The Battle Lord's Lady (4 page)

Atty bit her lips until they bled. Emmaline
had two noses. Her lack of “normalcy” had been easy to spot. But
she also had a kind soul and she was an excellent seamstress.
Holding her weapon tightly against her, Atty strained to see who
had been left alive.

She could only speculate at what was
happening, at what had happened. Something, perhaps the smell of
the meat, had attracted the Cleaners’ attention. Somehow they’d
managed to come through one of the compound gates, a feat that
shouldn’t have been that difficult with the horses, Atty surmised.
And being Cleaners, they’d seen that the inhabitants of the
compound did not “look” like the kind of people they felt should be
inhabiting the earth, so they began systematically slaughtering
innocent people who exhibited abnormal signs. The screams she had
heard had been the last sounds of dying people.

The only thing she couldn’t figure out was
why nearly a half-dozen Cleaners remained on horseback. It was like
they were waiting—

Atty stiffened. Of course. There couldn’t be
any other reason. The Cleaners had happened on a compound full of
“Mutah”. Mutants. One of them had left to go back to their own
compound to let them know. At some point they would return in force
to eliminate the rest of them. Wholesale slaughter. Genocide. There
was no telling how far away the Cleaners’ compound was, so it could
be later today, tomorrow, or a week from now before the rest of the
soldiers showed up.

Atty took another peek. No, not a week. If
their compound was that far away the others would not be standing
around like they were. They’d dig in, set up a temporary camp to
take care of their needs while they waited. No, their compound was
nearby. Atty swallowed hard. To think—such barbaric animals lived
so close by and the two had never met in all their years of
existence. Unless...

Maybe that’s where her father had gone.
And her mother. And Keelor. And the countless others who had
disappeared unexpectedly over the years, never to return. Maybe the
Cleaners
had
known about them
but had chosen not to breach their defenses until now, until
tonight.

Then why tonight?
she wondered.
Why now?
If they did have a compound nearby, if they had been
responsible for all those people who had vanished without a trace,
why were they just now making their presence known? Why did they
attack tonight?

Atty shook her head to clear her mind. There
was no way the Cleaners could have a compound nearby. If they had
known about the mutants, they would not have attacked piecemeal,
then sent back some of their own to get the rest. This compound was
not huge, but it was large enough to support over two hundred
people. Any good leader would not bring a tiny handful of men to
attack that many people.

No. The Cleaners had happened upon them by
accident. More than likely the smell of roasting meat had caught
their attention, as she’d first surmised. They may have approached
the sentry... Who had been on duty tonight? Camden? Sweet heavens,
if it had been Camden, then no wonder the Cleaners would have
broken through their defenses without a second thought. Poor,
loving Camden.

She checked the marketplace. The seated
riders were still gathered in a small huddle beside the people
they’d taken hostage. The few who had dismounted were taking their
time searching for others. Meanwhile, the rest of the people
remained in their apartments shaking with fear, easy pickings,
easier targets. Knowing they would soon be killed because a
children’s fairy tale told to prevent unruly brats from disobeying
had come to ungodly life. A fairy tale that was no longer fiction,
but a horror beyond imagining. A true and unholy nightmare.

Something inside her shut down. Atty knew the
feeling. Knew it, reveled in it, and lived for it. Pillan had
called it her gift. Her father had called it her innate, natural
hunting ability. Whatever it was, it flowed through her like an
extra shot of strength and energy.

A dozen steps back was a small cul-de-sac
that separated the apartments. It wasn’t deep or wide, but a wooden
ladder had been nailed to the side of the building to allow access
to the roofs. It didn’t happen often, but it wasn’t unusual for a
ceiling to develop a leak, especially during the rainy season in
the spring. Repair crews used the ladders to patch the leaks. Atty
slipped her bow over a shoulder and hurried up the ladder. On the
roof she could gain access to the other apartments in the cluster
merely by jumping over the three-foot-wide divisions, unless she
wanted to get to the group across the walkway. Those she would have
to reach by climbing down and using one of the ladders on that
side.

Carefully she made her way over the maze-like
cluster, heading toward the open market area. She kept down and
hoped the Cleaners wouldn’t look up.

She only had to descend once to a walkway and
ascend another ladder before she reached the outer edge of the
apartments where shops faced the inner courtyard. She found herself
on top of Minnie’s tool shop, easy to tell from the bluish paint
dye Minnie used to color the front of her store. From that vantage,
Atty had an unobstructed view of the entire market area and the
compound wall beyond. She also could see the open north doorway in
the fence. The gate was gone, splintered like kindling under the
impact made by the lances and charging horses.

Atty shivered. Her hands were beginning to
grow numb. She’d forgotten her gloves in the apartment, and now the
freezing air was icing every breath she drew and stiffening every
inch of exposed skin. She rubbed her hands together, blowing on
them to keep the feeling in her fingers. Creeping on her stomach to
the edge of the building, she settled her bow into a secure
position and re-notched the arrow. Now it was merely a waiting
game—waiting for the right moment, the right target, the right
angle, and hopefully before the rest of the Cleaners arrived.

Two more Cleaners emerged from the
apartments, dragging a victim in each hand.
Looks like a short wait,
Atty admitted to
herself, taking aim. From the corner of her eye she checked the
slight wind ruffling the feathered tip. She held her breath. A
split-second later, the arrow drilled the air with its perfectly
honed edge and embedded itself in the throat of the Cleaner
standing behind the nearest mounted rider. The man stopped, as if
contemplating what to do next, before falling backwards from the
impact. His body propped itself neatly between the doorway and the
window of the leather shop.

Before the Cleaner had let out his last
breath, a second arrow spun across the open area and found a home
in the mounted rider. The man jumped, then slumped over. The horse
mistook his movements as a command and started walking toward the
group of bound prisoners.

The Cleaner holding two of the newly found
hostages saw the horse heading toward him. “Jeroh! What do you
think you’re doing? I said to stay where you are, you dolt! Jeroh!”
He started to say more but a shaft of white feathers suddenly
protruded from his tongue. He loosened his hold on the two children
he’d found and reached up toward his mouth, but his arms never made
it. He dropped to the ground like a wet sack.

* * * *

Pierson Deneson never saw the arrow that took
out his friend against the leather shop, but he saw the one that
hit Jeroh Martine atop his horse. In blind fear he hit the dirt and
rolled, narrowly being missed by the corpse of Joel Amilson as it
sank to its knees and toppled face down.

“They’re fighting back!” he screamed. As
incredible as it sounded, the Mutah were fighting back. Fulcet
Abalam grunted beside him. The man had not dropped to his knees as
Deneson had done, so Deneson’s first thought was that he was making
a noncommittal sound. A moment later the man landed on top of him
and pinned him to the ground. The dead man’s weight knocked the air
out of him. Deneson struggled to move when he heard a quick,
buzzing sound, almost like a bee. Something warm struck him across
the face. It took a while before he realized another one of their
group had been pierced, and his blood had sprayed upon impact.

* * * *

The group of bound prisoners began to
understand that the Cleaners were slowly being taken down one at a
time. They struggled with their bonds and cried out to be
released.

The remaining Cleaners ran for cover, some
barricading themselves behind the doors of the shops. A couple of
them thought they would be smart, and tried to use the prisoners as
shields. Their mistake—they had no idea how accurate Atty’s aim
could be.

They were more confused than terrified. Mutah
were known to fight back, but not like this. Not with arrows flying
through the darkness like nightmarish spirits, sucking the blood
and the life from whomever they struck. No. Mutah fought
one-on-one. They hefted clubs and axes and spears, weapons they
could swing over their heads before crushing their opponents. Some
of the more creative ones had swords and long, double-edged knives.
They were the more dangerous ones. But this was the first time
they’d run across Mutah who could wield a bow, much less with such
accuracy. The attack had been unexpected, and they had been totally
unprepared.

There were eighteen Cleaners in the compound.
Atty’s quiver held twenty-two arrows. She was making every one of
them count. A Cleaner who had taken refuge among the bound
prisoners raised his dirk to stab at the unruly group. Atty
recognized him as the same one who had killed Emmaline, so she took
extra care when aiming. The man stared at the shaft protruding from
the hollow of his throat and at the blood bubbling from the wound.
He managed to pull out the offending object and get to his feet
before a second arrow pierced his left eye with a soft, wet,
popping sound. Only then did he topple like a tree.

* * * *

Pinned by the weight of the dead man, Deneson
gasped for breath. The cries from the bound prisoners masked all
other sounds, making it impossible to tell where the arrows were
coming from. The noise also masked the sound of the second phalanx
of men entering the compound through the broken gate, until a cry
arose from them. He yelled at them to warn them.

* * * *

Atty stiffened. Her attack had done
considerable damage. If the second wave of Cleaners hadn’t appeared
when they did, she knew she could have somehow managed to turn the
tide in her favor. Now it was too late. She was almost out of
arrows, and the Cleaners kept coming through the doorway in an
unending stream.

* * * *

The second phalanx had come to an abrupt halt
once they’d entered the compound. Carnage they’d expected. They had
not been prepared for it to be their own men. Immediately one of
the men barked orders and nearly a dozen men jumped from their
saddles to form a tight barrier. One of the squad spotted Deneson
beneath his fallen comrade and helped him to his feet,
half-dragging, half-carrying the survivor over to a small cluster
of men at the far rear of the barricade.

Deneson accepted the skin of water
gratefully. The men waited until the horseman had gotten his voice
back before they asked their questions.

“What happened?”

“We were working detail, just mapping out the
area, when we smelled the meat cooking,” Deneson told them.

“Who was in charge?”

“Forbis and Manz.”

“Go on.”

“We followed our noses until we found this
compound. Forbis ordered Mayertuck back to camp to inform you. Then
he ordered us to breach their defenses.”

One of the small group, a man dressed in
gold-looking pieces of armor plating, peered into the darkness.
“This is a Mutah compound?”

Deneson nodded. “Yes. The sentry had ears
hanging down to his waist. That’s why Forbis ordered us to take the
compound. Since then we’ve discovered this is a whole colony of
them.”

“Who are you fighting?” a deep voice
asked.

“The Mutah.”

“With arrows?” the first man asked
incredulously.

“There has to be a Mutah on every rooftop,”
Deneson said. “Arrows were raining down from everywhere. I would be
dead now, too, if Abalam hadn’t fallen on me. I couldn’t get him
off. He was too heavy.”

“Or you were too scared to move,” the first
man prodded.

“Leave him alone, Karv,” the deep voice
admonished. He rose from his kneeling position among the protests
of several who warned him he could become a target. The man waved
them away to stare at the tops of the buildings surrounding them.
“How many Mutah did you say, Deneson?”

“Twenty. Maybe thirty. The arrows were coming
from everywhere.”

“Impossible,” Tosh Karv argued. “Mutah don’t
use arrows.”

“I’m not lying,” Deneson shot back.

“Then why haven’t any of us been hit since
our arrival?” the man questioned him.

The rest of the group paused. They had taken
immediate action once they’d realized they were under attack, but
since their first defensive move there’d been no sign of
retribution. The man turned to one of his subordinates.

“Find out how many are dead. Purst, find a
way to get some men up on the roofs. Find our shooters. I also want
to talk to some of the Mutah.”

* * * *

Several Cleaners broke away from the phalanx
to obey orders, spreading out into the main market area. Atty
watched from her vantage point and wondered what to do next. She
wished she was closer so she could see who the new men were. It was
obvious that one was a leader, possibly the main leader of the
group. Whoever he was, he knew war and he knew how to draw a
defensive posture. Even if she had more arrows there was little
chance she could do any more damage to their ranks.