War Maid's Choice-ARC (77 page)

<
Come back!
> Gayrfressa cried in the back of her brain. <
Leeana! Sister—
come back!>

Leeana heard her hoofed sister, but even Gayrfressa’s voice was lost and far away, somewhere beyond the immediacy of her mission. She staggered in the blinding smoke, finding the stall latches by feel more than by sight, throwing them open, but these horses couldn’t see the entrance, and even if they could have, crackles of flame danced and leapt between them and the stable door. The path to escape and life lay between those flames, but they eyed the wall of smoke with ominous red glare, and the panicky horses shied away from the visible menace. They reared and trumpeted madly, deadly in their terror, and Leeana jumped aside, barely in time, as one of them blundered blindly deeper into the death trap of the burning stables.

She caught another by the halter, and was nearly dragged from her feet by the terrified creature. She managed to hang on, wishing desperately that she could somehow bandage its eyes, but that would have taken an extra set of hands. All she could do was speak to it as soothingly as the tumult of sound and her own coughing breath would allow while she dragged it towards safety.

She’d managed to get it almost all the way to the entrance when a flaming bit of debris landed on its croup. The fiery piece of wreckage wasn’t especially large, but the burned horse squealed and bolted forward, nearly trampling her as it broke free of the stable. She staggered, almost falling, then started back into the roaring inferno once more.

Something hit her. Already off-balance, she fell, and barely managed to tuck a shoulder before she hit the ground. The cut on her ribs sent a stab of pain through her, but she ignored it, shoving herself back up onto her knees, starting for the stable again.

“
No!
” a voice shouted in her ear.

She coughed, trying to understand, and felt hands on her shoulders, dragging her back. She turned her head and found herself looking into a face she knew.

“No, Milady!” Tarith Shieldarm said. He shook his head, tears washing pale lines through the soot on his own face. “No...it’s too late.”

<
Listen to him!
Listen
to him, Sister!
>

Leeana twisted, trying to pull free, the hideous screams of the horses still trapped in that vortex of flame washing over her, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“No,” he said once more. “You can’t! It’s too late!”

The words broke through to her at last, and she sagged, suddenly aware that she wasn’t simply coughing. She was weeping wildly as those shrieks of agony rolled over her, and the man who’d been her personal armsman for so many years gathered her into his arms and held her tightly.

“There, lassie,” he murmured in her ear, stroking her singed, ash-smutted hair with one callused hand. “There. You did what you could. Come away now.”

* * *

“No, here—
here!
” Hathan Shieldarm shouted.

“Leave the horses!” he heard Tellian bellowing. “Fiendark take it,
leave the horses!
”

Hathan winced at the pain and rage in his wind brother’s voice, but the baron was right. They couldn’t save all the horses, whatever they did, and in trying to save
any
they played directly into the hands of the men trying to kill the King. He snarled, beating at one of the King’ armsmen with the flat of his saber, hard enough the man staggered and nearly fell. He came back up, his face a snarl of fury, then stopped when Hathan struck him again. The armsman shook his head, and reason flowed back into his expression.

Reason...and hate. Hate directed at that moment against the wind rider who’d stopped him from running into that roaring, crackling furnace.

Reason won. The armsman shook his head, then nodded and staggered back towards the King.

“Into the corner!” Tellian shouted. “Get the King into the angle—now, damn you!
Now!
”

Sir Frahdar Swordshank’s voice joined the baron’s, whipping the remaining armsmen and courtiers into something resembling organized motion. They dragged the wounded with them, trying to keep low, under the smoke, as they backed into the southwestern corner of the walled enclosure. The wind—such as there was of it—was out of the west, pushing the worst of the smoke away from them. The rolling, roaring flame which had engulfed the main lodge was to their right front, and the wall itself was to their left. It was a pathetic excuse for a defensive position, but it was the best they had.

<
They’re moving, Brother,
> Gayrhalan told Hathan. <
They’re moving.
>

They were, and the wind rider heaved a mental sigh of relief. Then his head came up as a huge, chestnut mare loomed out of the smoke beside him. Leeana leaned against Gayrfressa, coughing, her face streaked with tears, and Hathan’s heart twisted as he saw her. He started to reach out to her, but there was no time. The best he could do was give her a nod of encouragement before he and Gayrhalan crossed to Tellian.

The baron looked up grimly as Gayrhalan drew up beside Dathgar.

“She’s all right,” Hathan said quickly.

“So far,” Tellian grated. His face was as filthy as his armor, smeared with ash, and his eyes were hard, as close to despair as Hathan had ever seen them.

“They’ll be coming again...soon,” the baron continued, wrenching his thought and heart away from his daughter, focusing on the desperation of the moment. “This time it’ll be the gate.”

“Unless they decide that’s what we’re going to expect and they use the cover of the smoke to come over the walls again,” Hathan replied.

<
It will be the gate,
> Gayrhalan said flatly. Hathan looked down, and the courser turned his head far enough to looked up at him with one eye. <
We hurt them too badly on the walls last time, Brother. They won’t come in scattered that way a second time
.> He flicked his ears in the equine equivalent of a shrug. <
The gate will let them come in together, and they’ll expect the smoke to keep us from seeing them until they’re right on top of us
.>

“Gayrhalan’s right,” Tellian said harshly as Dathgar relayed the gray stallion’s argument. “Even if they don’t use the gate, they’ll come in concentrated this time, and that means they’ll have to cross the courtyard to get to the King. That’s when it will be up to us.”

Hathan looked at him for a moment, then turned and peered into the rolling walls of smoke and flame and nodded in slow understanding.

* * *

Leeana finished tying the water-saturated cloth across her nose and mouth. It helped—some—and she pressed her face into Gayrfressa’s shoulder, trying to shut out the horrible sounds still coming from the stable.

<
You did all you could,
> Gayrfressa told her quietly. <
You did all you could.
>

<
It wasn’t enough,
> Leeana replied silently, hearing the sob in her own mind voice.

<
Of course it wasn’t. But I’m selfish, Sister. I want you alive, not dead in that stable
.>

Leeana flinched, hearing the terror in the courser’s voice and knowing it wasn’t for herself. She stroked the huge mare’s flank, her hand trembling, and started to say something more, but there was no need for it.

And there was no time, either.

* * *

Trâram waved his men forward.

They obeyed his hand signal without eagerness, but there was no hesitation, either. It wasn’t just about the money anymore. They’d lost two thirds of their companions, and they wanted vengeance for those deaths.

They moved forward, faces swathed in water-soaked cloth, eyes squinted against the stinging smoke. The gate loomed before them, like an apparition seen through driving snow, and expressions tightened and stomachs knotted as they headed for it. It was time—

A bugle sounded suddenly behind them, and Trâram whipped around just in time to see a mounted Sothōii armsman crashing out of the forest behind him with his lance couched.

* * *

“The King!
The King!
” Cassan Axehammer shouted, and his armsmen charged.

The waves of smoke rising above the trees had spurred them forward, and Cassan’s heart had risen with every furlong. The hunting lodge must be engulfed in flame, and that very possibly meant Markhos and Tellian were already dead. Even if it didn’t, the confusion it engendered could only aid his own plans, and the warning Talthar had issued through that accursed squirrel drove him like a lash. If Talthar had told him the truth—if the assassins truly believed Cassan was the one who’d hired them—those assassins had to die, and die quickly. And so he’d launched his armsmen into the mercenaries’ backs at the gallop without wasting a precious moment trying to order or control their formation.

Surprise was total. Trâram and his men had been entirely focused on the burning hunting lodge. The sudden, soaring notes of the bugle, the drum roll of hooves, and the thunder of warcries swept over them, and a merciless steel stormfront of lanceheads and sabers was close behind.

Some of the mercenaries turned, striking at their enemies with the fury of despair before they were ridden over by steel shod hooves, lanced, or cut down by furiously driven sabers. One or two, closest to the flanks of their formation, bolted for the woods, only to be cut off and slashed down by outriders of the main charge.

Most of them never had the opportunity to do even that much. Taken completely unawares from behind, they died almost before they ever realized they were under attack.

* * *

Tellian and Hathan stared at each other in confusion and speculation as the bugles continued to sound.

“Trisu?” Hathan said, but Tellian shook his head.

“It might be, but I don’t think so. It sounds to me like there’s too many of them for that.”

<
You’re right, I think, Brother,
> Dathgar said. <
There are at least several hundred of the lesser cousins out there—more than Lord Trisu could possibly have assembled
.>

“Then who the Phrobus
is
it?” Hathan demanded as Gayrhalan relayed Dathgar’s remarks. The dark-haired wind rider grimaced. “Not that I’m not grateful, you understand, but something about having that many armsmen turn up all unannounced at the very moment people are trying to kill the King turns me all suspicious.”

“And me,” Tellian agreed grimly.

“So what do we do?”

“That, Brother, is a very good question.” Tellian drew a deep breath, his eyes worried, then exhaled noisily and looked down as Frahdar Swordshank appeared at his stirrup.

“The King needs your advice, Milord,” the guardsman said, and Tellian nodded curtly.

Dathgar turned without any instruction from his rider, picking his way through the armsmen between him and Markhos. The courser halted beside the King, and Tellian bowed from the saddle.

“Your Majesty?”

“I suppose we should be grateful,” Markhos said, his tone flat, “but we’ve had unpleasant surprises enough for one day. I can’t quite rid my mind of the thought that this might be another one.”

“I think there are too many of them for it to be Lord Trisu,” Tellian replied. “Which presents the question of who
else
it might be. It’s always remotely possible someone else realized what was happening and rode to your rescue, but it seems...unlikely, I’m afraid.”

“You think it may be whoever
sent
the assassins,” the King said, looking Tellian straight in the eye. “After all, whoever it might have been”—the unspoken name of the baron they both knew it had to be hovered between them—“wouldn’t want any inconvenient loose ends dangling about.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, at any rate,” Tellian admitted.

“And I,” Sir Jerhas Macebearer put in from the King’s side. “But we might all be wrong. And even if we aren’t, how many men could...whoever is behind this have trusted with the truth?”

“That’s a good point,” Tellian said after a moment. “Dathgar”—he patted the courser’s neck—“thinks there are at least ‘several hundred’ horses out there. His ears are a lot better than mine, and I trust his judgment. But no one could have brought that many armsmen fully into his confidence about something like this without some hint of it leaking out. Or, at least, no one would take the risk that it
might
leak out. And whoever might command them, those are
Sothōii
out there, Your Majesty. They won’t take kindly to the notion of attacking the King.”

“Meaning what?” Markhos asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Meaning that someone has to go out there, find out who they are, and get a grip on the situation before there’s an...unfortunate accident.”

“And who did you have in mind?” Markhos demanded, then snorted harshly at Tellian’s expression. “That’s what I thought. And the answer, Milord, is that it
isn’t
going to be you.”

“But—”

“No,” the King said flatly. His nostrils flared. “First, I cannot and will not risk one of the Kingdom’s four barons at a time like this. And, second, Milord, if that should happen to be who both of us are afraid it might be, the
last
person we need to send out to talk to him is you.”

“But—”

“I’ll go, Your Majesty,” Hathan said quietly.

Tellian’s head snapped around. He hadn’t heard his wind brother approaching, nor had he realized Hathan had heard the conversation. He opened his mouth quickly, but Hathan shook his head.

“His Majesty’s right, Tellian. We can’t risk you, but it has to be someone whose word will carry weight not just with whoever their commander might be, but with those armsmen themselves. But neither Sir Jerhas nor any of the other of the King’s guests have armor, and even if that’s Trisu himself out there, accidents can happen. A hasty archer could put an arrow right through any of them if they were sent out as His Majesty’s envoy, and we need Sir Frahdar right where he is. I, on the other hand—”

He tapped his steel breastplate with a gauntleted fingertip, smiling thinly at his wind brother, and Tellian gritted his teeth.

“Dathgar and I are just as well armored as you are,” he pointed out bitterly.

“Yes, you are. But if that
is
Cassan,” Hathan smiled grimly as he finally said the name out loud, “seeing you is far more likely to push him over the edge. He wouldn’t be
happy
to see me, either, of course. But if you’re still in here with His Majesty, he’s going to be less tempted to try to arrange an ‘accident’ than he would if you came into reach. Especially if he hasn’t informed his men of what he’s really up to. And if he does do something hasty, Gayrhalan and I are well enough protected—and fast enough—to have a better chance of getting back here in one piece than anyone else you could send.”