Kel refused to admit, even to herself, that she was glad to see the squad. “My lord sent you,” she said, leaning on her glaive as she scowled at each man impartially. They were feeding their breakfast odds and ends to the dogs and cats. “And you got here all the way from Steadfast in, what, a day?”
“No, milady Kel,” said Wolset. “Us and Aiden’s squad rode to Mastiff with my lord—some parley with my lord Wyldon. We were there when Connac and Hevlor got in. My lord told us you’d likely be about here by now.”
“You can’t do this,” Kel argued. She began to feel silly, looming over them. “You don’t know what I’m doing, the laws I’m breaking—”
“Well, actually, we have a good idea,” Dom remarked. “Here, eat this before it gets cold. Which of you hedge pigs has the honey pot?”
Someone took charge of her glaive. The others made room for her. She began to sit, then had to straighten to pull the axe from her belt. The honey was produced. At last she was able to devour hot bacon and oatcakes with honey, a feast after last night’s unadorned boar meat.
Dom waited until her mouth was full before he produced his final bribe. He held up the roll of maps. “You don’t get these unless we come too,” he teased.
“Don’t forget the purse my lord gave us for bribes,” Wolset pointed out.
“That’s blackmail,” Kel said through a thick piece of bacon.
“Actually, it’s extortion.” That was Lofren, whose father was a magistrate. “Blackmail implies—”
His squad-mates dragged him to his feet and took him to saddle their mounts. Kel was grateful. Lofren was happy to talk about matters of law at length, in detail, to anyone who would listen.
In the confusion of cleanup and preparation to ride out, Kel lost the chance to argue further about their involvement in her rescue attempt. If Raoul had ordered them to come, they at least wouldn’t have to pay the price she did for disobeying Wyldon, she thought. Besides, they had maps. Resigned, Kel took out her griffin-feather band and tied it over her forehead and ears. As always, she felt ridiculous, but it was better to feel like a fool than to be caught napping by a Scanran mage.
She was saddling Hoshi, the sky overhead going from pink-tinted gray to hazy blue, when her placid animal reared and whinnied loudly. Swearing, Kel dragged her down by the reins. “What’s the matter with you?” she whispered. “Anyone could be outside!”
Two distant horses answered with loud neighs. The men, who had been joking as they prepared to go, jumped into the saddle, swords or bows out, their faces grim behind the nose pieces of their helms. The dogs and cats raced toward the sound, Jump and Shepherd in the lead. Sparrows darted inside Giantkiller’s damaged walls, again flying tight circles before Kel.
“More friends?” she asked, leading Hoshi to the gate. “What is this, a cavalcade?” She pulled her spyglass from a saddlebag and focused it on the shadows under the northwestern trees. The dogs had formed a running pool of fur around two riders. She recognized one horse, and his tiny rider, immediately. “I’ll kill him,” she announced. “I’ll kill him very dead and leave him for the border ghosts. . . .”
“Can we do it later?” asked Dom. “We lose daylight if you kill him now. Besides, Peachblossom is as good as a squad in himself.” He collapsed his own spyglass.
Kel could not deny that. What she wanted to deny was the identity of Tobe’s companion.
They left—they couldn’t afford to lose precious daylight—but they argued with Owen on the way. Nothing they said had an effect. Owen refused to return to Lord Wyldon. Kel gave up at last. She knew Owen as well as she knew Tobe. Neither would back down. And she had no time to deliver them to any authorities, not if she wanted to catch the refugees before they vanished into the heart of Scanra.
Tobe’s determination to come was understandable. He had friends among the kidnapped refugees, and Kel must not be permitted to vanish from his life. She could hardly deny him. But Owen’s presence broke her heart.
“Don’t be upset,” he said, drawing level with her on the broad trail left by the fleeing raiders. “I had to come. We owe these people our protection. My lord was just stuck. General Vanget sent word that the enemy will cross the Vassa into our district in five nights, when the moon’s full—”
“Owen, you shouldn’t tell me this!” Kel whispered, keeping her voice as low as Owen had kept his. “I doubt Vanget wants others to know!”
“But you have to,” replied her friend, his voice and eyes intent. “I know you didn’t understand why my lord turned his back on all those civilians. Well, that’s why. King Maggot wants to cross with a thousand men two miles downriver from Mastiff. My lord and Lord Raoul and General Vanget are smuggling companies and mages into Mastiff before the enemy comes. Kel, it must’ve killed him to refuse to save your people. That’s why I had to tell you.” Owen settled back in the saddle. “I think he knew I was going. He didn’t say anything, but . . .”
Kel shook her head. Let Owen believe Wyldon had guessed what he planned if it made him feel better. At least she knew why Wyldon had apparently turned his back on her civilians. He had a much bigger headache to deal with.
The sun had just cleared the eastern mountains when the sparrows came zipping back to them, peeping the alert. When Kel stretched out her open hand, Quicksilver bounced down to tap her twice, then lit on her forefinger. Three other birds flew in the figure-eight pattern signaling they were unsure if the eleven who approached were friend or foe.
“Maybe a patrol from the new fort,” she whispered to Dom, who had ridden up beside her. “What do you want to do?”
He raised his eyebrows, looking so like Neal that Kel didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. “Your party, Kel,” he murmured. “Your orders.”
Oh, we’ll have to talk about this later, Kel thought as she hand-signaled everyone to hide off the road. I’m not about to command a squad of men older and more experienced than I am.
She wouldn’t have thought her friends could hide so completely, but they did. The men’s tunics and breeches helped them blend with the background, and their horses were all in colors that mixed with brush and trees. They’d even used dark saddle blankets and plain tack, another sign that they’d come prepared. The cats and dogs vanished easily; the sparrows fanned out once more to act as sentries.
Kel and Hoshi chose the shelter of a cluster of rocks hemmed by mountain laurel bushes. Soon they heard the approach of horses. Here came the patrol, as Kel had guessed, a squad of soldiers and a knight—Quinden of Marti’s Hill, one of her year-mates. They should have scouts in the woods, Kel thought. If we were Scanrans, they’d be dead in moments. She stifled the urge to grab Quinden and tell him so. He would have to arrest her, and she had no time to deal with that.
Once the patrol was out of hearing, she signaled her men to move out. As they mounted and headed back to the refugees’ trail, riding in the direction opposite the patrol’s route, Kel noticed that Tobe shook his head. She nudged Hoshi closer to Peachblossom—she still rode the mare, who was fresh from her night’s rest, leaving Tobe on Peachblossom, who’d been going all night. “What is it?” she asked the boy softly.
“They shoulda had scouts, lady,” he replied, just as quiet. “If we’da been the enemy, they’d be dead now.”
Kel smiled ruefully, thinking, What a grand world, when boys understand the tactics of war. “When we come back, we’ll tell their commander,” she assured him.
The sun was halfway up the morning sky when sparrows came in, signaling the arrival of even more friends. “Go back,” Kel snapped when Neal, Merric, Seaver, Esmond, Connac, his squad, and her six remaining convict soldiers were within earshot. “Have you lost your minds completely? You’re needed at Mastiff!”
“We’re needed more here,” retorted Seaver, his dark eyes level. “You’ll have a fight on your hands when you reach your people.”
“I have warriors, and my people can defend themselves, given weapons. You have an oath to the Crown!” Kel shout
ed, tested at last beyond the limits of her patience. “This is treason, you sapskulls! You can’t just decide when you’re in service to the realm and when you’re not!”
“Like you have?” Neal asked sweetly. The young knights halted in front of Kel.
“This is different,” Kel snapped.
“Of course it is,” Faleron said, leaning on his saddle horn. “That’s why we’re here.”
Kel scrambled for another argument, any argument she could use. She looked at the white-faced, swaying Merric. “He should still be in bed!” she cried. “You had to tie him to his horse to get him this far!”
Merric smiled. “But I’m really well tied,” he explained in a tone of utmost reason. “I slept most of the way here.”
“Why are you upset?” Owen came up beside the mounted soldiers. “It’s going to be a jolly scramble now.”
Kel gathered her breath and wits to argue, then surrendered without a word. There was no point to it. They had made their choice, as she had. She would just have to do her best to make sure they came home alive, if they had a home to return to.
“Hey, Sir Meathead,” Dom called, riding up to them. “You took long enough to get here. Sergeant Connac, good to see you.”
“Sergeant Domitan,” replied Connac with a grin and a bow. “Good to see you again, sir.”
Kel fumed silently. I never asked for help, never wanted to ruin anyone’s life but my own, she thought wrathfully. What is the matter with them? Can’t they see we’ll die if this goes wrong? Don’t they care that we’ve earned a warm and lasting reception on Traitor’s Hill if we choose to return? Why do men always have to complicate things?
“She’ll be all right,” she heard Owen say confidently. “She just needs to get used to things.”
What I need is a barrel full of dreamrose to dose your supper with, she replied silently. Then, while you slept and maybe came to your senses, I’d get so far ahead of you that you’d never catch me. You’d give up and go home, if you’re all as sensible as I used to think you were!
They set out again on the trail of the refugees. A mile down the road Kel spotted a bit of gaudy red on a bush. She reached down and picked it up: red yarn. Someone was taking Meech’s doll apart to leave a sign for pursuers. Kel tucked the yarn into her belt pouch.
Maybe having company isn’t so bad, she thought, more relaxed now. After all, if the Haven folk are making it easy for us to follow, then they deserve a proper rescue. She glanced back at the two columns that rode behind her and Neal. And at least I have a better chance to save them than I did all by myself.
fourteen
VASSA CROSSING
Five miles down the road they found other, less heartening signs that the refugees had passed that way. A woman lay crumpled at the roadside. Kel thought her skirts were dull maroon until she saw that they were stained with blood. She knew the woman, the young, pregnant wife of one of the Hanaford loggers.
Neal dismounted to examine her. “Dead over a day,” he said, his green eyes dull as he looked up at Kel. “She lost the baby. I’d say she hemorrhaged— bled out. It happens, sometimes, if there’s no healer.”
A hundred yards down the road they found the woman’s husband hanging from a tree. His hands were marked with bruises and cuts. Kel guessed that he’d fought the disposal of his wife and the Scanrans had hanged him for it.
Biting the inside of her lower lip to stop herself from crying, Kel rode over and stood in her stirrups, wrapping her arm around the dead man’s legs. Flies, disturbed at their business, buzzed around them. With her right hand she took her glaive from its saddle holster and cut the rope. As the man’s weight fell onto her shoulders, hands reached to take him from her. She glanced down. It was two of the convict soldiers, Jacut and Uinse.
“Give ’im to us, lady,” Uinse told her gently. “What was you wishful of doing?”
Kel fumbled her glaive back into its socket. The buzzing of the flies gave her the shudders. “Place him with her, please,” she replied. “We—we haven’t time to bury them, but at least they can be together.”
“Aye, lady knight,” replied Jacut. He and Uinse took the dead man back and laid him gently beside his wife, then bowed their heads. Kel bowed hers, too, saying a prayer. She’d known them both, their names, their families, their hopes for the future. Now their future lay in some other realm than the mortal one. All she could give them was her word that she would try to send those who had killed them to the Black God’s domain, where his judges would punish them for their crimes.
Sunlight glinted on steel. She looked up and saw a female Stormwing, freshly streaked with blood and flesh. It was the same female who had talked to Kel back at Haven.
“Rot your eyes, they didn’t die in battle!” Kel shouted. “Leave them be!”
The Stormwing licked a wing feather. Her metal parts seemed as flexible as her human ones. “Mortals,” she remarked. “Always jumping to conclusions.” She took wing and flew in circles over Kel’s head. “I’m just hoping you’ll provide us with a meal soon. With Scanrans all over this border country, the least you could do is give us a snack.”
Kel took up her longbow, braced it against her stirrup to string it, then grabbed one of her griffin-fletched arrows. “Why don’t I turn you into someone’s snack?” She put the arrow to the string and raised the bow. The Stormwing was nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t take them so personally,” Neal advised. “They are what they were made to be.” When Kel glared at him in reply, Neal smiled crookedly. “I’m sorry—I forgot,” he admitted. “You are what you were made to be, too.”
They rode steadily through the morning, taking their noon meal in the saddle, stopping only to water and rest the horses. As the animals relaxed, the men and knights would pair off to spar with weapons or fight hand to hand, keeping their bodies ready.
As scouts, the dogs, cats, and sparrows were priceless. They gave Kel’s people a degree of safety they couldn’t expect with two-legged scouts. Humans missed things. Daine’s wild magic had transformed Kel’s animals so that they cared about the same things she did. They missed nothing, and they could pass unnoticed through the forests between the old Fort Giantkiller and the Vassa River. They warned their humans of a column of Tortallan soldiers headed west and steered Kel’s people around them. Kel silently promised the sparrows that if she lived through this, they would have dried cherries every day, and the dogs and cats fresh meat.
Five miles from the river, the refugees’ trail turned due north. Their tracks went down gently sloping ground to the shores of the Vassa, where flat-bottomed boats left distinctive marks in the stone-and-mud shore. The boats were gone. Kel used her spyglass to look across the river. They were beached on the far side. Beyond them the captives’ trail began again.
Dom reined in beside her. “Rafts, do you think?” he asked, blue eyes measuring the far shore. “Or Fulcher and I can swim across, and start bringing those boats here.”
Kel grimaced. The Vassa was no Olorun, flowing calmly to the sea. It tumbled and roared in spots, rushing along its bed. The waters were icy, even this late in the year.
“Swimming that is just mad, Dom,” she replied.
He dismounted and stuck his hand in the water. Pulling it out, he winced. “I’d cramp up ten yards out. Doesn’t this river know it’s summer?”
“Even if it could be swum, does anyone know how to use one of them boats?” asked Connac, scratching his head. “They got to be poled across, fighting the current all the way.”
“It’s that or build rafts,” Esmond pointed out wearily. “I doubt we’ll be any better with rafts.”
“More like have ’em bust up mid-river,” grumbled one of Connac’s men.
“If we string ropes across, we could pull the boats over. The horses might swim it,” offered Jacut. “Maybe it takes us all night to get there. We sure don’t want to do this in the daylight.”
“Military folk,” Neal said with comic patience, shaking his head. “Th
e only way you know to solve problems is by beating them with a stick.”
“And you’re not military folk?” asked Seaver. “Oh, I forgot—you’re a mage. Mages think, if you can’t twiddle your fingers at it, what’s the point?”
“Lads,” Kel began, “this isn’t valuable in the least.”
“I wasn’t referring to magic,” Neal said loftily. “I was referring to a scholar’s way to solve problems. When a situation arises, rather than bungle it yourselves, call in an expert. Follow me.”
He said it, but he and everyone else waited for Kel to speak. She shifted in her saddle, not sure that she liked the way they looked at her, as if she knew things they did not. “Will your solution get us across sometime before next week?” she asked Neal.
“Considerably,” Neal assured her, his tone serious, not mocking. “It’s not entirely legal, but I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
Kel bit her lip, but her need to reclaim her people was stronger than her need to find out which legality Neal meant. “Let’s go, then.”
Neal rode down a track that followed the high ground as it rose above the Vassa, until they rode single file along the edge of a forested bluff. Kel was fascinated. The path looked like a game trail until she noticed the hoofprints on the edges. The path was also beaten down at the center, as if it were used regularly by heavier animals than deer. By the time they had ridden three miles, fording the Brown River in the process, she knew they had technically crossed the border into Scanra. Fortunately, no one lived in these surroundings to tattle. Every farm-house and woodsman’s shack was either smashed and empty or burned and empty. No one stayed to see if they could survive in border country when two lands were at war.
The trail rose, taking them in sight of the river, until it descended into a broad clearing. At the far edge stood a cluster of Scanran-style longhouses inside a log palisade. Chimney smoke rose inside the palisade, a hint that this place, unlike others, was still occupied. The noises of goats, chickens, and geese added to the impression that peaceful life continued behind the log wall. Kel would bet that the residents were either Scanran allies or smugglers.
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