“Lucy!” came the whisper from just below my small hiding space. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and I felt the weight of sleep-deprivation, thanks mostly to Jamie scaring the smack out of me with his Jekyll and Hyde nonsense in the night.
I lifted my head and realized it was no longer pounding. “Jamie?”
“Yeah. Look, I’ve got to get you down so we can catch up with the others. Are you okay?”
I wanted to cry at the sight of him. Tor was climbing down on his own. “Yeah. I’m fine. Let me hand you Henry Mancini first.” I lowered my puppy a few feet to the invisible man, grateful when he was gently taken from my hands without a struggle.
“Okay, just jump. I’ll catch you.”
I whisper-yelled at him, afraid to break the quiet that was falling over the early night. “Are you kidding me right now? I know your arm’s torn up. There’s no way you can catch me! Mine’s barely usable.”
His answer was remorseful. “Oh, Lucy! I’m sorry! And I knew, I just forgot in the heat of battle. Laplanding’s not exactly a common thing. Are you okay?”
“I’m exactly as okay as you are, minus the freak-out I’ve got going on up here. I’m fine, but I’m not jumping on you in your condition. Move back.” I peeked around the rock and saw that the dwarves and boars were a long way off, running in the opposite direction. If I was quick, no one would see me. I turned around and lowered my feet from the platform, my fear of heights pinging my confidence, but not crippling it. If I fell, on the other hand, an actual crippling would be something to be dealt with. I froze for a second, the fear gripping my knuckles and shaking their hold on the rock. I really hated heights and the whole falling from them thing.
I breathed anew when Jamie’s bloody but strong hands wrapped around my hips and lowered me gently to the ground. He scooped Henry Mancini back up and held my hand with his scraped one, ensuring that we were both invisible. Tor gripped Jamie’s elbow to remain hidden from the enemy.
“Are you alright?” Jamie inquired.
I gave him a look to let him know he’d just asked me that. “How about you stop asking me, so I won’t have to lie to you.” My hands were shaking from adrenaline and the pain from my open injuries. “Let’s find the others. Jens?”
Jamie nodded, still struggling to keep himself steady. “He’s okay. I sent him further up the mountain path with Alrik and all them. A little banged up, but that’s nothing. He’s a better fighter than I.”
“Let’s go,” Tor insisted, starting us toward our destination.
Jamie held tight to my hand, his nerves making him squeeze my fingers tighter than was comfortable. I stroked his arm to calm him down. “I saw you fighting, Jamie. You were heroic.”
Jamie motioned to the path that was a few feet ahead. “The others aren’t far. Let’s sit for a minute. I need to clear something up.” He turned. “Tor, can you duck along the brush until you reach the bend? I need to speak with Lucy.”
“Be quick.” Tor took Henry Mancini to the others, crouching the whole way and looking, well, kinda comical.
I scrutinized the horizon to be certain we had a wide margin of escape. The enemy was set on pursuing away from us, getting smaller by the minute across the stadium-sized field with a pile of bones from the torn-down portal in the center. I slumped to the ground next to Jamie, holding him upright as he sagged against the mountain and me. “What’s up?”
“I don’t want to get married either.” His brown curly hair was windswept with splashes of blood in it. He was sweaty and cut and looked like he needed a good nap. “You told Tor you didn’t want to marry. I understand. It’s nothing to do with you. You’re lovely. Absolutely everything Jens said you would be. For a while I was certain he was exaggerating your beauty and strength, but he was not. Even so…”
“You’re in love with Britta.” Before he could confirm or deny, I rushed to say my piece. “That’s good! I like Britta. If we’re stuck together, I don’t mind spending lots of time with her. She’s great.”
He smiled in that patronizing way adults did when I talked about Martin Luther King’s ideals. “If only the world existed as you see it. I do love her, yes.” He let out a nervous cheer for his bravery. “I never permit myself to say it out loud, but I do. I’m promised to Freya, though.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said, not wanting to hear his millions of ways things with Britta couldn’t work. “I can fix it, I think. But we’ve got to get to the others. I know I look awesome, but if one of those rhinoceroses comes this way, I’m useless.”
“Gullin are wild boars that belong to the Nightdwarves. They actually glow underground so to be used as a light for them when needed. Not rhinoceros. Boar.”
I laughed at his explanation. “Really? You don’t say. Come on, Hercules. Up you get.” I stood and extended my less banged up arm to him and hoisted him up.
We walked, leaning on each other like coherent zombies until we reached their camp higher up on the mountain, out of visibility of the Nightdwarves and their pack of yellow rhinoceroses. I tugged on Jamie’s shirtsleeve and placed my finger to my lips. I wanted to see them interact without us for a moment. I knew better than to sneak up on someone with an axe. I just wanted to watch Jens as he’d watched me for so long.
Jamie observed me staring at Jens for two whole minutes before he turned his attention to Britta. The group was discussing what they should do if we did not turn up shortly. Jens was in the conversation, but not. He was on the outskirts of the cluster, looking right past us for me. Anxiety was clear on his face. The emotion welled up in me, seeing how much he cared. Of course, I knew I was his job, but I could see with my own eyes it was more than that. He was pacing as he half-listened to the others.
Henry Mancini finally gave us away. Jens scooped him up and whipped his head around to find us. “Jamie?”
Jamie dropped my hand with a triumphant grin. “You look so worried, brother. I had no idea you cared so much for my well-being.”
Jens gripped the back of Jamie’s neck and they did that two-kiss Italian brother thing I really loved. Then his eyes fell on me. “Lucy! What have you done?” He picked up my bloody arm while Britta fretted over Jamie’s identical wounds.
“Seriously? What have I done? I sat still and waited for you to come back in one piece. That’s what I did. Thank your bestie here for running after you to save your tail.”
Jens looked from me to Jamie and back again several times before it all sunk in. “Never again, Jamie! I didn’t need you to sacrifice yourself like that. I was fine out there.” His voice broke the reunion by turning sharp as he shouted as his best friend. “You can’t ever do anything like that again! Do you understand me? You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”
Jamie postured. “I fared just fine out there by your side. My title does not make me useless.”
“You can’t play fast and loose with your life anymore! You’re done fighting forever, you hear? You picked up your last sword!”
“Hey,” I chimed in, placing my hand on Jens’s tattooed cheek to bring him back to earth. “Calm it down. Take a breath before you say something you’ll regret. Jamie’s fine. He went out there to save you. I think what you’re searching for is ‘thank you’.”
Jens spoke through gritted teeth. “I’ll thank you not to put yourself or anyone else at risk. You take a hit, and she bleeds too! Did you think of that? What if you’d died? What then? I just lose both of you? Think, Jamie!”
Jamie pushed past Jens and moved to Uncle Rick so the elf could take a look at his wounds. Jens scooped up my bloody arm and dabbed at it with a rag from his pack that he wetted with water from his canteen.
“Jens, are you in there?” I asked, trying to look into the eyes that were avoiding mine. “Hey, buddy.” I dragged my fingers through his messy black hair.
He batted my hand away in anger. “Don’t you dare make light of this. You have no idea how bad this could’ve gone.”
I wanted to argue, but sensed this was not the time. Instead I kissed the forehead that was bent over me, examining my injuries. “I love you, too.”
He paused his negativity and wrapped me in a crushing bear hug. “Loving you sucks so bad, because this kind of thing happens! It would be so much easier if I didn’t care at all.”
“Sure, but then you wouldn’t get these.” I leaned up and kissed his stiff lips, knowing I’d won when they became malleable.
“Don’t think Jamie’s off the hook for this just because you work your magic on me.”
I kissed him again, slowly savoring each movement that brought our passion to the surface. “Sure he is. My Kung-Fu is strong.”
A hint of a smirk touched his full lips. “Alright, Jackie Chan. Let me wrap this up so Henry Mancini’s friends don’t smell you a mile away.”