Another nod, more reluctant this time.
He put a hand on her forearm. “I would ask you to mix up a poison, the most potent you can acquire without bringing any suspicion on yourself. And a small knife, the blade coated with the poison.”
She regarded him then, gazing long into his eyes, her own light-brown ones reflecting the candlelight. After a long moment, she heaved a sigh, drank deeply of the wine, and placed her hand over his. “I’ll see what I can do. Nobody should be subjected to the clutches of such a fiend.”
“Thank you, Edara. I don’t want you to come to any harm, so please be careful. Whatever repayment I can offer, though that’s little at the moment, you have but to ask.”
She nodded, staring into the candle flames, her hand still resting on his, a gesture of easy companionship. “I’m sorry about your friend. Harlan seemed like a good man. I liked him.”
“Aye, he was.” Elyas cleared his throat then moved to draw his hand away, but she tightened her grip suddenly.
“They’ll be suspicious, you know. The guards.”
“That’s why you have to be very careful.”
“No, I mean about us. With me being here and us simply talking like this.”
Elyas looked at the closed door nervously as though someone might have an ear pressed against it. He could hear the distant sounds of revelry still going on. A girlish shriek came from nearby, followed by rough male laughter.
“I don’t know what to do about that,” he admitted after a moment. She made a valid point. The guards had already taken note of her presence in his chamber and would surely talk, as idle men tended to do, especially when drinking. “I hadn’t really thought this through very well. I’m sorry. It’ll reflect badly on your reputation.”
Edara turned to him then, her eyes bright and a surprisingly coquettish smile in place. In the soft light, she seemed younger, quite comely even. She ran a hand down his cheek and then trailed it down his bare chest.
“There’s a way to remedy their suspicions.” Her eyes held his.
“You mean…?” He swallowed hard and took a long drink of wine, surprised to discover it nearly empty. Of all the ways the conversation could have turned out, such an outcome certainly hadn’t crossed his mind. He was painfully aware of how long it had been since he’d been with or even thought of a woman that way. He wouldn’t admit to ever having thought of Nesnys in such a manner.
“Yes.” She leaned against him and ran a hand through his hair, guiding his head down far enough to kiss him gently on the lips. “My price for aiding you in this, Elyas.”
He stared at her, astonished by what she was implying. “I… well, if that is your wish.”
Edara laughed then, a genuine mirth that made her seem years younger. “I’m not too old to be without desires of my own or to not want a man inside me.” Her hands were sliding across the hard muscles of his chest and stomach, one sliding down to his groin and squeezing gently. “Besides, you did ply me with a scandalous amount of wine.”
He laughed at that, relaxing into the moment as he felt himself responding to her touch. He drew her up from the pallet and lifted her dress, Edara raising her arms so he might slide it up over her head. She removed her smallclothes, and he noted she was more voluptuous than he expected, the soft flickering light playing enticingly across her curves, her body still firm and strong despite her advancing years. She unfastened his breeches, her skilled healer’s hands working at him as a powerful desire swept over him.
Edara smiled at his body’s response and pulled him down atop her on the pallet. “I want to experience for myself the legendary virility of a gladiator,” she whispered into his ear as their bodies pressed together.
Chapter 44
The road to Carran was usually heavily traveled, for Llantry and Carran were the major economic hubs of Ketania, but in such desperate times, travelers and merchants were few. Several large groups of refugees were heading for the safety of the capital’s stout walls, bringing grim tales of Nebaran raiding parties killing, burning, and looting small settlements all across the plains. Ketanian patrols were present on the road the first couple days out of Llantry, and while they didn’t have great numbers, their presence was a reassurance to the refugees and sporadic travelers.
Creel and his two young companions made good time after escaping the capital city. They saw no sign of any pursuit, not that Creel expected any. In such times, an escaped prisoner wasn’t worth the risk of further depleting an already strained city garrison to pursue him into the wilderness. Regardless, they continued to push their pace, and he thought they’d likely make Carran in a week if the weather held and they didn’t encounter Nebaran patrols.
Rafe and Iris were in good spirits following their escape, both eager to carry out Sianna’s wishes by helping to arrange a conclave in Carran then trying to effect some type of rescue. Their injuries continued to improve, and they were able to ride without any pain. Naught could be done for Rafe’s maimed hand, but his other wounds were mostly healed. Iris’s ankle no longer troubled her either.
At night, they took turns keeping watch, with Iris even insisting on doing her part, which Creel admired. She’d certainly matured in the past week or two. Gone was the spoiled handmaiden to a queen. In her place was a determined young woman willing to get her hands dirty and see that their mission succeeded.
Creel spent the second evening after dinner rereading Rada’s note and reminiscing on the good times they had shared together. After introspection, he thought himself a sorry bastard for having squandered years traveling the lands and fulfilling his monster-hunting contracts while barely sparing her a thought, yet now that she was gone, her loss haunted him dearly.
I’m sorry I treated you so poorly, Rada. All those years the gods gave us together, yet I was a fool to let them slip by and not appreciate what I had before me.
The road skirted the edge of the Llantry Woods heading westward, and on the third day, they put the forest behind them. Far to the north, the southern edge of the Rotmoors was barely visible, a grim and dangerous land of foul vapors, stunted trees, and deadly swamps that could suck a man down to his death. And of course, the Rotmoors were home to plenty of monsters, trolls primarily, though other more exotic species also lived there.
The road kept well south of the Rotmoors, and on the fifth day, they crested a rise to find a blue expanse on the horizon, the eastern shore of the great Zoph Lake. On the other side lay the city of Carran.
Creel was just beginning to feel cautiously optimistic about their chances of reaching Carran unmolested when a Nebaran patrol crested a ridge, riding up from the south. The horsemen were initially heading northeast but, upon spotting their small party, angled in their direction. A quick count revealed well over a dozen, with even more still approaching.
“Bloody Abyss, they’ve seen us. Our only chance is to outrun them—ride hard!” Creel dug his heels into his mount’s flanks, and the horse leaped forward, going from an easy canter to a full gallop in an instant.
Rafe and Iris rode to either side of him, their youthful faces filled with fright as they kept casting anxious glances over their shoulders. The Nebarans had a good pursuit angle and began to close the gap, soon only a quarter mile behind and gaining.
The chase went on for about ten more minutes before Creel’s horse began flagging. They’d been alternately riding and walking to rest the mounts for brief periods of time, but after five days of maintaining a rapid pace, even these healthy animals were tiring. Rafe and Iris’s mounts didn’t look to be in much better shape than his. The Nebaran patrol’s steeds must have been fairly fresh, judging from the rate they were gaining ground.
“You two ride on ahead,” Creel shouted over the pounding of hooves and rushing wind. “I’ll try to hold them off and buy you time. Break north off the road and head toward the lake. Find some cover so you can lose them.”
Rafe looked as though he’d object, but after a glance at Iris, he gave a curt nod. The pai
r steered their horses north off the road and through the tall grass. Clusters of trees dotted the plains at regular intervals, but there wasn’t much substantial cover until they neared the lake.
Creel let his horse slow to an easy trot while he strung his bow and nocked an arrow. The plains north of Zoph Lake were inhabited by tribes of barbarians, some of whom were renowned as magnificent mounted archers, their horsemanship competitions routinely including archery, but Creel had never mastered the skill. He could fire accurately from a standstill but not from a moving mount.
A full score of foes were now hard on his heels, with loaded crossbows and unsheathed blades.
This is gonna be a short-lived trip. I hope those two get away. Rafe is steady with a sword—he’ll defend the lass. I just need to improve the odds a bit.
He wheeled his horse around and drew an arrow, bringing the string back against the corner of his mouth. When he judged the distance to his pursuers at about a hundred and fifty paces, he loosed. His arrow flew a little short, lodging into the turf, and he cursed. The next arrow struck the neck of a horse—not his intended target, but it was effective. The animal bucked, tossing its rider, and the horseman behind crashed into them, horse and rider both spilling to the ground with bone-breaking force.
Not bad—two down with one arrow.
The Nebarans spread farther apart, and he knew he wouldn’t be so fortunate again. His next arrow struck a rider in the shoulder. The soldier rocked back in the saddle, but he was a skilled enough horseman that he didn’t fall. A couple of the Nebarans fired crossbows, but their aim was poor because of their galloping horses, and the bolts whizzed harmlessly past.
Creel lined up one last shot. The instant the fletchings cleared the bow, he shoved it back through a strap on his saddlebag and drew Final Strike. He looked up to find a riderless horse at the center of their line.
Three down, one wounded. That leaves sixteen able-bodied men.
He cursed again at the long odds but readied himself to meet their charge. The patrol slowed its approach, the line of mounted men curling around to surround him.
“Throw your sword down,” one of the men shouted.
Creel ignored him, knowing full well what would happen if he did. Instead, he spurred his horse to his left, surging forward to attack the two soldiers on the far end and trying to keep them between himself and the bulk of their numbers so they couldn’t all get at him at once. A quarrel hissed through the air a few inches from his ear, then he was on them.
The nearest Nebaran looked startled at his brazen charge. Creel slashed him across the unarmored thigh, then on the backswing, Final Strike struck the other man’s upraised forearm. His bracer split, and bone cracked, the upraised sword tumbling from his hand. He brought Final Strike back across just in time to parry the first man’s strike. They exchanged a couple blows, during which Creel sensed the other Nebarans maneuvering in to surround him. He jabbed the fingers of his free hand deep into the bleeding cut in his opponent’s thigh. As he’d hoped, the man cried out, reaching instinctively to wrench his hand away. Final Strike slipped through the opening in his guard and pierced his throat. He turned and jabbed his second opponent’s mount lightly in the rump. The horse reared and skittered away, crashing into the mount of another approaching soldier.
After that, all was chaos as the remaining men surrounded him. A blow struck Creel’s shoulder, turning off his leather pauldron, but with enough force to disrupt his balance. He parried one blow coming from the front then another from his right. Three men were pressing him at once, horses grunting and bucking from their proximity. He managed to stab one man in the ribs, but another opened a deep gash in his thigh. At the last instant, Creel ducked a barely glimpsed strike to his head from the right. White sparks flared in his vision as the blow landed, followed by a jolt of pain, and he nearly lost his seat. He growled unintelligibly and swung a wild backhand. His sword bit into his attacker’s belly. The man fell, but Final Strike momentarily got entangled in the mail shirt. Creel was wrenched around, nearly out of his saddle.
Something hammered him in the back, and then pain, blindingly intense, exploded in his back—not just his back, but deep in his innards. He turned back, lashing out with an elbow and felt something crunch. A nose, he suspected. The attacker fell away for the moment, but the pain was so intense he couldn’t breathe.
I’ve been run through. The thought was an isle of calm amidst the chaos. A dozen or more men must still have been swirling around, limited in their ability to attack him by the bulk of the milling horses.
He was growing weaker, for the wounds were taking their toll, the latest one quite grievous. His vision was growing spotty, but he managed to parry another blow that would’ve taken his head, then he hacked off the man’s sword arm in return. Final Strike felt weightless, as if it had a life of its own. The sword’s fullers were filled with blood, its deadliness at its peak, but he could feel the warmth leaking out of himself with his blood at an alarming rate.
His vision shuddered suddenly, and he nearly went backward out of the saddle, but then everything righted itself. A moment later, the pain struck, bludgeoning his senses. A black-feathered quarrel jutted from his upper-right chest, just visible through the black tunnel of his narrowing vision.
For a moment, the thought of falling to the ground and hoping they’d leave him for dead held some appeal, but he remembered Iris and Rafe.
Not enough… Need to buy them more time. Make them pay with more blood.
A ragged cry sounded, and he realized it was his own voice. His entire torso was aflame, and he could barely draw breath, but somehow he raised his sword one more time. A stunned Nebaran could only watch helplessly as his head was split asunder like a rotting melon. That exertion was nearly too much, and remaining in the saddle took everything he had.
An ominous shape filled his vision, a burly man with a raised axe poised to split him like a length of firewood. He braced himself to be struck down and trampled underhoof.
But the blow never fell.
Instead, the center of the man’s black-and-gold surcoat bulged outward grotesquely, and a bloody arrowhead tore through. The man wavered and fell to one side. Creel looked around stupidly, everything seeming to move in delayed time. The air appeared to be filled with a swarm of orange-fletched arrows, stinging like lethal hornets. One struck a man down on his left, another to the right an instant later.
He strove to focus to see what was happening. The remaining Nebarans were regrouping, turning away from him to face some unexpected foe.
Creel blinked, clearing his vision enough to see a handful of mounted Ketanian troops wearing ragged, dirty surcoats, charging the Nebarans with raised swords. Two large men were in the lead, one an unfamiliar warrior with the look of a veteran, the other a youth that Creel recognized—Rafe.
Two more Nebarans fell in quick succession before Rafe and the other man even reached them, arrows finding throats and eyes. Creel glimpsed a tall, black-haired woman on horseback trailing the other Ketanians at a steady canter. She had the bronzed skin and rangy look of a plains barbarian, and her deadly accuracy with a recurve bow completed that impression. Iris was riding beside the archer with a dagger clenched in her fist.
Rafe and the veteran slammed into the handful of remaining Nebarans, four more warriors riding hard on their heels. They made quick work of their foes. One sole Nebaran slipped free of the battle, fleeing back southward, but the man didn’t make it a dozen paces before an arrow threw him out of his saddle.
Creel’s eyelids threatened to slam shut, but he fought mightily against it. He was surprised the desperate melee was gone and found himself looking out over green rolling fields, clear of anybody else.
A pleasant enough place to rest for a bit.
His horse apparently thought so too, for it began grazing on the lush grass.
“Creel!”
With great effort, he turned his head to see Iris riding toward him with the barbarian woman trai
ling. The other warriors were going around and dispatching wounded Nebarans.
“Are you… Oh, gods.” Iris put a horrified hand to her mouth.
“That bad, eh?” He tried to sheathe Final Strike but missed the scabbard, and the sword fell to the ground, which could have been half a mile away.
“Anhur’s sword! How is he still in the saddle, let alone alive?” The archer woman’s dark eyes were wide. “Nate! This man needs aid.”
Creel knew he should dismount, pick up Final Strike, and perhaps even sit down and rest for a time, but the effort was too much. He gripped the blood-slicked saddle horn tightly as a wave of dizziness washed over him. When the blurriness cleared, the veteran warrior he’d seen riding beside Rafe was regarding him in astonishment. He was a burly man, fair haired with gray speckling his hair and beard.
“Creel?” Rafe’s head poked into his field of vision.
“You brought help. Clever lad. And lass.” He tried to reassure his youthful companions with a smile, but from their faces, it clearly didn’t have the intended effect. Iris was pale and looked as if she might faint. A couple weeks earlier, she probably would have.
Rafe had ridden right up beside him, taking the reins of his horse, their knees bumping together. “You’ve got a, uh… Well, you’ve got a sword sticking out of you.”
“Huh?” Creel tilted his woozy head forward. Sure enough, a handbreadth of bloody steel was jutting out of his chest, just left of his sternum, a few inches over and slightly below the black-fletched quarrel. “I’ll be damned. So there is. That probably nicked the heart… It’s gonna bleed like a bastard when you pull it out.”
He was dimly aware of the others exchanging bleak glances. To his surprise, Iris took charge, pushing her mount through the others, her face stern.
“Don’t just stand there—we need to get him down from there and tend his wounds! Rafe, stop gawping like a dimwit. You there, can you help Rafe get him down?”
Someone was saying it was hopeless, that he was done for. Creel surely felt that way. Strong hands gripped his upper arms, then he was being eased out of the saddle.
The Way of Pain Page 42
