At the same time that Ash was noticing the group of families in the middle of the road, one of the raiders nearby noticed them as well. He broke away from his group, instead turning to grab Zelda by the arm. Zelda shrieked, and tried to pull away, but had little leverage to do so while she still held the baby. The girl at her knees screamed and cried, still clinging to her.
Orin brandished his sword at the man, looking quite uncertain of himself but full of enough fury to make up for it, and Ash chanted. But before either of them could act, Drizzt appeared and neatly executed the man in two strikes. Zelda screamed again, drawing quickly away from the dead man as he collapsed.
Six pairs of eyes turned to stare at Drizzt. Orin turned his sword toward him now, as Drizzt lowered his own. Drizzt turned to Ash, waiting for her to speak for him.
"We can barricade the meeting house," Ash said quickly, choosing not to acknowledge the stares, or the questions they held. The meeting house was the only building in the village that was made of stone, and therefore the only one that wouldn't easily burn. "You can hide there."
Now half of the eyes shifted to her. Orin's, and the children's, were still on Drizzt. Ash was not confident that any of them would follow her. But none of them protested, either.
"Come," Ash said, and turned to guide them toward the building. There was a murmur of argument behind her, but then she heard footsteps hurrying after her.
Inside the meeting house, it was dark and quiet. The group followed Ash inside, and all of them dropped their voices to whispers, as if urged to do so by the silence of the building itself. Even the children had quieted their cries, and now only sniffled softly. Drizzt came in last, closing the door behind him. He looked on-edge, lacking his usual relaxed confidence, in a way that made Ash's eyes linger on him. He looked eager to leave. Ash gave him a questioning look. He met her eyes briefly, then looked away.
Ash shoved the sword she'd picked up into Elva's hand, since he was still carrying a shovel. He did not look like he knew how to hold it properly any more than Ash did.
"I don't understand any of this," Sharlin said, her voice hushed. She slid her arm through Elva's crooked elbow, more for emotional than physical support, it seemed. "Who are they? Why are you here?"
"Does it matter?" Ash said defensively. "They're trying to kill you, and I'm not."
"Of course it matters. For all we know, you're the one who led them here."
Ash's heart sank a little. She already knew how little they thought of her, and still it hurt. "Why would I do that?"
"Because—" Sharlin faltered, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "Because of...what happened to you."
Kala shuffled at Sharlin's side. Her voice came at barely above a whisper. "Momma, she wants to help."
"Hush."
Drizzt touched Ash's arm, and she looked up.
"There are many more still outside. I will go out the back door and circle around behind them," he said to her softly. Then he looked up, and frowned at something in the shadows at the other end of the room.
A figure, half hidden behind a stack of boxes at the back of the building, was peering out at them. It took Ash a few moments to realize who it was through the dark.
"Rainer?" she said, in disbelief at his appearance and immediately infuriated by his mere presence, as she always was.
Rainer looked out at all of them. For a moment, Ash saw naked fear on his face. Then, when he was sure that none among them were strangers, he cleared his throat and stood up straight. He fixed Ash with a stern glare.
She could have commented on the obvious-that he'd chosen to hide in the dark while everyone else, people with children in tow even, were out fighting-but she decided not to. Drizzt also chose to ignore him, instead turning to find something with which to bar the door. He managed to hide the flash of anger on his face from the others, but not from her.
The rest of them, Orin especially, shot Rainer disapproving looks. Perhaps someone else wouldn't have been judged as harshly for running. But this was Rainer Kendrick, pillar of the community. He looked uneasy under their scrutiny. He wasn't used to being judged. Ash could see frustration simmering below the surface of his calm face. He turned a sharp eye on her, the perfect scapegoat.
"So it's you who's brought this upon us?" he said to her.
Ash gave him a withering look. "What do you think? Is that why I'm hiding in here, away from them?"
He glanced at Drizzt, who was now leaning against the wall beside the door, eyes closed, despite what he'd said about going out the back. There was something really wrong with him. Ash approached him, reaching out, but held back at the last moment, afraid of interrupting whatever he was trying to do to calm himself. She started pushing a table in front of the door to further block it from invasion.
"And you've brought your bewitched drow back to terrorize us as well, I see," Rainer continued. He had looked a little nervous at Drizzt's presence before, but now he had judged Drizzt to be less than threatening, just as he had the first time he'd captured him. Rainer would never fight someone he didn't think was weaker than him. Ash had the sudden urge to spit at him-not that that was unusual.
"He's not bewitched."
"You just can't leave us alone," Rainer said, ignoring the comment. "We tried to make you leave, and you keep coming back." His eyes were narrowed in bare disgust that was rare on his face. "You'll do anything to try to get at us, won't you?"
Ash bent to shove a heavy wooden trunk against the door in the space under the table. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said tightly, not looking up.
"You do know," he said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall. "You've always been jealous of me, since we were children. You're angry that you don't fit in the way I do. You're angry that you don't know how to be normal. I can't help that people don't like you, or that your family passed early. It isn't our fault you're alone."
Out of nowhere she felt angry tears pricking at her eyes. She closed her eyes, biting her tongue. Nothing he said was untrue, and she hated him for it.
"And since you can't have what we have, you want to destroy it instead. You want to punish all of us for being happy you're gone. And now here you are, with your magic and your bespelled servant. Are you happy now? Do you feel strong? Is it enough to make up for what you've lost?"
"Rainer, shut up."
She'd nearly yelled it. Rainer stared at her, unmoved, but a little of his confidence seemed to filter out of him. His eyes shifted to the others in the room, who were all watching the exchange closely. None of them seemed moved to back either of them.
Abruptly, prompted by the shouting, Zelda's daughter, Anna, started crying again, and that set off the baby soon after. Piercing, grating cries filled the room-the kind that hit in just the right part of the ear to make you wince.
Drizzt covered his ears with hands, shaking his head. "Make them stop," he whispered to Ash.
Ash turned to Zelda, but the woman was already shushing and rocking the baby as Orin picked up the other young girl.
Still leaning against the wall by the door, Drizzt had stopped moving and stood very stiffly, hands pressed over his ears, his eyes closed. Ash went to him as the children continued to cry. She rested her hands on his arms, to remind him she was there if nothing else. She didn't know what to do. She hated seeing him this way. She wanted to let him be, to give him time to recover. But they hadn't the time. The shouts and clangs from outside seemed distant behind the door, but she knew they were all too close. Kelle and Erith couldn't hold them off alone forever.
"Drizzt, relax. Everything is alright," she whispered, except that was a lie. Very little was alright, at the moment.
He shook his head, and didn't reply. Each breath came heavily. His eyes were squinted shut against some inner torment. After a long moment, he opened them to look at her.
"That spell I told you not to use on me," he said.
Ash stared at him. It took her a moment to understand what he was asking.
"The...the one that—"
"Use it."
She shook her head.
"Please."
There was such pain and desperation in his voice that she stopped. She could not withhold from him the only thing that might be able to free him from this, no matter how much personal discomfort it gave her.
She had never thought of the spell as anything other than predatory and invasive. The idea that it could be used to help its target was something that had not occurred to her. The responsibility of the task weighed on her. But a part of her warmed at the thought that he trusted her enough to place his very mind in her hands.
"Look me in the eyes," she whispered.
He looked at her. He had asked for her help, she reminded herself as she began whispering the chant. Her lips and hands moved in sync, soft and quiet. The wails from the children behind her seemed to fade as she immersed herself in the spell. Drizzt watched her with a fearful, hopeful expression.
She rested a hand on his as she completed the chant, and she felt the spell snap into place as she touched his skin.
His eyes calmed. Slowly he lowered his hands from his ears, unbothered by the whimpers and whines of the children nearby or the fighting outside. His eyes bored into her, his gaze never wavering. She saw a muscle in his cheek twitch, like some part of him was still fighting the spell out of instinct. But he did not break out of the spell like he had last time.
"You're alright," she whispered. She hadn't let go of his hand. She squeezed it. To her surprise, he squeezed back.
"Those things are in the past," she said, not knowing exactly what 'those things' were. "You're alright now. We're all going to be alright." She searched his face for some indication that he believed her. She saw nothing, and she could not be sure what that meant.
"We need your help," she went on. "We have to keep fighting. Can you?"
"Yes," he said, calmly and clearly. Ash was taken aback. She'd never heard someone speak to her while under the spell. She nodded once. Reluctantly, she let go of his hand.
"Don't get hurt," she added. If she made it a command, he would be sure to obey, wouldn't he?
He paused, as if waiting to be sure that she had no further instructions. His gaze lingered on her a little longer than should have been comfortable, but somehow it didn't feel as off as it had before. His eyes were cool and unnaturally calm, but she could still see him there behind them. He was a willing participant in the spell, not a trapped victim. She wondered how much that fact changed the effect of the spell.
He turned away from her, his movements deliberate and precise. The group in the middle of the room quickly parted as he walked through them toward the back door. Rainer stumbled over a box in his hurry to get out of the way. Drizzt ignored all of them. He drew his swords and shouldered the door open a crack, then peered out for a moment before slipping outside. The door shut quietly behind him.
Ash's heart was thudding in her chest. It occurred to her now, after the fact, that there was much she didn't understand about how this spell worked. She didn't know if it was possible to do it to someone without hurting them. She didn't know how much of his own intelligence and free will remained while under it. Would he endanger himself somehow, knowingly or unknowingly? Would he make different judgements than he would have otherwise? Would he come to and realize he'd done something he hadn't meant to? Maybe she should have given him more specific directions. Maybe what she'd just done had been entirely irresponsible.
"I knew it…"
Ash turned to look at Rainer, scowling. He looked a little disapproving, a little surprised, and just the right amount of disgusted. The kind of expression that made you seem appropriately correct and righteous without showing an incriminating amount of personal joy about it. The kind of expression he always wore when he was judging her.
"I knew you had some kind of spell over him," he said, looking disbelieving nonetheless. "You bewitched him into being your slave? Are there no depths of immorality that you won't stoop to?"
Ash looked tiredly at him before shaking her head and turning away from him. What point was there in arguing? She wasn't staying in the village after this, anyway. It didn't matter what they thought of her, as long as they cooperated long enough for them all to get out of this fight.
"He's not bewitched," Zelda said under her breath, perhaps only to Orin. She whispered something else, too softly for Ash to hear. Ash glanced over at her. The children were quieter now. Zelda still bounced the baby idly, the way parents do without really thinking about it, as if she'd half forgotten he was there. Suddenly Ash remembered that she was still wearing her stolen cloak.
"Oh..." Ash said, sheepish. After a moment's hesitation, she unlatched the cloak and handed it back to Zelda. "I only meant to borrow it," she said with an apologetic shrug.
Zelda looked at her uncertainly before accepting it, then bent to drape the cloak over Anna's small shoulders. The thick fabric puddled around the girl's feet as she snuggled into it.
Ash went to follow Drizzt out the back door. She intentionally didn't look at Rainer as she passed by him, though she could feel his eyes following her.
Elva cleared his throat. "What do we do now?" he said, his voice quavering only slightly. Ash turned to look at him. He looked back. His sword shifted nervously in his hands, but he looked braver than Ash had ever seen him.
He was asking her, not Rainer. As if it hadn't even occurred to him that it should be any other way. The rest of them were looking to her in a similarly expectant fashion. They still looked more confused than angry. She straightened.
"Nothing," she said. "Stay here, and keep each other safe. Watch the windows and don't let them get in. I'm going back outside."
Kala brandished a long stick, which Ash hadn't realized until just then that she'd been carrying. "I'm gonna whack them with this if they try to get in," the girl said, quiet but filled with anger. "Knock them out."
Ash couldn't hold back a smile. "Good," she said.
She wanted to say something to them all, but she didn't know what. She didn't know what she was feeling. There were too many questions that demanded answers, too many harsh feelings remaining, too much uncertainty and mistrust-and she wanted too much, in that moment, to forget all of those things, because she knew, deep down, that she had never stopped caring for all of them. But the things that had happened couldn't be undone. Things were different now.
They were her people, and they were not. Marwood was her home, and it wasn't.
"Good luck," was all she said in the end, and it felt inadequate, but she couldn't manage anything more. She turned and left, closing the door behind her.
Outside, there was darkness again. Ash slipped around the edge of the building toward the road, keeping low to avoid stray torch lights. The sounds of fighting had quieted somewhat due to the fact that a large number of the raiders now lay dead, their bodies strewn across the road. A number of the bodies wore familiar faces. Her eyes halted on two familiar figures lying in the grass across the road. Talen and Oskar. They still held swords in their hands. They'd died fighting.
In other places, the unmistakable signs of powerful spells had been left behind, and Ash regretted not having been there to see them cast. A broad black mark scorched the road, shriveling brush and blackening grass, in an odd pattern that she sensed was not natural. Kelle herself was nowhere to be found, and neither was Erith. Perhaps some of the fighting had gone into the woods.
A little further down the road, she spotted a jumble of dark figures. She could just make out Holly and Reyna standing in the doorway of their house, trying to hold off a group of raiders. Ash started toward them, but then another figure appeared from out of the darkness and cut down two of the attackers from behind in a few quick strikes. Drizzt.
The women in the doorway took a moment to look shocked before cutting down another man when he turned toward Drizzt. Ash watched them fight in tandem for a few moments-until she was sure that he was still alright without her help. She had worried that the spell would cloud his mind, make him careless. If anything, the spell seemed to have renewed his vigor and focus.
The flickering of a bright flame caught her eye. She turned to look just as someone threw a lit lantern onto the roof of a house. Her breath caught in her throat.
Her house.
"Hey!" she shouted, outraged past reason. "Stop!"
The delicate glass of the lantern shattered, and flames burst across the thatch. Ash chanted as she ran. There were four of them standing outside the house. One of them turned toward her as she approached. Ash spat the final word of a spell, thrusting out an arm as if to physically push the spell. The movements always seemed to help—whether that was merely a psychological effect or an actual casting technique, she wasn't certain.
The woman who'd turned toward her had not even finished raising her weapon before she was flattened against the wall of the house. The force of it, all directed in a narrow band toward a single person, was strong enough that Ash heard something crack, and she couldn't be sure whether it was armor or bone.
Someone else raised a bow as the flame spread and the edges of the thatch began to curl and blacken. Ash ducked behind a rain barrel beside the house next door. She heard the hard thunk of an arrow hitting the opposite side of it.
Quickly she recited the words of the next spell, her movements and speech practiced to perfection. She spared a fraction of a second to feel a little pride in herself before she stood up and released the spell. A blast of wind shot sideways, making her opponents stumble in its wake. An arrow, aimed at her, flew up and then drifted harmlessly sideways in the wind.
"Get out of my village," Ash called, shouting to be heard over the gusts. The raiders exchanged a look, then raised their swords and advanced as a group, calling her bluff. Ash stiffened, and considered her next move. Her eyes darted up to the roof, now blazing bright orange and gold and belching dark smoke. The flames had spread halfway across it now, and were crawling down the walls below. The wind was not enough to put it out. There would be no saving it.
A dull sense of helpless loss filled her. It was a feeling she had had too often, lately. The house was one of the last remaining pieces of tangible proof that she and her family had ever been a part of the village at all. All their things were gone, thanks to Rainer. Now their home was gone, too.
At least, she supposed, that meant that Rainer couldn't have it. The thought comforted her a good deal more than she would have expected.
As the raiders cautiously advanced on her, she raised her arms. They slowed, bracing themselves for whatever was coming. Ash paused, a little regretful. No amount of bracing would protect them from this.
She brought her arms down, directing a powerful force against the corner of the house where the roof met the wall. The weakened roof split and broke into a thousand splinters, its wood frame bared, and the wall tipped sideways-slowly, and then very quickly. The raiders jumped when she moved, but didn't realize that the danger was coming from above until it was too late.
The wall collapsed over them.
The breath went out of her and her vision clouded with black spots. The spell had taken all her strength. Her head spun and her vision darkened, and for a moment she wasn't sure whether she was still standing.
Then she felt her legs wobbling beneath her, and her vision slowly returned. She took long breaths, bent half over, as she tried not to faint. Her head spun again whenever she moved, so she tried to stay still.
Covering her nose and mouth with her shirt to block the smoke, she peered up at the jumbled pile of blackened beams and thatch. There was no more movement from beneath.
The roar of the blaze covered the sound of the person approaching behind her, and she did not notice them until a hand was in her hair and the cold-and, disturbingly, wet-edge of a blade pressed against her throat. Panic ripped through her and she struggled against the grip of her assailant. They pulled her hair hard, jerking her head back, and she gasped in pain. The blade continued to sit precariously against her skin rather than biting in.
"Quiet down or I'll gut you right now," growled a too-close voice.
Ash stopped moving. She tried to summon some magical energy-any shred of it that she might have left. Even enough for another light spell might have given her a chance of escape. But there was nothing.
The man behind her yanked her hair again, pulling her sideways, and she realized that they were not alone. Another man and woman stood close by, their own blades at the ready.
"You get to live for another few minutes," the man behind her said. "If you behave." He pushed her toward the woods with a jerk, pulling her hair and scraping her skin with the blade. She winced, and started walking. The blade was loose in the man's hand, and he seemed perfectly willing to bleed her with it. She had no doubt that he would do it if she shouted for help. Even if she did, she wasn't sure anyone would hear her. They were at the edge of the row of houses, away from anyone who might have been able to help her.
And even if someone had been nearby-would anyone but Drizzt put their own lives at risk for her?
She glanced around, as much as the hand grasping her hair would allow. No one else was nearby. Distantly she could still hear Drizzt and the others fighting, but they were too far to have noticed her. There was no one to aid her.
Swallowing tightly against the metal on her throat, she followed them into the trees. Casting one last glance sideways, she saw that her capture had not gone completely unnoticed, after all. Zelda peered out from the cracked-open doorway of the meeting house, looking in Ash's direction. For one brief moment, their eyes met. Ash's lips parted, wanting to say something. Then the man behind her shoved her forward again, and her gaze was torn away from the village.