Reader and Raelynx (34 page)

For her it was. She lifted her mouth and kissed him again, straining against him as if trying to meld her body to his. Death and destruction loomed immediately ahead; separation and heartbreak lay inevitably beyond. But, for tonight, there was no course open to them but to prove their fealty by making love. They feverishly pulled off their own clothes and each other’s—laughed to see Amalie’s dagger still tightly buckled to her leg—and sprawled on the floor, tangled together, swearing vows and whispering each other’s names. The moon watched through the window; the raelynx, asleep at the hearth, did not seem to notice at all. But Cammon wondered, just before he fell asleep, how many other gods had tiptoed through the room, offering or withholding their blessings. Surely whichever goddess watched over him must be celebrating tonight; surely she was moved by honest emotion and unguarded passion. Surely she would want to grant her most dutiful acolyte his heart’s desire.

I
N
the morning, the troops moved out, ranks of royal soldiers marching beside borrowed fighters from Merrenstow, Kianlever, and Helven. Amalie rode at the head of the army, Cammon and Valri on either side of her, Riders in a ring around them. Romar Brendyn, acting as commander, followed shortly behind her. The raelynx traveled near Amalie, sometimes roaming far ahead, always returning when she called it to her side. Sometimes Cammon saw three raelynxes bounding along beside them—sometimes a raelynx, a wolf, and a lion. Donnal and Kirra, choosing to accompany the army in animal form.

The lead Rider carried a two-tiered standard: the royal flag, a gold lion splashed on a black field; and a new device that Amalie had adopted as her own, a red raelynx rampant on a gold background. The Queen’s Riders wore new sashes that alternated lions and raelynxes. Even some of the common soldiers had tied scarlet scarves around their arms or braided crimson ribbons into the manes of their horses. They were the princess’s army; they were riding to protect her.

A small regiment had stayed behind under the command of Tayse, to engage and distract the enemy troops as they advanced on Ghosenhall. Justin and two other Riders had also joined this perilous venture.

Senneth and Ellynor waited with them.

S
ENNETH
knew it was risky, of course. They might all die. But Justin and Tayse had spent hours planning an ambush, an escape route, and an alternate plan. They seemed to think they could inflict some damage on the oncoming army, then whisk their troops away with a minimum of loss.

Tayse had been less than thrilled with Senneth’s plan to confront Halchon Gisseltess.

“I won’t let him near enough to touch me,” she said. Something about his skin, his body, was anathema to her. She could not call fire, she almost could not summon rational thought, if he had any physical contact with her. She wondered sometimes if he possessed a peculiar magic, a kind that rendered other kinds of magic inoperable, and if so, what kind of strange god might watch over such a man. “But I think we need to take one last chance to try to bargain with him.”

Predictably, Justin’s comment had been, “The only bargain he understands is a blade through the heart.”

“It will come to that, no doubt,” she said. “But I feel compelled to try.”

They had learned quite by accident that the Arberharst men were not immune to Lirren magic. Only a handful of attackers had survived the assault on the palace, and a few had been so wounded that they could not be expected to live through the night. Kirra had been unable to heal them, but Ellynor had brought two of them back from the brink of death. She had then made herself invisible in order to eavesdrop on the manner in which Romar Brendyn questioned the enemy soldiers. “Because if he tortured them, I wasn’t going to help him again, and I’d let him know that,” she confessed to Senneth. Romar hadn’t seen her there—but neither had the soldiers from Arberharst.

And that had gotten Senneth to thinking.

They laid their trap a few miles outside the city limits, on a low stretch of road that Justin called a natural ambush, since it passed between high ridges on either side. They had barely a day to wait before their scout came racing back to pant out that the armies were only a few hours behind him.

Senneth didn’t think she had quite prepared herself for the sight of ten thousand men advancing to war.

They made one undulating, multicolored river of motion, ten men across and a thousand men deep. The three armies had blended into one, but she could still discern pockets of soldiers who rode with hundreds of their fellows—Lumanen guards dressed in black and silver, for instance, or Gisseltess men in black and red. It was no surprise, she thought, to find among the enemy troops rows of men wearing the topaz sash of Storian. The blue uniforms of the Arberharst soldiers, several thousand all told, were scattered throughout the Gillengaria masses. A deliberate move on Halchon’s part, Senneth thought with grudging admiration; he knew the foreign recruits were much less likely to be affected by homegrown magic.

But today that decision would work against them.

Senneth, Tayse, and their small force hid on top of the northernmost hill, watching the army march closer. An advance guard of perhaps twenty men led the way, carrying the flags of all three armies. Behind them rode the heads of this villainous alliance: Rayson Fortunalt, a florid, heavyset man with small eyes and a perpetually sneering expression; Halchon Gisseltess, square-faced, dark-haired, powerfully built, and purposeful; and Coralinda Gisseltess, whose black-and-silver hair mirrored her flag, her cloak, the colors of her goddess. She looked like an older, smaller version of her brother—no less purposeful, no less powerful. Senneth could not remember the last time she had seen them together, though she vividly recalled her last few meetings with each of them, and none of those memories gave her pleasure.

Senneth could pick out the small red flowers on Halchon’s vest before Tayse turned to her and gave a small nod.
Now
.

She balled her hands into fists, then spread her fingers wide. A wall of flame leapt up in the middle of the road.

Horses screamed; men shouted. There was a terrific clamor of confusion. Above it all she could hear Halchon’s voice calling out, “Stay calm! It is sorcery! Halt your horses! Stay calm!”

As if she was lifting a long, unwieldy boulder, Senneth slowly raised her arms, palms upward, fingers splayed. The flames whipped higher and began to travel, racing back along both sides of the massed men, following that endless line of oncoming soldiers. More shrieks, more sounds of struggling horses. It was impossible to see through the coruscating flame, but she could hear the clang of swords and shields. Blades drawn, no enemy to fight but fire.

A line of blue-clad soldiers galloped through the orange wall, weapons raised, bodies unharmed. Emboldened, a few Gillengaria men attempted to follow. Senneth heard their shouts of pain, the wild stomping of their horses’ hooves. Three of them burst through the fire, their uniforms alight, their horses wild with terror. They each used one hand to beat out the flames, one hand to grasp their swords.

The defenders flowed downhill from their hiding place. Every enemy who broke through the wall was met head-on by a Rider or a royal soldier.

The conflicts were quick and decisive, always favoring the defenders, for, while combatants trickled through, royal soldiers had the numerical advantage. Senneth could hear Halchon shouting again, hear Rayson’s furious questions. “What’s happening? Who’s fighting? Call them back!” But still more Arberharst soldiers worked their way past the fire. About fifteen cantered up from the rear ranks of the army, ready to engage. A few more Gillengaria soldiers staggered through, scorched but determined.

All of them were cut down.

Finally, after a bloody hour of combat, no more soldiers attempted to breach the wall. The Riders and the royal soldiers still sprawled across the road, waiting for another assault, but for the moment, all was quiet.

Senneth cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “Marlord Halchon! I would have a conference with you!”

There was a moment of silence while she imagined Halchon first cursing her name, then wondering how he might turn this confrontation to his advantage. “Serra Senneth,” he shouted back. “I would be delighted to parley. I do not particularly wish to be incinerated in my attempts to communicate with you, however.”

“If you will agree to meet under a flag of truce, I will rescind my flame. There is a place two miles ahead of you on this road. Come alone to meet me there in one hour. Leave the rest of your army where it stands.”

“I am not fool enough to come by myself.”

Tayse had practically scripted this for her. “How many men will make you feel safe?”

“How many are in your army?”

“Bring no more than twenty,” she said. “Otherwise, we have no deal.”

“I will agree to that. When do you put out the fire? Our horses are ready to bolt.”

“I will douse the flames when we have withdrawn to our position.”

“I will see you in one hour, then,” he said.

This first part had been tricky; the next part would be trickier still. Coeval led most of their troops toward an agreed-upon rendezvous some distance past Ghosenhall. Tayse, Justin, Senneth, Ellynor, and about twenty men moved up the road to the second spot they had chosen. Again, they had commandeered the high ground, arranging themselves on a hillock that brushed against the road. Still on horseback, Senneth took a position close enough to the road to allow her to speak more or less comfortably to any traveler passing by. Justin, Tayse, and the other soldiers deployed behind her, weapons out. Ellynor cloaked herself in darkness and pulled her mount so close that Senneth could feel the animal’s body heat—though she couldn’t see the Lirren girl at all.

With a lot of effort and a bit of luck, Senneth could turn herself invisible, too—but she had the uneasy feeling Halchon would not be fooled by her spell. For this maneuver, she wanted to take no chances.

Halchon Gisseltess and a small escort arrived precisely at the appointed time.

“That’s near enough,” Senneth called when he was fifty feet away. He lifted a hand and his riders came to a tidy halt.

“Senneth,” he said, and his beautiful voice was warm with pleasure. “I am, as always, delighted at the chance to visit with you, though I must confess this venue is not entirely as civilized as I would like.”

“Uncivilized men must make do with the opportunities afforded to them,” she said.

He laughed softly. “Come, did you separate me from my army merely to insult me? Surely not. What offer do you have to make? Or what appeal?”

“The king is dead, you know,” she said baldly. “But Amalie still lives. What bargain would you strike to end this here, now, before another death is recorded?”

“You know my terms,” he said. “I want to be king. Amalie may abdicate in my favor.”

“You would make a very bad king,” Senneth said, shaking her head. “I fear you would destroy Gillengaria within a year of taking the throne. A man who uses violence to attain his ends will use violence to enforce his will.”

“Richly ironic, coming from a woman who herself married a soldier.”

“He fights to defend. You fight to acquire. Those are two very different things.”

“Spare me the philosophy, Senneth. I want to be king. Hand me the crown and I will dismantle the armies.”

“Surely there are other solutions,” she said. She felt like a traitor even as she said it, but the next option had to be presented. “There might be a man of Gisseltess whom you would be glad to support as a suitor to the princess. A marriage between Ghosenhall and Gissel Plain would afford you some of the power you crave.”

He appeared to reflect. “My oldest son is almost fourteen. Not a bad match for a nineteen-year-old girl, and a fine one in a few years’ time.”

She should have expected that, and she tried not to let her revulsion show. “I cannot broker a marriage on Amalie’s behalf but I
can
promise that she will consider him, and will meet him with an honest and true heart.”

Halchon’s smile turned into a leer. “But here’s a possibility that brings me even closer to the throne,” he said. “My own wife is missing.
I’ll
wed the princess and rule Gillengaria at her side.”

She couldn’t repress her gasp. “No! Amalie would rather die.”

He laughed at her. “Just because
you
would rather die than come to my bed doesn’t mean every woman feels the same way.”

“Then
I
would rather see her dead or dispossessed than have to endure your touch for half an hour,” she retorted. “There might be a chance you could put your son forward and have him considered as a candidate. But if
you
are the only suitor from Gisseltess, I can promise you no marriage will occur.”

He was still intensely amused. “But I need a wife, Senneth, now that the bitch who bore my sons has run off—finding shelter with
your
brothers, if the gossip I hear is true. You owe me for that, I believe, for I know you were instrumental in her escape. I have made you this offer before. Become my wife. My son will marry Amalie. Together we will offer the young king and queen our seasoned counsel and our loving example. That would satisfy me, I think. That would cause me to lay down my arms.”

Tayse hadn’t said a word, and she doubted if his stony face had showed any change of expression, but she could feel the fury radiating from his coiled body. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she said, “I have a husband. And am not inclined to shed him for convenience’s sake.”

“But, Senneth,” Halchon purred, “he could so easily be dead.”

Behind the Riders, someone shouted. Suddenly there was the pound of hooves, the scrape of swords. “Behind us!” one of the royal soldiers cried out, and then there was a furious clash of weapons. Halchon raised his arm and drove his fist through the air, and the men with him charged toward the hill.

Wheeling her horse around, Senneth reached out a wild hand and felt Ellynor’s fingers close around her wrist. She heard the cries of astonishment behind them, which meant she must have disappeared from view as completely as she’d hoped. Unseen, she and Ellynor swept up the hill and through the ranks of defenders. A line of enemy soldiers had crept up behind them while Halchon and Senneth engaged in insulting debate—just as Tayse had predicted.

“Leave them! Follow me!” Senneth cried, though, of course, none of the defenders could
see
her to follow. But they all managed one or two more devastating blows, then turned their horses and came thundering after Ellynor and Senneth. They had identified a low tumble of shrubbery as a meeting spot, and the two women reached it half a minute before the others. Ellynor released Senneth and muttered something that Senneth hoped meant an expansion of her magic. For a moment, they waited, strung with tension, holding their horses ready to gallop forward again. Their own soldiers plowed into the rendezvous point at a dead run, the attackers hard on their heels, and they all plunged forward again at a headlong pace. Only now their whole group was invisible.

Behind them, again, sounded more cries of confusion and fury. Senneth could hear Halchon’s voice. “You fools! It’s magic again! After them, after them!” There was the sound of tentative pursuit, but the hoofbeats were slower, the riders clearly mystified.

“Which way? Straight ahead?”

“What kind of magic is this? Fire and—and—vanishing? There’s no sorcery like that in Arberharst.”

“Quiet! Can you hear hoofbeats?”

“There—I think—something crashed through that line of bushes.”

The attackers charged after them, but too late, too disorganized, too uncertain. Senneth and her escort drew away as rapidly as they could, flinging themselves toward the larger band of soldiers waiting on the other side of Ghosenhall.

The enemies could not see them, but inside Ellynor’s protective circle, they could not see each other, either. They had not had much time to practice how they would ride close together at a very fast pace without treading all over each other. It was also difficult to see
out
of the dark haze Ellynor had summoned to hide them. Fortunately, the horses seemed less spooked than the humans. Maybe nothing was changed to them, Senneth thought. Maybe their eyes were so different that they were not blinded by magic.