Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [93]
It was Erun. His son.
"-saule!" Amira finished, and from behind him Gyaidun felt the air ignite.
"No!" Gyaidun threw himself between them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Endless Wastes
The wind died near dawn, but the snow kept falling as if Auril meant to bury the world. From the shelter of their camp-at the bottom of a washed-out gully where straggly bushes and long grass sagged over a lip of earth, offering a sort of half roof-Amira watched it come down. Under different circumstances she might have found it beautiful, but now she knew it would be waist deep by midmorning.
Jalan was still asleep, wrapped in thick blankets beside her. She resisted touching him, fearing she might wake him. The belkagen had done all he could to heal him. Jalan's body would have to do the rest. Looking down at him, Amira's heart slowed but seem to beat with twice its usual strength. She had her son back. His cheeks were sunken, dark circles ringed his eyes, his skin had a gray pallor she didn't like, and his breathing was strained, but he was alive and he was here. Right now, that was all that mattered.
Amira heard footsteps wading through the snow, and then the belkagen ducked under the overhanging foliage and stepped around the small fire.
"How is he?" she asked.
"Gyaidun?"
"Yes."
"He'll live." The belkagen sat. His skin looked brittle as parchment and his shoulders sagged under his cloak. "Healing the damage from your staff took most of my strength and wisdom. I'll have to rest before I see to his wrist and other injuries."
Amira opened her mouth then shut it again. She was torn between guilt and anger. Battered as Gyaidun had been in the fight, it had been her strike aimed at the sorcerer that had done the most damage. After it had struck Gyaidun in the back, the sorcerer had fled, fading into the deeper darkness of the storm. Gyaidun had lain unmoving in the snow, his torn shirt smoking and the flesh underneath steaming. She'd run to him, finding him breathing but little else. Part of her had wanted to pursue her foe, to finish this once for all, but there was no sign of him.
Looking down at Gyaidun, Amira had known he would die without help-and might well die with it. So she'd used her spell to take them both back to the belkagen. Even after the old elf's first attempt to heal him, Gyaidun had been almost insensate, tears streaming down his cheeks, raving and screaming. Amira had seen wounded men, some on the verge of death, trying to hold in their life's blood as they watched it pouring between their fingers, and she'd understood Gyaidun's cries were from no physical pain. She'd known others like him in the war. He could've swallowed hot iron with a smile. No, this had been something deeper, the cry of anguish, of a broken heart.
The belkagen had poured a syrupy concoction down Gyaidun's throat. A shudder had run through him, followed by a violent bout of coughing. Gyaidun had looked up at her, and his eyes seemed haunted. He told the old elf what he'd seen. Amira had been standing nearby, and she heard it all.
"Erun!" he said. "It was Erun. My son! My son, my son…"
"Erun?" said the belkagen. "That thing had Erun?"
"No!" Gyaidun grabbed the belkagen's shoulders. "It was Erun. That thing was my son. My son!"
That had shocked Amira as much as anyone-and filled her with a cold dread. So much of the past several tendays- Jalan's abduction, that damned sorcerer's dogged pursuit of him, the vision in Hro'nyewachu-was beginning to come together in her mind.
Now, with Gyaidun off somewhere else, she voiced her concerns to the belkagen.
"Gyaidun's son…"
"Erun," said the belkagen, his voice thick. "Erun is-was his name."
"Erun. He was taken, just like Jalan?"
"Fifteen years ago."
"Out there…" said Amira. She stopped, gathering her thoughts. "In the darkness, in the storm, Gyaidun was… beyond hurt. I've seen the carnage of battle, and I've seen few men take a beating like that and still remain on their feet. But Gyaidun was still fighting. He must have