Assassin's Shadow (Veiled Dagger Book 2) (18 page)

High atop a craggy peak of the Southern mountains, a conclave of ogre wives sat on boulder thrones and watched the vast green carpet that was the Banewood canopy.

One by one, the light brown orbs appeared out of the wood, slowly rising to hover over the forest, as if by magic. By midday, dozens of flying machines had appeared, all across the Banewood from north to south, and all headed back to the east, from where they came.

The giant wives looked at one another and nodded in approval. Their husbands would be home soon.

***

Rothar and Taria bid farewell to Talfor. The ogres had done their part, and had tarried long enough to be sure that the Reapers would not double back for a counterattack. Now, it was time for them to return to their mountain home.

It would not be necessary for the giants to exhaust themselves trailing the fleeing airships across the Banewood. Rothar and company could do that just as well from the ground, and the trek across the Andrelicas Mountain range would be unnecessarily dangerous for both the ogres and the humans, with the high winds and icy terrain. An ogre losing his footing could spell death for any man nearby.

“The kingdom thanks you for your service,” Rothar said to the crouching giant. “And the King himself owes you a favor.”

“I will remember that,” Talfor chuckled. “Are you positive you do not wish for me to carry one with you? I do not care for the look of those flying machines, they do seem like deadly things.”

“I am counting on that,” replied Rothar. “But no, you and your brethren should go on home. We will take it from here.”

Talfor nodded. “Very well, you will come visit us soon, will you not? And bring your lovely companion as well.”

“I promise you, I will,” Rothar laughed. “I do enjoy the view.”

“As do I,” Talfor replied, though he was looking at Taria.

Taria grinned and waved for Talfor to lean closer, she took his giant face in both of her hands and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Talfor’s face turned a color of red that made Rothar think of the sunrise.

***

Peregrin and Stone had followed the airship until they were certain that it was returning to the route that they had traveled along on their first trip to the east. Then they stopped in order that Peregrin could properly dress Stone’s wound.

Stone sat on a downed tree trunk and extended his leg. Peregrin made a quick inspection of the afflicted area and walked a short distance into the woods to collect supplies. Moments later, he was back with a handful of green leaves and some bark. Chewing the leaves, Peregrin spit the resulting substance onto the bark and tied the splint onto the wound with a strap of leather from his saddle bag.

The two had bid farewell to their new friend and battle partner, Rigmor, with promises to see one another again someday. The ogre had suggested that the trio meet for drinks. Peregrin and Stone had their reservations.

Now, with the Reapers on the retreat, the scattered combatants had a moment to take stock of their battle wounds and regroup. As Peregrin finished tending to Stone’s leg, a familiar hooting call caused them to look to the north. Dewitt and Trevitt were riding towards them, their horses carefully picking their way through the thick underbrush.

Dewitt had a blood soaked rag wrapped around his head, covering one eye. Trevitt rode slightly ahead of his brother and warned him of any low hanging branches he might not see.

“Well, what has become of you, Dewitt?” called Stone as the brother’s approached. “Did you not think yourself ugly enough already, that you had to go and maim yourself further?”

Dewitt grimaced. “At least I take my wounds head on! Looks as though you were shot on the run!”

“You ought to know me better than that by now,” Stone growled with good nature.

A battle always brought out the best in the huntsmen.

Dewitt had lost an eye in his battle with the Reapers, but had taken the head of the man who maimed him, so all was considered even. Together now, the four huntsmen remounted and began the ride eastward, the low humming of the airships still audible above the dense, leafy ceiling of their beloved Banewood.

Esme walked through the city streets with her head down, but her eyes saw everything around her. Her mind was tormented with what had just happened, the man she had just killed, and the friend which he had just taken from her.

She had heard Rothar say that Allette was the people’s best chance at survival, and now she was dead. Esme felt as though it was she who had let Rothar down, the King down, the people down.

Yet, she still had the satchel full of Arapithia blossoms, and the kettle was still bubbling back in their quarters at Castle Staghorn. Perhaps there was still a chance. Perhaps she could make things right.

As Esme neared the castle via a narrow alleyway, she could hear that something was wrong. When she had snuck away from the castle with Allette, only a small handful of vagrants had occupied the streets surrounding the fortress, far outnumbered by the extra sentries that had been called into duty. King Heldar himself had commanded that the sentries along the castle wall be increased threefold, and the additional security had served to discourage most of the rioters from encroaching upon the castle.

Now, however, Esme could hear the dull roar of a mass of restless people. As she rounded the corner onto the broad way that wound around the castle wall, she saw, to her horror, that the mass of the rioters had descended upon the castle. Sentries were perched atop the wall and were doing their best to hold the crowd at bay, stabbing into the throng with spears and firing arrows into the writhing mass of humanity, but not a soldier remained on the ground, where only an hour before there had been a squadron. Here and there, dark blood stained the cobblestone street, and Esme saw a huddled mass of bloody rags, tinted purple and gold, the colors of the King’s personal guard.

Esme shuddered. She could not guess for what reason the depraved villagers had redirected themselves to Castle Staghorn. Perhaps they had run out of sport in the lavish neighborhoods surrounding the caste grounds. Perhaps they were getting more desperate for something to fill the howling void left in their bodies and minds when the Obscura ran out. Or perhaps not even the townsfolk knew why they were storming the castle. One thing was certain, she had to get back inside and try to complete the remedy, or Castle Staghorn would be overtaken by nightfall.

Heading back down the alleyway, Esme ducked into the first open door she came across. She found herself in a garment shop. The shop had been abandoned days ago when the rioting had begun to climb the hill into the streets of nobility, and the locks had since been broken and the stock of the shop ransacked. Esme poked around until she found a drab, hooded cloak that was about her size. She pulled the nondescript garment over her dress and concealed the satchel within it’s folds. Drawing up the hood to hide her young face, Esme shuffled again back into the alley and towards Castle Staghorn.

She found that she was able to move among the addicts with relative ease, as long as she did nothing to attract attention to herself. The poor, afflicted souls were singularly focused on the castle and it’s walls and guards, so no hooded waif would distract them. Esme needed only to stay far enough back from the wall to avoid being jabbed at by the anxious sentries.

From the corner of her eye, she scanned the tense soldiers on the wall, looking for a familiar face. Finally, she spied the young sentry who had granted them access to the castle when her father had brought her and Allette. She turned her face just enough to look squarely at the man, and waited. After what seemed like an eternity, his eyes fell upon her, and over his face came a look that was a combination of recognition and horror. He kept his eyes on hers as he nodded his head subtly in the direction of the Queen’s personal garden, Esme nodded in understanding and casually began to shuffle along the narrow way.

Reaching the shrubby corner of the wall where she knew the secret entrance to be, Esme looked this way and that before ducking into the landscaping. After a moment, the young soldier appeared on the other side of the hidden gate, a ring of keys in his hand.

“How did you get out there?” he hissed at Esme. “We are in enough trouble already without you getting hurt on the outside.”

Esme wondered if the “we” that the young man spoke of was the kingdom, or the King’s guard. Either way, she supposed that he was right.

“There is no time to explain,” she shot back. “Let me in, I must get back to my quarters. It seems you men are fighting a losing battle, but I may be able to help.”

The guard looked at her incredulously, but stuck his key into the lock and opened the gate with a rusty squeak. Just as Esme was stepping though the gate, a pair of arms burst out of the foliage behind her and wrapped around her shoulders. The rest of the body followed along and knocked Esme forward into the garden, beneath her attacker.

Stifling a cry and rolling to her back, Esme saw that her assailant was no more than a lad about her own age. He was filthy and his hair was as wild as the Banewood. Most sadly of all, Esme could see that he was shaking and drooling, his eyes held the vacant stare of an Obscura addict.

Looking beyond the boy, Esme saw the guard raise his sword to strike.

“No! Wait!” Esme screamed, rolling the weakened boy over and shielding him with her own body.

The guard was barely able to halt his blade before it would have struck Esme in the back. He grunted with the effort and then stared at Esme in anger and confusion.

“He is only a child,” Esme admonished the sentry. “And I think I need him. Please escort us to my chambers. I give you my word that I will take full responsibility for whatever happens with him once we are safe inside.

The sentry scowled at Esme and seemed to begin speaking before stopping himself. He was clearly not accustomed to taking orders from little girls. Yet, he knew that Esme was to be taken care of at any cost, and he wished not to find out what would happen if he denied her anything. Finally, he turned to lead the two children inside the castle, a defeated look on his face.

Every rider followed the airship which they had attacked in the Banewood. The flying machines had converged upon a point, at which they formed a line, making one long caravan in the sky.

On the ground below, the riders also converged upon one another, forming a small war party that remained invisible beneath the canopy. Following, always following. Small celebrations were permitted as each pair of heroes joined the larger group. The friends assessed their injuries and were pleased to discover that Dewitt’s eye was the most costly loss they had sustained in the initial attacks.

Everyone understood that it was the cooperation of the ogres that had allowed them to dominate the Reapers in the Banewood. There most certainly would have been righteous blood spilled had they attempted to oust the Reapers on their own terms. The dark menace from the east would never know that they had been beaten into retreat by an army consisting of a dozen ordinary men, and as many giants.

For now, all there was to do was ride on. The going was slow, as the flying machines were not swift and the riders needed to maintain enough distance so as not to be spotted. The element of surprise was of the greatest importance, Rothar had explained to the group. It was also imperative that they not fall too far behind the airships, or their master plan would be rendered impotent.

So Rothar rode in the lead, taking stock of the airship’s location through breaks in the canopy. He wished he had Talfor’s eyes, able to watch the fleeing enemy from that lofty vantage point, but he knew it would have been too great of a risk, both for Talfor and for the plan. The ogre would have been an easy target from the air, his head poking out above the tree tops.

Taria rode next to Rothar, and she hummed a beautiful and unfamiliar tune. Rothar asked her what it was and she told him it was a song that the Southlander’s chanted when they went off to battle. Rothar supposed that she must have heard it a great many times.

“What is worrying you, Rothar?” Taria asked after they had ridden in silence a while.

Rothar, looked back over his shoulder at the faithful and brave men riding behind him. Then he turned to look at the woman next to him, as brave as any man who followed and as beautiful as the sunrise. He sighed, there was no use trying to keep secrets from this woman, she seemed to be able to see inside his head, and he was still adjusting to it. All of his life, he had been unreadable, no one ever knew what he was thinking or feeling, and he had used that to his advantage. It was almost disconcerting, now, to be so easily pegged.

“At this rate, we will begin ascending the Andrelicas at nightfall,” he said to Taria, quietly, so the others would not hear, though he knew that these men were not fools, and they were all likely thinking the same thing right this moment.

“It is a perilous trek in daylight, suicide at night,” he continued. “They need only fly in a straight line,” he said, nodding up at the airships. “We have to climb.”

Taria was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. When she spoke again, it was matter of factly, though what she suggested was radical.

“Then perhaps we should fly as well.”

***

Taria pushed Bedlam harder, galloping the horse through the Banewood as fast as she dared. It had taken some doing to convince Rothar that she should be the one to ride out ahead of the group, but in the end, she had won. She was, after all, the best rider
and
the best climber. It only made sense that she be the one to set this new plan in motion.

She rode, with her eyes always peeled on the sky above. She passed under one airship, then another, careful to remain in the thickest parts of the wood to avoid being spotted. She knew that the rest of the group had increased their speed as well, but would remain behind the air caravan until they neared the eastern edge of the Banewood, where Taria would be waiting.

Throughout the afternoon, Taria pushed on, eventually passing the lead airship and leaving the whole caravan behind. She rode until late in the day, when she could see the golden light that betrayed the edge of the Banewood. Beyond the treeline, the Andrelicas Mountains rose from the earth, grey and foreboding, wispy white clouds obscuring their low peaks.

About two hundred meters from the end of the wood, Taria brought Bedlam to a halt. She scanned the canopy around her as the horse snorted and stomped. Finding the tallest tree, Taria dismounted and began to unload the rope from Bedlam’s saddle. She had brought with her all of the rope that the war party had. As much as it was, tied together at the ends. it would barely be enough. She carefully wound the rope around her body, over one shoulder, across her chest, around her back, and across the other shoulder, back and forth, balancing the weight.

When she was done, she felt as though she weighed double her normal weight, and for the first time, a hint of doubt threatened to creep into a corner of her mind. Shaking it off, she headed straight for the towering oak that she had selected to carry out her plan.

Rothar had called the prospect of riding across the Andrelicas at night “suicidal.” Taria’s plan was nearly as insane, but it granted the group a little more of an element of control than sliding down an icy crevice into a frozen canyon, and that was probably the only reason that any of them had agreed to go along with it.

Slowly, deliberately, she began to climb. The lowest limbs on the oak were nearly forty feet above the ground, so Taria was forced to climb with her fingers. A grueling, painful and treacherous process that most people could not even imagine. She carefully found the perfect creases in the bark, digging in with her fingers and toes, painstakingly checking the bark for strength. If she felt any give, heard any cracking, she searched for a different handhold. The weight of the rope slowed her progress and made her sweat through her clothes.

After what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes, she reached the lower limbs of the tree and allowed herself a moment to rest. Her arms and legs were numb, but her fingers were burning. Inspecting her hands, she saw that she was bleeding from underneath several of her fingernails. She lay back on the broad branch and tried to slow her breathing. On the wind, a familiar droning hum reached her ears. The airships were already approaching.

Taria groaned and forced herself to sit up, there was no time for rest. She carefully rose to her feet and began climbing from branch to branch. Looking up, she saw that she still had far to go. Higher and higher she climbed, her lungs burning with the effort, legs shaking, hands leaving bloody smudges wherever she took hold. She was still thirty feet below the crown of the tree when the shadow of the lead airship passed over her. She held perfectly still. The flying machine passed over and she resumed the grueling climb. The air felt thin at this height, and the branches became more spindly, drooping under her weight and swaying in the wind. Taria looked down, she could barely make out the shape of Bedlam standing beneath the tree, like a tan speck on a slate of brown.

Another airship passed over, and Taria once again froze in place, clinging to the underside of a bobbing limb. She was so close now that she could hear voices from inside of the cockpit. They spoke in an unfamiliar tongue, but they did not sound excited or panicked.
Good,
thought Taria.
They have no idea what is coming for them.

Shortly, Taria reached the top of the tree. She found the thickest branch she could, at the center of the crown, and hung on, holding herself upright. In the west, she could see the next airship approaching, and she shimmied a ways down the limb to conceal herself. This was not the machine that she wanted, and the rest of the group had not yet arrived.

Taria remained hidden in the top of the tree, swaying in the breeze at a dizzying height as the airships passed overhead one by one, almost near enough to touch. She counted them as they hummed over her, and as the evening light began to fade, she knew that there was only one ship remaining. Straining to hear over the growing wind, she could hear the contraption droning ever nearer.

She peered down again at the ground, seeing nothing. She could no longer even make out the speck that was her horse on the forest floor. Where were the others?

Looking back to the east, the dark shape of the airship was beginning to materialize above the canopy, which glowed golden against the sunset. Taria began to ready herself. She would have to go ahead with the plan and hope against hope that the others arrived in time. She found the end of the rope that she had coiled around herself and unwound several feet from her body. Tying a large slipknot in the end of the rope, Taria checked again to see that the airship was now very near. She could begin to make out the shapes of men standing in the wooden cockpit.

Taria ducked down and held the knotted end of the rope easily in one hand, clutching the tree tightly with the other, she steadied herself. The airship was over her, blocking out any remaining rays from the sinking sun. She twirled the rope twice and tossed it upwards, aiming for the landing apparatus on the bottom of the cockpit. She missed. Hurriedly, Taria gathered up the rope, holding onto the tree with the crook of her elbow in order that she might use both hands to retrieve the noose.

Again, she threw the knotted rope at the underside of the long wooden box, again, she missed. Taria let out a frustrated breath. Scrambling to gather the rope, she knew she only had one more chance. By the time she had a hold of the knot once more, the airship had completely passed over her. She twisted her body around the flexing tree limb in order to face the rear of the machine and flung out the rope desperately. This time, the knot settled perfectly around a large wooden knob at the back of the cockpit. Taria tugged at the rope and watched the knot shrink and disappear, tightening around the knob.

Taria smiled triumphantly, but she knew there was no time to celebrate, she was rapidly running out of slack. Frantically, she began to unwind the rope from around her body. A gust of wind kicked up from the west and pushed the airship along faster. Taria could not uncoil the rope quickly enough and was pulled from her perch at the top of the tree.

Airborne, it was all Taria could do not to scream in terror. She knew that if she screamed she would be detected, and the Reapers in the airship would either cut her loose or, worse yet, reel her in.

Clinging desperately to the rope, Taria watched the Banewood rushing by beneath her, the tops of trees brushing against her legs. She held tight and did not allow any more of the rope to unwind until she saw the edge of the Banewood approaching. There was a narrow meadow separating the Banewood from the craggy beginnings of the Andrelicas Mountain range. If she did not reach the ground before the airship began it’s ascent to clear the mountains, she would be lifted beyond the reach of her rope, and likely be dashed against the frozen mountain cliffs.

Taria loosened her grip on the rope and allowed her body to twist once, twice, three times, the rope unwinding from around her torso, lowering her a foot at a time. The rope pinched and burned against her flesh, but she twisted faster and faster as the airship crossed the meadow.

Looking up, she estimated that she was only halfway between the airship and the earth, and the mountains were fast approaching. Taria took a deep breath and let go of the rope. She began to spin rapidly through the air, and she had to fight to keep track of which way was up and which was down.

Each time she glimpsed the earth, it was a little nearer, and when she was able to make out the individual blades of grass that blew in the evening breeze, she reached out to again snag her tether. The rope tore horribly at her hands as she desperately gripped the rough braid. She could not help but let out a pained cry as she came to a stop - not eight feet off the ground.

Taria let loose of the rope and tumbled into the soft grass, rolling as the end of the rope unwound from her. She wanted nothing more than to lay still until her world stopped spinning, but she forced herself to get to her feet and chase after the trailing end of the rope. Reaching it, she frantically looked around for an anchor. Ahead, the meadow was dotted with boulders where the mountain began to claim the land from the field, but these would not do.

The only other thing nearby was one small, scraggly larch tree. It would have to suffice.

Taria raced to the little tree with the quickly diminishing slack of the rope in her hands. She was barely able to tie a suitable knot around the base of the tree before the line went taught.

High overhead, men’s voices shouted in surprise as the airship jerked about in the sky. Taria collapsed to the ground and gazed up at the bobbing contraption, then over at the little tree, struggling to retain it’s hold on the earth.

“You will not hold for long,” she said aloud.

“He won’t have to,” came Rothar’s voice from behind her. In all the tumult, she had not noticed Rothar, Harwin and the huntsmen, riding along behind her as she made her impressive descent from the heavens.

“I can honestly say,” said Rothar, “I have never felt such fear in my life.”

“And that is coming from a man who has battled the devil himself,” added Peregrin, and the whole lot of them began to laugh with relief.

Even Taria managed to laugh a little, lying flat on her back and wondering if her heart would ever again cease to race. Rothar dismounted Stormbringer and helped her to her feet. At the rear of the group of riders, she could see that Bedlam had been found and brought along.