The Bloodsworn (17 page)

“Strange.” Rig frowned. “I'd have thought he'd want to keep his prize somewhere safe.”

“Who knows—maybe he did. Maybe he's gathering his pieces for the final play. We're closing in on the end, after all.”

“That we are,” Rig said. “One way or another.”

“Obviously, we can't just storm the camp, and we can't sneak in either, not without a distraction.”

“Which is where I come in.”

“We hope so, General.”

Rig raked at his beard. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” Dain eyed him uncomfortably; he understood the position this put Rig in. “Wraith figured you'd be a fool to risk the men.”

“He figured right.” Rig sighed ruefully. “But it would hardly be the first time, would it?”

“So you'll do it?”

“I don't see that I have much choice. Without Rodrik, our king is lost. On top of which, my sister will go into that camp with or without my help, and that's two sacrifices too many.”
Three
, he amended silently,
since Vel will never let her go alone
. “But I'm not prepared to risk more than a battalion or two, even
for Alix. If we fail, there has to be enough left at the border to slow the enemy down while Liam evacuates the capital.”

“All we need is to keep Sadik busy for a half hour or so.”

“In that case, a small hit-and-run strike should be enough.” The gods knew he'd had more than enough practice at that. “How much time do I have to plan?”

“They go in tomorrow night. Some of us argued for at least one more day, but Lady Alix wouldn't hear of it. She's pawing at the turf as it is.”

“I'm sure. Erik's situation is bad enough, but she's got to be terrified for Liam. His neck is exposed. Any day now, those preening peacocks on the council are going to realise something is up, and when they do . . .”

Dain nodded grimly.

Rig threw back the last of his wine. “So. We have one day to plan something reckless that might lose us the war. In other words, just another night at the Kingsword fort.” He sighed, gazing into the empty cup in his hand. “How many times do you think a man can tempt fate, Dain?”

The other man shrugged. “As many times as it takes, General.”

A
lix clawed restlessly at the dirt, feeling the stutter of her heartbeat against the cold earth. The taste of metal sat at the back of her tongue, and a tendril of sweat crawled along the curve of her spine, even though she shivered against the chill. The Oridian camp was a quilt of darkness, each square studded with its own flaming orange jewel. A scene of tranquil, deadly beauty.

At least it would have been, if the dogs would leave off their barking.

All night they'd been at it, driven to distraction by the relentless taunting of the coyotes. Or so Alix supposed—she couldn't actually hear much of anything through the racket the dogs were making. Though she knew it was a blessing to have them so preoccupied, the clamour frayed at her nerves, reminding her every moment how near were those teeth, those claws, those ten stone of muscle. The Oridians were no happier about it; more than once, Alix heard the crack of a whip and a torrent of swearing, but the hounds would not be silenced.
All to the good
, she told herself.
Just make sure you're nowhere near those kennels when the time comes.

She didn't doubt for a moment that the time
would
come.
Commander general or no, Rig was her brother and loved her fiercely. He would be here. It was distantly possible that he might come alone, or with only a few volunteers, rather than risk his men. If so, Alix would understand. But Rig was a master of military deception, well practiced in the art of goading and harassing much larger forces. And Alden needed her king. With Erik restored to them, they had a sliver of a chance. Without him, they had none at all.

A sudden movement in the darkness, quick as a viper: Ide's hand clamping down over Alix's. Ide glared, her message clear:
Stop fidgeting.
Alix looked down at the soil beneath her fingers; she'd torn it up as though she intended to plant something. Chastened, she nodded an apology. On the other side of Ide, Vel watched the exchange with dark, unreadable eyes. The priestess must have been terrified, but she didn't show it; if anything, she seemed more serene than usual. More . . . just
more
. There was a presence about her, a gravitas, as if she'd donned her prayer mask and was no longer merely a person, but a
priestess
. Not so very unlike Erik's royal mask, Alix decided. An enviable gift, one she would dearly have liked to possess just now.

Her fingers started to twitch again. The waiting was killing her. It didn't help that she couldn't see Wraith and his men. They were supposed to be positioned about three hundred feet to the southwest. Alix had no reason to believe they weren't . . . except a worm of doubt that had been eating away at her ever since her conversation with Vel.

And then a shout went up, and the time for doubt was over.

At first Alix couldn't see what set it off, but once the alarm was given, the whole camp was alive with it, swarming like a nest of hornets. Bells rang out in the darkness. Men scattered in every direction. The dogs went properly crazy now, their vicious baying turning Alix's guts to water. Then she saw it: a wing of shadow sweeping past like a deadly breeze. All along the fringes of the camp, men were dropping under an invisible hail of arrows. Horse archers. Rig's scarcest and most precious resource, used to lethal perfection. How had they fallen upon the camp without the dogs giving warning?

“Look!” Ide pointed.

A pack of Kingsword wolfhounds tore into the camp. A dozen of them at most, too few to do much good, unless . . . Alix looked at Ide and found her own grin matched on her friend's face. Even Vel understood, and she fairly glowed with pride.

Rig, you bloody genius!

The Oridian dogs
had
noticed the approach of the horses, and the wolfhounds too. They'd done their job, giving the alarm, but by then no one had paid any heed. Rig must have had his wolfhounds barking on the far side of the river all night, whipping the Oridian dogs into a frenzy so that when the time came, the enemy camp was deaf to the warning cries of its best sentries.

Alix felt the thunder of hoofbeats beneath her chest. Springing to her feet, she saw a second wave of horse archers scouring the near side of the camp. For a moment she stood mesmerised, watching in awe as the horses swooped in like a flock of birds to loose a volley of arrows before curving away gracefully into the night, shapes more felt than seen, sketched in gleaming shadow. Vel ran a few steps toward them, robes caught up in the draught of their passing, hair streaming out behind her, gazing after the riders as though she might spy Rig among them.

It all happened in a heartbeat, and a heartbeat was all Alix could spare. It was time to move.

They made straight for the bloodbinder's pavilion. Wraith would be matching the manoeuvre from the other side of the tent, ensuring that whichever way the bloodbinder tried to run, he would be intercepted. Alix kept her eyes riveted to her target, all but blind to the mayhem swirling around her as the Oridians tried to assemble themselves into something resembling a fighting force. Nor were the soldiers any less blind to her; in the chaos, she was just one more figure darting through the shadows.

As they neared the pavilion, Alix reached for her dagger, expecting the bloodbinder to flee at any moment. Yet the tent remained quiet, an island of stillness in a sea of motion. Alix experienced a momentary pang of dread. What if they had guessed wrong? What if this wasn't the bloodbinder's pavilion
after all? But no—a pair of knights flanked the entrance. Whatever was inside that tent, it was worth guarding.

Ide's bow twanged; one of the guards staggered backward with an arrow in his throat. The second guard cried out before he charged, drawing the attention of a passing soldier. Alix's dagger found the eye of the unlucky passerby, while Ide brought down the charging guard with another arrow.

For the moment, they were clear. Alix retrieved her dagger, gaze raking the shadows for any sign of Wraith. She found none, but there was no more time to waste; with a final glance at Ide and Vel, she plunged through the tent flap.

Black.

It smelled of blood. Alix crouched, raising the tip of her sword blindly. She heard a rustle beside her as Ide moved away from the door. Alix did the same, looking to put the tent wall at her back. She debated trying to throw her dagger, but she doubted the enchantment would work. The bond was between weapon and user; if the user was blind, it stood to reason that the weapon would be too. The same would be true of her sword. That left her vulnerable. The space around her felt close, oppressive. Her breath sounded absurdly loud in her ears.

Something stirred. Alix's grip on her bloodblade tightened, but she could see nothing through the impenetrable darkness.

“Water.” Though it was barely a whisper, the voice startled Alix so badly that she nearly lost her balance. “Please, I'm so thirsty . . .”

A breath of silence. Then a scramble at the back of the tent, like a wild animal starting from the brush. A slice of moonlight appeared, blocked by a shadow as it slipped out into the night. Wraith and his men should be there to intercept, but . . .

“Ide!”

The other woman was already moving, crashing and swearing her way past unseen obstacles to bolt out the back door in pursuit. The momentary flash of light gave Alix an idea; she slashed at the canvas walls until slivers of moonlight shot through the shadows, picking out a table here, a chair there. Her gaze fell upon a narrow cot near the back of the tent. She rushed at it, nearly stumbling over it in her haste, bracing herself inches from a face nearly as familiar as her own.

“Erik!”

It burst from her in a sob before she could stop herself. Because of course this
wasn't
Erik. This man was a stranger to her, and she to him. Her mind understood that, but her heart did not; all it saw was Erik, red-gold hair and ashen skin, ice blue eyes beneath fluttering lids. Her heart saw Erik, and it broke into a thousand pieces. “Oh gods,” she breathed, kissing his forehead. “Oh, what have they done to you . . .”

“We must hurry.”

Vel's voice, steady but urgent, wrenching Alix back to the here and now. She drew her dagger and began sawing at the ropes that bound him. His wrists . . . dear gods, they were raw meat . . .

Vel found a jug of water and poured the contents of a small pouch into it. Helping Rodrik to sit, the priestess said, “Drink.”

His gaze was unfocused, but he obeyed without hesitation, as though he were accustomed to following orders in such a state. Which, Alix realised grimly, he almost certainly was.

A rage was building inside her unlike any she had ever known. This man might be a stranger, but he was her prince, brother to the men she loved. “I'm going to get you out of here,” she whispered fiercely.

He seemed not to hear. “The water,” he murmured, “tastes strange . . .” Erik's voice, but with an Andithyrian accent.

“Don't worry,” said Vel, “it's only a mixture of salt and sugar. It will help restore you. Take a little more, if you can.”

Outside, chaos continued to reign, but Alix knew it wouldn't last. Rig would only dare a handful of passes, a few swipes at the enemy's flank while the camp boiled and seethed with confusion. He needed to be gone by the time the Oridians organised themselves or he'd never make it back across the river alive. “We have to go,” Alix said. “Rodrik, can you stand?”

“Who are you?” His gaze was rapidly coming into focus, wariness creeping in.

“A friend. I'll explain, I promise, but we need to get you out of here.”

“Dargin. Where is he?”

Alix shook her head. “I don't . . . Please, Rodrik, we have to hurry.”

Shouting sounded outside the tent, a flurry of footsteps
rushing past. Rodrik seemed to process that. His gaze sharpened still further, a steely look coming into it that Alix recognised only too well. He hopped down off the cot . . . and promptly buckled. Alix and Vel caught him—too easily, his wasted frame weighing far less than it should. “I'm all right,” he said. “I can do it.”

“We don't have time, Rodrik. Please, let us help you.”

He hesitated, and for a moment Alix thought he would refuse. They were strangers, after all; he had no reason to trust them. But they were trying to take him away from here, and what could be worse than this place? Alix could almost read the thoughts in those unsettlingly familiar blue eyes. He nodded resignedly.

They helped him toward the back of the tent. Wraith and his men should be waiting for them outside, covering the exit to keep it clear.

Except he wasn't.

Alix's step faltered, the realisation washing over her in a sickening wave. It was just as she'd feared. Wraith had abandoned them. To go after Sadik, presumably, not that it mattered. What mattered was that they were alone: Alix, a priestess, and a man who could barely stand, smack in the middle of the entire Oridian army.

We'll never make it out of here alive.

A poisonous thought; she shoved it aside and started for the sea of darkness at the edge of the camp, half dragging, half carrying Rodrik, praying to all the gods that no one would notice them. But of course that was too much to ask. Though it was still dark, they were conspicuous now, hobbling along with an injured man propped between them. A soldier rushed over to help, only to find himself face to face with two women. Vel might have passed herself off as a camp follower, but Alix was clad in leather armour and had a pair of blades strapped to her belt. Armed women had no business in an Oridian war camp. The soldier went for his sword.

Alix's instincts took over. Shoving Rodrik and Vel behind her, she drew her blade. A spike of dread went through her, a momentary weakness in the knees. She tried to take comfort in the familiar weight in her hand, in the reassuring knowledge
that she wielded a bloodblade against an opponent armed with ordinary steel. It was a well-worn refrain, one that had never failed to gird her against the inevitable fear of battle. Yet this time was different. It was not only herself she had to protect. Rodrik was weak as a lamb, Vel almost equally defenceless. The fear she felt for them was heavier somehow, more toxic. So much so that when the soldier came at her with a weak cut, she scuttled backward rather than parry.
The dagger. You should have thrown the dagger.
But it was too late now. By the time she exchanged it for her sword, she'd be dead.

The soldier lunged; Alix batted him aside, but narrowly. Her nervousness was getting the better of her, dulling her reflexes.
Bite down, Alix, damn you.
She'd scarcely processed the thought before he was on her again, a swipe at her midsection that forced her to leap back. But Alix didn't miss the way he overextended, leaving himself exposed.
Sloppy
, her mind registered. He took her for easy prey, and why not? She'd given him every reason to. It gave her an idea.