Sasharia En Garde (62 page)

I could only see the back of Randart’s head, but even from
that distance it was easy to make out how angry he was. And oh, he was angry.
No, he was enraged. When I saw him bend a little to address one of the men
following behind his horse, the man’s reaction made it clear Randart’s words
were upsetting.

I couldn’t hear it at the time, but he said, “Why did I not
know about these women? I will flay whoever was responsible.”

As always, he meant it.

He jerked up when Mom spoke. Her conviction was audible to
everyone. “It will never happen. I would be your adviser gladly, but I will
never be your wife.”

Canardan stilled, watched by his men, the gathered women and
(though he still did not know it) Randart.

Randart’s eyes narrowed. Dad and I could see his profile. He
raised a gloved hand, and his men stopped, everyone quiet.

Canardan’s force gradually became aware of Randart’s men
through surreptitious nudges and head tips, but Canardan’s attention was
divided between Mom and memory. Atanial had spoken in exactly the same tone,
the same gentleness, that Jehan’s mother Feraeth had used so long ago. Though
he’d ended the marriage, he’d tried to talk her into staying—they were still
friends—they shared a child. But Feraeth had said, “I must go, Canardan. Your
choices are no longer my choices.”

Who knows. Maybe he had never really considered Mom would
turn him down. Maybe he thought if he could get her to agree to one term, he
could convince her on all the others. Maybe he had to seem to be the good guy,
in her eyes, in the women’s eyes, in his guards’ eyes—in his own eyes—but he
laughed again, head back, teeth flashing.

We were all watching him now, including Jehan, who had
arrived from another tunnel, unseen by any of us.

Canardan threw his hands wide. “Atanial! If you will come
back with me to the capital, I promise, my gift to you will be an end to any
invasion—”

“You
idiot
!”

The roar of fury was almost unintelligible.

Everyone’s attention snapped to Randart—who had yanked a
loaded crossbow from one of his men, and fired.

Canardan jerked around, mouth open in surprise. I don’t
think he even saw the bolt that had been meant for his back. When he turned, it
smacked straight into his chest.

Canardan’s long silver-touched auburn hair flung back. One
hand groped futilely at the shaft protruding from him, until he began to fall,
slowly, slowly to his knees as two or three of his men who were obviously as
shocked as the rest of us belatedly sprang forward to catch him.

The clang of a sword rang out, the echo ricocheting. There
was a flash of white hair as Jehan leaped down from the rock fall from another
of the many tunnels, unseen until now by any of us. He flung his way through
the warriors ringing Randart and attacked the murderer of his father.

Randart’s men had fallen back, shocked at the death of the
king, but I didn’t trust them. I yanked my sword from the mare’s saddle sheath
and vaulted down the rocky scree until I ranged up behind Jehan, whose blades
whirled.

In the time I’d taken to run up, Jehan had gotten Randart
off the horse, whose hooves slipped in the rubble. Randart jumped clear and the
animal plunged away, ears flat, as men reached to catch the reins.

Randart backed up two steps under Jehan’s furious attack,
almost skidding in the rubble as he warded off blow after blow with his heavy
cavalry blade. He bumped up against a flat rock and hopped up, now striking
down at Jehan, who braced himself in the gravel before the rock, his cavalry
sword and someone else’s rapier humming.

Randart yelled over his shoulder, “Take him! Take him!”

Randart had chosen his crossbow men deliberately. They were
willing to kill in cold blood. The one with the still-loaded bow yanked it up
and took aim at Jehan.

“Touch him and you die,” I bellowed as I dashed forward.

The man yanked the bow toward me. I snapped off a sidekick
to his hand that sent the bow hurtling into the air. It smashed against the ceiling
and the bolt fired—straight into the ground in front of the other riders,
sending up a spurt of gravel.

Horses panicked, men in the narrow tunnel mouth fell back,
some shoving, everyone yelling and slipping and sliding, as Randart glared past
Jehan at me. “Kill her!” Randart yelled, with a flourish of his sword.

Most of the nearby men just pressed back, but two came at
me, blades raised. I kicked up gravel at one and met the blade of the other,
flinging it off. The first lunged in, but I snapped a whirling time bind with
my rapier round his heavy sword, and slid the point past it straight into his
shoulder. He staggered back, and as the second guy brought his blade down at me
I swung inside, caught him by the wrist and used my judo to yank him off-balance.
I kicked out his knee and slammed him into the first man.

Two of Jehan’s men had reached me and stood over the
attackers, swords upraised.

I leaped to guard Jehan’s back.

Unfortunately he caught the flicker of motion at the extreme
edge of his vision. He glanced back—but just as he reassured himself that it
was me and not an attacker, his heel skidded.

In the second he was off-balance, Randart brought his hilt
toward Jehan’s head in the backswing, and brained him from behind. Jehan
crashed to the ground.

Randart’s men leaped forward to finish Jehan off. I whirled,
sword out, to keep them back.

Randart stepped down from the rock, swinging his blade back
and forth. “No, no, keep him alive. He’s now the king. And he’s going to take
orders from me. As for
her
.” Randart
pointed with the sword directly at me. “Everything,
everything
is her fault. Get away,” he ordered the men still
ringing us, and they backed up, staring from him to me and down to Jehan.
Randart bared his teeth. “This pleasure I reserve for myself.”

He swung with a power stroke I could not block with a mere
rapier. He had that heavy cavalry sword, and he was fighting to kill. I backed
gracelessly out of the way, slipped on gritty dust just like Jehan had and
dropped my rapier.

Randart laughed as he advanced.

“Your mistake,” I said, though my voice quavered.

He took another swipe at me. I whirled under the blade and
did a sweep kick. He was too well planted, and my feet only bounced off his
heavy boots. But he looked down, and in that moment I dove to one side, rolled
(Ow! Never roll on gravel!) and came up with Jehan’s heavier cavalry sword that
had been lying by his hand. Randart’s blade flashed toward my head. The angle
was too close for a power block. I dropped to one knee and flung up both hands,
the tip resting on the flat of my palm, and took the blow on the flat of
Jehan’s heavy blade.

Shock rang through my bones, sparks flew. “You cheated,” I
yelled. “You rotten, cowardly slime, you hit him from behind!”

“Die.” Randart brought the sword round in a deadly side-arc
that whooshed within an inch of my gut. I danced back, though that put me close
to the edge of the cliff.

Then something silver glittered in the air between Randart
and me.

Thunk
.

Randart lowered his sword, staring at the knife in his
shoulder.

The men, who had stood frozen, some of them gazing in horror
at the king across the lake, others at Randart, obviously unsure what to do,
all stepped back as Damedran scrambled over the rocks.

“You broke your promise,” he yelled, his voice cracking on
the last word. “You
lied
.” And he
began to sob, the angry, honking sobs of a teen betrayed beyond endurance.

Randart pressed his fingers over the horrible, spurting
wound. “You always had . . . rotten aim,” he snarled.

“I don’t,” came a voice from behind.

Randart whipped round. There was Jehan, rising to his feet,
crimson blood trickling in shocking contrast down through his white hair into
his face, which was as bleak as I’d ever seen it. His hand gripped my dueling
rapier.

Randart shifted his blade to his left, and swung at Jehan.
Neatly, without fuss or flourish, Jehan blocked and, without a check, the
rapier flashed straight through Randart’s heart.

The warriors stirred, some starting toward me, some toward
Damedran. Damedran’s fellow cadets swarmed over the rocks, ranging themselves
in a row, blades raised.

Everyone eyed one another, poised for action—but who was in
charge? Jehan swiped blood out of his face, blinking in an effort to see.

“Hold! Everyone, hold hard! Lay down your arms,” my father
ordered in a voice of authority I had never heard him use.

The older army men stared, aghast, astonished. In disbelief.

“
Math?
”

That was Mom.

“Down with your weapons,” Dad said, his voice strong enough
to echo back from the far stone walls. “Now. There will be no retribution for
those who lay down weapons. But another strike, and you are forsworn.”

Clang. Clank. Zhing.

I think, looking back, many of them were relieved to get rid
of the steel and the responsibility it implied. Too much had happened too fast.
The pair of men holding Damedran stepped away, leaving him weeping quietly,
disconsolately.

Dad picked his way down to us, his hair wild, his feet
absurdly bare. But he didn’t look ridiculous, he looked assured, cool, well,
kingly
.

Jehan flung down his red-smeared blade.

Dad gripped Jehan’s shoulders with both hands. “You have
done well, my boy,” he said quietly.

Jehan squinted into his face past the blood trickling from
the blow Randart had given him, and his brow smoothed. Dad was not talking
about the fight with Randart at all.

I looked uncertainly from Dad to Jehan, unsure what to do
now that the emergency was over.

Dad let go of Jehan and stepped to me, giving me his funny
smile as he murmured for my ears alone, “He told you the truth in everything that
matters.”

I know it’s about as trite as “true love,” but I really did
feel as if a weight had lifted from my heart.

Before I could cross those last few steps to Jehan, a figure
hurtled between the warriors, shoving some of them aside, and then, crying as
hard as she had in those early days when we first reached Earth—but this time
for joy—was Mom.

She flung herself into Dad’s arms, laughing, weeping,
covering his face with kisses, stopping only when his arms locked around her as
if they would never let her go.

Jehan and I had only had a single private conversation
between that terrible day in Ivory Mountain and our arrival in Vadnais. And it
wasn’t much of one.

Immediately after Randart’s death and Dad’s surprise
appearance, Mom got everyone organized. She asked the women to help marshal
Canardan’s men. By that I mean they went to the ones they knew, asking for help
carrying things or help with horses or to talk—keeping them apart from
Randart’s men so they wouldn’t get the bright idea of attacking their ex-army
mates for some wholesale slaughter to relieve pent-up feelings.

Dad remained with Randart’s men, forcing them to stay in
military formation, that is under tight control. They were sworn to follow
orders, and right now, Dad seemed to be the senior royal representative. At
least no one tried to question his authority.

For the rest of that horrible day, Jehan stayed with
Damedran and the cadets.

I kept out of their way as we trudged out of the cavern and
began the long, dreary journey back to Vadnais. Jehan’s and Damedran’s faces
wore twin expressions of shock; Damedran’s grief was terribly close to the
surface, fueled by anger and even guilt. Though he kept repeating that his
uncle got what he deserved, got what he deserved. No one argued. Damedran was
his own judge and jury. Finally, surrounded protectively by his cadet pack,
Damedran fell into an exhausted sleep near the campfire that first night.

I eased my way through all the slumbering warriors and
stable people, and sat down next to Jehan. He had been sitting alone with his
back to a rock, staring into the distant fire, his hands loose on his knees.

His head turned sharply, and he looked searchingly into my
face. Though we did not really know one another yet, I suspected he was bracing
against an expression of triumph or some other careless dismissal of his father
because he’d heard plenty from me about Canardan. And I’d never had the chance
to know the king as anything but a villain.

But I’d witnessed that last exchange with my mother, during
which I got a glimpse of the Canardan whom Jehan loved, the man Mom had
regarded as more of a friend than as an enemy. Despite everything.

So there was no sign in me of the reactions he dreaded. All
the tension went out of him, and the look he gave me, the puckered brow of
grief, whacked my heart with an echo of his sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. “Jehan, I’m so sorry.”

His expression tightened. “If I’d been
faster . . . I should have seen it coming—” He shook his head.

“Can I get you anything?” I knew it was woefully inadequate,
but what could I do? What could I say? No action of mine would bring his father
back and set everything to rights. “They seem to have got supper going at the
other end of camp. I don’t know about you, but I tend to eat least when I need
it the most.”

He half raised a hand in dismissal, then looked away, toward
the boys, a couple of whom were also asleep, though most were awake. “I don’t
think I ate today. Maybe I’d better.”

“Right.” I got to my feet. “Let me bring it to you.”

A quiet tone, practical words and sensible action eased his
tension a little. He didn’t want soggy sympathy, nor did he want drama. We’d
just lived through plenty of that.

I went away to get in line where some of the army men and a
few of the women had set up a cook tent and a kind of instant buffet row. I got
a hunk of pan-fried cornbread, some sort of fish cooked in pressed olives and
wine, and sautéed carrots someone had gotten permission to pick from a local
truck garden.