Kerowyn's Ride v(bts-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  Wendar was already out of sight and she scrambled on hands and knees up the turnip-slimed stairs, pulling herself erect just short of the top, and discovering with dull surprise that she was still holding the knife and pot lid.

  She peered out cautiously around the edge of the door frame, and her heart stopped.

  Blade and lid dropped from her benumbed hands and clattered down the stairs behind her as she stumbled forward into a scene beyond her worst nightmares.

  Someone grabbed her wrist as she staggered past.

  Wendar, she realized after a moment. The Seneschal pulled her roughly down beside him, where he knelt at the side of a man so battered and blood-covered she didn’t recognize him. Then he moaned and opened his eyes, and she knew—

  Dent. Agnira bless!

  She’d helped to bind wounds many times before, some of them as bad as any of these, when hunters ran afoul of wolf or boar—her hands knew what to do, and they did it, while her mind spun in little aimless circles until she was dizzy. The blood—there was just so much of it....

  Dent died under her hands, but there were others, too many others; she moved from one to the next like a sleepwalker, binding their wounds, sometimes with strips from her ripped skirts, sometimes with whatever else came to hand. Some, like Dent, died as she tried to save them. The others, the lucky ones, often fainted or were already unconscious by the time she found them.

  The less fortunate screamed their agony until their throats were so raw they couldn’t even whisper.

  The hall was a blood-spattered shambles, furniture overturned, food trampled underfoot—and everywhere the women, some huddled in on themselves, were unable to speak, eyes wide and blank with shock; others shrieking, wailing, or sobbing silently beside their dead and wounded.

  Of all that host of guests, only a handful remained calm, working white-lipped and grim-faced, as Kero worked, trying to snatch a few more lives back from Lady Death.

  One iron-spined woman patted Kero’s shoulder absently as she hurried by, eyes already fixed on the armsman laid out on the floor beyond the girl. With a start of surprise, Kero recognized the granite-faced matriarch of the Dunwythie family, a woman who’d never even nodded in Kero’s direction before this.

  Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, except to stop the blood, ease the pain, straighten the broken limbs. There wasn’t a whole, unwounded man-at-arms in the keep; there wasn’t an unwounded male except those few menservants who’d fled to the kitchen.

  Anyone who had resisted had been killed out of hand. There were young boys and women numbered among the dead and wounded—some of the dead still clutching the makeshift weaponry with which they had fought back.

  Kero had long since passed beyond mere numbness into a kind of stupor. Her hands, bloodied to the elbow, continued to work without her conscious direction; her legs, aching and weary, carried her stumbling from one body to the next. Nothing broke the spell of insensibility holding her—until the sound of her own name caught her attention. Then she felt someone shaking her and looked up as reality intruded into the void where her mind had gone. Those hands had pulled her reluctantly back to the here and now.

  She blinked; two of Dierna’s cousins were tugging at her arms, one on either side, weeping, and babbling at her. She couldn’t make out what they wanted, they were absolutely incoherent with hysteria. They pulled her toward the dais where the high table had been, sobbing, but before they had dragged her more than a few steps, she heard a young male voice she knew as well as her own raised in shrill curses.

  She pulled loose from them and half ran, half staggered, toward the little knot of people clustered about one particular body.

  The voice cursed again, then howled, just as she reached them and pulled someone—Cook—away from the figure stretched out on the floor.

  It was her brother Lordan, young face twisted with pain, eyes staring without sense in them, ranting and wailing as Wendar bound up a terrible wound in his side.

  The Seneschal looked up as Kero dropped to her knees beside him, and then looked back to his work. “It’s not a gut-stab,” he said, around clenched teeth. “It missed the stomach and the lungs, Kelles only knows how. But whether he’ll live—that I can’t tell you. Without a Healer—”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Kero knew very well what his chances were without the help of magic or a Healer’s touch. The wound itself probably wouldn’t kill him, but blood loss and infection might very well.

  There was nothing she could do for him that Wendar hadn’t already taken care of. She felt oddly helpless, angry at her own helplessness, wanting to do something and knowing there was nothing productive to be done. She got slowly to her feet to hover just on the edge of the little group, trying to think of anything that might increase Lordan’s chances.

  I’m of no use here—She hated this—hated being so completely out of control, so afraid that her teeth chattered unless she clamped her jaw tight.

  She looked out over the hall and saw that the last of the wounded were being tended to, the dead being carried out, the women too hysterical or paralyzed to do anything being herded over to one side of the hall by a group made up of the old woman who did the Keep’s laundry and some of the dairymaids.

  Father—she suddenly thought. Where’s Father? She peered around the group caring for Lordan, looking for Rathgar—and only then saw the battered body laid out on the table, half covered with a pall made up of a table-covering, as if already lying in state.

  Oddly enough, seeing him dead wasn’t a shock; she wondered if she’d been expecting this from the moment she first looked into the hall. She knew what must have happened. Rathgar would have charged the brigands barehanded and empty-headed the moment they invaded his hall, pure rage overwhelming any thoughts of caution.

  She closed her eyes, and tried to summon up a dutiful tear from eyes dry with shock, but all that would come was mere anger, and exasperation. You were a mercenary, Father, she thought angrily at the quiet form. You knew better! You could have ordered the armsmen to play rear-guard and gotten everyone down into the kitchen before they really swarmed the place—but you had to defend your damned Keep personally, didn’t you? You didn’t think once about anything but that! Did you even think about getting your poor little daughter-in-law out of harm’s way?

  She looked around for Dierna, expecting her to be among the hysterical or the half-mad—

  —and didn’t see her. Not anywhere.

  Thinking for a moment that the girl might be hiding behind a chair, or cowering in someone’s arms, Kero turned to one of Dierna’s two cousins who had caught up with her and were clinging to each other in limp confusion.

  “Where is she?” Kero demanded. If she’s hurt, her family will never forgive us. Part of her calculated their reactions as coolly as a money-changer counted coins. They’ll demand satisfaction—never mind Father died and Lordan may not live out the night, they’ll want blood price, and after this disaster, we won’t have it.

  The girls stared at her blankly. She grabbed the nearest and shook her savagely. “Your cousin, girl! Where is she? Where’s Dierna?”

  The girl just stared, and stammered. She shook the little fool until her teeth rattled, trying to pry some sense out of her, but got nothing from her or her sister but tears and wailing. Disgusted, she held the girl erect between her two strong hands and contemplated trying to slap a little sense into her.

  “She’s taken,” croaked a pain-hoarsened voice from below and to the right of her elbow.

  “What?” Kero let go of the little ninny, who promptly collapsed with her sister into a soggy heap. She looked down at the man who’d spoken; one of the Keep armsmen, lying against the wall on a makeshift pallet of tablecloths and blood-soaked cloaks. Some of the blood was probably his; he peered up at her from beneath a cap of bandaging, and his right arm was strapped tightly to his side.

  “She’s taken, Lady,” he repeated. “I saw. They took her, and that’s when they lef
t.”

  He coughed; she seized a goblet from the floor and found a pitcher with a little wine still in it rolling under the table. She knelt down beside him and helped him drink; his teeth chattered against the rim of the metal goblet, and he lay back down with a groan. “I saw it,” he repeated, closing his eyes. “I been with Lord Rathgar for ten years now, sworn man. Lady, I don’t—this’s no lie. I swear it. There was a mage.”

  “A—what?” For a moment she was confused. What could a mage have had to do with all this carnage?

  The armsman opened his eyes again. “A mage,” he said. “Had to be. One minute, I’m on the wall, hearin’ nothin’, seein’ nothin’—then there’s like a breath of fog, kinda cold and damp, an’ I can’t move, not so much as look around. Then this bunch of riders comes in, nobody challenges ’em—they get in through the gates, an’ I can see they’re scum, but somebody’s given ’em good arms—” The last word was choked off, and he lay for a moment panting with misery, while Kero clutched the goblet so hard her knuckles were white.

  “Still couldn’t move, couldn’t yell,” he continued, staring up at nothing. “Couldn’t. Then I hear the yellin’ from the hall, an’ I can move—ran right straight in—right into the ones waitin’ for me.” He coughed, and his face spasmed with pain. “Waitin’ around blind corners, like they knew the place, Lady. Got free of ’em, made it as far as th’ hall. That’s when I seen ’em take the bride—Lord Rathgar, he was down, gods save ’em; they got th’ last of her guards, an’ they took her. An’ that’s when the fightin’ stopped; they just packed up and grabbed what they could an’ left.” He blinked and focused again on her. “I tried, Lady. I tried—”

  Now she remembered his name; Hewerd. “I know you did, Hewerd,” she said absently. That seemed to satisfy him. He closed his eyes and retreated into himself.

  A mage—That made sense. Especially when I think how Father hated mages. Maybe he had an enemy that was a mage, or became one. He had other enemies, too; maybe one of them got together with this mage. They might have been waiting a long time to catch him off-guard, to take revenge when he wasn’t expecting it. She shivered, and stood up, staring out over the shambles of the hall, but not seeing it. That must have been the—thing—the dark thing I touched with my mind. Maybe one of Father’s enemies bought a mage. That could happen, too. It would have to be someone who knew him well enough to know that he didn’t have a house mage of his own. And it would have to be someone who knew about the wedding....

  Agnira’s Teeth! She shuddered. He’s destroyed us! There’s no one to go after Dierna—there isn’t a man fit to ride in the whole Keep! And if we don’t at least try—I know her uncle, he’ll call blood-feud on us. Kill every last one, take the Keep....

  Dierna’s uncle, the powerful Lord Baron Reichert, had used the pretext of familial insult to add to his lands more than once. He wasn’t likely to turn down an opportunity like this one—and by the time the King found out about it, the Baron would have ensured that there was no one left at the Keep to argue Lordan’s innocence. If they were lucky, they’d escape with their lives. If they weren’t—the Baron had no percentage in their survival.

  We won’t have a chance, she thought bleakly. Not unless someone goes after her, makes a token try at rescuing her—

  Dierna’s sweet, heart-shaped face, and sensitive mouth and eyes rose up like a ghost to confront her. Dearest gods, the poor baby—

  That last unbidden thought did something unexpected to Kerowyn. She was overwhelmed with dizziness, and reached blindly for the support of the wall. As her hand touched the wall, it faded away, and she was afraid she was about to collapse, to faint like one of Dierna’s foolish cousins.

  But she didn’t collapse; she opened her eyes—but it wasn’t the hall she was seeing, it was the road. And, faint shapes in the moonlight, a band of men on horseback.

  For a moment she saw the girl, bound and gagged, and carried in front of one of the riders, a tall, thin man, in robes rather than armor. Her eyes were wide with shock and fear, her delicate face white and waxen, and she looked closer to eleven than to fourteen.

  Anger replaced fear, outrage drowned any other feelings. This was not right. The girl was hardly more than a child.

  Kero blinked.

  The vision—if that was what it was—faded, replaced by another. A plain, simple sword. Then her own hand, taking the sword-hilt as if it belonged to her.

  But I can’t—

  Again, a flicker of Dierna’s frightened eyes. Blessed Trine. Only fourteen, and sheltered all her life. Like a little glass bird, and just as easy to break.

  The visions faded, leaving her staring out at the hall again. The anger retreated for a moment. I’m the only one left that could follow. If I try to get her back, her uncle won’t have an excuse to come after Lordan. She hugged her arms to her chest and shivered—then the anger returned, stronger this time. And dear gods—all alone with those bastards—I can’t just sit here, playing ninny like those cousins of hers. I can’t. It isn’t honor, it isn’t pride, it isn’t any of those things in ballads—it’s that I can’t sit here knowing what’s going to happen to her once they think they’re safe, and not try and do something to prevent it.

  Then something else occurred to her, and amid the anger and the fear, there rose a tiny flicker of hope.

  And maybe Grandmother will help me.

  Suddenly, following after the raiders didn’t seem quite so mad a decision.

  She turned on her heel and ran for the servants’ entrance, but this time instead of going down, she went up, emerging into a corridor that ran the length of the hall itself and led to the family quarters. Her own room was in the first corner tower, where the hallway made a right-angle bend. She snatched a tallow-dip and lit it at the lantern, then ran up the short flight of stairs to the round room above. It was cold by winter and hot by summer, and drafty at all seasons, but it was hers and hers alone—which meant it held things not even Lordan knew about.

  She lit her own lamp beside the door and blew out the tallow-dip. As the light rose, she went to the tall, curtained bed, and pulled the mattress off onto the floor.

  Instead of the usual network of rope-springs, Kero’s bed was one of the old style, a kind of box with a wooden bottom. Only the bottom of this bed held a secret. As she had discovered when she was a child, it could be raised on concealed hinges to reveal a second shallow compartment.

  It still held a few of her childhood treasures; the dreaming-pillow her Grandmother Kethry had sent, her favorite stuffed toy horse, the two wooden knights Lordan had never played with and never missed when she spirited them out of his nursery and into hers—

  But now it held, besides those things, her brother’s castoff clothing and armor; a set of light chain made for him when he first began training, long since forgotten in the armory. It no longer fit him; he was too broad in the shoulder. But it fit her perfectly. She shed the ruins of her skirts with a sigh of relief, and pulled on breeches, stockings, and sleeved leather tunic. She bound up her hair as best she could; debated cutting it off for a moment, then decided she was going to need it under the helm. The chain mail shirt came next; without a squire, getting into it was a matter of contortion and wriggling, and enough hip-waggling to make a trollop stare. It caught in her hair despite her best efforts; she jerked her head and the caught strands were torn out of her scalp with the weight of the mail.

  Finally she settled it into place, jingling noisily, with a final shake of her hips. It covered her from neck to knee, slit before and behind so the wearer could ride. Another leather jerkin went over it, to muffle the inevitable jangling of the rings. She pulled on her riding boots, then turned and headed for the door.

  But all she had in the way of weapons were her knives. I don’t know how to use a sword, she thought, hesitating with one hand on the door handle. But knives aren’t much use against a longer weapon. Maybe I’d better take one anyway.

  So instead of going back the way she
’d come, she headed for her brother’s rooms and his small, private armory. Hopefully, the raiders wouldn’t have gotten that far.

  Lordan’s rooms were farther down the darkened hall, halfway between her tower and what had been her mother’s solar. Kero had never had the leisure to play the lady over a bowerful of maids, nor had she really ever cared for fine sewing even if she’d had the leisure for it, so the solar had been closed up until such time as Lordan took a bride, or Rathgar remarried.

  And since the latter had never occurred, Lordan had used the solar as a place to keep his arms and armor so that he wouldn’t have to tend it down in the cold, uncomfortable, and gloomy armory. Doubtless their father would have had a fit if he’d known, but Kero hadn’t seen any reason to tell him. If Lordan wanted to polish his swords up in the sun-filled solar, why not? Sun had never harmed metal or boys so far as Kero had ever heard.

  She pushed the door open, and went in; the moon shown full through the solar windows, and the armor on its stand looked uncannily like Lordan for a moment. It gleamed a soft silver where the moonlight struck reflections from the polished metal and those reflections gave it a momentary illusion of movement.