The baron frowned, and weighed his words. “Very well, Gaelin. Bannier helped us take Shieldhaven almost a week ago.
We captured your father, your brother, and your sister then, although Liesele died in the attack. My apologies – that was an accident. Two days ago, your father and brother managed to escape their cells. They died in the attempt to leave Shieldhaven.”
He shook his head. “I regret their deaths, Gaelin.”
“Baron, you invaded Mhoried, and you picked this fight.
There are no accidents here – the blood of my family is on your hands, and I intend to see you dead for it!”
“Brave words, Prince Gaelin, for a man who stands a word away from death. Now, lay down your weapons and dismount. I’m growing tired of this conversation.”
Gaelin realized he was never going to get the chance he was looking for. At the top of his lungs he bellowed, “Bannier – NOW!” and spurred Blackbrand for all he was worth. The horse leaped forward, the rest of the Mhoriens a step behind him.
On the battlements surrounding the courtyard, dozens of crossbowmen hesitated, looking up to Tuorel for orders. A good number of those closest to the wizard spun to train their bows on him, expecting treachery from the sorcerer. Even Tuorel whirled to face the wizard and had his sword half-out of its sheath. Bannier himself stood absolutely still, momentarily taken aback. In that brief instant, Gaelin’s party galloped for the steps leading to the great hall.
For every Ghoeran who hesitated or looked away, two kept their aim on the Mhoriens. From every side, crossbows thrummed, and the air hissed with bolts. Fifteen of Sergeant Toere’s guards surrounded Gaelin, Erin, and Ruide; nine fell in the first volley, wounded or killed by the deadly rain of quarrels. In one flashing moment of confusion and terror men and animals were falling and screaming in the courtyard.
A bolt struck Gaelin in his left hand, punching through his leather-and-steel gauntlet like paper. He ignored the burning fire that raced up his arm, and suddenly turned Blackbrand from the steps to the great hall, toward the door to the kitchens. He saw Toere lurch in his saddle, crumpling around a bolt buried in his breastplate. The soldier sagged but somehow clung to his saddle, raising his shield to try to screen Gaelin against the deadly fire. A couple of steps behind him, another quarrel took Ruide’s horse in the neck, and the animal stumbled and fell, pitching the valet heavily to the stone flags. The horse rolled over Ruide, crushing him.
Gaelin ran Blackbrand into the kitchen door, hard, the horse rearing and turning his head aside to burst the door off its hinges. Thanking Haelyn that the baron’s men hadn’t barred the door, he spurred the stallion down into the roaring heat and smoke of the castle’s kitchens. Servants scattered from his path. “One side!” Gaelin called, ducking over Blackbrand’s neck and galloping through the room. Pots and pans clattered and fell in his wake. Behind him, Erin followed on her gray mare, with Toere and his surviving guards driving their horses after them.
Gaelin paused and looked over his shoulder to see how many had managed to follow him into the keep. At the doorway, Madislav’s horse balked at going inside and reared.
Cursing loudly, the Vos swung down from the animal, trying to use it for cover, but a bolt suddenly appeared in the side of his chest. He grunted and fell back against the wall, and a moment later another whirring dart struck a glancing blow across his forehead. Madislav spun and fell in a loose heap.
“Madislav! No!” Gaelin started to turn Blackbrand, but Erin caught his reins.
“Gaelin, you can’t! Lead us out of here, or none of us will live to see the morning!” Gaelin noticed that a quarrel was sticking out of her calf, just below the knee, and her face was pale as china. “The others are gone, Gaelin, Madislav too. You can’t do anything for them.”
He hesitated a moment longer and then jerked the reins away and turned Blackbrand toward the passages leading into the castle’s depths. With a loud cry, he kicked the horse into a stumbling, awkward run, ducking beneath the low archways that divided the passages and chambers of the great hall.
He turned into a long, stone-dressed passageway that ran across the keep’s lower floor, toward Bannier’s tower. At the far end of the passage, a pair of Ghoeran guards appeared. Gaelin urged Blackbrand into a thundering charge. The passage was just large enough for him to rise in the saddle and swing his sword, cutting down the man on his right, while the fellow on the left was knocked flying back by the horse’s charge. At the end of the passage, he paused to see who was still with him.
“Gaelin! Where are we going?” said Erin.
“The sally port,” Gaelin replied. “We can’t go back the way we came, and we can’t ride around in Shieldhaven forever.
It’s the only way out, as far as I know.”
To e re was hunched over his saddle. His lips were blue, and a trickle of dark blood leaked from his mouth. “It’ll be guarded. ”
“I know. But we don’t have any other choices.”
Toere nodded. He gestured at two of the guards with them.
“Take the lead, we’re heading for the sally port.” Looking back to Gaelin, he said, “Stay behind these two, my lord Mhor, and let me bring up the rear.”
Gaelin didn’t argue. The soldiers led the way, turning down another passageway. They encountered a few scattered servants but no more guards for the moment, until they came to a small door of iron plate at the end of a hall. A pair of Ghoerans stood there, manning two arrow slits that looked out over the foot of the wall. Shieldhaven’s sally port was designed to give the castle’s defenders a place from which they could sortie if the main gatehouse was under attack. There was a band of only fifteen or twenty feet of negotiable slope between the castle and the hillside; an enemy who bypassed the main gate to attack the sally port would find himself clinging to a cliff’ s edge, just under the battlements of the castle.
The Ghoerans turned in astonishment at the clatter as six horsemen thundered into the small chamber. Their crossbows weren’t even cocked, and they had no chance against Toere’s soldiers. In a moment, the troopers had the door unlocked and unbarred. Gaelin opened the door carefully, glancing up at the dark battlements overhead.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Erin asked.
“Tuorel or Bannier may have guessed we’d come this way.
There might be men on the battlements who can fire at us the moment we set foot outside,” Gaelin said.
Erin smiled grimly. “As you pointed out a moment ago, we certainly can’t stay here.” She thought for a moment. “I may have something I can do to help.” Tilting her head back, she began to sing a strange song, using words that sounded elvish. Gaelin realized that she was casting a spell of some kind. In a moment, she finished, and gloom settled over the room, as impenetrable as black ink. In a moment his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he could see again, although only in shadows and gray silhouettes.
“Erin? What is this?”
“A spell of invisibility, a lesser magic I learned a few years ago. We must hurry, Gaelin – it won’t last long.”
“But I can still see you,” he protested.
“It’s impenetrable from the outside. Those who look at us will see nothing. They’ll have a tough time finding targets for their crossbows in this, I believe.”
Toere rode a little closer and slid down from his horse, coughing. He leaned on the animal’s side and said, “Go now, Mhor Gaelin. I’ll stay behind to hold the gate.”
“Toere, you’ll be killed,” Gaelin said.
The sergeant grimaced and coughed again. “I’ve not got much longer, anyway. I may be able to discourage them from following you for a few minutes.” He staggered over to one of the Ghoerans and began winching the fellow’s crossbow.
“Go on, Prince Gaelin, get going!”
Gaelin bowed his head. “My thanks, Toere.” He tapped Blackbrand’s flanks and rode out into the open again, under the looming walls. Gaelin could hear the men moving around up there, shouting to each other. Erin stayed beside him.
“Don’t move too far from me, or you’ll be seen,” she said.
“And keep silent! We can still be heard.”
Gaelin walked Blackbrand to the cliff’s edge and peered down. “Good, it’s still here,” he whispered. “Follow me exactly – this is a damned dangerous stunt, but we don’t have time to ride around the castle.”
Erin leaned out of her saddle and looked down the rocky slope. “You must be kidding,” she hissed.
“I tried it once, years ago,” he replied. “Tuorel’s men would have to be fools to follow us, right?” Blackbrand balked at first, but Gaelin coaxed him over the edge, and instantly found himself sliding down the slope sideways.
Blackbrand neighed in terror in a scree of dust and gravel. He reached the first outcropping and turned the horse to the other side, scrabbling desperately for the next foothold.
The voices above shouted an alarm. Gaelin could only guess what they might be seeing, but he knew that the rockfall and the horses’ panicked whinnies made it fairly obvious that they were here. Erin gasped in fright as her horse lurched and slid. “Gaelin! This is madness!”
Behind her, one of the remaining guards lost control of his horse. Both animal and man toppled forward, their descent turning into a lethal plunge. Gaelin ignored them, since every ounce of his attention was devoted to keeping himself alive.
Then the slope leveled, and in a few heartbeats Gaelin and Blackbrand were plunging downhill through the pines that clung to Shieldhaven’s flanks. The castle seemed impossibly high and distant, and the forest now screened them from view.
At the foot of the hill, Gaelin reined in Blackbrand and looked around. Erin was still with him, along with two guardsmen.
He was stunned. That’s it? he thought. Twenty of us rode into Shieldhaven, not half an hour ago. The brilliant white madness that had preserved his life through the ambush and the wild escape died as quickly as it had come, and the pain of his injury – the bolt that transfixed his hand – came surging back.
Erin trembled in terror, pain, and exhaustion. “I don’t believe I did that,” she said, looking back up the hillside.
Gaelin winced. “When I was fifteen, I made a bet with Cuille Dhalsiel that it could be done. I killed the horse trying it.” He met her eyes and added, “What other choice did we have?”
In the distance, he could still hear the clatter of the castle readying a pursuit – horses whinnied, and men shouted orders at each other.
“We’d better go, and quickly.”
One of the guards spoke. “Which way, my lord?”
Gaelin swayed in the saddle, suddenly dizzy and weak. As the brilliant fire died in his heart, exhaustion flooded his body and clouded his mind. “Anywhere but here,” he said.
Chapter Nine
High on the battlements overlooking the sally gate, Tuorel stood impassively, his arms folded across his chest. Down in the shadows of the forest, he thought he could catch a glimpse of motion or the glint of light on armor, but it was too dark to be certain. The guards who surrounded him kept their silence and their distance. Quietly, he grated, “Are we in pursuit yet?”
One of his officers nodded. “Yes, my lord baron. A squadron of cavalry is riding down the causeway this very moment.”
“Good. No one will rest until the prince is recaptured.” He waited patiently, and after a few minutes was rewarded by the footfalls he’d been expecting, a light tread punctuated by the sound of a staff striking the stone.
Bannier peered down the hillside after the fleeing Mhoriens.
His mouth tightened in disgust. “Bah! A simple bard’s trick. If you hadn’t insisted on holding me at swordpoint, I could have dispelled it easily.”
Tuorel turned slowly, watching the wizard from behind his wolf-mask visor. “It’s your own doing. No one trusts a traitor, after all.”
“I warned you Gaelin would return, didn’t I? I made certain that a messenger lured him here. Your own oafish soldiers covered me with their crossbows, when I could have worked a spell to stop Gaelin in his tracks.” Bannier’s eyes blazed. “Call me a traitor if you like, but you owe me your thanks, Tuorel, not your contempt. Without me, your army would be bottled up in Riumache. Without me, you’d not have taken this castle, and the Mhor would be leading his troops against you.”
Tuorel smiled in a dangerous way. “Who am I to fathom the heart of a wizard? For all I know, it suited your purposes to let Gaelin escape.” He shrugged. “I’ll say this for the lad: he has courage. Riding through the castle and down that hillside, that was inspired. I’ve more respect for Gaelin than I did an hour ago.”
Bannier looked down into the forest and scowled. “Call it what you want, once again my part of our bargain remains unfulfilled.”
“My men have orders to capture Gaelin and avoid killing him at all costs. If you’re concerned that they might not have your best interests at heart, maybe you should follow them.”
“Indeed.” Bannier wheeled and strode away. Tuorel didn’t watch him leave.
*****
Dawn was approaching, and the four of them – Gaelin, Erin, and the two guards who survived from Toere’s company – rested in an old barn in some farmer’s field, twenty miles from Bevaldruor.
“Think they’re on our trail?” Erin asked quietly.
“Tuorel must have trackers or scouts in his army. But there are only four of us, and we know the countryside.” Gaelin winced as she tugged at the crossbow bolt that had penetrated his hand. “I know that I would have had a hard time following our trail, but it would not be impossible. Especially if Bannier has some magic he can use to find us.”
Erin handed him a piece of leather. “Here, bite down on this,” she said. “I’m ready to take out the bolt.” She called one of the guards over. The fellow took a strong, sure grip on Gaelin’s forearm, and turned his torso so that Gaelin’s upper arm was locked under his own arm.
“Sorry, my lord,” he said. Gaelin didn’t reply – he had the leather strip clenched between his teeth. He raised his eyes to the barn’s dilapidated roof, fixing his sight on the patches of dark sky overhead.
Without warning, Erin grasped the head of the quarrel and drew it through his broken hand in one smooth motion.
Gaelin gasped and jerked away, but the guard held him securely, and a moment later Erin held up the bloody bolt.
“Your hand’s bleeding again, but it won’t kill you,” she said.
“I’ll bind it for now.”
The guard released him with a sympathetic look, and stood up. “Thanks, Boeric,” Gaelin said, spitting out the leather.
“Thank you for getting us out of that fix, Lord Gaelin,” Boeric replied. He was a plain, stoop-shouldered man with lank blond hair and a round face. He looked like a cobbler, not a soldier. “A lot of my mates didn’t get away, but none of us’d be seeing the sun today if you hadn’t led us out of Ghoere’s trap.”
“I wish it were that easy, Boeric. We’re not out of the woods yet.” The guard nodded and resumed his watch of the fields nearby. The other guard, a young, stocky lass named Niesa, was already snoring soundly, having drawn the second watch of the day.
Erin finished wrapping his wounded hand. Gaelin examined her work and decided that she knew what she was doing. His fingers remained free to grasp with what little strength they had, but the injury was covered and dressed.
“Let’s have a look at your leg,” he said when she finished.
Erin arched an eyebrow. “Your calf,” Gaelin amended. “We should clean and dress the wound.” She looked like she was considering an argument, and then sighed and sat down. “No one ever shot at me before I met you,” she complained.
Gaelin carefully began cutting her fine riding boot to pieces. In a few minutes, he was able to draw the lower twothirds of her boot away and let the rest drop to the ground.
Blood soaked the leather, and Gaelin frowned. “It didn’t strike the bone, and I don’t think you’ve injured any tendons, but it’s bleeding
freely. We should have looked at this before.”
“I wasn’t going to stop to deal with it last night, not with Ghoere’s soldiers a quarter-hour behind us.” Erin grinned widely. “But I’m glad your escape plan allowed us to keep the horses. I couldn’t have walked a mile on this leg.”
“Some plan. Four of us left, out of twenty? I’d have been better off going to Endier. My guards and friends certainly would have been.” Gaelin bound the wound and cinched it tight to help stanch the bleeding.
Erin lowered her voice. “It was a bad situation, Gaelin. You made the best of it.”
“And what a mess that was. I could have had Toere scout the castle, or stopped to ask around in Bevaldruor.” He bowed his head. “If I had surrendered, there’d be fifteen men alive this morning who aren’t right now. Including two of my truest friends.” His hands were shaking too badly to draw the bandages around her leg.
“Those deaths are on Tuorel’s hands, not yours. How were you to know that the castle had been taken?”
“I knew my father was dead. That should have put me on my guard.” He sighed and looked away. “It never occurred to me that the castle itself could have been taken.”
Erin massaged the dressing on her calf, wincing. “The question before you now is, what next?”
Gaelin fell back against the mud-chinked wall and sighed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have no idea. Have you considered our situation? Mhoried’s army is defeated, wrecked at Cwlldon Field. Shieldhaven has fallen, and with it many of the knights and noblemen who could have mustered a new army to face Ghoere. The Mhor is dead, the first prince is dead, my sister Liesele is dead, and Ilwyn is still a prisoner of Tuorel.
Bannier’s turned his sorcery against us.” He picked up a handful of straw and dropped it again with a sigh. “There’s nothing left. How can I even start to put it back together? I’m a fugitive in my own country.”
Erin regarded him in silence. The first rays of the sun were shining on her hair through the open door. “So what are you going to do?”
The Falcon and The Wolf Page 14
