Lady of the Star Wind (49 page)

“Get this man to the surgeons,” Rothan ordered.

“I have to go after her,” Mark said. “We’re wasting precious time!”

Rothan nodded once. “Take a squad of chariots. I pray the gods ride with you, my friend.” The king extended his hand, and Mark clasped it.

He turned to go, finding Khefer at his side. The Nakhtiaar captain didn’t hesitate for an instant. “My men and horses are ready, my lord.”

As the two men left the tent on the run, Mark said, “We’d heard rumors from your spies that the Maiskhan might try to kidnap Sandy to overcome the prophecy about her and the mirror. That’s why I ordered her to stay behind the lines in Rothan’s fortified camp. What the seven hells was she doing on the battlefield?”

Khefer shouted orders to his men as he ran before answering Mark’s furious question. “She takes her duty as a physician above all else, my lord, as I well know. I pray that Sallea and Lakht can delay the enemy as they attempt to carry the Lady to their temple.” The captain launched himself into his own chariot next to Mark and a moment later made a sweeping turn out of camp and across the plains to the new road. Five chariots rolled in their wake.

“I hope Sallea doesn’t make her own injuries worse in the process,” Mark said, knowing Khefer had to be worried.

“Another hard-headed woman. I’m praying for her as well. Forgive me, my lord, but perhaps my prayers for Sallea are even more devout than the words I use to beseech help for your Lady.” Cracking the whip above his team, the captain encouraged them to a new burst of speed. “Lucky the cursed Maiskhan priests wanted a road built from the city to their shrine,” Khefer shouted above the clatter of hooves and the creaking of the wheels. “We can make much better time.”

“Yeah, lucky.” Mark’s sweaty hands were clenched on the rim of the jolting chariot. His racing thoughts were chaotic, full of fear for Sandy. He swore. This was no way to go into the most critical combat of his life, trying to save the woman he loved. Taking a deep breath, he tried to center himself, concentrate, visualize the temple and its surroundings, plan scenarios.

“We’ll get there, my friend.” Khefer glanced away from the road for a second to reassure Mark. “Our gods must fight to keep the Lady from dying on a bloodstained Maiskhan altar.”

Mark hoped Khefer was right. Sandy might have a chance if he and his hastily assembled force could get to the temple first and ambush the kidnappers. As the incomplete structure came into view, Mark could see how much progress had been made over the months since he and Sandy had traveled past it in their merchant disguise, fleeing with Rothan. The temple now stood two levels higher.

He got out his distance viewers from the small pack on his belt and trained them on the wide steps.

“What do you see?” Khefer shouted. “Are we in time?”

“No. The bastards are already there.”

The chariot took a leap forward as Khefer cracked the lash over the heads of his team. “Any sign of Sallea?”

“Didn’t see her. She might have been captured, one already injured warrior against overwhelming odds.” Mark got out his blaster and checked the charge one-handed, bracing himself against the rail of the pitching chariot.

 
Lower than he’d ever gone without reloading, but there were no fresh charges on Nakhtiaar to be had.

He’d shot with reckless abandon in the last stand on the battlefield, saving Rothan’s life time and again.

“Why don’t you use your magic?” Khefer glanced sideways for a second.

“Too far. It’s like an arrow. It has a certain range, magic or not.”

Mark returned to watching the scene play itself out through the viewer. Raging inside, he felt nearly insane with frustration at being so close yet still too far away to help Sandy. “The priests are dragging her up the first flight of stairs.” He watched, swearing terrible Outlier oaths, as Sandy was forced to climb farther up the pyramid to the rough, unfinished third level. Mark, Khefer, and their men were getting there but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. The horses were gallant but tired.

Now the Maiskhan soldiers were gesturing in their direction.

“We’ve been spotted.” He gave Khefer the grim update. A flash of blue in the crowd surrounding Sandy caught his eye, and he adjusted his focus. “More bad news—they’ve got Sallea too.”

“Just a few more moments,” Khefer promised. “The turnoff to the base of the knoll is close.” He directed the team onto the road looping around to the half-finished temple. Clinging to the chariot rail as the right wheel came off the ground with the speed of the turn, Mark made no protest at the dangerous maneuver. Every second counted.

Mark watched in his viewer as two soldiers held Sandy, who he could tell was screaming her defiance at them. The soldiers and the priests appeared to be arguing among themselves now. The priests kept gesturing at the stairs to the uppermost level, where the first skeletal framework of the actual temple had been erected. The soldiers were paying more attention to Mark’s oncoming force. The Maiskhan officer in command gestured at his men, who dragged a small flat rock over from a pile at the edge of the level. The three priests took Sandy, trying to force her onto her back over the makeshift altar. The Nakhtiaar slaves who’d been working on the construction crowded behind a line of Maiskhan guards.

Mark was convinced his grim fate was to watch his beloved Sandy sacrificed. He’d arrive in time only to extract a terrible vengeance. A sudden movement caught his eye. “Lords of Space!”
 

“What do you see?” Khefer demanded.

What Mark observed was nothing short of a miracle. Sallea had gotten her hands on a dagger, or had hidden one, and stabbed the Maiskhan officer holding Sandy in the back. As he fell, one of the imprisoned workers took his chains and whipped the legs out from under the guard standing in front of him. Grabbing the man’s sword, the worker jumped forward to cut down the nearest priest. He yelled something Mark couldn’t hear. Other slaves came to help their comrade and Sallea do battle. The Maiskhan guards in the immediate area were overwhelmed by the unexpected attack. The man who’d initiated the rebellion now had Sandy by one elbow, Sallea lending strength on the other side, and the trio withdrew toward the stairs up to the next level. Other workers formed a rough line around them, fighting the Maiskhan soldiers who came up the stairs in formation, swinging their swords to terrible effect against the lightly armed rebels.

Mark lost the angle in the final few nerve-shattering moments of the ride as the chariots came sweeping up to the base of the mound. Blaster at the ready, he jumped from the moving vehicle, taking the stairs at a dead run, heedless of whether his own men were behind him. Mark’s grandfather, father, and uncles had often talked with pride of the blind red rage their warrior blood could summon in the heat of battle. Mark had never felt it, had assumed it was a story, a legend to embellish the family’s reputation. The berserker rage flowed through his mind and body now, carrying him effortlessly on a wave of anger and adrenaline. He slashed at each Maiskhan who got in his way, cutting men down left and right with his sword, shoving past knots of struggling guards and workers.
 

He had to get to Sandy.
 

There was no other thought in his mind. Anger laced with a fine edge of fear for Sandy pushed the fatigue from his battle-weary muscles. He wasn’t even aware of Khefer and the small squad of loyal soldiers struggling to ascend the stairs behind him, trying to defend his back.

Mark gained the third level. The desperate fight had moved to the next-highest platform. The slave who’d started the battle was still standing, fiercely in command of his ragtag force. He had Sandy at the farthest edge of the plateau, with his men between them and the Maiskhan. Sallea stood directly in front of the princess, one arm useless with the arrow wound she’d sustained in the earlier battle, but wielding a stolen sword in the other hand. Mark used a precious shot of dwindling blaster charge to kill a Maiskhan about to split Sallea’s skull. The enemy soldier toppled off the edge of the terrace. As Khefer and his men toiled up the steps behind Mark, yelling their battle cry, the Maiskhan contingent realized the necessity to fight on two fronts. Mark broke through the last of the enemy soldiers, decapitating a warrior who dared to raise a sword against him. The Nakhtiaar prisoners parted to allow him to reach Sandy. She fell into his arms, white-faced, silent in shock, and he embraced her for a long moment, folding her as close to him as he could manage.
 

“She’s taken no harm, my lord,” Sallea said, “other than bruises and a few cuts perhaps.”

“I owe you for defending her,” he said over Sandy’s head.

The man commanding the workers’ rebellion saluted. “Ebnar, former captain of Farahna’s household guards, at your service.”

“You were the undercover spy for Rothan.” The pieces fell into place for Mark.

The man bowed slightly. “I tried to send as much information to General Intef as I could about the Maiskhan troop strength and movements. After I was betrayed to Farahna, I would have been executed if the Maiskhan priests hadn’t been desperate for strong slaves to finish this cursed temple in time for their rituals. Today I couldn’t allow the Lady of the Star Wind to be sacrificed to their evil god in front of my eyes. I vowed to die first in the attempt to save her.”

“You did well, all of you.” Mark gazed at the former slaves clustered around him, wounded, gaunt, bearing the marks of their forced captivity and labor. “I owe you anything you want to ask of me. The king will also be grateful.”
 

“First, the gods must grant our petition for the true king to take the city,” Ebnar replied. He gave orders to his ragtag men. “We need the keys to these accursed chains. Get them from the bodies of the Maiskhan foremen.”

Men saluted and moved to obey.

Mark realized why the officer’s name was familiar. “You’re Sapair’s partner.”
 

“You have word of Sapair?” Ebnar swung back eagerly.

“He escaped the city after you were taken, with the help of Captain Khefer here. We rescued the two of them from a Maiskhan patrol. He’s now Rothan’s chief official.”

Ebnar’s broad shoulders slumped in momentary relief. “I—I was so afraid Farahna had him killed. He never appeared in the slave quarters here, so I assumed he’d been executed. Nothing you could have told me today would have brought me more joy, my lord. Other than confirmation of the true king’s total victory.”

“Thank Khefer there. He broke Sapair out of the prison after Farahna’s men tortured him.”

“It was my honor.” Although he had one arm around Sallea’s waist, holding her close, Khefer shook hands with Ebnar. “You two did so much to assist my king, at great risks to yourselves. But how is the Lady?”

“A few minor scrapes and bruises,” Sandy told them. “A bit shaky. I fought them at the battlefield, but I only had a few shots. They were pretty rough with me after they chased me down.” She disentangled herself from Mark’s embrace. “And is the city taken?”

“Not as of the moment when we left to come here. But Rothan and General Intef are confident our troops will prevail,” Mark answered.

“There are loyal troops inside the city, I’m proud to say,” Ebnar declared. “They’ll fight under Rothan’s banners. Khefer and I laid the foundation, spread the word of a true king coming to liberate us. We kept hope alive.”

Mark said, “We’d better make plans for getting my Lady to safety at the camp.”

Shuddering, Sandy rubbed her arms, gazing at the unfinished temple platform around them. “I approve of your suggestion. This place is evil.”

Ebnar issued orders to his men, getting them organized for a march. Khefer conferred with his troops. Mark watched. Neither officer needed any interference from him, having matters well in hand.

“Mark.” Sandy’s voice was flat.

“What?” Alarm coursed along his nerve endings at her unusual tone.

“Look off there, out on the ocean.” She pointed.
 

“
Tzerde
.” Mark unslung his viewer again to confirm the phenomenon. He hoped he was seeing wrong.

“What are those things?” Khefer squinted and held a hand over his eyes. “Ships?”

“The whole damn Maiskhan navy, I’d say. Loaded to the gunwales with fresh troops, is my guess.” Mark lowered the viewer. His companions all had expressions of stunned dismay. He shook his head. “The enemy is technologically way ahead of our side on the water. Rothan doesn’t have one ship to call his own, much less a navy to keep these sailors and the fresh Maiskhan reinforcements from landing anywhere their officers want, any time. We can’t win this way.”

“We must warn the king,” Khefer and Ebnar said at the same moment.
 

“And what will he do?”

“What do you mean?” Eyebrows raised, Khefer appeared to believe there was only one possible answer to such a question. “He’ll fight.”

Mark hated to be the bearer of bad news, but the answer that was plain to him wasn’t the one Khefer proposed. “If he’s managed to batter down the gates, break into the city, and win the main battle, is he going to be able to keep this new Maiskhan army from coming in behind him and reclaiming the capital? Our side has no reinforcements arriving, as I understand it. Are Rothan’s troops going to be strong enough to fight and win another huge battle later today? Or even tomorrow morning, against fresh men?”