Cursor's Fury (80 page)

But the arrow’s head, a shaped, translucent crystal of rock salt like the ones he’d loosed against the windmanes in Calderon, exploded into
powder.

Bernard lowered his bow slowly and let out a long breath. He nodded his head pensively, and said, “I think I’ll write Tavi and thank him for that idea.”

Amara stared at her husband, speechless.

She needed to tell the bearers to keep going for as long as they could before setting down to rest beneath the canopy of the forest, somewhere near a large stream or small river, so that she could send word to the First Lord. But that could come in a moment. For now, the need to look at his face, to realize that they were alive, that they were together, was far more important than mere realms.

Bernard slung his bow over his shoulder and knelt beside Amara, reaching gently for her arm. “Easy. Let’s see what you’ve done to it.”

“One of your salt arrows,” she said quietly, shaking her head.

He smiled at her, his eyes alight with green, brown, and flecks of gold; colors of life and growth and warmth. “It’s always the little things that are important,” he said. “Isn’t it.”

“Yes,” she said, and kissed him gently on the mouth.
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“Excellent,” said the water figure of Gaius, a translucent form that lacked the solid-color enhancement the First Lord used to favor. “Well done, Countess. What is the status of the rescuees?”

She stood beside a large, swift stream that rolled down from the hills many miles from Kalare. The forest here was particularly thick, and they’d barely managed to get the coach down through it in one piece. The bearers had all but collapsed into sleep, without even unhooking their flight harnesses. Bernard went around to each man, gently freeing them from the coach and letting them stretch out on the ground. The High Ladies were in a similar state, though Lady Aquitaine managed to seat herself primly at the base of a tree before leaning her head back against it and watching Odiana help Aldrick to the stream to tend to his wound.

Lady Placida hardly seemed strong enough to keep her head held up, but she insisted on staying with Atticus Elania, who had been injured during the flight—not by a weapon, but when the wounded Aldrick had half fallen back into the coach. He’d fallen hard against one of the crowded seats and broken the girl’s ankle. Lady Placida had managed to ease Elania’s pain, then promptly fallen back onto the grass to sleep.

Rook stepped out of the coach with her eyes closed, holding her daughter’s hand. She found a patch of ground near the stream bank, where the sunlight reached the warm earth. She sat in the light, holding her daughter, her face weary and sagging with something rather like shock.

“Countess?” prodded Gaius gently.

Amara looked back to the water-image. “My apologies, sire.” She took a deep breath, and said, “Atticus Elania Minora was injured during the escape, but not seriously. A broken ankle. Well have it crafted well again soon.”

Amara explained. “She and Lady Aquitaine spent themselves in an effort to speed our escape and hinder the pursuit. Only a bit more than a score of nearly a hundred Knights Aeris managed to catch up to us, and without the ladies’ efforts I am certain we would have been overpowered and killed.”

“Where are you now?” Gaius asked. Then immediately raised a hand. “No, best not say. This communication could be observed by others. In general, what is your situation?”

“We pressed on for as long as we could after Kalarus fell, sire, but we didn’t
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make it terribly far. It’s possible that a follow-up search could find us, so we’ll only rest here for an hour or two, then move on.”

Gaius lifted both eyebrows. “Kalarus fell?”

Amara smiled and inclined her head. “Courtesy of the good count Calderon, sire. I am not certain he is dead, but if he did survive it, I doubt he will be in any condition to run a revolution.”

Gaius’s teeth showed in a sudden, wolfish smile. “I’ll want details in person as soon as you can manage it, Countess. Please convey my thanks to His Excellency of Calderon,” the First Lord said, “and to the Ladies and their retainers as well.”

“I’ll try to keep a straight face when I do, sire.”

Gaius threw back his head and laughed, and when he did the water-image changed. For a moment, there was color in it, greater detail, and more animation. Then he shook his head, and said, “I will leave you to your rest and travel then, Cursor.”

“Sire?” Amara asked. “Were we in time?”

Gaius nodded once. “I think so. But I must move quickly.” The image met Amara’s eyes, then Gaius bowed, ever so slightly, to her. “Well done, Amara.”

Amara drew in a deep breath as she felt a flash of ferocious pride and satisfaction. “Thank you, sire.”

The image descended back into the stream, and Amara slumped wearily down onto its banks, her arm throbbing dully, but with slowly increasing discomfort. She glanced aside at Bernard, who stood near Lady Aquitaine, in the shade of the same tree, his eyes distant as, through his connections with furies of earth and wood, he kept watch for anyone approaching.

“Hello, Amara,” said Odiana cheerfully.

Despite her weariness and discomfort, Amara twitched in surprise, and pain shot in burning silver lines from her shoulder to the base of her neck. The water witch had approached in total silence and spoken to her from a foot away.

“I’m sorry,” Odiana said, a quiet laugh hidden in the words. “I didn’t mean to scare you that way. That must have hurt awfully, jumping like that, poor darling.”

“What do you want?” Amara said quietly.

Her dark eyes glittered. “Why, to repair your poor shoulder, little peregrine. You’ll be as useful to your lord as a falcon with one wing. We can’t have that.”

“I’m fine,” Amara said quietly. “Thank you anyway.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Odiana said, waggling a finger. “Lying that way. I promise you that I’ll make it stop hurting.”

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“That’s enough teasing,” Lady Aquitaine said smoothly.

Odiana scowled at Lady Aquitaine, stuck her tongue out at her, then got up to wander idly down the stream bank.

Lady Aquitaine rose from the base of the tree and said, “We have now reached a crossroads, Cursor. There are difficult decisions that must be made.”

“Concerning what?” Amara asked.

“The future,” Lady Aquitaine replied. “For instance. I must decide whether or not allowing you to live is likely to prove helpful or inconvenient. You are, after all, a quite capable agent of the Crown. Given the political climate, you could be a small but significant obstacle to my plans should you turn your hand against me.” She gave Amara a thoughtful look. “But you could be in a position to be very helpful indeed if we can reach some sort of arrangement.”

Amara drew in a slow, deep breath, steadying herself. “I suppose it was too much to hope for that you would act in good faith, once you had what you wanted,” she said quietly.

“If I take that path?” Lady Aquitaine shrugged. “I can simply explain how we were found by one of Kalarus’s search parties, which came on us by night, and that there were few survivors.”

“And you think people will believe that tripe?”

“Why on earth not, dear?” said Lady Aquitaine in a cold voice. “You just told Gaius yourself that the party was still in danger of discovery, after all.” She narrowed her own gaze, her pale face bleak as stone. “And there will be no one to gainsay me. Not only will I get away with it, Countess. They’ll most likely award me another medal.”

“My answer is no,” Amara said quietly.

Lady Aquitaine arched an eyebrow. “Principle is well and good, Countess. But in this particular instance, your options are quite limited. You can either agree to work for me . . . or Aldrick can take Aria’s head, at which point I will ask again.”

Amara shot a hard look over her shoulder, where the still-limping swordsman stood over Lady Placida’s recumbent form, sword held in a high guard.

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“Right now,” Lady Aquitaine said, “Gaius is likely contacting Placida, telling him that his wife is safe. But if she should die now, the furies she restrains will be freed with catastrophic results to Placida’s lands and holders. From where he stands, he will have little choice but to draw the conclusion that Gaius betrayed him.”

“Assuming,” Amara said, “that you can make good on your threat. I don’t think you’d kill another member of the League in cold blood.”

“No, Countess?” Lady Aquitaine said, her voice cold. “You know I am perfectly willing to kill every one of you rather than risk having you in my way. You know it.”

Amara glanced at Rook, who held Masha tight by the stream bank and had her head bowed, attempting to go unnoticed. “Even the little girl?”

“Children of murdered parents often grow up to seek revenge, Countess. That’s a bitter life with a terrible ending. I’d be doing her a kindness.”

Bernard placed the tip of his dagger lightly against the back of Lady Aquitaine’s neck, seized a fistful of her lustrous dark hair to hold her steady, and said, “You will kindly tell Aldrick to sheathe his sword, Your Grace.”

Aldrick bared his teeth in a snarl.

Lady Aquitaine’s lip lifted in a contemptuous sneer. “Odiana, dear?”

Water suddenly surged up out of the stream in a set of writhing tentacles not too terribly unlike those of the Canim cloud beasts. They whipped up around Rook and Masha like constrictor serpents, twining around them. For a sickening second, one of the water tendrils covered their noses and mouths, strangling them, before Odiana gestured and they were allowed to breathe again.

Lady Aquitaine glanced at Amara and tilted her head, her expression daring Amara to respond.

“There’s a flaw in your reasoning, Your Grace,” Amara said quietly. “Even if your pet mercenaries kill them both, you will still be dead.”

Lady Aquitaine’s smile grew even more smug. “Actually, there’s something you haven’t accounted for, Countess.”

“And that is?”

Lady Aquitaine threw back her head and laughed, her body rippling through changes, her face contorting into different features—and by the time she lowered her head again, Odiana stood where Lady Aquitaine had been. “I’m not Lady Aquitaine.”

Lady Aquitaines voice said, from behind Amara, “Really, Countess. I’m
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somewhat disappointed in you. I gave you even odds of seeing through the switch.”

Amara looked over her shoulder to find Lady Aquitaine, not Odiana, holding the watercrafting that held Rook and Masha in its grasp.

“Can you grasp the situation now, Cursor?” Lady Aquitaine continued. “This game is over. You lost.”

“Perhaps.” Amara felt her mouth curl up into a slow smile, and she nodded at Rook. “Perhaps not.”

Rook’s mouth curled into a hard, unpleasant smile—and then there was a flash of light, a sudden cloud of steam, and the burning shape of a falcon, Lady Placida’s fire fury. It shattered the water-bonds and streaked at Lady Aquitaine like a miniature comet.

At the same instant, Lady Placida’s unconscious figure swept Aldrick’s good leg out from under him, and the wounded one buckled, pitching him to the ground. Before he could recover, Lady Placida was on his back with a knee between his shoulder blades and a heavy strangling cord around his neck.

Lady Aquitaine threw her hands up to ward off the charging fire fury. She stumbled and slipped down the bank and into the stream.

Rook rose—then she, too, changed, growing taller, more slender, until Placidus Aria stood in her place, the bewildered child held on one hip. She lifted her other hand and the fire fury streaked back to her wrist, perching there, while she faced Lady Aquitaine.

At the same time, the figure atop Aldrick blurred as well, until it was Rook that held him down.

“I confess,” Amara drawled to Lady Aquitaine, “I’m somewhat disappointed in you. I gave you even odds of seeing through the switch.” She showed Lady Aquitaine her teeth. “You didn’t really think I was unaware of your listening in on my conversations with Bernard, did you?”

Lady Aquitaines face began to flush an angry red.

“Did you believe it when I said I had no idea what you might do, no idea what I could do to prepare, no idea whether or not you’d turn on us?” Amara shook her head. “I never prevented you from listening in because I wanted you to hear it, Your Grace. I wanted you to think you would be dealing with a helpless little lamb. But to be honest, didn’t think you’d be quite so egocentrically stupid as to fall for it.”

Lady Aquitaine bared her teeth, furious, and began to rise from the stream.

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“Invidia,” warned Lady Placida, gesturing slightly with the wrist where the fire fury perched. “I’ve had a bad week.”

“Can you grasp the situation now?” Amara said, her tone hard. “This game is over. You lost.”

Lady Aquitaine inhaled slowly, making a visible effort to rein in her temper. “Very well,” she said in a quiet, dangerous voice. “What are your terms?”