Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,57
face, Arlis tried to turn his horse, tried to run.
Some of Jareth’s folk believed in avenging angels. In that moment - watching Elon and Colath - he knew how they’d come to believe such a thing.
Relentless even in the face of their own pain, they fought.
Even with the pain piercing him, Jareth couldn’t help but admire them and then he tried to take a breath. Pain struck in earnest. His body arched in protest as his breath bubbled in his chest. As many times as he’d been kicked, battered and beaten as a boy, he’d never suffered pain like this. Darkness crowded his vision, yet still he watched.
His jaw set, Elon battered through Arlis’s defenders as they fought to defend their Lord, but one after another they fell to his relentless blade, as danced and darted beneath him, giving him room to fight…and then there was only Arlis.
His hands still stinging from Elon’s blows, Arlis couldn’t run, there was no place to go and he knew it.
Desperate, he fought, tried to get past Aerilann’s swords, tried to keep to the side with the wounded shoulder but it was as if the Elf didn’t feel the wound. Any more than Arlis felt Elon’s sword slip past his guard. The punch of it into his chest widened his eyes even as he knew he was done.
Arlis of the High Reaches fell, toppling from the saddle, dead.
Spinning Faer around, Elon shouted, “Your King is dead. Arlis is dead. How many of you wish to follow him to his grave?”
A stunned silence fell over the field of wheat as they watched Arlis tumble to the road, a small puff of dust spraying up around him.
Stillness…
Not even the cry of a bird broke that terrible, pregnant silence.
Elon watched as they disappeared, turned away into the fields of grain, fading into the tall stalks that hadn’t yet begun to truly ripen, to turn silvery gold in the warm sunlight.
Impatiently, he snapped off the end of the arrow in his shoulder, fought the darkness that threatened to close around his vision before swinging a leg over the Faer’s withers to reach Colath’s side.
Colath and Jareth needed him; there was no time for his own pain.
His pale eyes stunned and weary, Colath looked down at him as Elon offered his hand.
Looking at it, Colath sighed. “This will hurt.”
“Indeed,” Elon said, his own shoulder throbbing.
Feeling the echo of pain, Colath mimicked Elon’s gesture and swung a leg over his horse’s withers to drop to the ground.
The small jar as he reached it wasn’t pleasant.
Elon was there to steady him, as always, as they always were for each other.
His vision went gray for a moment and then Colath steadied as his Elven constitution sought to heal him.
“This must go,” Elon said of the arrow, laying his hand lightly on it.
With another sigh, this of resignation, Colath nodded.
Setting himself, sensing the arrowhead buried between Colath’s ribs, Elon took a breath, knowing it would hurt Colath to do and it must be done as the arrow couldn’t stay there. With a quick twist and swift tug, Elon pulled it free.
A freshet of blood burst from the wound.
The pain was sharp, incredible. Colath nearly went to his knees as the pain and loss of blood swamped him. Already, though, his body rushed to heal him.
Carefully, Elon lowered him to the ground.
“Go,” Colath said, “see to Jareth. He still lives.”
Nodding, Elon went to kneel beside the young wizard, looking with horrified dismay at the arrow that pierced him.
The arrow that Jareth had taken for him, to save his life.
That sacrifice pained him but not nearly as much as the arrow pained Jareth, who didn’t have Elven magic to aid his healing.
He didn’t need to ask why Jareth had done it, knowing Jareth shared his vision. He understood why the street urchin from the streets of Doncerric knew justice better than those who had never known injustice.
“Jareth,” Elon said, his throat tight, sensing how tenuous Jareth’s hold on life was.
His friend drowned in his own blood.
Those deep brown eyes opened to look up at him.
So young for a man. As a wizard he would live longer than most of his folk, if he survived this day, this journey.
Carefully, Elon slid his arm beneath Jareth’s shoulders, lifted him up enough to reach the arrow.
“This will hurt,” he warned.
Jareth gave him a look. He coughed, spraying blood across Elon’s tunic and nodded.
To Elon’s amazement there was a touch of apology in the young wizard’s hazed brown eyes.