Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (33 page)

Which one?

Chapter Forty

I stood frozen in the golden expanse of waist-high grass. For one strange moment, I felt like I was the centerpiece of a colossal balancing scale. That either way I turned, the balance pans would tip and come down on one side or the other.

To the west, the vast plain sloped up to the approaching cavalry horde of King Angbor’s centaur lancers. The ground thundered beneath thousands of hooves. My ear picked up the approaching jingle of the mailed horsemen.

To the east, the ground shifted from straw gold to the shimmering green of forest. The mass of soldiers in red and black uniforms made the ground look as if it were bleeding. Battle cries from the griffins cut through the air like knives.

Magnus, still in his human guise as Duke Kajari, continued moving downslope. If I rode Galen, we could beat him to Andeluvian front lines. And then we’d have to get the nobles to believe us before Kajari simply pulled rank.

Talking to the centaurs didn’t seem much better. The only person anyone on that side knew about was Galen—the disgraced son of the King. But then again, Angbor, for all of his bluster, had actually listened to me.

This couldn’t wait any longer. I wasn’t just a crime scene analyst anymore. If I’d learned anything at all over these last couple of days, it was to step up to the plate. To make the call and see it through.

So I made my decision.

“Galen,” I said, “Can you give me a lift? We need to talk to your sire, and right away.”

“I was quite afraid you were going to say that,” Galen said. He adjusted the small leather satchel that carried his magical books so that it wouldn’t cut into me, and then reached down to help me up onto his broad back.

I grabbed his waist as we moved almost instantly into a gallop. Shaw and Liam loped alongside, looking at turns worried and grim. We didn’t have far to travel. The centaurs were advancing at a steady pace, the equivalent of a moderately quick march to my eyes.

But a pair of centaurs broke away from the main body and galloped downslope to meet us. As the two came to a stop in a crunch of dry grass and a small cloud of dust, I realized that I recognized both of them.

I spotted out Angbor’s massive chestnut frame and plaited locks from a ways off. Flanking his left was a stallion with hair the color of a match head and the markings of a pinto. This stallion had spoken up in Angbor’s defense two days ago, when we’d had our little confrontation in the Grove of the Willows.

Judging by the frills and gold trim on his mail, I guessed that the redhead was serving as Angbor’s second in command. He held aloft a blue banner crossed with a pair of silver swords.

“Well, Sturmgalen, you have returned!” Angbor boomed. He eyed me and Galen’s other companions with an air of disdain. “And in strange company.”

“I have indeed returned, father,” Galen said, with a little bow.

“I had all but left hope for you behind, boy. Like a steaming corpse in my wake. But perhaps I am wrong.” He gestured expansively, nodding at his companion. “Sir Jorvath, could I be wrong?”

“If you say so, dread liege,” the pinto-colored centaur said respectfully.

“So, warm the blood that flows through your father’s heart. Tell me that you’re here to take up lances with us. To take part! To help me exterminate Benedict’s troublesome kingdom.”

“To take part?” Galen said, amazed. “In this…madness? Truly, your wits have flown. I am here to warn you of the trap before us!

Angbor frowned. It felt like a thundercloud had moved in front of the sun.

“Trap? My scouts have been all over this field. There is no trap set before us. This battle’s victory will be ours for the taking!”

Galen turned his head and whispered to me. “Best that you dismount, Dayna. In case this gets unseemly.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” I replied. I slipped off and gave Galen some room. Liam and Shaw moved up on either side of me, eyes intent on the scene.

“He doesn’t mean the battle, Angbor,” I said, raising my voice. “This war itself! You and the Andeluvians have been fooled. Benedict’s murder–”

“You try my patience, human,” Angbor said bluntly. “Honor must be satisfied, by victory or death.”

“You aren’t taking us to war to avenge a wrong!” Galen insisted, “You’re been manipulated by the thing you hate the most: a centaur wizard!”

Angbor stiffened as if someone had hit him with an electric cattle prod.

“Dread liege,” I said, deciding that it wouldn’t hurt if I used an honorific that Angbor liked, “I completed my investigation. Your enemy took the form of Benedict, and now wears the face of Duke Kajari. He is Magnus Killshevan, the centaur you condemned to death twenty years ago.”

Sir Jorvath let out a gasp. But Angbor digested my little revelation without expression. He threw his head back with a boisterous belly-laugh.

“I thank you, Lady Dayna Chrissie, for my morning’s amusement. It is good to know that when I cut off the Duke’s head, I will also be slicing the flesh of a pretender to my crown.”

My jaw dropped. “But…you’re innocent, Angbor! You don’t need to do any of this!”

“Need?” Angbor’s voice went up a notch. “The day is much too far gone to back down from battle! See where my warriors have lined up, hungry for battle? If we have all been deceived, only the splash of blood can wash away the stain of these lies.”

“Father!” Galen trotted forward, beseeching. “The day is never too late! You cannot create peace with a swing of your sword arm!”

“Oh?” Angbor trotted forward as well, face-to-face with his son. With one deft movement, he plucked Galen’s satchel from where it hung on its strap and held it up in his son’s face. “What would you use, then? This?”

The wizard’s cheeks turned beet red.

“Answer me, boy. What would you use?” Angbor said again.

Now Galen’s face shifted to purple. His fists clenched. Knuckles bulging.

“These moldy scraps of parchment? They’re as useless as you are.”

Galen seized his satchel back.

“I’d use whatever came to hand,” Galen said, and his voice dipped low. “Whatever a centaur with a shred of intellect would do. Unlike you.”

“Still your tongue, Sturmgalen!” Angbor’s plaits fairly shook with fury as he got in Galen’s face, berating him. “I know
three
ways to remove it with my knife.
Two
ways to tan it so I can hang it on a strap ‘round my neck!”

“I know
one
way to still yours,” Galen shot back.

He drew his arm back. Still holding satchel in hand, Galen drove his fist into Angbor’s face. A
snap
of bone as the King’s nose shattered. A
plink
of iron as the metal latch on the satchel broke.

Angbor wobbled to one side, his four sturdy equine legs turned to rubber, and then tumbled into the grass. His hooves quivered once and then lay still.

Sir Jorvath gaped at Galen’s expression of coiled, controlled fury.

“You…you have felled Angbor,” he stammered. “Who shall lead us, when we are about to plunge into battle?”

“Who do you think, Jorvath?” Galen demanded. “By right of combat, I claim the title of dread liege from my father! And my first order is tell our warriors to stand down.”

“But we’re already in battle line, lances drawn.”

“Do not question me, Jorvath!” Galen’s eyes burned like a pair of hot coals. Jorvath flinched away from them. “We are going to tell each and every warrior here:
Set lance to ground!
”

“But–”

“I am not only Angbor’s son. I am also a dread wizard. Do not make me use my sorcery to turn you into a toad.” Sir Jorvath turned a little pale at that. Galen next addressed me. “Dayna, you must finish this without my participation.”

“What?” I blinked. “Why?”

“Because the rest of the centaurs aren’t blind. The front ranks have seen me assume the kingship,” Galen said. “What conclusion would they jump to if I galloped off to talk to the Andeluvians?”

Next to me, Liam let out a little snort. “Nothing good, that is for sure.”

“Correct. Now, you have one big advantage if you confront Magnus right away: his magic has been drained in crossing back to this world.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s defenseless,” I replied.

“Definitely not. He may have enough for a minor spell or two, but no more. He won’t be able to teleport, that much is certain.”

Galen let out a breath. He looked down, saw with a flash of surprise and shame that he still gripped the crumpled remains of his book satchel in his reddened, blood-stained fist.

“Dayna, please understand the trust I am putting in you,” he said. For a moment, the hardness in his eyes faded. All I saw were the tangled dark locks and handsome face of the first centaur I’d ever met.

“If I stand my people down and they are attacked, it will seem like treachery. On my part, and on the humans’ as well. We’ll never be able to repair relations between the realms.”

“I won’t let you down,” I said, around the lump in my throat.

He nodded, and then galloped off towards the line of Angbor’s—now Galen’s—approaching army. Jorvath hesitated. He looked over at me anxiously.

“What the dread liege spoke of…” he said, with a quaver in his voice, “would he really turn me into a toad?”

I quirked a grin at the red-headed centaur.

“Put it this way,” I said wryly. “How’s your taste for flies?”

Sir Jorvath took off in the wizard’s wake like I’d lit his tail on fire.

Liam chuckled. “I do not ever want either you or Galen angry at me.”

I went to where Skallgrym Angbor of the House of Friesain lay in a chestnut-colored heap in the tall grass. Shaw stood over him, one paw pressed to the centaur’s flank. The griffin nodded and looked up at me.

“Angbor hath suffered no great injury,” he pronounced. “Save perhaps to his looks. Which to my eyes were of no great loss to begin with.”

“Are you sure?”

Even though Angbor had been asking for it, I was concerned. Galen had decked his father hard enough to knock him out with a single blow. And Shaw wasn’t exactly a graduate of med school.

“His nose is rent asunder, but his breath and heart doth remain steadfast and true.”

That was going to have to be good enough. I didn’t have time to do a full examination. Too much was going on, and the stakes kept getting higher. I only hoped the odds weren’t getting any worse.

“Dayna,” Shaw added, “Though I cannot take to the sky, I can still run, after a fashion. Alight, for we must overtake Magnus, ere he spreads his poisons further.”

“I think it’s too late for that,” Liam said, as the Fayleene’s keen eyes peered downslope. “Look what is taking place.”

I squinted at the tableau in the distance. Magnus had reached the Andeluvian army. Even at this long range, I could see him gesturing wildly in the direction of the approaching centaurs.

A ripple of silver as the front ranks of men drew their swords. And then, at the very edge of my hearing, I could make out cheers. Approving roars from the griffin mounts. The sound of steel blades pulled free from scabbards.

The sound of men getting charged up for battle.

So much for the odds not getting any worse.

Chapter Forty-One