by Dale Lucas
The lord marshal laid into her with a series of fierce, terrible overhand blows. Elvaris met each one, but the speed and weight of the onslaught was too much, too fast. She retreated under the blows step-by-step . . . and finally her bad leg gave out. Torval saw the knee bend, saw Elvaris lose her balance and go reeling backward, arms wheeling. The lord marshal saw his chance: in an instant she would be on the ground, on her back, and he could finally end her. He raised his sword and took the three strides forward necessary to put him above her.
Torval lowered his head, ready to charge now that there was an opening—but it proved unnecessary. In the next instant, a scream sounded—rising on the air as though barreling closer second by second—and something big and heavy slammed into the lord marshal. He and the thing that hit him—a flying guardsman, now unconscious from the impact—turned end over end and sprawled a stone’s throw away.
Torval turned. Across the clearing he saw the troll, standing tall with four or five arrows protruding from it, front and back, yet seemingly unperturbed. The troll was looking right at Torval. It raised its hand and waved. Torval even imagined the beast smiled, like a child proud of a lucky bowling pitch across a village green.
Torval could only raise a hand in answer: Thank you. He was sure his face registered only shock and confusion.
Now, back to the struggle at hand. Torval saw that the lord marshal, though clearly stunned by the impact of that flying guardsman, was already moving, trying to regain his sense and get back to his feet. It wouldn’t happen. Not if Torval could help it.
The dwarf sprinted from where he stood and all but threw himself on the prone lord marshal. He laid his weight on his fallen adversary and straddled him.
Where was his sword? There! In his hands, rising, rising—
Torval brought his maul down hard. He thought he had the spike turned down and hoped to spear the nobleman’s arm to the forest floor, but somehow his weapon had been turned around in the struggle. It was the blunt side—the hammerhead—that came crunching down upon the lord marshal’s wrist. Torval heard bones break, heard the lord marshal cry out, and the sword fell from his fist. Having disarmed his foe, Torval turned the maul sideward and laid its breadth across the lord marshal’s throat. He held it at either end and laid all his weight on it. The lord marshal struggled to keep the maul’s handle from crushing his windpipe, but with one ruined, broken wrist and the weapon already so close, he had little leverage. His face bloomed red, eyes bulging, the breath from his half-crushed throat ragged and thin.
Don’t let him live, Torval thought.
Take every last breath, Torval thought.
Add this notch to your maul handle, Torval thought.
But that was mercy, wasn’t it? Escape. If he killed the lord marshal now, the man would never face trial, never be publicly shamed and made to pay for all the trouble he’d caused, all the lives he’d ended and ruined and endangered.
“Torval.”
It was Elvaris. He heard her, but of course he could not see her, because she was somewhere behind him, and all that Torval could see right now was the lord marshal’s blood-engorged, straining face, his bulging eyes and open mouth and lolling tongue.
“Torval,” she said again, and he felt her hand on his shoulder. “Let him up now. We can’t just kill him—we have to make sure he pays for this. For all of it . . .”
Torval knew the sense of that, could feel the rightness of it in his gut. But there was equal rightness in the way his steel maul handle kept lowering against the big, proud man’s windpipe . . . the way he was gasping for a last breath . . . the way his eyes bulged and fluttered and rolled in his beet-red face.
Elvaris limped into view. She was no longer behind him now. Instead she moved toward the lord marshal’s fallen sword. When she reached it, she kicked it aside, far beyond the prone man’s grasp, even with his good hand. Then she fell to her knees. She was right in Torval’s line of sight now, leaning on her own beautiful blade.
“Stop it, Torval,” she said. Not a plea . . . an order.
Torval did as she commanded. He wasn’t sure why . . . only that something in him told him this way would be better. More right. More just.
The lord marshal coughed and sputtered, gasping for breath and drawing it in in desperate, ragged gulps. His broken wrist was swollen and discolored under his bracers and chain mail now.
Torval struggled to his feet. For a time he stood over the lord marshal, enjoying the sight of the desperate man’s struggles to regain himself after being so horribly beaten. When it looked as though that recovery was progressing—as though the lord marshal might regain both the ability to breathe and the ability to speak imminently—Torval made another decision. He planted one thick foot beside the lord marshal’s calf, to brace the man’s leg, then gave the lord marshal’s foot a hard swipe with his maul. Again bone broke. The foot dislocated from the ankle joint and bent at a horrid angle.
Torval nodded, satisfied. “That’s so you don’t slip away, you bastard.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Even at a breakneck gallop, Tzimena’s horse picked out a path more effectively than she could have. It was a deer track of some sort, narrow and, in some places, precariously overgrown, littered with old, broken limbs and stray stones deposited by old mudslides. The path was likewise overhung with all sorts of healthy trees, their limbs threatening, time and again, to knock Tzimena from the saddle or catch on her billowing dress and yank her from her seat. She had no idea where she was going, what direction they were heading in, where any meaningful landmarks like the river or the mountains might be. Her entire world was speed and the thunder of hooves and the threat of being struck by looming foliage or thrown from a tripped horse.
And yet she would not slow.
Round a bend to the right, back again to the left, down a small dip, through a gully, up a short slope, past huge cedars and towering redwoods and rustling pines.
Were those hooves, pounding closer, behind her? Was someone trailing her? Tzimena dared a glance back, keeping her head low, beneath the rippling screen of her mount’s mane. She saw nothing.
Perhaps it was an illusion—the echoes of her own horse’s hooves through the woodland around her? Surely, if someone was going to follow, they’d be far behind, wouldn’t they?
She turned her eyes forward again. There was an enormous fallen ash ahead, its old, dead trunk overgrown with moss and lichen, blocking the narrow little deer path like a brick wall.
She whipped her horse, lowering herself to hug its withers.
“Jump it,” she said. “You can do it, darling, I know it. Don’t let it stop you, just—”
The horse screamed, tossed its head back, and dug in its hooves. It would not jump, and it would hear no more nonsense from her about it. For a moment Tzimena was certain she could hold on, avoid being thrown—she’d lowered herself, after all, there was no way the horse could—
But it did. It dipped its head low and dug its forehooves in deep, and in the next instant Tzimena was tumbling forward, right out of the saddle, sliding over its withers and head. Something slammed hard into her tumbling body, and she realized it was the fallen ash. Breath left her. Sense left her. Everything was darkness and shock and pain—bone-deep pain. She was sure that every bone in her body must have shattered. But her fall wasn’t done just yet. She’d hit the log, but there was still the matter of the earth itself, and gravity. Down she went, landing in a heap, in agony, her brain scrambled, her only thoughts the desire for a deep breath and the vague question of whether she’d ever draw one again.
Her head swam. Her chest hurt when she tried to inhale. She wondered if a rib or two were broken.
Get up, she thought. Move.
What was that? Hooves approaching? Someone following?
Get. Up. Move.
Tzimena raised her head. Blinked. Her vision cleared, little by little. Her horse had moved to the verge of the little path, staring off into the green underbrush, its big,
brown eyes blinking innocently, as if it hadn’t just tried to kill her.
She got her arms underneath her and tried to push herself up. That would be enough if she could accomplish it: up on all fours, not sprawled flat on the ground, that was it. If she could attain just that much . . .
She did. She tried breathing again and felt that pain in her lower ribs again, like a thorn-studded belt, constricting her. She also noticed something red dripping lazily onto the damp earth beneath her. Tzimena raised a hand to her face and realized her nose and mouth were both bleeding.
A little blood. No worries. You survive a hemorrhage worse than that each month. Move, damn you! Someone’s coming.
She sat upright, legs folded beneath her, like a penitent kneeling before a holy shrine. For a long time she only breathed, working hard to regain her strength, her control, to make sure that if she dared to stand, she wouldn’t lose consciousness and collapse again. Every part of her ached, but no part of her refused to move. Aside from those possibly cracked ribs, nothing seemed broken.
The hooves were getting closer.
Tzimena braced herself against the fallen ash and stood. Immediately her head swam and she fell back against the dead tree, vision full of dancing motes. Her horse’s ears had pricked up now, and the animal had turned its head toward the sound of an approaching four-legged companion.
Her vision was clearing, but not fast enough. Tzimena searched the area around her for a hiding place. She saw ferns and bracken and thick shrubs and tall trees, but nowhere sufficient to secret herself. Nor, she thought, did she have the strength to just start running. Soon, perhaps, but right now? Impossible.
The hoofbeats were almost upon her.
Tzimena reeled toward the verge of the deer track, determined to just go stumbling into the brush and hide behind a tree if she had to.
But it was too late. At the far end of the deer path, from the direction she’d come, a huge black destrier appeared, bearing upon it a familiar rider: the Duke of Erald. He looked red-faced, sweaty, and winded, but he reined in his mount when he saw her and studied their surroundings as if half expecting a trap of some sort.
Tzimena felt all the fight go out of her. Oh, she’d claw his eyes out if he got close enough—he could count on that—but there was no point running any longer and making a fool of herself. She’d just have to stand here and either kill him herself, or force him to kill her. Either way, she’d fight until she had no breath left in her.
“Really,” the duke said, spurring his horse into an easy canter to advance, “what was the point of all this?”
“To get away from you,” Tzimena said. She spat out blood and saliva. “Simple enough.”
The duke approached. When he was just about three yards from her, he reined his horse in. “Curious,” he said. “You agreed to marry me readily enough.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tzimena said. “My mother agreed that I should marry you. I was less eager, but I had no better offers. Besides, I didn’t know you at all—for good or ill—let alone what a snake you were.”
The duke shrugged, a most nonchalant gesture for a man who looked as if he’d just fought to save his own life and was now moments away from taking hers. He spoke as he dismounted.
“Well, if it’s any solace,” he said, “my intentions were true. Mostly, anyway. Partially, I suppose. If you had made it to Erald, safe and sound, and met me and married me and come to love me, I would have been happy. Your beauty, after all, was not exaggerated. But, alternately, if you drew out my brother and made it possible for me to finally do away with him . . . that would’ve been fine, as well. Even if I had to lose you in the process.”
Tzimena blew out a breath. “You bastard.”
Verin Lyr threw out his hands, a gesture of apology. “Strategic principles, that’s all. If you can undertake an action that could result in several possible outcomes, and more than half of those possible outcomes are in your favor, take the action. Simple enough. Now . . .”
He drew his sword. There was still blood on it. Tzimena wondered whose blood it was.
Were those hooves she heard approaching?
Wishful thinking, she thought. There he stands, armed and ready to do me in. Here I stand, broken and without protection. How far will my fists or my nails or my teeth get me against that bloodied blade of his?
“. . . I have no wish to make this painful for you,” Verin said, moving closer slowly, cautiously, the sword at his side. “If you’ll get on your knees and turn around, I can make it quick.”
Tzimena spat blood at his feet. She wasn’t imagining it. There was a horse approaching!
He heard it, too. Likewise, he saw that she heard the hooves.
And that made him strike.
He moved quickly, sweeping up his sword and bringing it down in a vicious overhand arc that fell right toward her. Tzimena had received a great deal of martial training in her youth—all Estavari women did, noble or not—but her years of drilling were far behind her, and she was out of practice. Still, she knew that if someone was coming at you with a sword, and you had nothing, the best thing you could do was get close to them, inside their swinging or thrusting range.
And that’s what she did. She barreled forward as the blow fell, throwing all her weight against Verin Lyr’s torso, wrapping her arms around him and doing her best to drive him backward and throw him off balance. The impact brought a deep, stinging pain from the ribs she imagined cracked, but she bent into the tackle nonetheless. Her life depended on it.
He was too practiced, though. The duke managed to get a foot behind him, to save his thrown balance, then gripped her by her dress and twisted sideward. Using his body for leverage, he threw her round him and she hit the ground hard, now lying on the deer path between him and his unmounted horse. The horse, for its part, was startled and cantered backward, nearly clearing the path.
The approaching hooves were loud now, very close.
Hurry up, she thought. Whoever you are, hurry!
She raised her head and looked to the duke. He was charging toward her, sword raised again.
Tzimena rolled backward, desperate to get away from the sword falling toward her. She managed to avoid the first blow but kept rolling as the duke straightened and prepared for another. As he drew back, this time for a sideward thrust, Tzimena scrambled to her feet and retreated up the path, away from the barrier of the fallen ash. Just as she made her feet, the approaching horse and rider rounded the bend, pounding toward them.
She had only an instant to see the rider’s face, but there was no mistaking the red hair and freckles, even under two days’ worth of dirt and grime.
It was Rem. He had a sword in hand, and he charged right toward the duke, clearly prepared to counter him.
Of course, Tzimena stood between them.
She threw herself aside as Rem galloped through the space she’d lately occupied, heading straight for the duke.
The abandoned horses on the sides of the road fled into the brush, affrighted.
Rem brought his sword down in a savage arc, but the duke was ready for him. Their swords met in the air and rang loudly in the forest. Just as Tzimena thought Rem would drive his stolen horse right into the fallen ash, he yanked the beast’s reins and it reared and wheeled. Again Tzimena was terrified—the horse was overbalanced! It would fall, surely, pinning Rem beneath it!
But clearly the young man knew how to ride. The horse’s upright, wheeling bulk stayed vertical and its wheeling hooves struck out at the duke. Verin stumbled backward, eager to avoid the metal shoes that nearly crushed his skull. As the horse finally placed all four hooves on the ground again, Rem swung out of the saddle on its far side—to make sure he got good footing before the duke could charge—then slapped the animal’s rump and sent it off into the woods.
The duke and the red-haired city watchman charged at one another and launched into a fierce duel, far more terrifying and impressive than any Tzimena had ever seen in a tournament or
melee, because the stakes here were the highest: life and death.
She’d had a feeling about Rem all along—a sense that he wasn’t just the humble watchwarden that he claimed to be—and his sword work proved her right. He met every blow the duke offered with practiced assurance, took every opening offered with deadly intent. The duke, for his part, was a frighteningly skilled opponent—fast, confident, ferocious yet always controlled—but Rem, whoever he was, held his own beautifully.
And yet . . . as the match wore on, Tzimena started to get a sinking feeling. How long could Rem last against the duke? A single minute? Two or three?
And would she just stand here, letting this brave boy risk his life just to save hers?
Steel notched steel. The men grunted, barked, sliced the air, and managed, at intervals, to land minor hits against each other. The duke left a nasty cut on Rem’s left arm. Rem managed to get his point in, just the slightest bit, at the duke’s right shoulder. Round and round they went, each knowing the other wouldn’t yield until he was put down for good.
Tzimena searched around where she stood. Something. Anything. There had to be—
There, beneath the shading fronds of a fern, half-buried in the dirt between the spreading roots of the tree at her back! Tzimena fell to her knees and dug in with her hands, desperate to loose the treasure waiting there.
“I don’t know who you are,” the duke grunted between strikes, “but you’re quite good. If I weren’t about to kill you, I’d offer you a job.”
“I already have a job,” Rem said, still attacking, “and I’m doing it.”
Tzimena almost had it—a large stone, the size of a small melon. She scratched and clawed at the earth around it, trying to pry it loose, but the earth held it. Already ants and other small insects were streaming out from beneath it. An earthworm breached the loam and her clawing fingers tore right through it as she kept digging.
Grunts. Steel ringing. Someone cried out, taking a hit—Rem, she thought, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Just know how pointless this all was,” the duke said, sounding smug even as he snarled. “You died to defend a woman whose death will follow hard on yours, to avenge a man you never knew—never could have known.”
