Reader and Raelynx (40 page)

More and more terrifying. Now Senneth’s lungs were seizing up, while her stomach was still tightly clenched. “Is she with Ellynor?”
Has Lara arrived yet? Oh, Bright Mother, bring all the mystics to camp right now to save Kirra….

“I don’t know—who’s with her, serra.” He gasped. “Your brother sent me after you.”

Senneth nodded and leaned lower in the saddle, coaxing more speed from Ariane’s horse. Senneth had a rough-and-ready sort of healing power herself, and it worked well on injuries. If she could get there in time—if she could lay her hands on Kirra’s wound—oh, surely, surely, she could save that bright girl’s precious life—

“This way,” the Brassenthwaite man called as Senneth turned her horse toward the east, following the path that would take her around the worst of the fighting. “There was a skirmish there—this morning. I don’t know—if enemy soldiers are still in place.”

She let him take the lead on a more indirect route, though every nerve in her body was screaming to go faster, cut straight cross-country, never mind the obstacles. She had completely forgotten any fancies about hope and spring. All she could see now were barren hillocks, stripped trees, the unfriendly and stony terrain that lay between her and her goal.

They swept around one of those low hills to find a handful of men scattered across their path.
Scavengers,
Senneth thought first, for they wore no identifying colors from either army. And then, with even more contempt,
Traitors.
For one of them wheeled his horse right in front of her, pulling a sword to bar her passage. She saw a flash of topaz on his finger. A Storian man.

She lifted her hand to fling fire, to scorch her way through this roadblock, but just then the false Brassenthwaite man crashed his mount against hers, sending them careening off the road. Her horse bucked and skidded; the fight to stay on its back momentarily diverted her from magic. Before she could raise her hand again, one of the other riders swooped close enough to grab her left wrist and practically yank her from the saddle.

She felt all her nerves arc with shock and then go dead.

“Ah, Senneth,” Halchon Gisseltess purred in her ear. “How careless of you to fall into my hands.”

T
HEY
rode for perhaps an hour. Wherever he was taking her, it wasn’t back to his army’s camp. That was about the only coherent thought Senneth could form while Halchon Gisseltess carried her before him on his horse.

He had caught her. He was taking her somewhere. She was powerless against him. He was touching her, and he might well be planning to rape her, and she could do nothing to stop him; and she would rather be dead.

She tried to force herself to take in details, to guess which direction they were headed. West and a little south, she thought. She had a terrible suspicion they were on the way to Ghosenhall. He had always said he wanted to install her as his queen in the royal city. He had to know she would not consent to such a farce—that the minute he released her, she would turn on him with fury and fire. Perhaps he did not intend to release her until she had been well and truly immobilized. Perhaps, while they had been fighting at the tip of Brassenthwaite, a regiment of his soldiers had marched through Ghosenhall and occupied the palace. Perhaps he had already prepared a bed of moonstones to be her bower, had fitted a room for her with shackles and chains. Perhaps, after all, she was doomed to be his lover and his queen.

She had been afraid of him her whole life. From the day she had first met him, his touch had wiped her clean of power, had filled her soul with depression and her mind with utter bleakness. When she was seventeen, she had broken with her father in the most drastic fashion to avoid an arranged marriage with Halchon Gisseltess. She could not bear to think, after all her travels, all her adventures, her life had brought her back to the same desperate point.

One of the accompanying soldiers pressed nearer. “Marlord. The others are just ahead. Will we camp for the night or keep moving?”

Halchon spoke over her head. “Camp, but not just yet. I want to travel as far as we can even after the light fails.”

“Do you expect a pursuit?”

Halchon laughed softly. “I do. But not until her distracted friends realize that she’s missing. They won’t know who’s got her or where. We have some time, I think.”

Speaking in a rather hesitant voice, the Gisseltess man said, “But aren’t they mystics? Her friends?”

Halchon’s own voice dripped with contempt. “
She’s
a mystic, and
she
was quickly taken. Don’t be afraid of magic, soldier. It is so easily overcome.”

It’s not,
Senneth wanted to cry.
Only mine! Only by you!
But she did not even have the energy to speak.

In another five minutes they had come upon a group of soldiers stationed along the road. Senneth tried to count—maybe fifty of them—all in Gisseltess black and red. Her despair intensified. Perhaps, if she had been able to free herself from Halchon’s hold, she would have been able to fight off the six or seven men who had helped him handle the ambush, but she could not outmaneuver this many. She had no idea how quickly her magic would return once Halchon released her. Instantly? In five minutes? In an hour? The way she felt now, she might never be able to call fire again.

And there was no guarantee Halchon would ever release her….

After a brief conference, the two groups merged and continued on the westward journey, traveling much more slowly now that it was almost completely dark. There were no jokes between the men, no wasted excursions off the road. This must be the marlord’s most elite and devoted guard, efficient and seasoned.

None of them were likely to be moved to pity by Senneth’s situation.

No one would help her. She could not help herself. She could so easily die.

She would rather die, if the alternative was to take Halchon Gisseltess to her bed.

After about another hour of riding, the lead soldier came trotting back to where Halchon rode in the center of his men. “Marlord, up ahead about a hundred yards is a good place for camping. Under a natural overhang, with water not far. Defensible and out of the wind. Or did you want to keep riding?”

“No, that sounds good. Make it ready.”

The soldier nodded and rode off. Halchon gave Senneth a little squeeze and murmured, “Did you hear that? I’m sure you’re glad to hear we’re about to make camp. You’ve had a long and tiring day and must be longing to lay your head down.”

She did not answer. She wasn’t sure she could. She tried not to shiver, she who was never cold, but a small shudder passed through her, and she was sure he could feel it.

He laughed. “Senneth, Senneth, Senneth. All these years we’ve been friends, and you’re still afraid of me? I’m not going to take you on the cold ground surrounded by a few dozen of my men. I have waited too long to enjoy the pleasures of your body. We will be in Ghosenhall, perhaps, or Gissel Plain—or at least some fine inn with clean sheets and a decent brandy!—before I make you my lover.” His arm tightened again. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek. She felt as if he had laid ice against her skin. “But that day will be very soon, I promise you. I have waited a very long time, and I am not in the mood to be patient much longer.”

There was no need to reply, for they had arrived at the evening’s campsite.
Now,
Senneth thought, trying to will her muscles to tense, her mind to plan for action.
Now, in the chaos of dismounting, in the confusion of many bodies. Break free of him. Set all his men on fire.

But she couldn’t do it.

He didn’t release her, in any case. He freed himself from the stirrups and then leapt lightly to the ground, still holding her clutched against him. For a moment, her feet wouldn’t support her and she swooned against him, feeling dizzy, feeling weak. But then his hold shifted. He kept one hand clamped tightly around her right wrist, but no longer had an arm passed around her waist. She could breathe again, and she took in great windy gusts of air. She almost felt steady, almost believed she could think.

Surreptitiously, she made a fist of her left hand, but her fingers were cold. There was no fire in her. Halchon still had hold of her, and all her magic was in abeyance.

“I need a moment of privacy,” she said to him in a raw voice.

Someone had started a campfire, and so he had just enough light to peer into her face. “She speaks! And asks for impossible things.”

She stared at him steadily, letting him see all her hatred, all her defiance. She didn’t have to put her hopelessness on her face; that he had obviously discerned for himself. “Then I suppose I will wet myself here in the middle of your camp.”

He seemed amused. “We might both attend to our bodily needs a few steps out of the firelight,” he said. “Tricky, yes, but we are modest, resourceful people. We shall each endeavor to turn our eyes away and let the other attend to his or her business.”

Revolting, embarrassing, but unavoidable. She followed him past the overhang, crouched when he did, accomplished her task with the minimum of grace, and followed him back into the firelight. Someone had already laid out a simple meal, and Halchon pulled her down next to him on a blanket before the fire.

“Are you hungry, my dear?” he asked her in a solicitous voice.

Not at all. She thought she might choke if she tried to swallow anything, but the gods alone knew what the next few hours, the next few days, held for her. She must try to keep up her strength. Who knew when an opportunity might present itself? “A little.”

“Then here. Some bread, some dried meat. Plain fare, but tasty after a hard day’s riding.”

Both of them ate one-handed, for his fingers were still locked around her wrist. She was clumsy with her left hand, but that forced her to focus on using it, and that meant some of her attention was distracted from her fear and anger and revulsion. When would her friends realize she was missing? Had Cammon, perhaps, sensed her distress, or was Halchon’s antithetical nature preventing the other mystic from picking up any signal from her at all? Tayse would have started worrying by now, particularly if Kirra had reported that Senneth planned to be back by nightfall.

Assuming Kirra herself had made it back.

She forced herself to look at Halchon. “So was it a lie then? About Kirra?”

“Oh, she’s quite healthy, as far as I know,” Halchon said. “Of course, I missed half of the day’s battle, so any number of your friends could have fallen by now.” He took a bite of meat. “Serramarra Kirra Danalustrous. Marlord Kiernan Brassenthwaite. Princess Amalie.” He took another bite. “Your husband.”

“All of them would gladly give their lives,” she said quietly, “if it meant keeping you from the throne of Gillengaria.”

“Well, once they realize I’ve got
you
, I think some of the fight might go out of them,” he said.

“Do you think to ransom me? Use me to convince them to lay down their arms?” She shook her head. “The regent would never advise the princess to make such a disastrous trade. Neither would my brother. Not very sentimental men.”

“No, and I quite applaud their hard-heartedness. But I think, when they see how easily I have captured
you
, they will reassess their chances of success against me. They will say, ‘Ah, that clever Halchon. We cannot win against him. We will cut our losses—we will surrender while we can.’”

“I don’t believe the loss of one mystic will weigh that heavily in their calculations.” They were far enough away by now that it didn’t matter what he knew. “Besides, there are reinforcements on the way even as we speak. Ariane Rappengrass has brought an army to fight for the princess.”

He was unimpressed. “Yes, and I will counter with fresh soldiers of my own—Arberharst troops marching down through Tilt. You still do not have the numbers, Senneth. You cannot win.”

“We have numbers we didn’t count on,” she said. “Nocklyn forces ride with Rappengrass.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing his eyebrows twitch together in a frown. “Impossible. Nocklyn is—” He pressed his lips together.

She felt a moment’s triumph, and it was sweet. “Nocklyn is under the control of marlady Mayva,” she drawled. “Whose husband has been arrested for murder. Oh!” She put her free hand to her mouth. “Wasn’t her husband a relation of yours?”

His eyes narrowed, but he offered her a cold smile. “So. Mayva surprises everyone, and my cousin most of all, no doubt. You may be pleased, and I may be disgruntled, but it makes no material difference. I still have superior forces—and I still have you. Next to Amalie, you are the most visible figure in the royal army. And you are in my power. That will shake the princess. That will shake her defenders. Mark my words, when the fight resumes in the morning, the royal camp will be in turmoil, and my allies will press their advantage.”

That’s not why you took me,
she wanted to say—except she didn’t want him to answer, didn’t want him to speak of his plans for her. Instead she said coldly, “You will be surprised at how fiercely they will fight. Whether or not I am with them.”

“Well, I might be, except I will not be there to see it,” he said. One of his men took away their plates and Halchon stretched his legs out comfortably before him. “You and I, Senneth, are headed to Ghosenhall. I have a regiment stationed there, and I understand the residents of the city have become quite—ah—eager to accommodate my soldiers in all regards. I thought it an interesting move when you decided to abandon the city—strategically wise, perhaps, but symbolically disastrous! Ghosenhall is where the king resides—whoever resides in Ghosenhall is the king. Once we are installed in the palace, my dear, we will be hard to dislodge. And if, as seems to me very likely, your little princess is soon advised by her regent to flee for her life, well, then! She will be in Brassenthwaite or Kianlever—but I will be sitting on the throne in Ghosenhall, with you at my side. It will be easy for me to call myself king, then, don’t you think? It will only seem natural.”

“It will never seem natural to think of
you
on the throne,” she said.

He laughed. “Nonsense. You will quickly grow resigned to the notion, I think.” Unexpectedly, he jerked her into his arms and laid his mouth heavily upon hers. It was like being kissed by death. Senneth felt as if she was suffocating, as if her body had been coated with ice. He held her tighter, and she lost all ability to breathe.

When he finally lifted his head, he smiled down at her, his own breathing harsh and his eyes lit by dark satisfaction. “I have waited so long to taste your mouth,” he murmured. “And it is just as delicious as I had always hoped. Senneth, I live for the day I take you as my wife.” He bent his head to kiss her again.

She struggled madly in his arms, trying to at least get one hand free. She was a swordswoman; she had trained with Riders. Surely, even if her magic had failed, her physical strength was still uncompromised. He shifted his hold, and her right arm slipped from his grasp. She balled her fist and swung her hand hard into his ribs.

Halchon grunted and loosened his grip, and she punched him again. Dimly she was aware of movement around them—his men, hearing their struggle, coming to his aid—but she paid them no attention. She struck him again and fought to her knees as his hands flailed and his fingers slipped and, just for a moment, he lost contact with her.

She kicked him hard in the groin and somersaulted backward, calling flame from both hands as she landed in a crouch. Shouts rang out from all around her; the campfire leapt skyward. Halchon would not burn, so she sprayed the rest of the soldiers with a fine fire, and they yelped and started running away from her. Could she hold them all at bay? She got one foot under her and tried to push herself to a standing position.

Someone struck her a hard blow from behind, flattening her to the ground, and then Halchon was sprawled across her, covering her body with his. Instantly, the flames at her fingertips went out. The campfire hissed and died away to coal. Instantly, she was wretched and dull and wracked with misery.