By the Sword (37 page)

The priestess gave a peremptory order, cutting off all further discussion. The rest of the party dismounted and began leading their horses off into a little blind canyon, probably to make camp, while she took charge of the prisoner. She rode up beside him, pulled his head up by the hair, and slapped his face, so hard it rocked him in his saddle—he would have fallen but for the grip she had on his hair. The slap echoed among the rocks as she let go, and he slumped forward over the pommel. Even as far away as Kero was, there was no mistaking the priestess' smile of cruel anticipation.

Kero made up her mind then and there.
Fine. He's a Herald. There's probably going to be a reward if
I
rescue him, and even if there isn‘t, he can get me out of here through Valdemar. I'm getting him away from that bitch.

Part of her yammered at the back of her mind, telling her that she was insane for doing this, for even thinking about rescuing the stranger. After all,
she
wasn't in the clear yet, she was all alone, and the idea of rescuing someone
else
was sheerest suicide.

She ignored that part of herself, and wriggled backward, keeping herself right down on the rock and ignoring scrapes, until she was out of sight of the road. But though she ignored good sense, she did not ignore caution—there was no telling if the Karsites had deployed a scout to check the woods. She kept as low and as quiet as a hunted rabbit, slipping from one bit of cover to the next, working her way toward Hellsbane by a circuitous, spiraling route.

The woods seemed empty of everything but birds—of course, another scout, a good one, might not have disturbed them any more than Kero did. Still, there was no one out here that
she
could spot, which probably meant that the Karsites felt secure enough not to bother with perimeter checks. Which meant they also might not bother with perimeter
guards.
If so, her task took on the aura of the “possible.”

When she reached her horse, she tied up Hellsbane's stirrups, fastening them to the saddle, before muffling the mare's hooves in her “boots.” Hellsbane pricked up her ears at that; she knew very well what it meant, though it wasn't something Kero did often. She was to guard Kero's back, following her like a dog, until Kero needed her. Tarma had drilled both of them remorselessly in this maneuver; it wasn't something every warsteed could learn to do, but Hellsbane was both obedient and inquisitive, and those were marker traits for a mare that
could
learn the trick. Hellsbane had learned her lessons well.

The priestess and her charge had already moved on, but it wasn't at all hard to guess where they had gone—even Lordan could have figured it out. The troop had trampled down vegetation on both sides of that little path leading off the main road. Kero waited, watched and listened long enough for her nerves to start screaming. She crossed the road in a rush, like a startled deer, then went up the side of the hill, planning to follow their trail from above. Hellsbane followed, making no more noise than she did.

 

She found them at the end of the path, bivouacked in a little blind canyon, thick with trees. And by now the sun was setting somewhere beyond the trees; it was slowly growing darker. That was bad enough—it was going to be damned difficult to get him loose in a setup like that, and harder still to get him
out
—but worse was that there were more of them now than she'd seen in the original group. Where they came from, or whether they were already here when the priestess and her charge arrived, she had no idea.

It didn't much matter. The odds had just jumped from five to one to about twenty to one.

Hellfires,
she thought, watching some of the “new” ones tie their prisoner “securely.” The Karsite idea of “secure” was enough to make her joints ache in sympathy; ankles tied to wide-set stakes, arms bound behind his back over a thick tree limb, wrists secured to ankles so that his only possible posture was kneeling, and no position could be comfortable, even if he was as boneless as Tre.

That was no way to treat anyone you intended to keep for very long. Which argued that they
didn't
intend to keep him for very long.

I can still walk away from this,
she told herself, settling her chin on her hands, the smell of old leaves thick in her nostrils.
I'm not involved yet. They haven't seen me, and not even his horse knows I'm there—and he isn't a woman, so Need won't give me any trouble about leaving him....

But the more she saw, the less palatable the idea of leaving him in their hands became. Whatever else he was, this Herald was a fellow human being, and a pretty decent one if all the things Tarma and Kethry had said about his kind were true. From the look of things, the priestess was about to try a little interrogation, and Kero knew what that meant. She'd seen the results of one of those sessions, and was not minded to leave even a stranger to face it.

Besides, if these bastards were stopping this close to the Border to question him, there must be an urgent reason to do so. Which meant that the reward for his release would be a good one, and the information he held in his head must be valuable to someone. And if she
could
get him loose, he must know the quickest way out of Karse and across that Border into Valdemar, where she'd be safe, if not welcome.

And from there she could get home....

That clinched it, the thought of “home” set up a longing so strong it overwhelmed any other consideration.

There has to be a way,
she thought darkly.
There has to be.
She watched through narrowed eyes as the woman rolled up the arms of her robes and picked up one of the irons she'd placed in the fire, examining it critically, then replacing it.
Huh. So far, that priestess hasn't even looked up once. So either she can't sense me, or Need—or whichever of us these women are somehow detecting—or else she's too busy. Either way, if I'm
very
careful, I might be able to do a little reading of their thoughts. Maybe I'll overhear something that'll help.

She unshielded carefully, a little bit at a time, and sent a delicate wisp of thought drifting down among them, the barest possible disturbance of the currents down there—

And suddenly her little finger of thought was seized and held in a desperate mental grip.

Blessed Agnira!
Panic gave her strength she didn't know she had. She snatched her mind away, and lay face-down in the leaves, heart pounding wildly with fear. Her first, panicked thought was that it was the priestess; her second, that it was some other mage down below there. But there was no sign of disturbance in the camp, and no one shouted a warning or pointed in the direction of her hiding place. She throttled down her panic, and extended her probe a second time, “looking” for the presence that had seized her.

It snatched for her again, a little less wildly, but no less desperate.

:Who are you?:
she thought, forming her statement clearly, as Warrl had taught her.

:Kerowyn
—
:

:You have to help me get loose,:
he demanded, interrupting her, his mental voice voice shaking, but firm beneath the fear.
:I've got to get back to report!:

:Fine,:
she told him.
:What's it worth to you? Or should I say, to Valdemar?:

That stopped him.
:What?:
He seemed baffled rather than shocked. He literally did not understand what she meant; that was crystal clear from his thoughts.

:What is it worth to you to be freed? How much,:
she repeated patiently. :Money,
my friend. What's the reward for getting you loose? I'm not in this for my health. There're easier ways of making a living.:

:I—:
he faltered,
:I—I thought you were a Herald—:

Silence then, as he began to take in the fact that she plainly was something else.

She waited for him to respond, and it didn't take long. He named a figure. She blinked in surprise; it was more than she would have considered asking, and she would have expected to be bargained down.
Either he's more important than I thought, or he has an inflated opinion of his own worth. Either way, I'm holding him to it.

:Bond on it?:
she asked.

He gave his bond, seeming a little miffed that she'd asked.
:My Companion will help you on this, too,:
he added.

Well, that only bore out everything Tarma had told her about the spirit-horses.
:All right—:
she said, and noted that he seemed a little surprised that she took that last so calmly.
:Here's what we'll do....:

 

The Karsites had counted on the fact that they were in a blind canyon to protect them from attack on three of the four sides, and probably were assuming that since the canyon was thickly wooded, that would make fighting difficult for an opponent. But while the slope Kero was hidden on was indeed steep, it was not too steep for a Shin‘a'in warsteed. And she had
trained
in the woods.

They charged “silently,” without a cry, Kero knowing that the Karsites would not recognize the crashing of her horse through the underbrush for an attack until it was too late. She had her bow out, and neither her aim nor her arrows had suffered from lack of practice. The enemy fighters silhouetted themselves most considerately against the fire; she picked off four of the Karsite guards, two of them with heart-shots and two through the throat, while still on the way in.

Already battle fever had her, and her world narrowed
to target; response.
There was no room for anything else.

Meanwhile, commotion at the mouth of the canyon signaled the Companion's charge. Kero had felt a little guilty about putting the unarmed horse there, but the Companion was
not
going to be able to cut Eldan free, and she was.

Hellsbane skidded to a halt beside the kneeling Herald, and Kero swung her leg over the saddle-bow and vaulted off her back, letting off another arrow and getting a fifth score as she did so.

Weeks spent behind the Karsite lines had given her a rough command of their language; she heard the shouts, and realized that from the plurals being used that they had mistaken the gray warsteed for a white Companion, and herself for another Herald—it would have been funny, if she'd had any time to think about it.

She slashed at the Herald's bonds, while the Companion charged down and trampled two more Karsites in his way, and Hellsbane reared on her haunches and bashed out the brains of a third. The ropes to his ankles and wrists were easy enough to handle, but just as she was getting ready to saw at the thongs binding Eldan's arms to the log, two more of the Karsites rushed her. She tossed a knife at the Herald's feet while parrying the first Karsite's rather clumsy attack.
He
was easily dispatched, but his friend arrived, and another with him—

Hellsbane got there first, half-reared and got the first from behind, and the Companion fought his way to the Herald's side. Now at least she didn't need to worry about having to guard him while he cut himself free.

She thought she'd been hit a couple of times, but the wounds didn't hurt. Since they weren't slowing her down, she ignored them as usual. The horses were doing the job of four or five fighters, charging and trampling every sign of organization and scattering people before them like frightened quail—and Kero began to think this was going to work-Then she wheeled to face an opponent she sensed coming up behind her—

And her sword froze her in mid-slash.

The new opponent was the warrior-priestess. A woman. And Need would not permit her to carry out her attack.

LetmegoyoustupidBITCHofahunkoftin!
she screamed mentally at the blade, seeing her death in the smiling eyes of the priestess, in the cruel quirk of her lips, in the slow, preparatory swing of the priestess' mace-

Then a tree limb swung down out of the gathering darkness, and with a resounding
crack,
broke in half over the woman's head.

The priestess dropped the mace, and fell to the ground like a stone.

Need let Kero go, muttering into the back of her mind in sleepy confusion, then subsiding into silence. “Thanks,” she told the Herald, with all the sincerity she could manage.

“Anytime,” he replied, grinning.

But there were still far too many Karsites in this camp, and the stunned disbelief that took them when their leader went down wasn't going to last much longer.

Kero made a running jump for Hellsbane's saddle, vaulting spraddle-legged over the mare's rump and landing squarely in place. The Herald followed her example a half breath behind.

And she couldn't help it—she indulged in a blood-curdling Shin‘a'in war-cry as they thundered out the canyon mouth, running over two more Karsites who weren't quick enough to get out of the way.

Let ‘em figure
that
out.

 

“Have we gone far enough, do you think?” she asked Eldan wearily, about a candlemark before dawn.

“I certainly hope so,” he replied, his voice as dull and lifeless as hers. “And I doubt very much they're going to follow our trail. Where in Havens did you learn all that? That trail-muddling stuff, I mean.”