by Dale Lucas
She felt Korin’s hand on hers. It was rough and warm. It reminded her of everything foolish and youthful and green that she’d always loved in him . . .
And it mocked the bitter reality of her present predicament.
“If you really want to go, you can,” Korin said quietly. “I won’t keep you against your will. But what would you be going back to, Tzimena? Marriage to my brother? Or, if you wriggle out of that, betrothal to some new dimwit lord a year or two down the road?”
“You’re right,” Tzimena said slowly. “Life in the wild, coupled with a murderous bandit who smells like a hog wallow—that’s a much better proposition.”
She heard him draw breath, as though he was about to respond . . . but no words came.
She stared down from their perch toward the fire-encircled camp. Something was going on down there. The number of Devils gathered round the primary cookfire seemed to have increased—perhaps they’d slipped out of some unseen cave mouth in the hillside. Wherever they’d come from, there were dozens of them now, holding some sort of palaver. Tzimena could hear nothing clearly, nor even see the proceedings in great detail, but she knew the look of a conclave when she saw one.
Probably deciding whether to ransom me or just feed me to a hillcat, Tzimena thought grimly.
“All right, then,” Korin said at last, and stood. “How about this: Make no decision tonight. You’re tired. You’re also probably a little disoriented and scared. Surrounded by strangers, out in the middle of nowhere, completely unsure of my intentions—”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tzimena said. “I know your intentions. I just question your true motives.”
“My motives?” Korin said. “Tzimena, I love you.”
Tzimena rose. He offered his hand, but she didn’t take it.
“You love a girl who grew out of herself, became someone else,” she said, “just as I love a boy who died in these woods years ago.”
“That’s not true,” Korin said, and he meant it. “All I’ve ever wanted was you. I’d given up on it ever happening, but when I stole those dispatches from the lord marshal and saw the wedding plans . . .”
“What?” Tzimena pressed. “What, precisely, did that knowledge stir in you? Envy? Jealousy? Wrath? What better way to get back at your hated brother than to intercept and steal his bride-to-be?”
“It was a sign,” Korin said, voice catching in his throat. “A sign I’ve been waiting for. Praying for.”
Gods help him, the poor fool actually meant it. Tzimena could at least admit to herself that her own attraction to Korin—still present and powerful, even after years apart—was capricious and illusory; not the love of a real person, in all his complex glory, but attachment to an idea, a dream. Korin, apparently, could not do the same.
She had so many things she wanted to say to him—so much truth that he needed to hear. And yet she was suddenly very tired. Exhausted, in fact. And famished.
“I’m hungry,” Tzimena said. “Can I eat something, please? Then sleep?”
“Of course,” Korin said. “Let’s go.”
“Just give me tonight,” Tzimena said as they started to pick their way down the hillside. “Let me rest and get my wits about me.”
“Take all the time you need,” Korin said, and he meant that, too. Unfortunately, Tzimena knew that, even if he was willing to give her all the time she needed, neither of them was likely to have it.
Sooner or later, someone would come for her. Either her own loyal guards would track her down, or the lord marshal would refuse to leave the wood without retrieving her, or Verin would return, with his own ducal guard and an army of mercenaries, and tear the forest apart in search of her. If she could work out her own means of escape before that happened, so much the better.
They descended from their promontory down into the little amphitheater created by the out-thrust rocks of the hillside. All of Korin’s people were still gathered there around the main cookfire. Tzimena heard the ghosts of words and argument, questions, considerations, but she could make sense of none of it. A gentle breeze raked the slopes above and below them, and the trees whispered somnolently under the stars.
When she and Korin crossed from the outer dark into the light at the periphery of the camp, the crowd around the fire fell silent. It was sudden, immediate. Their leader and his prize were back in mixed company.
Gods, what now? Tzimena wondered.
“Where’s supper?” Korin asked as he led the way toward the cookfire. “You’re all here, but I don’t see the victuals.”
“We held a parley in your absence, sir,” said that bald bowman with the matching gold earrings. “It ruined all our appetites.”
The tall woman, Tymon, glared at the man when he spoke, as though his words—cryptic and uninformative as they were—were out of turn and unwarranted.
“Parley?” Korin asked. He and Tzimena had arrived at the edge of the cookfire now, right in the thick of the gathered group. Tzimena realized, suddenly, that those at the edge had moved aside to allow them through, then drifted in behind them.
Blocking their withdrawal.
The big man with the war hammer spat into the fire. He had a look on his face like he’d just eaten something bitter. “Options had to be discussed, outcomes weighed.”
Korin smiled, though Tzimena could clearly see it was a wary gesture. “Options and outcomes? Sounds like cumbersome business. Honestly, can’t we just tap a keg and eat? I can smell the porridge—”
“Fine,” Tymon said, as though she’d reached the end of her patience. “If none of you curs will speak, I will!” She looked at Korin across the fire. “We talked of removing you.”
“Removing me?” Korin asked. “From what?”
“From your position,” the bald bowman said. “Your Raven-hood, I guess you’d say.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Korin said, forcing a laugh that sounded all too vulnerable—all too frightened—to Tzimena’s ears. “I am the Red Raven, Scourge of the Ethkeraldi, and you—you motley bastards—you’re my Devils of the Weald!”
That old man with the withered hand, Holgur, shook his head. His expression was hard but sad. “No, lad—you’re no more the Red Raven than the man you slew to earn the mantle. He could be replaced. So can you.”
“And I say you should be,” Tymon said with finality.
A chorus of shouted I say, toos broke out among those gathered. The consensus was hardly unanimous, but there were enough voices to suggest a majority.
Tzimena felt cool sweat beading on her brow, even though the night wind was cold and getting colder.
“I don’t understand,” Korin said. “I leave here your leader and come back to a coup?”
“Exactly,” Tymon said. “You left us. Abandoned us. And for what? For her! You traipsed off to a foreign city, taking valuable men with you—men who have yet to return! And what happened? You were caged. On your way to be hung. And how many died to get you out of that cage? To deliver this highborn whore in her pretty dress to our camp?”
Korin lunged. If he could’ve passed through the cookfire unharmed, Tzimena believed he would have. “Don’t call her a whore!” he hissed. “Insult me all you want, but she’s my guest!”
“Wrong,” Tymon said, and strode forward, rounding the big cookfire toward where Korin stood and speaking as she came. “She is a prisoner. A valuable one. We’ll see her confined and guarded until someone pays her ransom . . . or refuses to.”
Tzimena suddenly felt strong arms grasping her. They had her arms, her shoulders. She didn’t even bother fighting, but they crowded around her as if it were her clear intent.
“Let go of her!” Korin shouted. A crowd was forming around him, as well.
“She’s a prisoner—and so are you!” Tymon shouted. “Korin Lyr, I charge you with dereliction of your duties, reckless endangerment, and culpability in the deaths of eleven of our brothers and sisters! Tonight you’ll be bound and confined.
“Tomorrow, you’
ll stand trial.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rem woke in an instant. No dreary, vague awareness of wakefulness returning; no slow climb back to consciousness; a sudden, jarring, startling instant yanked him up out of a peaceful, exhausted sleep, and made him realize how cold, hungry, and stiff he was.
He lay on a bit of open ground, nestled among banks of ferns and sorrel, a towering redwood at his back. The ashy remnants of a small fire lay before him, cold and dead. It was early morning—still gray, shrouded in mist, no solid sunlight yet peeking over the hilltops or spearing down through the forest canopy. He had pains in his back, his shoulders, his knees. His mouth was horribly dry, and his belly growled resentfully at its emptiness.
Rem rubbed his hands over his face and through his matted hair. His body was trembling and cold, thanks to the death of his fire while he slept. He’d try to relight it again shortly. For the time being, he just wanted to sit upright and let his brain awaken. Maybe once his mind was clearer, he could face the day ahead of him with a little more enthusiasm.
The Kaarten had swept him far downriver. He was fairly certain he’d managed to finally snag the bank and climb out before reaching the river ford crossed by his company the morning before, but that still meant he’d gone a long way. The ford had been somewhere between five and six miles behind them at the time of the ambush. Even if he’d extricated himself from the Kaarten before reaching it, that still put—in the worst possible case—five miles between him and his surviving companions. That was a long way to go without food, water, weapons, or a mount.
Well, he wasn’t entirely bereft. He’d leapt into the river with several necessary implements on his belt: flint and steel to light a fire and a single sharp knife. The former two had come in handy the evening before, after he’d pulled himself out of the rushing waters, trudged into the woods in search of some shelter, and finally built himself a little fire as night surrounded and imprisoned him. He’d sat there, in the dark, before the modest flames, naked and shivering while he all but willed his clothes to dry. He at least knew that trying to pass the night in wet clothes in a forest prone to cold nights was foolhardy. He’d been willing to suffer through a naked chill in the short term for the promise of sleeping, clothed, afterward. Luckily, that one thing had gone according to plan. In a few hours, his clothes dried, he slipped back into them, and he curled up at the foot of that redwood to sleep. In his present predicament, there was really nothing more to do.
That was enough. The early-morning cold dug deep into him, down to his bones. He reached into his belt pouch, produced the little round flint and small rod of steel he used for fire making, and went to work. In a few minutes he had the last bits of firewood burning in the hasty pit he’d dug. Knowing he needed more fuel, he left the little fire to go in search of some dead limbs or sticks. It took him a long time—too long—just to find a small amount. This forest, with its damp air and rich soil and enormous trees, offered very little in the way of good kindling. Everything was alive here—green and growing and vibrant and hearty.
And hungry. Just as hungry as he was, no doubt.
He tossed a few more sticks onto the fire and tried to come up with a plan. He had water—there was the river for that—so he need not fear dying of thirst. But he needed food of some sort, and that would be far more challenging. With all the ferns about, he could probably cut some fiddleheads and subsist on those—his father’s chief huntsman’s lessons about that hadn’t left him. He just had to be careful. Too many could make him ill, and he couldn’t afford any illness presently. So, at best, fiddleheads were a stopgap—not a real source of nutrition. He still needed more.
He knew there were all sorts of berries and nuts available, as well, to those who knew how to find them, but his memory regarding which were safe and which were poisonous or inedible were less clear. He could positively identify and eat hurtleberries, if he found any, but that was all. Likewise for mushrooms; he vaguely recalled that there were several varieties he could eat, and several more that could liquefy his insides or kill him with paralysis . . . but he couldn’t hope to remember which was which.
That left the forest wildlife: birds, rodents, fish. If he had a few more tools—some twine for snares, the time to weave bark baskets or cages—he could, perhaps, manage to catch something. But he had neither the time nor the resources to do so. He needed something to eat, right now, just to get him started. He intended to start trekking back toward his companions, following the line of the river, but he didn’t want to do that empty-bellied and half-crazed.
A spear, he thought. Make yourself a spear, pick a spot by the riverbank or in the woods, try to spear a fish or a rabbit. But do it quickly, and don’t waste too much time in the effort. Every second you sit here, trying to feed yourself, your party is likely to get farther away from you.
So he found himself a long, straight limb of ash, stripped its leaves and branches, then used his knife to sharpen one end to a deadly point. Satisfied, he marched himself toward the river, telling himself that certainly, with a little luck, he could spear a fish.
As it happened, he could not. The damnable creatures were quite swift in their own element. Though he thought himself nearly successful on several occasions, his thrusts always missed. After a while he’d made such a nuisance of himself that the fish stopped swimming through the shallows where he stood altogether, and he knew it was time to move on. He’d try to find a small stream or pond—the sort favored by animals coming to drink. Perhaps, if he was patient, some unlucky beast would present itself to him.
Of course he found nothing. No tributaries, no ponds, no thirsty animals. Realizing that his plan was folly, Rem decided that all that was left to him was a slow, steady advance northward, back to where he’d left his companions. He considered trekking eastward, to the road, but decided that keeping the river close was more important. He walked for some time, the river always in sight on his left, the road lost in the deep, dark woodlands stretching to infinity on his right.
By the time sunlight began to cut down through the thick forest canopy, marking the beginning of a new, proper day, Rem’s hunger had moved him to go in search of sustenance once more. He trudged into the forest and managed to root out a few fiddlehead fronds, as well as a single hurtleberry bush with a handful of sour, unripe berries on its branches. He cut five fiddleheads in all, but only ate two, saving the others for later. They were tough and bitter and very hard to chew, but after he’d managed to pulp them up with his teeth and swallow them, they settled his hunger a little. He hoped the berries would dispel the bitterness of the young ferns, but they were so sour he actually wished he’d just stopped with the fiddleheads. Still, they put some kind of fuel in his belly, and would keep the worst pangs at bay for a little while. Rem supposed that was the best he could hope for. Off he went, back toward the place he’d first leapt into the river.
That was a fool’s move, he thought as he marched along. You could think of nothing else, so you jumped into the gods-damned river.
He’d been surrounded, outnumbered, and unlikely to survive a direct encounter. He couldn’t run back for the road—there were too many of the Raven’s Devils blocking his path in that direction—but there was a great, wide gap in their tightening circle that allowed for a straight path to the river. What else could he have done? It was either stand there and possibly end up dead or captured, or run for it and take his chances with the roiling Kaarten.
He’d taken his chances.
He wondered only now what had happened to the others. Had they even made it through the night? If the Devils of the Weald had left even a small contingent behind and attacked once more in the dead of night, while all his traveling mates were bone-tired and still licking their wounds, the outlaws would have had a good chance of victory. He actually created that scenario as he walked, imagining the slow tightening of the cordon of forest outlaws around the sleeping camp; the silent murder of whoever had been tapped for guard duty while the other
s slept; the panic as those remaining woke and saw their friends already slain in their sleep.
And he imagined Torval—assuming the dwarf had even survived the explosion of the ox wain. The Devils might outnumber him, and might even have approached him while he snored the night away, but if the dwarf woke with any strength in him at all, he’d die hard. No doubt, even if the Devils killed all those remaining, Torval would’ve been the last to go, only succumbing after wounds sufficient to slay a bull were hacked into him, taking a number of his would-be assailants with him.
Rem shuddered. No. He couldn’t imagine it. It was too terrible. They were fine, he told himself. The Devils had probably retreated to their lair—somewhere across the river, he guessed, to put at least one natural barrier between themselves and the outside world—and the survivors back at camp would have passed the night mourning their dead, treating their wounds, and sleeping fitfully, fearful of what might come for them in the dark.
And what of Tzimena? Rem had charged off, half-cocked and eager to wrest her from the Red Raven’s clutches, but he’d failed miserably, hadn’t he? What had her night been like? Despite hearing her speak with the Raven in loving tones, he’d seen her face when Korin Lyr had taken hold of her and tried to drag her away. She might still feel love for him, depending on the nature of the past and the relationship they shared, but in that instant she hadn’t wanted to go anywhere with him. The horror of watching her friends and bodyguards injured or slain in the Devils’ ambush had poisoned any affection she might still harbor for the man.
But where was she now? Tied up in a cage of her own? Perhaps treated with deferential kindness and superficial grace, knowing all the while that she was nothing but a prisoner, and escape all but hopeless?
Aemon wept . . . They’d all made a huge mess of this little road trip, hadn’t they? Everyone with their own agendas, their own desires, their own unspoken plans and expectations . . . all of them blasted, frustrated, and scattered after a single violent encounter with a force they had all but expected to meet.
