by Murray, Dean
Mark hobbled up and helped Va'del down from his horse as a stable hand hurried forward and took the horse's reins. "You weren't bleeding when I saw you last."
Va'del looked down at the blood that had soaked through his shirt and down his pant leg, and then performed a half shrug that only caused a little surge of pain. "You weren't limping when I left."
The stable master shrugged in return. "Sleeping on the ground isn't for old backs. Once we're moving again I'll be fine."
Mark pointed Va'del towards a roan-colored mare, and then hobbled away yelling orders to his apprentices, all of whom were unsaddling the newly-arrived horses with a speed that was nothing less than amazing.
As Va'del pulled himself onto his new mount, the horse master showed back up and clasped his arm. "Your men are all mounted. Hopefully any pursuit continues to follow you. If not, well, we'll be gone inside the half cycle, and we'll split up to offer a less appealing target, so they should give up and return to the road before following us too far."
"Thanks for your help."
"'Twasn't nothing. I saw those girls you rescued, and they've been treated worse than the poor beasts you rode in on. The animals will recover; I just hope the younglings will do likewise."
Va'del nodded, trying to ignore a growing sense of uneasiness, and then followed Peters and the rest of the guards back to the road.
Secure in the knowledge that they had fresh mounts beneath them and that their enemies must be tiring by now, the group set out at a more sedate pace. The slower speed of the horses was the only thing that allowed the guard holding Jain to avoid dropping her when she suddenly started convulsing.
Prompted by something he couldn't describe, Va'del had already started riding further up the column before the first yells broke out from the men trying to restrain the Daughters. Her skin waxy and glistening with unnatural sweat, Kati was the next one to begin shaking, but the other two had started thrashing violently as well before Va'del made it to Jain's side.
Ignoring the sharp pain the action caused, Va'del pulled Jain from the worried guard who'd been holding her, and then spun his horse in a circle looking for Vi'en. We were wrong, they were already addicted.
"They're going into withdrawal." Vi'en was dismounted and kneeling next to Kati. The Guadel closed her eyes for a second, palm resting on the Daughter's forehead before continuing. "Their symptoms aren't as severe though, I believe I can buffer one of them out. This one is the strongest."
For a second Va'del's vision dimmed, and when it returned he found himself standing before his wife, Jain still clutched in arms trembling with emotion.
"You're not sacrificing her. You will heal Jain."
Vi'en took a deep breath as her skin flushed with anger. "This is about more than just your supposed affection for the girl. She's the weakest of the four. If I try to save them all I risk losing them all, and then this entire effort was for naught."
A tiny part of Va'del's mind was still calm enough to make sense of the words, rational enough to fabricate an argument that might be believed. "If you save only one, or even two of them we're still doomed. Three of you will never be able to bring the other Guadel out fast enough for us to stand off the Baron. Save all four of them."
Vi'en lunged to her feet, mouth open to say something else, but Va'del pulled her close in a mockery of the physical closeness they'd never shared. "I'm well aware that you will probably see me exiled for what I'm about to say, but if Jain dies, I'll see you dead before her body cools. Save. Them. All."
For a moment Va'del thought his wife would say something else, but he let the emptiness that the thought of living without Jain summoned bleed out through his eyes, and she was the first to look away.
Va'del pointed to four guards at random. "We can't stop. You four are responsible for the other Daughters and my wife."
By the time the column was moving again, Jain had stopped shaking, but her breathing was shallow and hurried, and her skin looked ashen and even paler than before.
Vi'en, mounted in front of one of the guards, moved up and down the line, pacing each one of the listless forms for a few minutes.
Somewhere along the way, Va'del's wound broke back open with a slow trickle of blood. Despite the sharp jolts of pain, he refused to transfer his fragile cargo to one of the other men. Each guardsman was exhausted and sore from riding for so many cycles, but he hadn't heard a single word of complaint. If they'd lost their honor when they surrendered to Vladir, they'd regained it with this mission.
When they finally made their tired way into the castle courtyard, Va'del handed Jain down to one of the guardsmen, and then tried to dismount from his horse, only to somehow lose his balance and fall into Si'mon's waiting arms. The darkness was waiting to claim him, but Va'del fought it off for a few more seconds.
"They were amazing. Even if the Daughters don't survive, the Guard made a heroic effort. Make sure they know how well they did."
Chapter 23
Jain was waiting with tear-streaked cheeks when Va'del finally opened his eyes again. "Oh, Powers! I was so worried about you."
Va'del found himself trying to reassure Jain that he was okay, when he wasn't sure that was really the case. As his vision cleared up, a surge of anger cleaned away the last of the fuzziness from his thoughts.
She looks terrible. Bruised and thin, with her eyes sunken and dull.
"I'll be fine, are you going to be okay?"
Jain got her tears under control and nodded. "I look pretty bad, huh?"
Knowing that nothing he could say would be right in that instance, Va'del just held Jain's hand and waited.
"Some of it is the result of being beaten by Be'ter when we all refused to link with him. Some of it's from Kra'ven alternately starving and drugging us in an effort to make us tell him how linking works. The rest is just from using too much power in the last twenty-four cycles. Don't worry, if we make it through the next two days I should be fine."
Before either of them could say anything else On'li came tottering through the door followed by Javin and Si'mon. Va'del should have been prepared after seeing Jain's condition, but he'd still somehow not been expecting On'li to look quite so old and worn out.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm well aware that I look like I'm two days dead and just waiting for the darkness to finally get around to recognizing that fact."
On'li reached down to give Va'del's free hand a squeeze. "None of us women look much better than this right now, I'm afraid. Half of us are still being buffered through the last stages of withdrawal, the other half are just plain worn out from using so much power in such a short time, but none of it is anything that a few days of rest won't cure."
Si'mon shook his head slightly. "If anything she's minimizing what the sisters have all been through in the last little while. More than one of them has pushed herself right up to the edge of burning out her own powers and had to be physically restrained by her husband from doing more."
On'li snorted. "How could we do any less knowing what was coming? Especially after this hard-headed young man all but killed himself getting the Daughters here to help Vi'en buffer us out of our addictions."
Va'del felt himself blushing at the obvious pride in everyone's eyes. "None of it would have been possible without the help of the Guard, Vi'en and Master Mark."
Si'mon shrugged. "There isn't a one of you that isn't deserving of a commendation."
"Even Vi'en, who is rapidly burning up what goodwill she's garnered by complaining about everything from our current conditions to how badly you nearly botched the rescue attempt. Honestly, I don't know how you managed to let her inside your mind."
The memory of Vi'en oozing through his mind made Va'del's skin crawl, but he tried to feign indifference in response to On'li's words. "It had to be done. I thought maybe it would get easier after the first time, but if anything it was worse."
His words left an awkward silence for several moments. Reaching for something to distract Jain, who
was looking more and more angry by the second, Va'del opened his mouth again. "What about Vladir? We did everything we could to slow him down, but he'll be here soon."
Si'mon shook his head. "You all did wonders, but Vladir showed up with a small force this morning. Most of his knights don't have mounts, and his troops all look nearly as bad as our sisters do right now, but they are here."
Va'del felt hope start to abandon him. "We don't have enough people to hold the castle against him."
"No, we don't. If we hadn't been in such poor shape we could have sallied forth and killed everyone he'd brought with him in the advance party, but it just wasn't feasible at the time."
Jain's anger had evaporated to be replaced by fear. "What will we do?"
Javin spoke for the first time. "We'll let them inside and then show them that they bit off more than they expected."
##
Javin waited quietly in the closet, listening to the mostly-calm breathing of Jameson and Sims, the pair of guardsmen who'd been assigned to accompany him. All around the castle the Guadel had been stationed in cleverly concealed ambushes that they hoped would allow them to carry the day.
Even now, having seen that both On'li and Mar'li were well on their way to recovering from being drugged by Vladir, Javin still found it a little hard to focus on events around him.
His handling of the situation still bothered Javin. The fact that nearly everyone else had done just as poorly didn't excuse his failings. If Si'mon hadn't pulled himself together enough to get the rescue party sent off and if Va'del hadn't managed to come through in such a spectacular manner, the very worst would have come to pass. All while Javin had done nothing.
The massive Guadel shifted slightly, trying to ease the strain in his legs at the same time that he looked for a distraction from just how useless he'd been at a time when his wives had needed him the most.
At least everyone was up and more or less back to normal now. The plan Javin, Si'mon and Va'ma had put together still might not be sufficient to get the caravan back up to the Capital alive, but it provided at least a chance. Better yet, it did provide the best chance of leaving Vladir with nothing but tatters to command once all was said and done.
The hope was that the lack of anyone manning the battlements would lure several squads into the castle to make sure that the Guadel had really left--presumably through one of the secret escape passages that all self-respecting castle builders tended to incorporate into their designs. Once a significant portion of the army was inside, dispersed and out of contact with each other, the various Guadel would fall on them, cutting down individual squads before they could join up into a more effective force.
On'li's presence was humming in the back of Javin's mind, monitoring his thoughts for the sudden spike of emotion that would be her signal to begin the augmentation process. Just as important right now, the nascent link also reassured him that she was still okay.
That was the overriding weakness to the whole plan. If Kra'ven was able to pinpoint where the women were, or even if a large enough group of soldiers were to stumble onto their hiding place, then the Guadel would instantly become the prey instead of the hunters.
For the first time in cycles, Javin heard footsteps in the hall, and he felt eagerness flow through him as Mar'li joined On'li in his mind, and the pair began weaving their augmentation around him.
Time steadily slowed as strength and energy filled his muscles. Javin waited until he reached a five count between each of his heartbeats, and then sensing a tension from his companions that told him they were ready to attack, burst from concealment.
The squad of eight men had just passed the closet when Javin appeared behind them with a crash. The first three men didn't even have time to turn around before he cut them down, driving through the center of the formation. The next two had just started to rotate as his paired blades found their hearts.
Javin passed by the next man, and then dispatched the seventh and eighth before they'd managed to bring their weapons completely out of their scabbards.
The two guardsmen had cut down the bypassed man with a cold efficiency that reminded the Guadel that between the bag'lig attack, the jailbreak, and the rescue mission they'd completed just two days before, they'd now seen more fighting than most of their fellows back at the Capital would see during the course of their entire lives.
Moving out away from the gory mess they'd left behind, each of the trio stripped off the bloody outer layer of socks they'd raided from the castle stores, and then moved off to their next ambush point.
##
Va'ma and the pair of men accompanying him left the site of their second ambush and slipped into a bedroom which was located a little closer to the main entrance to the keep. So far things were proceeding well. He'd cut through the dispersed squads they'd encountered so fast that neither of his companions had even bloodied their weapons yet.
The blood roaring through the grizzled Guadel made him want to charge out into the courtyard, but he was still rational enough to know that even his three wives couldn't augment him enough to take on that many men, so instead he searched for the calm that was the prearranged signal for all three women to cut down his level of augmentation to the barest trickle of power.
Vitality seemed to leech from his body, but Va'ma fought to remain calm, and the absence of panic in his thoughts was enough of a confirmation that they finished powering down all of his augmentations other than a slightly altered time sense. There was nothing more to do until the next group blundered past.
##
Si'mon stalked down the hall, a pair of guardsmen with crossbows flanking him. They were only a short distance away from the main door. If he could reach that, he could bar it and leave what was left of the army stranded outside where they'd be unable to help save their fellows inside from being cut to pieces.
If everything was going according to plan, most of the Guadel should be on their second ambush, and all told the smaller force should have cut down four or five times their number. Javin and Va'ma had argued strongly for leaving the door open for another quarter cycle before converging on it from multiple directions with groups of three or four Guadel. Si'mon had tried to convince them otherwise, but had finally decided he'd just disregard orders and make sure it was closed sooner than the plan called for.
It would likely result in the Guadel not being able to kill as many inside the keep before being forced to go to a more classic siege, but it was a more acceptable risk in Si'mon's mind. Better to bite off too little than too much. Va'ma and Javin were welcome to take Si'mon's disobedience up with the Council if it meant that they all survived.
The muted, deep quality to the breathing behind him told the caravan master as much as anything else that he was linked, that Sophie was boosting his time sense. The poor thing was probably approaching exhaustion, but just a short time more and he could fall back and worry about just dealing with however many soldiers were left inside.
Only the fact that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as Si'mon turned the corner allowed him to recognize the fact that a crossbow quarrel was headed towards his heart. His sword was much too heavy to possibly move into position in time, so instead the Guadel brought his dagger up in slow motion, muscles straining to overcome inertia and air resistance as the foot-long blade came around in an arc that intercepted the stubby missile and sent it wide.
Rather than the door being unguarded like they'd hoped, a mixed squad had been stationed before it. Si'mon had no illusions about his odds of surviving a charge against so many prepared foes, but their whole plan hinged on getting that door closed, so he charged forward into a storm of projectiles as his companions let fly at a pair of swordsmen on the outer edges of the group.
##
It was long past the time when they'd figured they'd be able to wait around and ambush individual squads, so Javin was now heading towards a rendezvous point with his two companions in the hopes that by pairing up with another Guadel
or two, the larger group would be able to defeat enemy squads even without the element of surprise.
The absolute silence of earlier ambushes had given way to a muted clash of arms throughout the keep, and Javin started to worry that Si'mon had been right to argue for closing the main door sooner rather than later. It was too late now to do anything but head to the meeting point and then try and fight through to the door.
Javin came around the corner and felt a shudder run through him as he recognized the body before him. Stap'en was one of Va'ma's people. The boy had been a Guadel for less than a year, but Va'ma had indicated that the youngster was good. Based on where the body had fallen, the corridor should have prevented more than one person at a time coming at him.
Javin took another couple of steps as he tried to reason how Stap'en could have been overcome. It was still early in the fight for Stap'en's wife to have tired and dropped out of augmentation, but short of that, it was almost impossible for a single, unaugmented man to take on a full Guadel.
Something about the corridor that the other Guadel had been killed in was tickling the back of Javin's mind in a way he'd long ago learned to pay attention to. What could possibly be so important about...It leads to the upper levels.
Suddenly sure who'd cut down young Stap'en, Javin took off at a sprint after the bloody footprints. His companions would have to just follow him as they could. Hopefully someone else would be able to get to the door. Javin had a madman to stop; hopefully before Jeeves and Va'del were cut down rather than after--otherwise they were all dead.
##
Peters carefully looked out at the courtyard from his position of concealment. Entirely too much time had passed, and his men weren't the only ones worried by the fact that the main door was still open.
Garth really was right when he said that the Guadel never seemed to try anything halfway. When their plans worked, like Va'del's rescue mission had, the results were spectacular. When one of their over-complicated plans came apart instead, even the fact that they were all the next best thing to unkillable sometimes wasn't enough to avoid complete disaster.
