But he could save this girl.
If he’d come home when he said he would, he could have saved Zaheva.
The bridge shook and creaked as the horse pounded across. As the weight of the horse and rider passed over it, a supporting timber groaned and collapsed, and the whole bridge tilted to one side. Hooves scrabbled for purchase as their centre of gravity shifted, leaving Lyram with the horrible sensation of falling backwards.
Then the horse surged forward and thudded onto the grassy path.
Behind them, soldiers shouted as they grabbed for the bridge, trying to save the structure from a gurgling demise in the moat. His galloping mount carried him away before he learned its fate.
With his eyes stung by the wind and misted rain, Lyram could barely see the woman. The sun breasted the horizon, a shaft of light breaking through the clouds and dazzling with its brilliance but leaving the rest of the meadow blanketed under shadow. His head pounded in time with the hoof beats.
The girl turned towards the castle, her shapeless peasant dress blowing in the fresh breeze despite the drizzle. Behind her, the enemy rider closed in, and farther away, back in the enemy lines, more riders mounted up.
Lyram thinned his lips, grim in the face of poor odds. The girl was closer to the castle than the old wall, but the other rider had a headstart. He bent low over his mount’s neck, coaxing more speed from the animal with whispered words of encouragement.
Too slow. The other rider drew closer. He would reach the woman before Lyram by only by a few heartbeats, but that was enough for the enemy rider to kill her. This was a fool’s errand. Why hadn’t he listened to Everard?
The cold wind and the stinging rain cleared his head. The enemy rider closed on the woman, drawing his sword to strike, and still she didn’t turn; instead, she watched Lyram’s fast approach with apparent unconcern. Snarling, he angled his horse towards the other rider. Didn’t she hear the thundering hooves behind her? Dropping the reins, he kicked his feet free of the stirrups, got one foot atop the saddle, and threw himself across the intervening distance.
His horse carried him past the girl, who sidestepped away. She was nothing but a flash of black dress and white face as he jumped. The enemy rider’s eyes opened wide an instant before Lyram caught him around the shoulders. In a tumble of legs and arms, they spilled over the horse’s rump.
Lyram crashed to the ground, knocking the breath from him and grass whipping his face. Gasping, he forced himself to his knees, then wobbled to his feet.
The woman stood observing the spectacle. Though the soldier had struck the ground mere feet from her and was already on his feet, moving towards her, her face reflected only a resigned calmness.
The man reached for her with his free hand. Time oozed with the slowness of poured honey.
“No!” Lyram choked the word into a strangled gasp, and broke into an unsteady run.
One step.
The girl brought one long-fingered white hand up in a gesture of—what? Supplication? Forestalling? Defence even.
Two steps.
The soldier seized her by the wrist. With her other hand, she reached out and touched the boiled leather plate over his chest.
Three steps.
The sword dropped from the soldier’s fingers. In one fluid motion, he crumpled at the knees and fell face-first into the knee-high grass.
Time snapped back to normal, and Lyram skidded to a stop over the motionless soldier.
The fallen man didn’t move a muscle. Dropping to one knee, Lyram reached for the man’s neck, seeking a pulse—but he stopped before touching him. The skin was blue with such intense cold that it chilled his fingers where they hovered several inches short of contact. He let his hand drop back to his side.
A shadow darkened the dim, rainy haze of the morning and he glanced up. A colourless face loomed over him, alabaster skin, midnight hair made all the darker by contrast, and eyes so black the pupils could barely be distinguished. What he’d taken for a homespun peasant dress was instead the billowing black robe of a priestess of Ahura.
She met his gaze with a chill that should have left snowflakes in the air, and he shivered, despite the hot, sweaty aftermath of battle. This close, there was nothing of Zaheva in her stern face.
“That was not necessary,” she said, speaking Ahlleyn with the same lilting accent as Zaheva.
“Forgive me, Sister,” he answered in Tembran, a reflex response to the familiar accent of his wife, and her eyes flickered a fraction in surprise. Backing off, he sketched a bow. When he straightened and met her gaze again, the skin around her eyes tightened with suppressed emotion.
Though she couldn’t be more than a dragon’s heartbeat past twenty, if that, she wore the gravitas of a much older woman. She clutched a long, thin package, wrapped and tied round with knotted cords. At one end, the wrappings were torn open, and she was working to loosen the knots, her hands blocking his view of the object inside.
“I am Ellaeva,” she said in Ahlleyn, despite his use of her own language, and extended a hand.
The name didn’t so much ring bells as send them tolling in alarm. He knew it. Everyone knew it. Ciotach an Bhais they called her in Ahlleyn, behind her back at least. The Left Hand of Death. In other lands she was known more simply as the Death Priestess. Ahura had many priestesses dedicated to death, but only one Death Priestess.
His gaze dropped to the dead man. Well, that explained that.
Shaking her hand, particularly over the corpse of a man slain by her touch, held all the appeal of the gallows, but he met her gaze squarely and took her hand. Keeping his face calm took every ounce of will he possessed. Her grip tightened against his, her palm and fingers callused from sword work.
With their hands still clasped, she stepped nearer. He tensed, resisting the urge to pull away.
A hissing sound broke through the brightening light of the morning.
“What—?” He half-turned, but her grip held him close.
Arrows scythed down out of the sky in a deadly rain. Lyram flinched and braced for the impact, but the arrows thudded into the ground around them. His heart galloped in his chest as one arrow struck something unseen and bounced several feet away to vanish into the long grass.
“Mount up!” Ellaeva turned him towards his horse, which grazed fifty yards away in the meadow outside the hail of arrows. Still gripping his hand, she dragged him into a run.
They passed the dead soldier’s horse, thrashing and squealing in pain with arrows jutting from its flesh. At the old gate, the soldiers he saw earlier preparing to ride out were filing through the narrow aperture. A dozen, maybe more. Behind them, a fresh cloud of black arrows lifted into the air from archers lining the inside of the wall.
As they reached the horse, she released her grip, and Lyram swung up into the saddle. He reached down to offer her a hand, but she ignored it and climbed up behind him. She slipped her arms around his waist. Her touch was cool and impersonal. He almost shuddered, suppressing the reaction only through great effort.
He clapped heels to the horse’s flanks, urging it into a trot and then a gallop. Ellaeva tightened her grip as the sudden transition almost tossed her off the back of the saddle. More arrows hissed down, burying themselves in the winter-brown grass. Ellaeva prayed under her breath, a continuous stream of words just beyond comprehension, and no arrows fell in the cocoon surrounding them, though a few spun away.
Then no more arrows fell, for the enemy riders were within the range of their troops’ bows. He urged the horse on, the pink limestone of the castle battlements drawing nearer. Each stride jolted Ellaeva against him. Soldiers stood atop the parapet, waving swords and pikes. The cheers reached his ears only faintly.
“Damnation! The bridge.”
Ellaeva pressed close to his back. “What about the bridge?”
“It’s gone. Or damaged. I don’t know.”
He drew rein as they approached the edge of the moat, the cheering of his troops filling his ears.
>
Ellaeva slid down the horse’s rump and stooped to examine the bridge footings. A piece of charred timber crumbled beneath her probing foot. She glanced past him as he swung down from the saddle.
“I suggest we start swimming.” Without stopping, and with the long bundle now slung over her back, she turned and dove into the waters.
Cursing, Lyram tossed aside his borrowed helm, and struggled to pull his leather tabard and gambeson over his head. Good thing Everard hadn’t woken earlier, or he’d be peeling off his plate. A quick glance revealed the riders drawing nearer. One of them clutched a horsebow in his hand. Dragon balls, where are my archers? He searched the walls, but he was too close to tell what was going on above. He dropped the gambeson on the ground and kicked his boots off, trying to keep an eye on the castle and the riders at the same time.
Ellaeva, swimming with a strong stroke, was already halfway across. Behind him, the rider nocked an arrow.
Cursing, he dove.
As he surfaced, the cold shock of the water numbing him to the bone, arrows began falling from the walls above.
Ellaeva hauled herself out of the water, heavy black robes shedding buckets of water. Soldiers rushed out of the shadows of the barbican to help drag her to dry ground. She stiffened under their unaccustomed touch, but didn’t resist. Soon enough they’d have little desire to touch her anyway. No need to hurry it along.
A soldier thoughtfully bought towels to her, and Ellaeva draped one around her shoulders, already shivering in the brisk spring air.
Behind her, her would-be rescuer surged the last few feet through the water and seized hold of the stones edging the moat. Eager hands reached down, grabbing his arms under his shoulders, and his hands, and pulling him out of the water bodily. Suddenly abandoned in a cacophony of shouts as soldiers hustled forward to help, she stepped back until her back pressed against the cool stone of the castle wall. She cradled her wrapped sword in the crook of one elbow.
The auburn-haired warrior, rivers of water running from his body, accepted a towel and dried off his unkempt hair.
Her gaze strayed, roving around the men in search of whoever might be in charge.
One man offered her a goblet that steamed faintly in the brisk chill of the still early morning. The scent of spiced wine reached her nostrils, and she waved him off. Another man thrust a goblet at the soaked soldier.
“Mulled wine, sir?”
Sir. So he was an officer of some kind. Perhaps that explained why no one else appeared to be here to organise the mob of soldiers.
“Thanks, Padran.” The officer draped the towel over his shoulder, took the warm drink gratefully, and slapped the guard on the shoulder with his free hand.
The man smiled in response.
A good officer, then, one who knew the importance of cementing the loyalty of his men.
As the soldier started away, the officer caught him by the shoulder. “Did we lose the bridge?”
Ellaeva’s gaze drifted to the ruins of the bridge frame. Not much remained except a few blackened pylons barely sitting above the lapping water. In the distance, the enemy riders cantered back towards the ruined gate, driven off by the castle archers.
“No, sir.” The soldier stiffened into parade rest. “But the old pylons need examination before we can use it again. Even at best, I doubt it will hold a horse.”
The officer nodded and gave his man a quick salute. He looked over and met Ellaeva’s gaze, and immediately started towards her, navigating the soldiers milling in the barbican.
“You should drink,” he said. “It will warm you.”
She turned a cool eye on him, assessing him from top to toe. Water pooled at his feet from his dripping clothes. “Liquor is forbidden the Order of Ahura.”
“I thought those vows didn’t apply to you.”
She almost frowned, then smoothed her face clear of visible annoyance. Everyone seemed to think she was different. Well, she was—just not in the way they thought. Only summoned to serve once every ten generations or so, a Battle Priestess was granted any number of powers direct from the goddess. If anything, that meant she enjoyed less freedom than the average priestess of Ahura. “Yes and no. A Battle Priestess only swears some vows. The vow to do no violence is obviously waived, as is the vow of poverty—a Battle Priestess may carry a certain amount of wealth in her arms and equipment, and that is unavoidable—but the vows of loyalty and chastity, and the rule forbidding strong liquor, all remain.”
An awkward silence stretched, and he shifted uncomfortably, probably wondering why Ahura had decided to summon a Battle Priestess, and why she was here. A Battle Priestess was always called against some dire need.
The bundle under her arm slipped, and she tried to hitch it up, but fumbled. The officer caught it before it hit the cobbles. She had to force herself not to snatch it back from him, and her retrieval was less nonchalant than she’d have liked. There was no way he could know what it was, wrapped in oilskins as it was and with the cord knotted tight in a half-dozen places, but she never liked it when a man touched Ahura’s blade. Red wax bearing the impression of the dragon of Ahura sealed the knots, except at the end she’d broken open so she could use the sword’s power to deflect the arrows.
His breath smelt of whisky. So, she hadn’t imagined that out on the battlefield.
He smiled, ignoring the way she almost snatched her package from him. “Perhaps your holiness would like a hot bath? The castle has limited facilities, but we have a small bathhouse.”
“I would rather speak with the commander first.” She clutched the wrapped blade possessively to her chest.
The officer hesitated, and then his grin broadened. He bowed. “You already are.”
Her eyebrows flew up before she could stop them, but he was already striding off, calling a name and ordering the soldiers back through the close, dark confines of the barbican to the courtyard.
A balding man in lamellar armour appeared, his ginger beard speckled with grey and bristling like an angry bear, and chivvied the guards back inside.
Ellaeva followed, smoothing her expression, and followed him through the barbican. That tipsy, unkempt, and brashly cheerful man was Lyram Aharris? Had anyone noticed her surprise? In all the years she’d been reading about him, never had she imagined this.
And yet, he’d ridden out alone, believing he was all that stood between her and a rampaging army. Why? Why not send some soldiers? Why take the risk at all? She shook her head. Everything she’d read about Aharris had been about his military genius, his strategy and tactics, but very little about the man himself—aside from some untrustworthy gossip and rumour, and most of that centred around the murder of his wife.
She did know one other thing about him though. Aut agere aut mori—the ancient motto of his clan, once fallen into disuse but now taken for his own. Do or die.
Was that a clue as to why he’d come out after her?
As the tunnel cleared, soldiers shutting each of the multitude of gates as they went, the portcullis began to crank back into place. The solid clank of all the bolts on all the gates shooting home at once, driven by the gears in the gatehouse, echoed into the courtyard.
“Bring a meal to the withdrawing room,” Aharris said to a dignified, stork-like man in formal court attire. “For two. More mulled wine, and hot tea. And find Sister Ellaeva something dry to wear. She can’t sit dripping on the carpets. Perhaps the sisters can help. Then draw a hot bath. One or the other of us is going to need it.”
The man leaned close to Aharris and whispered something in his ear. The only word Ellaeva caught was “fool”, and then Aharris turned on his heel and strode off.
The grey-haired man smiled thinly at Ellaeva. It was an expression that held very little warmth, and one she’d seen on the faces of many aides determined to protect their lords, with equal assiduousness, from inconvenience or death.
“I am Everard,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him. “If you will come with me, I will escort
you to the withdrawing room where my lord will join you shortly.”
She glanced after Lyram just as he stepped into the stairwell. What interest did Rahmyr have in this man?
And was the man she hunted hidden somewhere within this castle?
Lyram glanced back before he stepped into the stairwell. Ellaeva stood listening to Everard. She must be freezing, or at the least uncomfortable, but she stood erect, not even shivering, almost as if she refused to acknowledge she stood in dripping clothes.
Iron.... Yes, that’s what he’d heard about her. Cold iron. Didn’t the religious texts say something about the hardship and deprivation a Battle Priestess must endure through her apprenticeship? Then again, wasn’t there a rumour she felt no pain? Maybe the cold didn’t touch her either.
He ducked through the well room doorway and climbed the stairwell in the left wall to his own suite. If he couldn’t bathe, at least he could change. He unbuckled his baldric, tossed it in a chair, and stripped the sodden clothes from his flesh. They peeled free with a wet squelch. The dragon cut into the basket-hilt watched him with winking ruby eyes as he padded to the wardrobe to find dry clothes. Where did he keep his spare gambeson? Everard would know. And he’d have to get a new helm for that castle soldier, from Lyram’s own coffers.
His spare boots were for court, and far too fine for this remote place, but they were all he had so he shoved his feet in them, grabbed the sword, and left the sodden pile on the floor.
He trotted back down the stairs, buckling the baldric in place and settling the sword on his hip. He brushed the dragon’s head with his fingers. Too early for dragons, this close to winter. Maybe in a few weeks. Nothing compared to that first sight of a spring dragon.
Galdron had the courtyard in better order now, and Lyram strode across to the western side without being hailed. Another spiral staircase here took him to the upper floor, and a quick walk through the guest apartments and the library brought him to the withdrawing room. He grimaced. One of the drawbacks of the castle’s triangular design was a dearth of connecting corridors and a plethora of staircases to separate sections of the upper floors.
In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1) Page 5
