What if she doesn’t care?
But Javel refused to think of how Allie might have changed during the years in Mortmesne. Telling her was out of the question; he would have to come up with a lie.
As the sun set, clouds gathered overhead. Javel heard some grumbling; Dwyne, the leader of the four Caden, muttered loudly to his companions that it was convenient to receive shade just when the sun was gone. The Caden had made this journey many times during the Regency, and it was a comfort to have Dwyne and Avile, if not the dissipated Baedencourts. Yet even Dwyne seemed uneasy. The clouds had gathered fast, and were darkening even faster. If a storm broke overnight, it would slow the caravan’s progress down the Pike Hill. But a storm would also give the prisoners some water. Perhaps when they stopped, Javel could even give the pregnant woman some time with her sons. Thorne would never allow it, but Alain had been sneaking around under Thorne’s nose all day. Maybe Javel could do the same. He straightened up in his saddle, feeling better at the thought. It was a small thing, but a thing he could do.
The clouds deepened inexorably overhead, and at some point, almost without warning, darkness fell on the pass.
How many?” Mace hissed.
“I count twenty-nine,” Wellmer whispered back. “Several more I can’t see behind the cages. Wait—”
Kelsea waited, uncomfortably aware of the group of shadows who surrounded her. Mace and Pen were beside her, yes, but anyone could pull a knife in the dark. She was undeniably vulnerable here. She waited, her anxiety increasing, until Wellmer crawled back behind the boulder where half the troop crouched concealed. “Caden down there, sir. Dwyne and another I don’t recognize.”
“Damn, and they never work in twos. There’ll be more of them.”
After several seconds of hunting for a pocket, Wellmer tucked his spyglass away in the neck of his army uniform. They had left the horses far behind, at the mouth of the Pass, and everyone seemed to have simultaneously discovered that their uniforms had no pockets. Kelsea pulled at the neck of her own uniform; it was sewn of cheap material that made her skin itch. The army garb seemed to sit strangely on all of the Guard; she’d caught many of them twisting and adjusting themselves all day, even Pen, who seemed to be able to blend like a chameleon into whatever surrounded him.
But the black of the uniforms was good for concealment, since the sky still held the barest hint of a cold amber moon. The other half of Kelsea’s guard was about fifteen feet away, tucked behind a second boulder, and Kelsea couldn’t even pick them out; they were simply a dark mass against the side of the ravine. She was more worried about concealing her sapphire. The moment they’d entered the Argive Pass, the horrible heat inside her chest had cooled down to a low pulse that was almost pleasant by comparison. The jewel’s light had dimmed as well, but Kelsea didn’t trust the thin fabric of the uniform to block it entirely.
Metal rasped on leather behind her, the sound of a knife being drawn, and Kelsea drew into herself, trying to compress her body into the tiniest ball possible. Her pulse was thudding now, so loudly that it seemed they would all be able to hear it, and her forehead was chilled with sweat. The wound on her shoulder tightened in remembered agony. Which of the men around her had done it?
“We’re outnumbered, Lady,” Mace told her. “Not badly, but we can’t simply make a frontal attack. Not with the Caden down there.”
“Wellmer, can’t you pick them off?”
“I can shoot, Lady, but only two or three before they take cover and douse the light.”
Mace tapped Venner on the shoulder, whispered to him, and sent him to the other boulder. “We’ve got Wellmer and three more decent archers. We’ll send two across the pass, so the rest can’t take cover behind the cages. If we take the Caden first, that’ll even things up a bit.”
“They might put out the fires at any point,” Pen warned softly. “We should act soon, before we lose the advantage of the light.”
Kelsea grabbed Mace’s wrist. “The people in the cages are the priority. Make very sure they understand.”
Venner crept back, three dark forms behind him. They huddled with Mace, conversing in whispers, and Kelsea wiped her sweating forehead, determined not to give in to the paranoia that had come over her in the dark. “Wellmer, give me your spyglass.”
The eight cages had been doubled up in a horseshoe so that their gates faced inward. Kelsea was relieved to see that the cages had no iron. They looked to be hastily assembled affairs of mere wood, and the bars, rather than interlocking links, were thick, vertical wooden planks. Even if the wood was Tearling oak, the bars should be vulnerable to a concerted attack with axes.
Wellmer had spotted outliers stationed around the caravan, but the bulk of Thorne’s men were concentrated within the horseshoe. Kelsea squinted through the spyglass, focusing on the men around the campfire. She knew very few of them. There was a well-dressed, heavyset man, clearly a noble, whom she remembered from her first audience, though she couldn’t recall his name. Several men whom she thought might be with the Census. A good chunk of her own army, so careless that they hadn’t even bothered to wear civilian clothing. And there was the man himself, Arlen Thorne, right in the middle of the circle. Her sapphire gave a small tremor against her chest. Nothing better could be expected from Thorne, but all the same Kelsea felt betrayed, betrayed by the just world she’d understood from her childhood. All of her plans, all of the good she wanted to accomplish . . . could it really be subverted by one man?
“Elston.” She passed him the spyglass. “Right at noon around the fire.”
“Motherfucker,” Elston muttered, peering through the glass. Mace sighed, but he’d given up trying to clean up the guards’ speech on this journey. Kelsea had heard many new words in the past few days. From overheard conversations, she knew that Elston hated Arlen Thorne; it was something to do with a woman, but no one would give Kelsea the whole story.
“I want him alive, Elston,” she murmured. “Bring him to me, and I’ll let you design his dungeon.”
Several of her Guard chuckled.
“Five more minutes, Lady, and we can go,” Mace whispered. “Give Tom and Kibb time to work their way across.”
Kelsea nodded, feeling adrenaline flood her body. The guards drew their swords as quietly as they could, but Kelsea could still hear each rasp of metal against leather, and she fought down a stifling feeling. The sapphire pulsed like a drum against her chest, or maybe inside her chest, she couldn’t tell anymore.
“Lady, I ask you for the last time to stay up here with Pen and Venner. If we fail, you can still get away.”
“Lazarus.” Kelsea smiled gently at his silhouette beside her. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think, Lady. You can blame it on your damned jewel if you want, but I understand that the shadow of your mother is making you both angry and reckless. That combination is dangerous to us all.”
Kelsea seemed to have no capacity for anger at the moment; all of her energy was directed toward the campsite below. “You have your faults too, Lazarus. You’re stubborn, and your life of weapons has closed sections of your mind that would be better left open. And yet I’ve grown to trust you in spite of all that. Maybe you could trust me as well.”
There was no answer in the dark.
“Pen and Venner will stay with me at all times. Yes?”
“Lady,” they murmured.
“I’d like you to stay with me as well, Lazarus. All right?”
“Fine. But you’re not to engage, Lady. Venner says your footwork is atrocious.”
“I won’t pick up a weapon, Lazarus. You have my word.”
After several minutes, Mace gave a birdlike whistle that faded away easily under the wind. The troop spread out among the boulders, and each began to work his own quiet way down the side of the ravine.
For once, Thorne had taken Javel’s advice, and they’d established camp in the narrowest part of the Argive, leaving only two sides of the caravan to
defend. Javel had meant to stay awake and see if he could give the pregnant woman some time with her sons, but exhaustion had finally won out. He decided to get at least a few hours’ sleep and then deal with the matter. He settled his bedroll and curled up in front of the enormous fire, his legs shuddering in pleasure at the heat. Gate Guards rarely had reason to ride more than a few miles, and the long journey had taxed Javel’s weak thigh muscles. He began to drop off toward sleep, dozing in longer and longer intervals, and he’d nearly reached oblivion when the first scream jerked him awake.
Javel sat up. In the dim firelight he could see nothing but the rest of the men, all of them looking around sleepily, as confused as he was.
“Archers!” someone shouted from behind the cages. “They’re—” The shout cut off as suddenly as it had begun, reduced to a shallow gurgling.
“Arm yourselves!” Thorne commanded. He was already on his feet, looking as though he hadn’t slept at all. Two men sprung up from the fire and tore off into the darkness, but before they got very far one of them went down with an arrow in his back.
Archers, Javel thought, bemused. On the hillside. He wondered if he were still asleep. He used to sleepwalk; Allie had told him so. Thoughts of Allie galvanized him, and he jumped up, drawing his sword and staring around wildly, seeing nothing beyond the circle of the firelight. Another arrow hissed through the darkness above his head.
“Put out the fire!” Dwyne shouted. “We’re sitting ducks!”
Javel hauled his bedding from the ground and threw it onto the fire pit. The fabric wasn’t heavy enough; the bedroll began to smolder, fire blooming through the layers of wool.
“We need more!” Javel waved at the befuddled men around him. “Give me your bedrolls!”
Sleepily, they began to rise and bundle up their blankets. Javel wanted to scream in frustration.
“Move!” Dwyne elbowed past him, carrying a huge pile of bedding, and threw it onto the fire. The light dimmed and then died, the air thick with the smell of scorched wool. Out in the darkness behind the cages, swords clashed and the air was suddenly rent with the high, unbearable scream of a wounded horse.
“Riders west!” someone shouted. “I hear them!”
“We’re encircled,” Dwyne muttered. “I told that damned bureaucrat it was a poor place to camp.”
Javel flushed, hoping Dwyne wouldn’t find out that Javel had suggested the pass as a stopping place. Javel had never dealt directly with any of the Caden before; they existed on a high plane, out of reach. Perhaps it was silly, but he still found himself longing for respect from the big man in the red cloak.
Thorne reached them in the darkness and grasped Javel’s shoulder, thin breath hissing unpleasantly against Javel’s ear. “Dwyne. What do we do? We need light.”
“No, we don’t. If they’re a rescue party, the archers won’t risk hitting the prisoners. We have a better chance in the dark.”
“But we can’t just wait here! When day comes, we’ll be easy prey.”
The impact of metal on metal rang from all sides now, drowning out Dwyne’s reply. A sword glinted in the anemic moonlight, some ten feet away, and Javel raised his own sword in preparation, his heart hammering. Dwyne began to laugh.
“What can possibly be funny?” asked Thorne.
“It’s the Tear army, man! Look at the uniforms!”
Javel could see nothing, but he grunted his agreement so Dwyne wouldn’t know.
“I can probably deal with all of them by myself, dark or no. Wait here.” Dwyne drew his sword and hurried away. When his footsteps had faded, Javel repressed a moment of stifling, amorphous fright. Having Thorne next to him in the dark was no comfort at all.
“He’s full of shit,” Thorne was muttering again. “We need light. Enough light to—”
He clenched Javel’s arm again, hard enough that Javel winced.
“Get a torch.”
Kelsea was still crawling forward, Pen and Venner on either side, when the fire went out, robbing them of light.
“The archers took at least four,” Mace whispered behind her. “I don’t know if they got Dwyne though; be on your guard.”
“How are those cages fastened? Could anyone see?”
“No,” replied Pen, “but they’re definitely not steel. I think they’re just plain old wood.”
Kelsea was suddenly furious at the unknown builder of the cages. Thorne was no carpenter, but someone had built cages for him, all the same.
“Hooves,” Venner whispered. “To the west.”
The four went silent, and after a moment Kelsea, too, could hear multiple horsemen, coming down into the valley from the western opening of the pass.
“Three or four,” Mace whispered. “If they’re more Caden, we’re in trouble.”
“Should we move, sir?” asked Pen.
Kelsea looked around. In the dim starlight, she could see the outline of a few chunks of stone ahead of them and a large boulder to her left, but nothing else. There was nowhere to go except back up on the hillside.
“No,” Mace replied. “Let’s move behind that boulder and they should pass right by us. If not, there aren’t many of them. We’ll be able to cover the Queen’s retreat.”
The hooves were growing louder. Following Mace’s lead, Kelsea crawled along on her belly toward the boulder. The ground was covered with tiny, sharp rocks that bit into her palms, making her hiss. She told herself not to be such a pansy and cursed inside, using Elston’s word.
Mace led their crawling train behind the boulder and they leaned back against it, facing the campsite. Kelsea could dimly glimpse the barred silhouette of one of the cages against the deep blue-black sky, nothing else, but she could hear plenty. The sound of steel on steel resonated everywhere, and the night was alive with the groans of the wounded. She remembered her earlier paranoia and felt a flush of hot shame creep across her face. The sapphire, as though sensing her misery, pulsed in response. The hoofbeats drew nearer.
“Where—”
“Quiet.” Mace’s voice brooked no argument.
Several riders came past the boulder, their silhouettes barely visible against the grey backdrop of the ravine. They halted perhaps twenty feet from Kelsea’s hiding place and the air was filled with the sound of overtaxed horses, their breaths whickering in the night.
“What now?” a man asked in a low voice.
“It’s a mess,” replied another. “We need light.”
“We should wait for the fighting to die down a bit.”
“No. We’ll find Alain first,” a new voice commanded, and Kelsea jerked to attention. She scrambled to her feet and moved forward before Mace could stop her. Four black silhouettes turned, drawing swords as she approached, but Kelsea only smiled. Certainty was upon her, a certainty that had nothing to do with the man’s voice and everything to do with the sudden bloom of warmth in her chest.
“Well met, Father of Thieves.”
“Holy hell.” One of the horsemen rode toward her and drew rein some five feet away. Although Kelsea could see nothing but a black shadow against the sky, she could have sworn that he was looking down and seeing her.
Mace reached her then, grabbing her around the waist. “Behind me, Lady.”
“No, Lazarus,” Kelsea replied, her eyes on the tall shadow in front of her. “Keep your attention elsewhere.”
“What?”
“Tear Queen,” the Fetch remarked quietly. “It seems I did underestimate you, after all.”
Kelsea heard Pen and Venner coming up behind her, and she held up a hand. “Both of you, stand down.”
The Fetch regarded her in silence. Although Kelsea could see nothing of his face, she sensed that she really had surprised him, maybe for the first time. It comforted her, made her feel less of a child to his adult, and she straightened up, staring back at him defiantly. He dismounted and approached, and Kelsea felt Mace edge up on his toes beside her. She placed a restraining hand on his chest.
“Sir?” Pen asked, h
is voice high and anxious, younger than Kelsea had ever heard it.
“Christ. Stand down, Pen.”
The Fetch reached out with one hand, and Kelsea instinctively drew back. But he only touched the very edges of her hair, cropped close around her head, and spoke softly. “Look what you’ve done to yourself.”
Kelsea wondered how he could see her short hair when she could barely see anything at all. As his words sank in, however, she flushed and snapped, “Why are you here?”
“We’ve come after Thorne’s little tea party. Alain is here somewhere; he’s been spying out the lay of the land for weeks.”
Alain, the blond man who was so quick with cards. Kelsea hadn’t seen him anywhere around the campfire.
“The better question is: why are you here, Tear Queen?”
Good question. Even Mace, for all of his grumbling, hadn’t asked Kelsea why. She thought for a moment, trying to come up with an honest answer, for she sensed the Fetch would know if she lied. The jewel continued to throb between her breasts, driving her to action, but she willed it to be still. “I’m here to keep my word. I promised this would never happen again.”
“You could’ve kept your word from the Keep, you know. You have an entire army at your disposal these days.”
Kelsea flinched at the sarcasm in his voice, but drew herself up to her full height. “A long time ago, before ascending the throne, the king pledged himself to die for his kingdom, if necessary. It was the only way the system worked.”
“You’re ready to die here?”
“I’ve been ready to die for this land since the day we met, Father of Thieves.”
The Fetch’s head tilted to the left. When he spoke, his voice was softer than Kelsea had ever heard it. “I’ve waited a long time for you, Tear Queen. Longer than you can imagine.”
Kelsea blushed and looked away, not understanding what he meant, only knowing that it wasn’t what she wanted him to mean.
The Queen of the Tearling Page 36
