The three of them sat silently in darkness for a long while, as the torches of the army continued to mill around erratically. Ashlyn supposed it was fortunate that these soldiers weren’t very well-organized, but she wished they’d hurry and set up camp.
Her mind wandered, her thoughts straying to the tattoo she had removed from her ankle. Sometimes rash behavior was gratifying, but right now she felt pretty dumb. Her father was clearly not leading this rebellion, and Kou and Tag were clearly not her brothers. For all she knew, every member of the Li bloodline was still rigidly documented inside the scrolls in the gong library, and she’d scrubbed that tattoo off for nothing.
Leaving on her own was a poor decision, too, but in the heat of the moment, with Drake’s rejection still ringing in her ears, it had seemed like the right choice. Maybe if she’d stuck to the original plan and left Toryn with Skye and Drake in tow, she would have already rescued her father and reached the city by now. She felt stupid and foolish, but it was too late to change anything.
A tingle ran down her spine, and Ashlyn glanced up to see Drake watching her, his eyes glowing faintly in the darkness.
“They’ve settled,” Skye said before Ashlyn could react. “Ash, let’s you and me move in and assess the situation.”
She obediently dismounted her horse, handing the reins to Drake again. This time she met his eyes boldly, daring him to continue their earlier conversation.
“Be careful,” was all he said.
She followed Skye closely, keeping low to the ground as she inched forward. The darkness was a convenient cloak to their movements, but the army was unusually quiet, and Ashlyn had to take great care to keep silent.
The soldiers had camped as they marched, strung out in a thin ribbon along the path on which they had marched rather than grouping together. It would be more to Ashlyn’s advantage than Kou’s, because the soldiers would have difficulty making their way to the source of the battle if she, Skye and Drake were using magic to put barriers in their path.
Ashlyn and Skye had to move further up the line to find Kou again, but he was easily identified, removing his horse’s tack as other ninjas worked to erect small tents in the area around him. His movements were smooth and unhurried. Ashlyn found herself clenching her fists, angry at his casual attitude. She wanted nothing more than to inflict the same kind of pain and suffering on this man as he had on her father.
As she watched, two soldiers untied Lord Li and eased him down off the horse. His arms and legs were trembling fiercely, fingers curled like claws as he clutched his hands to his chest. Ashlyn’s throat tightened as she watched. She’d never seen her dad helpless like this before. The dread and pity that welled in her heart were nearly overwhelming.
The soldiers were not ungentle as they set her father on his knees, but they did nothing to help him as he fell forward weakly. The Lord of Toryn, face-down in the dirt, and these men were doing nothing to aid him. Ashlyn blinked furiously, trying her damnedest not to cry, and tapped Skye on the shoulder. He glanced back at her, and she motioned to him to follow as she retreated.
“What’s wrong?” Skye asked when they reached Drake, and Ashlyn shook her head mutely. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t see anything except for her father, near death and being discarded on the ground like a piece of trash.
She took several steps away from Skye, facing the darkness of the night, and took one deep breath, then another. Acting on impulse was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. She would not let her dad down this time, not when so much depended on her ability to stay calm.
Determinedly, she turned and walked to Skye and Drake. “Okay,” she said. “I’m no tactical genius, but it shouldn’t be impossible to run in and get them stirred up to the point where they don’t know who to chase after I’ve rescued my father. I’m not even going to worry about Kou. Kill him if you can, but the objective here is to get my dad out. I’m going to run in and use lightning to fry as many of them as I can reach. Drake can stick with me as I go in and use whatever he has to keep the soldiers at a distance, then help get my dad up on the horse with me. We’re just not going to have time to tie him to his own horse so I’ll have to carry him with me. Skye, if there is any way you could open up- I don’t know, a ditch or something, maybe right behind us as we’re running, that would slow them down in a big way?”
“I think I can help before that,” Skye said, “using earth to create a protected path towards your father.”
She knew what he meant- raising a wall of soil on either side of her as she ran- but had never seen him use the magic that precisely before. “That sounds like a good plan,” she said. “If you think you can do it, I mean. I don’t want to ask you to be a superhuman here.”
“Aren’t I always?” Skye said with an easy smile, his teeth gleaming in the faint light. “This isn’t much different from what Drake and I did earlier when we were rescuing you.”
“I don’t like the term ‘rescuing,’” she said lamely, trying to preserve her dignity, but she was smiling too. “Oh, one more thing- if we get separated somehow, we meet up back in Toryn. No running around the forest searching for each other. It’s going to be too dangerous, and Toryn needs us if the army moves against the city.”
“You got it,” Skye said as he tightened the cinch on his horse’s saddle. “Are we ready to move?”
“Yes,” Ashlyn said, accepting the reins from Drake. She checked the cinch and then put her foot into the stirrup, taking a deep breath before swinging up into the saddle. She checked her sword and armlet, reassuring herself that all stanes were accounted for, and glanced at Drake, who was already astride his horse, waiting.
“Here we go,” she whispered, more to herself than the others, and nudged her horse with her heels. Fear was unfurling in the pit of her stomach, but she tried to tamp it down. Skye and Drake were with her- they would help her. They would save her dad. No need to be afraid.
She urged her horse into a gallop, clutching the reins in one hand and her shuriken in the other.
The soldiers heard Ashlyn and the others coming, but for some reason didn’t react immediately, looking up in the direction of the forest as the hoof beats resounded. The moment Ashlyn left the protective cover of the trees, she pointed her sword at the closest ninjas and cast her spell, too breathless to do anything but whisper the words as a lightning bolt hit the ground in the midst of the group, scattering them. She followed up with a wave of flame that roared through the frightened soldiers, singeing everyone in its path.
On her right, Skye used earth to literally flip the ground up beneath a large cluster of advancing ninjas, flinging them backwards and sending wet soil raining down on top of them.
She urged her horse on, seeing her father lying in the dirt ahead of her, seeing Kou struggling to calm his horse so he could climb back on. Ashlyn furiously threw an ice spell in his direction, but Kou managed to leap out of the way, although his horse reared up and tore its reins out of his grasp.
Ashlyn continued to pelt the soldiers around her with fire and lightning, working hard to keep her terrified horse under control amidst the chaos. For his part, Skye was making it nearly impossible for any other soldiers to reach them, raising high walls of dirt around their immediate area and boxing them in with Kou and a handful of ninjas.
As she drew even with Lord Li, he turned his head ever so slightly in the dirt, eyes widening as he recognized her. Ashlyn leapt off her horse, keeping hold of the reins as she hastily shoved her sword into its sheath on her back. She dropped to her knees beside her father.
“Hold onto me, Dad!” she yelled, grabbing one of his arms and hooking it around her neck. She tried to stand, but he was too heavy. Suddenly there was an explosion next to them and her horse spooked, shying sideways. Ashlyn held onto the reins and was dragged across the dirt, losing her grip on her father. She rolled aside, kicking to get her feet out of a smoldering clump of grass, and scrambled to her feet. Dirt hailed down on her
from one of Skye’s attacks, the blond swordsman decimating everything around them and scaring her horse even worse.
A ninja appeared beside her. Ashlyn ducked under his haphazard punch and landed a solid kick to his knee, knocking his leg out from under him. She followed up with an uppercut, but was pulled backwards again by her frightened horse before she could land a third blow. Ashlyn knew she couldn’t let go of the animal or all chance of escape would be lost. Frustrated, she pulled the horse’s head around with the reins, turning the animal in circles in an attempt to contain its movement, and trying to force it back towards her father. In the middle of one rotation, she glimpsed Drake kneeling next to her dad, his midnight-colored horse standing calmly beside them.
“Drake!” she screamed, and she didn’t think her voice was loud enough to carry over the noise of battle, but the vampire looked up and met her eyes.
“Get him out of here!” she called. Drake nodded and turned, picking up Lord Li easily in his arms. Too late, Ashlyn saw two ninjas running for Drake with their swords drawn. She grabbed her shuriken, slicing her hand open in her haste, and flung it sideways. The hira arced gracefully, slicing across one soldier’s throat and glancing off the other’s shoulder. Ashlyn turned and vaulted into her saddle, and her horse was only too happy to run. She urged the animal towards the ninja who was now raising his sword to strike at Drake, but before she could get there, Drake pivoted out of the way, awkwardly supporting her dad on one arm and drawing his pistol with the other. He shot the ninja point blank.
Ashlyn drew her horse to a halt next to Drake, and the animal skittered sideways, too nervous to stand still. Ashlyn leaned down, hooking one knee over her horse’s neck as she came out of the saddle, made a swipe and managed to yank her shuriken from where it was embedded in the ground.
“Take him,” Drake shouted as she straightened up in the saddle, and before she could object, he was moving towards her, lifting her dad across the saddle in front of her just before her horse danced aside again. Even though she hadn’t been strong enough to pick him up, Lord Li was still surprisingly easy to support, and Ashlyn curled one arm across his torso, hooking the fingers of her bleeding hand over his shoulder to try to anchor him against her. Drake turned away and shot five times in quick succession, dropping five ninjas who were advancing on him, and used the butt of his gun to slam a sixth ninja in the face.
There was an explosion right behind her- pretty much the worst luck anyone could have EVER, Ashlyn thought later- and her stupid horse bolted. Ashlyn struggled to keep control, wishing with all her might that she had her own horse, Suki, back right now, and somehow managed to turn the animal back towards Drake just in time to see him duck under a swing from Kou’s katana.
Ashlyn screamed Skye’s name, searching for the swordsman amidst the flames and smoke and rain of earth. Drake was driven back by blow after blow from Kou and two other ninjas, blocking as best he could with his silver glove. Ashlyn tried to concentrate to cast fire on Kou, but her horse was moving too much and she was struggling too hard to keep her dad in the saddle with her.
Terrifyingly, Ashlyn glimpsed a strike from Kou that landed true- slicing diagonally across Drake’s chest even as the vampire jumped backwards. Drake fell to his knees, and for one horrible moment Ashlyn thought that it had been a severe wound, but then her horse spun angrily, trying to escape from the pressure of the reins, and she lost sight of Drake for just a moment.
When she managed to quiet the horse and saw Drake again, he was on his feet, and his eyes were glowing brighter than she’d ever seen them. His lips curved in a snarl, and he was hunched over, fingers curled like claws. He stalked around Kou like a wolf circling its prey. There was something animalistic and feral about him, something she’d never seen before.
It was then that she realized Kou had cut the cord that held the resist stane.
She’d never seen Drake without resist, but she’d heard enough stories about vampires to know that her situation had just become infinitely more dangerous.
Skye emerged from a cloud of smoke to her right exactly at that moment, dragging a soldier who had apparently tried to strike him using a whip, and Ashlyn shrieked his name. Without looking up, Skye opened a cavern in the ground directly beneath the soldier and sliced through the whip with his sword in the same moment. The falling ninja’s screams somehow reached Ashlyn’s ears through the din. Skye urged his horse towards her.
“What’s wrong? Get out of here!” he told her, using earth to ripple the ground by the cavern he’d just created, sending several other soldiers falling into its depths.
“Drake lost resist,” Ashlyn said to him, feeling dizzy from all the circles her horse was turning. Her father was slumped in her arms, unconscious.
“What?” Shock registered on the swordsman’s face, and he followed Ashlyn’s gaze to Drake, who was on top of a screaming Toryn ninja, tearing at the other man with his teeth. Kou was nowhere to be seen.
“We’ve got to get it back to him,” Ashlyn pleaded, and almost before she’d finished her sentence, Skye was rushing forward. Ashlyn’s infuriatingly spastic horse followed after him, the sudden movement throwing Ashlyn off balance and forcing her to grab at its mane as she struggled to keep both herself and her father upright.
It seemed like things were moving in slow-motion as Ashlyn felt herself falling to one side, losing grip on the saddle as her horse darted and leaped around fallen soldiers in terror. When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to recover her seat, Ashlyn clutched her father to her chest and kicked her opposite foot out of the stirrup, turning so that Lord Li fell on top of her.
The impact knocked the wind out of her, and she found herself skidding in fresh, moist dirt before coming up to rest against the body of a soldier. Ashlyn struggled to sit up, still keeping an arm around her dad’s waist, and watched as her horse galloped off into the woods. Crap, she mouthed as her lungs screamed for air. Trying not to panic, she glanced down at her dad and saw the resist stane, still threaded on its cord, lying in the dirt next to his head.
She grabbed it and struggled to stand up. Her father was still too heavy to lift, so she rolled him off her as gently as she could. She had to get back on a horse somehow. Could she even find a horse? Her eyes came to rest on Drake’s horse, standing quietly exactly where Drake had left him as battle raged around the poor animal. Ashlyn gritted her teeth and shoved the resist stane into her pocket, then grabbed her dad’s arms and tried to drag him. First things first…she had to get her dad back on a horse…then she could help Drake.
Something slammed into her from the side, knocking her to the ground and rolling her over twice, and Ashlyn gasped in pain as her shoulder hit a rock. She brought up an elbow, striking her attacker in the nose. He snarled and rolled off, and Ashlyn scrambled up, yanking her sword off her back.
Drake stood in front of her, furious and growling and very un-Drake-like.
“I have resist,” Ashlyn said unsteadily. “Let me put it back on you, Drake.”
Drake lunged at her, and she flipped backwards, kicking him in the chin on her first flip and landing in a sideways crouch on the second, ready to leap aside at any second.
Behind Drake, Ashlyn saw Skye grabbing her father, lifting Lord Li into the saddle. Please go, Ashlyn willed him silently. Please take him and go. But Skye barely managed to prop the unconscious Toryn on top of the horse before another ninja attacked him.
Drake leaped at her again, and this time Ashlyn sidestepped and spun in a leg sweep. Drake jumped over it and snatched the front of her tunic, dragging her forward. Ashlyn swung her sword down, slicing across his knuckles. Rather than yanking away from him, she advanced, swinging with the sword, driving him back furiously with a series of blows that were blocked by his glove. Ashlyn had never fought Drake before and had never wanted to. Despite his preference for long-range weapons, his vampiric strength made him a formidable opponent in hand-to-hand combat. She didn’t want to give him a chance to hurt h
er.
At last she retreated, fists raised, her legs trembling and angrier than she could remember being in a long time. “Find the will, you moron!” she snapped. “Vampirism doesn’t control you any more than the resist stane does. Fight it!”
Her words fell on deaf ears, and the vampire lunged a third time. This time Ashlyn fell backwards deliberately, bringing up her feet to catch him in his midsection and propel him over her head, sending him tumbling behind her.
Ashlyn jumped up, sheathing her sword, and ran to Drake’s horse. She slammed her foot into the stirrup and pulled herself up, but was just swinging her opposite leg over when someone grabbed a chunk of her hair and yanked. Ashlyn yelped, but grabbed the saddle and barely managed to avoid falling, and there was a harder yank and then- suddenly she was free. She clambered up onto the horse, looked over and saw that Skye had plowed into Drake with his horse, slicing off half the length of her hair with his sword.
“Run!” Skye yelled at her. He circled around and cast an earth spell that flung Drake backwards into a throng of soldiers that had just managed to make their way around the dirt barriers.
Wordlessly, Ashlyn jammed her foot into the other stirrup and wheeled Drake’s horse around, galloping for the forest with her father slouched in the saddle in front of her.
Chapter 5
Control
The wind whipped Ashlyn’s newly-short hair into her face, and she shook it out of her eyes impatiently, fighting to stay focused even as her joints protested their ongoing abuse. Her legs were exhausted and cramping from being clamped against her horse’s sides for so long, and her arms were aching from straining to keep her father on the saddle in front of her. He didn’t weigh much, which was both frightening and fortunate, because Ashlyn was terrified for his weakened state but she knew if he had been any heavier she wouldn’t have been able to support him.
The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) Page 28
