Winds of Fury (56 page)

: Wait.
Check
Gwena. . . .:
he began, his thoughts coming to her from a haze of generalized pain.

:No need,:
Gwena said weakly.
:I'm going to live. And there's no one down here to bother me while I decide if I still want to. No bones broken, I don't think—some burns, and bruises that go to the bone. Keep him from fading, I'll call Cymry. And you send Vree for him, in case I can't reach him!:

Although that was somewhat confused, Elspeth had no trouble figuring out which “he” Gwena meant.
Vree,:
she said intently, turning to the falcon, concentrating on trying to impress him with her urgency. :
:Vree, we need
Skif.
Find Skif. Bring him here quickly!:

Vree bobbed his head once, then nibbled Darkwind's finger, spread his wings, and flapped heavily off into the darkness again.

:He's . . . a horrible night flyer
, ashke. Hope he . . . doesn't hit anything.:

“Just stay with me,” she said aloud, fiercely, starting with that hand to check for broken bones, since it was the piece of him least likely to cause problems if she accidentally moved it. Or held it. “Don't pass out on me.”

“Stop that!” she snapped, still rubbing away tears. “Stay awake, stop fading! Or—or I'll tell you Hawkbrother jokes! How many Hawkbrothers does it take for a mating circle?”

“Only one, but he has to be flexible!”

 

When Skif arrived, he brought Nyara and Need with him, and his expression betrayed his relief at finding the situation nowhere near as desperate as he had feared from Gwena's weak Mindcall. He told Elspeth that he'd seen worse injuries than Darkwind's out in the field, when miners or builders had been trapped under collapsing walls. Darkwind would not only live, he would do so with all organs and limbs intact. . . .

That gave her some measure of comfort and calmed her shattered nerves a little. And although at some point she would be mad with impatience to hear his side of the story, and the confrontation with Falconsbane, at the moment there was enough on her plate to worry about. They still had to get out of here.

They laid Need down beside Darkwind with his hand on the hilt—she complaining the whole time that she had done enough Healing for one day—and carefully lifted the last of the stones from Darkwind's back and legs. By the time they finished, people were drifting back into the palace, and coming to stare curiously at the wreckage in the room.

But Elspeth and Darkwind still wore their purloined uniforms, and when Elspeth turned and barked “Out!” at the onlookers, they quickly found something else to do.

They limped their way out of the building without being stopped, carrying Darkwind on the map that had saved him, using it as a stretcher. Skif did pause long enough to look down at Hulda and make a
tsking
sound.

“A knife,” he sighed. “How—predictable.”

She thought about hitting him, but she was just too weary—mentally, emotionally, and physically.

He reached down for the offending object, cleaning it on his none-too-clean sleeve and handed it back to her. “Where's the other one?” he asked, as she slipped it into her arm sheath and pulled her sleeve back down over it.

“In the throat of the Eastern Envoy—who is, I suppose, back in his Master's domain,” she replied. “He was building a Gate, I got him with the knife, and he fell through it.”

Another curious onlooker peeked in the door but vanished before she could even snarl at him.

“Falling dead, with a knife bearing the crest of Valdemar on the pommel-nut,” he said dryly. “Very subtle, Elspeth. Couldn't you have sent a more direct message to the Emperor? Like, perhaps, ‘Your father won the Horse Faire. Your mother tracks rabbits by scent. Love and kisses, Elspeth of Valdemar.' ”

A bit of the ceiling dropped, breaking the silence, followed by the sound of someone picking his way across the floor upstairs. She growled at him, at the end of her patience. “I didn't exactly have much choice,” she pointed out. “And if we're going to get out of here before someone names us the assassins of the King, we'd better move now!”

“A good point,” he acknowledged, and picked up his end of the board holding Darkwind. “Need—Gwena's rather handicapped at the moment. I don't suppose—”

:Gods. Can't you people do
anything
for yourselves?
:

“We are not Healers,” Nyara pointed out sweetly. “You are.”

:Right. Bring logic into this.:
Elspeth could have sworn that the sword sighed. :
All
right.
Bring on the horses.:

:I am not
—: Gwena snapped,
:a horse!:

 

Skif helped Darkwind up into Cymry's saddle. Gwena's worst injuries were mostly to muscle, and easily within Need's purview; Darkwind's to bone, which took several days to Heal, and the best Need could do was set them and hold them in place. With Gwena Healed enough to carry her own weight, Elspeth elected to put Darkwind on Cymry's back and walk, with her on one side, steadying him, and Nyara on the other.

“I'll catch up with you,” Skif told them. “You get back to the carnival and warn everyone that—let's see—” He thought quickly. “Falconsbane and Hulda tried to kill Ancar; he got both of them, but not before they called up a demon that mashed him to a pulp. Anyway, tell them all that, and tell them it's going to be hell around here when everyone realizes all three top people are gone. They may want to get out.”

“They may want to stay and loot.” Elspeth pointed out, tilting her head at the number of people trickling out of the palace carrying things—and the growing stream going in, unhindered by threat of fire, lightning, or remaining guards.

He shrugged. “Doesn't bother me; they'll just be getting back some of what Ancar's been taking, indirectly. There's just a few things of Ancar's I want to make sure don't survive.”

Elspeth looked at him curiously, one hand on Darkwind's leg, supporting him. “What, documents? How could you know where—” Then she shook her head. “Never mind. I don't want to know how you know. We'll get ourselves ready for fast travel and meet you at the camp.”

Cymry started forward, through what was left of the main gates. Gwena limped along behind.

Skif took himself into the palace.

By the time he slipped back out of the doors, there were people looting already—running through the hall, grabbing whatever they could carry, and dashing back out again. Most of those people wore the uniforms of Ancar's Elite Guard, which didn't surprise him in the least. None of them offered any kind of hindrance to him, once they saw he wasn't carrying any choice bits of loot. And every once in a while, he saw one of the political prisoners or kidnapped girls he'd just freed from the dungeons making for the city, some bauble or valuable in hand.

Behind him, one room and all its contents were burning merrily. One more small fire among the other three or four started by the lightning, anyone would assume. It was likely that looters would add to those fires before the night was over.

He stopped long enough at the royal stables to steal a pair of strong, fast horses, and a small carriage; they'd need both for An'desha and Darkwind. Some of the stable hands seemed to have had the same idea, for the really fine horseflesh and the royal carriages were all gone. As an afterthought, he stopped long enough in the courtyard to pitch a kind of souvenir into the back of the wagon he'd appropriated—the map that had saved Darkwind. He thought Elspeth would like to have it.

And as he passed through the gates, he was already making plans for the fastest route out, one that passed through the fewest number of towns that might hold garrisons. Getting to the border was going to be tricky.

Getting across was going to be even more fun. . . .

 

Pires Nieth settled himself gingerly into Ancar's throne. To say that he was exhausted was understating the case, but he dared not allow that to show. He had only taken control of the chaotic situation by the thinnest of margins, and only because the commanders of the Elite were more afraid of mages than they were greedy. His illusions of demons alone had been enough to convince them that he held all the power of his late master; if he'd had to produce more than illusions, he'd have been in desperate trouble.

Fortunately, the commanders had taken the illusion for the real thing, and had brought
their
men back under control. Now the palace was completely cleared of looters, the city was rapidly being pacified, and he was the man who was going to inherit Ancar's rather damaged crown. Once anyone thought to contest him for it, well, it would be too late.

Hardorn was not what it had been—but it was more than he had ever owned before.

The throne was mostly intact, a few semiprecious stones missing. The throne-room itself was smoke-stained and bore the muddy footprints of looters. But it was still a throne and an audience chamber, and there were plenty of servants to repair both.

Oh, you've done very well by yourself, Pires,
he congratulated himself as his cowed and frightened sheep—ah,
courtiers and mages
—gathered to pay him their homage officially.
You have done very well by yourself, and all by being clever, watching everything, knowing when to play your hand—

A commotion at the end of the room made him frown. The courtiers swirled like little fish disturbed by the passing of a larger, hungry fish. What now?

A battered and disheveled messenger came pushing through the crowd, his eyes wild, his face sweat- and dirt-streaked. “The border!” he panted, frantically. “An attack on the border!”

Damn
—
the Valdemarans
—
well, I
have no quarrel with them,
I can
simply make
a truce
—“What are the Valdemarans doing?” he asked. “Who's the commander in charge? How quickly can he retreat from—”

“Not the
western
border!” the man wailed. “The
eastern
border! The towers just relayed a message from the eastern border! There's an army there, a
huge
army, it outnumbers us by a hundred to one, and it's rolling over
everything!”

It was at this time that Pires Nieth realized his throne might not be valuable for very much longer. And he tried to think of who he could go to that would trade Ancar's flattened crown for a fast horse.

Treyvan mantled his wings over the youngsters, cradling gryphlet and human alike. The salle was warm and bright, but the little ones took no notice of the sunlight, nor of the toys piled all around them. All four were distressed, for all four knew that their parents were going away, and where they were going, people got hurt.

He was making soothing little sounds, when suddenly his feathers all stood on end, and he felt the unique trembling in the forces of magic that signaled a Gate forming in this very room.

His first thought was that Falconsbane had found a way to build a Gate here, to attack the children. He shoved them all behind him, turning with foreclaws outstretched, building his shields and his powers to strike at anything that struck at him. His action took the two Heralds on guard entirely by surprise, but they reacted with the speed of superbly-trained fighters, drawing their weapons and facing the direction he faced.

A haze of power shimmered in the doorway to the salle. Then—the door vanished, to be replaced by a meadow of sad, yellowed grasses—

And Firesong and Elspeth came stumbling through, followed by Nyara and Skif, the
dyheli
, the birds, and the two Companions, one of whom carried Darkwind on her back, and dragged a slab of wood. The other Companion carried someone else, wrapped up in so much cloth as to be unidentifiable.

The Gate came down immediately. So did Firesong, collapsing where he stood. Darkwind looked none too good either.

“Get a Healerrrr!” Treyvan snapped; one of the Heralds sheathed her blade and took off at a dead run before he even finished the sentence. The other joined him at Firesong's side.

“What happened?” the young man demanded. “Is—”

“We got Falconsbane, Ancar, and Hulda, in that order, yesterday,” Elspeth replied, helping Darkwind down off Gwena's back. “All hell broke loose over there. We'll probably see the effects of it on the border, in a day or a week, depending on if anyone thinks to use the relay-towers to get word to the front lines. There was rioting in the city as we left, and we traveled just long enough for Firesong to get back the strength to Gate us home. The unrest was spreading faster than we could move.”