by Linda Mooney
The room stilled to the point where the only sound was the steady beating of the rain on the roof.
“A bull ferret?” Dardin Tabb repeated. He was Batuset’s Second in command but had taken his seat near the head table, closer to Mastin, so they could trade stories after the Battle Lords had retired. “How large an animal was it?”
“A good ten feet from horn to spike,” Mastin answered.
“How did she save him?” Batuset inquired, his interest now very much heightened.
“She put an arrow through the creature’s mouth so that it punctured one of its venom sacs and sent its own poison into its brain,” the Second responded.
“One arrow?” a voice from the table echoed. It belonged to one of Batuset’s men.
Mastin deferred to his leader. As the entire room shifted their attention to Yulen, he grasped his mug of beer even tighter.
“One arrow,” Yulen sighed.
“At what range?” Batuset asked.
Closing his eyes, Yulen could vividly remember sensing the animal rising over his left shoulder, but his eyes had been locked on the tip of the arrow. On the clear, unworried look in her eye. On the tiny shivers in her hands and arms as she held her one chance pulled all the way back on the longbow. The strain, the pressure on her arms, had to have been intense, he realized now.
“The thing was directly over my shoulder, about to strike me. She was perhaps eight, maybe ten feet away.”
Subconsciously he raised a hand to his face and touched the line along his cheek where the arrow had marked him. The ghost of a memory pressed soft, cool lips against the bleeding scratch with passionate little kisses. He shook his shoulders and rolled his neck to ease the tension.
Several men in the room made little sounds of disbelief and amazement. Batuset whistled his appreciation at the girl’s skill. “And you say you wanted her to teach your men how to use their bows with the same degree of accuracy? Have you thought about sharing her with your ally?”
“Rather a moot point now, don’t you think?” Yulen reminded him and shoved his mug across the table.
“Well, if you do manage to get her back, how do you think Collaunt’s going to react to this bit of news? You having a Mutah bow master training your archers?” Batuset casually draped a leg over the arm of his chair. “That man’s gotten to be a much more dangerous enemy than you’re willing to admit, Yulen. Three hard days’ ride or no, he’s your neighbor to your south, and he’s close enough to have spies report every little thing to him to where he could have his army back at your front gate in a week’s time.” Adding a shake of his head, he said, “Mark my words. The man is determined to add Alta Novis to his holdings. You know you have my full support in case he tries, but don’t forget he’s gotten to be a bigger tyrant since Rory’s death.”
Suddenly Yulen no longer felt hungry or thirsty, just very, very tired. The older Battle Lord remembered they had been traveling for many weeks, and were on their final leg on their return home. Getting to his feet, Batuset once more gave them welcome.
“Your quarters have been prepared. You may stay until you feel the need to continue on.”
Yulen rose and bowed to the man. “Thank you, but I only planned to stay the night. There are families at home I know who are anxious to have their kin back at the compound...and families not knowing they’ll have to prepare for a burial. The sooner we get to Alta Novis, the better.”
Batuset nodded. “I understand. You’re welcome for the night, then. My house will serve you and your men an adequate breakfast to get you decently on the road. Is there anything else you’ll need?”
Yulen managed a small but sincere smile. “You’ve provided more than enough for us, Zane. Thank you.”
“Give Madigan my regards when you get home,” Batuset told him.
Yulen assured him he would, then turned and left the room, climbing the broad stairs of the lodge to where his room was located at the far end of the building. He liked this room, having stayed in it countless times in the past. It was large and airy, and very easy to defend in case an enemy breached the walls. The staircase was the only way in and out, although the windows directly overlooked the surrounding forest and road leading home.
At the speed they were traveling, they were two days from Alta Novis—or one very long day if he pushed the men. Yulen stared out the window and snorted softly. His men were already chomping at the bit in their need to get home. To be this close...
Hell with it. As soon as everyone was saddled up in the morning, he’d set the pace at a brisk trot. That should satisfy the troops and get them back not long after sunset.
A knock at the door drew his attention. “Enter.”
A young maiden entered with his saddlebags, laying them across the foot of the bed. “Your horses have been stabled for the night,” she informed him.
“Thanks. That’ll be all.”
She smiled, and for a brief second he saw another smile in the curl of her lip. He turned away from her to gaze back out the window until she was gone.
The rain continued to pour from a sky the color of dull lead, making it seem later than it really was. It beat cold and hard, not quite ice, but close. Already the road was spotted with growing puddles of water. Yulen wondered if the weather would hold, or if there was a chance it would break up by morning.
How was she doing in this weather? Regardless of how good and experienced a hunter she was, she would be affected by the dampness. Was she huddled someplace, keeping dry? Was she able to have a fire? She didn’t have any more arrows. Was she hungry, or had she managed to trap something for her supper? Was she able to secure herself more ammunition? Surely part of her training and experience included making more arrows, but what about barbs?
Another thought came to him. What about her injuries? He knew her wrists were doing okay, but what about her cheek? That was the one that gave her the most pain, and MaGrath wasn’t around to feed her any painkillers.
“Are you in pain, Atrilan?” he whispered almost soundlessly. The rain gave no answer as he continued to stare out the window, ignoring the fact that he was slowly getting soaked from the raindrops ricocheting off the open sill.
Another knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, and this time his irritation was evident in his response. But instead of the young girl who had brought his saddlebags, it was an older woman who opened the door.
“Excuse me, sir, but I was told you were wanting a hot bath?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
The woman smiled. “Want me to have the tub brought in here? Or would you rather use the bath at the end of the hall?”
Yulen mulled over his choices, ending up with preferring the more private one. “Bring in a tub, would you, please?”
“Yes, sir,” she nodded. “It’ll be a few more minutes while the water heats up. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
“I appreciate it,” he told her, and turned his back on her before she’d closed the door.
Despite it being the middle of the afternoon, the sky was as dark as if it were dusk. Yulen felt every muscle ache. He had been gone too long this time. Gone too long and seen too much. An involuntary shudder went through him as the ghost of a bull ferret breathed its venomous breath over his back, and Yulen wondered if he would suffer any nightmares from the memory.
For the third time a knock barked on the door. Yulen grimaced. Until he got his bath, he knew he wouldn’t have a peaceful moment to himself.
“Yes! What is it this time?” he called out. This time it was MaGrath who opened the door. The look on his face made Yulen stare back wide-eyed. “What?”
“My tins are gone,” the physician said in a tight voice.
“The painkillers? Will we need any more before we get to the compound?”
“You don’t understand. The tins were with me when we arrived. I know. I fed some powder to Karv right before we were fed. But they’re gone now.”
“Were they in your kit?” Yulen asked.
> MaGrath shook his head. “In my coat pocket. Yulen...Atty’s nearby...and she has to be hurting.”
“Are you sure?” He had to know, with no amount of uncertainty.
“No one but she would have known that’s where I put the tins after I medicated Karv. It was just me and him outside, and instead of replacing them in the kit like I normally would, I just stuck them in my coat pocket.”
Yulen’s eyes raked over him. “Where’s your coat now?”
“I took it off and draped it over the back of my chair before I sat down to eat. It wasn’t until after I got to my room that I realized I’d left it in the dining room, so I went back to get it.”
“Was it still there?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I grabbed it, but something didn’t feel right, so I stuck my hand in that pocket. That’s when I discovered the tins were gone. Both of them.”
“How can you be certain Atty got them? How do you know one of the help didn’t take them? Or one of the soldiers?”
A look he couldn’t describe passed over the physician’s face. MaGrath tossed something at him, which he caught in mid-air. As his fingers closed over it, he felt it bite painfully into his palm.
“Tell me one of the help, or that one of the soldiers would leave this behind,” he said scathingly.
Yulen stared in shock at the small barb stuck in the palm of his hand. A barb used to tip an arrow. He glanced back at the physician, who was waiting for a sign of understanding.
“She left it for me to find, knowing I would bring it to you. She’s out there right now, Yulen. She’s calling for help, calling for you. For God’s sake, Yulen, go get her.”
Without waiting for the man to make another comment, Yulen rushed out the door and pounded down the stairs.
Mastin was still in the common room, along with Dardin Tabb and several other soldiers from both his troops and Batuset’s compound. Seeing his leader burst into the room, the Second jumped to his feet, prepared to follow. Yulen raised a hand to dismiss him as he hurried by.
“Not this time, Mastin. This is a private matter.”
The Second nodded, but continued to stare after the Battle Lord as the man threw open one of the outer doors and slipped out into the drenching rain.
Yulen was completely soaked by the time he reached the stables and ordered one of the help to saddle his horse. While he waited just inside the tack room, his eyes scanned the outer wall and whatever else he could see from where he stood.
She had managed to slip inside a guarded compound, into a heavily fortified Battle Lord’s lodge, exchange the medicine tins for a barbed tip of an arrow, and had gotten out without anyone seeing her. Despite the rain, despite everything, she had followed them. And then she had risked being detected to leave him a message. When she could just have easily taken the tins, leaving MaGrath uncertain and scratching his head, she’d deliberately made sure he would know who had taken them. If Batuset’s men caught her, unless she could defend herself, they would kill her. That meant he had to get to her first...if she would let him.
Yulen frowned, his jaws clenched. She would let him, he promised himself.
She left it for me to find, knowing I would bring it to you. She’s out there right now, Yulen. She’s calling for help, calling for you. For God’s sake, Yulen, go get her.
Dear God, let’s hope she will, he prayed.
Chapter Eighteen
Confrontation
The horse was reluctant to go back out into the cold rain. By the time Yulen coaxed it into the yard to mount, Mastin was awaiting him on his horse. MaGrath stood beside him. Yulen gave both men an exasperated look.
“You know you have no business going out there by yourself,” the physician stated the obvious. “At least have another sword at your back, just to be on the safe side.”
Yulen nodded, too worried and too anxious to be out there looking for her to argue an inarguable point. He swung into the saddle as his horse was already heading for the gates. Mastin reined in directly behind him. Once they passed through the gates, his Second briefly pulled up next to him. “Where to, Sir?”
“Do you know why we’re out here when the weather’s not fit for man nor beast?” the Battle Lord questioned in a hard voice.
“Yes, sir. To look for the escaped prisoner.”
Rather than correct the man, Yulen nodded and kneed the stallion, and they headed away from the compound, edging along the road.
She couldn’t be too far away, he kept telling himself, and concentrated on searching the woods on the eastern edge of the compound. Like all compounds, Foster City sat to the side of the main road that linked communities from as far south as the Louisy Provinces to Far Troit in the north. That meant that on three sides the compound’s defenses overlooked the road—coming, passing, and going—leaving only the one side directly facing the woods. And, like all other fortresses, the woods had been cleared back a minimum of five hundred yards to prevent a sneak attack from enemy forces.
Yulen was certain Atty wouldn’t risk detection by hanging around the roadside. His narrowed search gave him hope he wouldn’t have to look for long.
Mastin never questioned him when, as they reached the edge of the woods at the southern end of the compound, the Battle Lord left the gravel and began pushing through the dense undergrowth, heading east.
The rain continued at a slow but steady rate. It forced Yulen to keep his head down as his eyes raked the ground and waist-high brush for the sign he knew she would have left for him. He just hoped he would recognize it when he saw it.
They were nearly dead-center between the northern and southern borders when his mount suddenly shied, snorting in fear. Yulen fought the stallion for a moment, finally managing to swing the horse back to the low outcropping that jutted outward from a sparse tangle of deformed oak. Narrowing his eyes, Yulen peered closer at the limestone formation and found what he had been seeking. It was a feather, its center totally stripped of its silken, hair-like barbs until the shaft and quill resembled a tiny arrow with fletching.
It pointed directly into the heart of the forest.
The horse made its unease known by backing away from the outcropping, forcing the Battle Lord to tighten the reins before pivoting the animal back into position. He glanced down at the symbolic arrow again just as a soft trilling noise came from beyond the trees directly ahead, inside the forest, past the invisible barrier that separated the barren land from the curtain of green. A trilling he’d heard once before and would never forget. Quickly, Yulen slid out of his saddle, dropping the reins to the ground.
“Sir?” Mastin whispered. He’d pulled his sword the moment he’d heard the bird-like call, and now prepared to dismount as well to follow his leader.
Yulen raised his hand to stay the soldier. “No. Remain here and watch my horse,” he ordered.
“But—”
“Obey me,” Yulen hissed suddenly. His face brooked no further argument from the Second, who lowered himself back into his seat.
Mastin continued to keep his eyes glued on his leader as the man carefully began to thread his way through the brush, pushing directly into the forest. At the last moment before the Battle Lord was completely swallowed up in its leafy green darkness, he realized the man had yet to draw his sword.
Yulen kept a partial eye on where he was treading. Once inside the grove, beneath the larger trees, the leafy canopy kept much of the rain from finding its way to the forest floor. Still, the ground was saturated to the point of becoming treacherous and slippery if he wasn’t too careful about where he put his weight.
He followed his gut instinct, searching the undergrowth, although the trilling sound didn’t repeat. As he moved further and further into the woods, he realized that finding her would no longer be an option on his part. It was late afternoon and the cloud cover made for poor visibility. It would be a matter now of her revealing herself to him.
Another ten feet into the deepest part of the forest...then twenty feet...and Y
ulen stepped into a tiny clearing almost oblong in shape. He started, then straightened up to face the warrior girl who stood at the opposite end of the clearing. She was aiming an arrow directly at him.
Tiny drops of water found their way into the clearing from the rain dripping off the early spring leaves overhead. Yulen heard them hitting the dry leaves on the ground with soft plicking sounds as he watched and waited, wondering who would be first to speak. Wondering if she was okay.
She appeared to be okay. At first. Until he noticed she was standing holding her bead on him with her other hand. When she had drawn on the ferret, the longbow had been in her right hand, her left hand pulling back. He would swear it on his life. But now the bow was in her left hand, the arrow in her right.
Was he supposed to notice the switch? Did it mean anything that she’d changed her stance?
He stared intently at the new arrow. It was a bit crooked, obviously made in haste and without the proper tools. Regardless, it looked as though it could do considerable damage if shot into the right place.
“I keep extra barbs in a compartment in the bottom of my quiver,” she said in a tight voice.
A shiver ran up Yulen’s spine. She sounded despondent and resigned. Why?
“Why did you leave the caravan?” he asked aloud. Her aim never wavered, never showed any sign she was under any undue stress, despite the fact that the tension on the bow was enormous.
“Thank Liam for me that you got my message,” she said instead of answering his question.
He raised a hand toward her. “Is this why you led me here? To put an arrow through me? You could have easily done that at any other time.”
“I brought you here to let you know I was heading west, toward the great gulf.”
He took a step toward her. In response her back stiffened but the arrow never moved. Given the distance, Yulen knew it would be an easy chest shot.
“Why did you need tell me that? Why not just go?”
