle had been . . . more.

  She was never going to take that chance again.

  An angry roar came from just outside, interrupting her musings and snapping her to high alert. Her blood pounded a fierce rhythm in her veins, and she started to feel dizzy. She willed herself not to black out, forced air into her lungs.

  It caught anyway.

  Simban.

  The Ardak must have tracked him here.

  If she didn’t let him in, the Ardak would surely kill him. But letting him in would also make the Ardak aware of her existence.

  She wavered in indecision. Against her better judgment, she cared about Simban, even if he was a cyborg, and even if she didn’t want to.

  He had escaped the Ardaks, just like she had. And for some reason, she didn’t think he’d meant her harm earlier.

  A second roar began, ending in a screech.

  Irielle sank to the floor, expecting to black out. But nothing happened.

  The third roar came from right outside her den, but this time, it was followed by the answering, broken laugh of a cyborg.

  Oh gods, they’re going to fight.

  Chapter Seven

  Simban

  Simban turned away from the elf’s home and faced the enormous bipedal jungle cat, not wanting it to know that he’d been guarding the dwelling from just such an attack.

  He knew he was about to die. The holes from the arrows in his shoulder still weren’t completely healed, so his sword arm would be weak.

  And the fact that his muscles didn’t obey him made him an easy target.

  He just needed to take the Ardak with him so Irielle would be safe.

  His hands had been twitching and his left foot hadn’t been moving properly all day. He reached over his shoulder for his sword, but his grasp faltered as he tried to pull it loose.

  The Ardak stopped several paces away and eyed him, its voice almost curious. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” Simban replied stubbornly, fixing his grip on his sword and finally pulling it free.

  The Ardak took a step backward, its head cocking to the right. “You speak Ardak?”

  “I speak Ardak,” Simban confirmed.

  “How?” The Ardak shook his head as if to clear it. “It doesn’t matter. You should join us.”

  Did the Ardak really think Simban would join him after all the pain they’d put him through? “No. Never.”

  “We can defeat the elves together.”

  Not for the first time, Simban thought about the Ardak obsession with elves. Everyone else thought it was just about the crystals, but he’d never been so sure. “I said no.”

  The Ardak sniffed the air again. “There is something wrong with you, cyborg. I can smell it.”

  That pissed him off. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with him if they’d left him alone. “Fuck you.”

  The Ardak’s expression grew angry and it drew its sword. “General Slash said the army was coming, bringing reinforcements. Followed by the king himself. You’re on the losing side here.”

  “How many?” Simban forced himself to ask.

  “I’m not telling you anything else. Join me or die in this blasted snow.”

  “Death.”

  “Then I will enjoy killing you.”

  They faced each other, circling, Simban’s foot dragging on the ground. He searched the Ardak for weaknesses, but it looked surprisingly healthy. Even its armor was shiny. Had it fought in the underground cave battle?

  Simban may not be functioning correctly, but he was not without weapons. The blue pouch full of powder hung heavy on his belt. It was what he should have reached for first. He tried to inch his hand toward it subtly, but his body didn’t obey him, the motion too large. He ended up opening the bag instead of grasping it.

  The Ardak’s eyes narrowed on the gesture. “What’s in the bag?” It stepped closer and sniffed and then every hair on its body stood on end. “The Sangwah!” Its ears went back, its mouth turned down in horror, and its voice rose until it was almost a shriek. “Where did you get that?”

  For the first time since the invasion, Simban smiled a real smile. It was so foreign to him that he wasn’t even sure he was doing it right—the muscles in his face struggled to obey the command. He didn’t bother to answer. Let the Ardak wonder how he got it.

  Let him be afraid.

  The Ardak’s eyes narrowed with hatred. “You think you have the upper hand?” He spat. “You don’t. You see the sky. The Red Death is here, and whoever is left alive will be killed. Slowly. Painfully.”

  Then the Ardak pounced.

  Simban jerked his knife up, trying to block the Ardak’s sword. He was successful, but the force knocked him over into the snow.

  He stabbed the Ardak twice while its sword was locked between them, and it screamed, jumping up to get clear of his knife, baring its fangs.

  Simban didn’t have time to rise or get his sword. He used his knife to slit the bag at his waist, throwing a bit of white powder into the Ardak’s face as it brought its sword down.

  The Ardak screamed in pain, a horrible roaring yowl, dropping the sword and grabbing for its eyes with one paw-like hand, the other sinking its claws deep into Simban’s abdomen.

  Simban yelled in pain and thrust his knife into the Ardak’s side as it tried to spit the powder and wipe it away with the snow.

  It lunged for him again, and too late, Simban realized that the slashing of the Ardak’s claws had torn the whole bag free from his belt.

  The Ardak grabbed it and ran for the forest, yowling and limping, still snarling in pain.

  Simban tried to move, but agony pierced him and he realized how badly he was hurt. He surveyed the damage to his abdomen. The Ardak had accomplished his mission, and hadn’t even bothered to use its sword. His stomach was torn open in large gashes, and so was his shoulder.

  But the worst part was that his bag of powder was gone, any that had fallen out was rapidly dissolving in the falling snow.

  He wanted to call Irielle for help, but he couldn’t make his voice work. As the blood leached from his body, the cold seeped in.

  But then the sensation shifted, and he began to feel warm, relaxed for the first time in as long as he could remember.

  Death by cold.

  Others had said it felt like going to sleep, and it did. At least the pain would be gone. But he didn’t know if he had killed the Ardak or if Irielle would be safe. He hoped the powder would kill it, but he had the sneaking suspicion that if it took as long as the Red Death, the Ardak could still be around for a good long while. Almost a year, in fact.

  His trembling had completely stopped, and he closed his eyes, bringing her image to the front of his visual cortex.

  Goodbye, small elf with flaming hair.

  It was his last thought before the darkness took him.

  Chapter Eight

  Irielle

  Irielle scrunched herself up in the corner, half wishing for windows, for a way to see what was happening outside. But even as she wished it, she knew the windows would offer a way for them to get at her. There was a reason why she had designed the den to be almost airtight.

  There were low rumbles as they’d talked to each other. Then the clanking of swords and cursing and yowling.

  She cringed and gnashed her teeth, wanting to help Simban, but knowing she was helpless to do so. Nothing more than a mouse hiding from much bigger, stronger predators.

  Finally, she wept.

  The fight had seemed to last forever before the sounds fell away.

  And somehow the quiet was even worse.

  Except for the shivering of her limbs and the grinding of her teeth, there had been no movement, no sound for several minutes.

  Her fingers shook as she hesitated just inside the entrance. Finally, she asked the trees to part slightly. There was nothing but darkness.

  She widened the hole a little and gasped. Simban was lying just outside on the ground, bleeding profusely into the snow.

  The Ardak was nowhere to be found.

  She peered out in all directions, as much as she could see from the tiny hole. But there was nothing.

  I’ll just open the door quickly and grab him.

  She could shut it if the Ardak appeared. At least that was what she told herself as she opened the hole farther and ventured out into the snow.

  There was a wide spray of blood and a trail going off into the trees. So the Ardak was injured, too. It was a lot of blood. Maybe it was even dying.

  She snuck from her hiding spot, her steps light. Why was he right there, in front of her home? The thought stopped her.

  Was he . . . protecting me?

  Guilt suffused her at the thought. She had left him out there to fight by himself. Well, she wasn’t going to leave him there to die. After glancing around again quickly, she bent over him. His breathing was faint, almost nonexistent, and the wounds in his abdomen were deep. He was gravely injured. If she didn’t help him immediately, get him warm and stop the bleeding, he would die.

 
“Dammit,” she said, echoing his earlier curse words. She grabbed him under his arms and began to pull. He didn’t move at first, but with a large heave, she got him in motion.

  She tried to drag him all the way inside without stopping, but the bitterly cold air caught in her lungs. She had to stop with his feet still in the doorway, her hacking cough doubling her over. She picked up his legs and shoved them inside, closing the trees and praying the Ardak hadn’t seen them.

  Although if he came back he would probably see the trail of blood coming to the door. And knowing the Ardak, he would simply hack away at the trees until he broke through to her.

  If she was at her full strength, she would go outside and fix it. But she’d be lucky to help Simban at all at this rate.

  She tried to pull him closer to the hearth, which was futile. He was so enormous that with his head pressed against one wall, his feet were still pressing against the other.

  So, she left him where he was and added moss and bark to the fire, encouraging it to rise.

  He was so cold.

  Other than warming him, she didn’t even know if she could help him without her magic. She’d been a healer once, but the Ardaks had stolen that from her.

  Her eyes fell on Simban.

  Just as they stole his life from him.

  No. That was unacceptable, so she straightened her spine and tried to remember what she could about healing without magic.

  She took off his leather armor, baring his torso, feeling a surge of guilt at the two arrow wounds in his shoulder that weren’t healed yet.

  He probably had trouble lifting his sword because of me.

  She examined the gashes in his abdomen, knowing only one way to stop the bleeding. The tight compress would be painful, might even wake him, but it would help and maybe his broken computer thing would help to do the rest.

  She cleaned the wounds as best she could and then grabbed his shirt and her fur blanket and took out several seams, her hands shaking. She fashioned a compress by tying together two long strips of fur with the shirt, using reinforced knots that wouldn’t break under pressure. Then she placed one fur on his abdomen and slid the other beneath him, bringing it out on the other side.

  She sat beside him and braced her legs against his chest and hip, then took a deep breath and let it out as she pulled the furs as tightly as she could. He didn’t move as she tied them together, which wasn’t a good sign.

  He didn’t wake as she rolled him this way and that, or when she ran a cloth over his skin, cleansing the deep wounds in his shoulder with melted snow. And he didn’t wake as she bound them as tightly as she could.

  Although she had very little magic and she didn’t have any crystals, she put one hand over his heart and one his forehead anyway, performing the healer’s ritual of asking the earth’s energy to go into him, to make him stronger for his own healing. She’d been taught to sing when she did it, so she sang a quiet song that she’d often sung to herself in the Ardak prison.

  When she finished, she covered him with the fur blanket, which was one row smaller than it had been.

  Exhaustion overwhelmed her, and as she closed her eyes, a cat screamed in the distance.

  Damn. Still alive. All of that for nothing.

  Yet, with her cyborg here, surprisingly, she didn’t feel dizzy when she heard it. Maybe that was why she hadn’t blacked out earlier. Something about Simban made her feel safe.

  At a loss for space in the tiny domicile, shivering with the encroaching cold, she lay down next to Simban so they could share the blanket.

  Hopefully, he wouldn’t kill her when he woke.

  Chapter Nine

  Simban

  Simban awakened from a deep sleep, his mind muddled. His hands came in front of his face, and he remembered he’d been fighting an Ardak, had fallen in the snow. But he was warm, and his wounds didn’t hurt.

  Where?

  Then something warm snuggled into his side. No, someone warm. He glanced down and realized it was her. The beautiful elf he’d escaped the Ardak garbage pit with. It took his broken mind a moment to come up with her name.

  Irielle.

  At first, she gazed up at him, her eyes drowsy with sleep. Her features were tiny, her ears pointed. Her long golden-red hair fanned out around her shoulders.

  He could tell when she fully woke, because her entire body stiffened. Her eyes opened and she instantly became alert. Her gaze glowed with fire he knew was golden brown, but he couldn’t see the color using his night vision. It bothered him, so he blinked it away.

  “Can you see me?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he whispered back. Still half-asleep, he brought his hand up to cup her face, running his thumb over her lower lip. Golden brown. Her eyes were golden brown. For the first time, he saw them in startling color. Flecked with gold, they glowed with the slight fire he’d come to associate with the elves. They were the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. Beautiful eyes. “Good aim.” He rotated his shoulder. It was almost healed.

  She pulled away, her tongue darting out to lick her lip nervously.

  It briefly touched his thumb, and a shiver went through him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, too mesmerized by her beauty to try. Then he realized he was inching closer to her and pulled back.

  There was no way she would want him. His chest tightened with the knowledge, his thoughts bitter. Other women didn’t want him, which he’d seen very clearly in Renwyn. And even if she did want him, she deserved better.

  Anyone is better than a broken cyborg.

  He cleared his throat, and she started, giving him a puzzled look.

  “Sorry about shooting you. I didn’t recognize you at first. Are you thirsty?” Her words were soft.

  He nodded in assent, and she rose, pushing her long hair back over her shoulders.

  “You saved me?” he asked, a frown tugging at his brow as he examined the room for a second. A fur blanket covered his torso, beautifully pieced together from several furs. A few clay plates and cups, a sleeping pallet. There wasn’t much, but each piece was carefully made. She handed him a large stone bowl of water and a smaller cup.

  “Yes. I do have some strength.” Her lips quirked up at the corners. “At least I do now. I wasn’t at my best the first time we met.”

  He stilled. “In the Ardak trash.”

  She turned back to him. “Yes. In the trash pit. I’d lost most of my magic. It still hasn’t returned completely.” She held out the items, and he took the cup and pitcher from her, attempting to fill the cup with water.

  But his right hand wouldn’t obey him, wouldn’t tip the pitcher. It shook, fighting him as he tried to make it pour at the same time as he held the cup still beneath it.

  After a moment, she placed her hand on his wrist, stilling his shaking right hand. Then she took the cup to hold it steady so he could pour the water.

  He could feel his face go red with shame.

  No. He was not normal. And she deserved more than a cyborg who couldn’t control his actions half the time. And who couldn’t speak the other half of the time.

  He turned away, hiding his face.

  He didn’t want to take the cup. Didn’t want to stay here with her, to show her that he was broken. This was why he’d left Renwyn.

  He’d thought finding her would make it better, but somehow, it just made everything worse. She was so delicate, so graceful. At best, he would be a bumbling oaf beside her, and at worst, he could really hurt her if he couldn’t control his body. If he fell on her, he could crush her.

  So, he made a decision. He would tell her about the Ardaks, make sure she was all right for the winter, and then he would leave. He wouldn’t inflict himself upon her anymore. Or torture himself with thoughts of things that could never be.

  Irielle gently touched his shoulder and then placed the cup in his hand. He didn’t want to be rude, so he raised it to his lips.

  “What the Ardaks did to you, it wasn’t your fault.”

  He snorted. It didn’t matter whose fault it was. What was done was done. And he was broken.

  “I don’t have all my magic back,” she continued, “but what I do have tells me that you’re whole inside. It’s something about the computer thing that isn’t working with your mind.”

  His eyes pricked. She understood. He turned back toward her. “How do you know?”