by David Weber
Trâram nodded. Corporal Fûrkhan Mûrsam was as hard-bitten and experiencedas they came. He’d never been promoted above corporal because he found it difficult to remain sober in garrison, but he never drank in the field. Indeed, he seemed to get steadily more levelheaded and focused as the crap got deeper and deeper.
“He says he personally saw at least twenty and probably twenty-five of Markhos’ armsmen down, and maybe as many as a half-dozen of his damned ‘guests’ and their servants. That matches fairly well with what I’m getting from the others, although I’m inclined to think it may be a little overly optimistic, myself. And that doesn’t include the Phrobus-damned wind riders.”
Trâram nodded again. Assuming the corporal’s estimate was correct, there couldn’t be more than a score of armsmen left, and he had fifteen of his surviving crossbowmen bellied down in the woods within fifty yards of the gate. The Sothōii had already lost two more armsmen they were in no position to spare discovering he had no intention of allowing them to close that gate. They’d declined to lose any more in the effort, which at least meant he wasn’t going to have to go across the wall if he tried a second attack.
If not for the wind riders, he wouldn’t have hesitated, and he’d have mounted the followup as quickly as possible, while the defenders had to be at least as disorganized as he was. Of course, if it hadn’t been for the damned wind riders, he wouldn’t have needed to launch a second attack, either. On the other hand, he knew about them now. They wouldn’t have the advantage of surprise the second time around, and he still outnumbered Markhos’ guardsmen by at least three-to-one. And for that matter, the wind riders’ presence made it even more urgent that he get in there and finish them off along with the rest of the hunting lodge’s occupants.
If he gave this operation up as a bad idea now, he rather doubted they’d simply decide to let him go. No, they’d do everything they could to lay him and his men by their heels, and it was distinctly possible they might figure out where he was headed. If they did, and chose not to ride directly after him, it was all too likely that something with a courser’s speed and endurance could reach the Spear at one of the riverside towns downstream from his rendezvous with the barges well before he could sail down the river past them. And if they managed that, it wouldn’t be difficult for the authorities to send boats to Nachfalas, his only way down the Escarpment from here, to wait for his arrival. Assuming, of course, that they didn’t have enough boats on hand to simply come after him in midstream themselves.
As long as those accursed coursers were in a position to do that, he couldn’t count on breaking contact and getting away clean. Even if he could, his employer was unlikely to be pleased. The assassination of a king was a serious matter, and if the mission failed, he might decide it was time to snip off any loose ends that could lead back to him. Trâram had no desire to spend what remained of his life looking over his shoulder waiting for the dog brothers to catch up with him.
There are only two of them, Erkân, he reminded himself. Of course there was that third courser to worry about. But now that he knew it was there, and now that his crossbowmen could bring their own missile weapons to bear through the open gate, the enormous chestnut was simply one more unarmored horse. It was the other two coursers and that heavy barding of theirs. If he could just come up with a way to take them out of action, or at least find a way to get close enough to hamstring them without getting trampled into red mud first...
He paused, eyes narrowing suddenly, then stooped and picked up a handful of the forest’s deep leaf mold. He looked at it for a moment, then closed his fist and listened to the dry leaves crackle as he crushed them, and he smiled.
* * *
Leeana looked up as Dathgar and Gayrfressa arrived almost simultaneously at the veranda rail while Sir Jerhas Macebearer tied off the bandage on her gashed ribs.
The cut wasn’t especially deep, although it had bled freely, but she was grateful for the dressing. She was also more than a little surprised the Prime Councilor had insisted on personally assisting her with it.
Not that there weren’t more than enough wounded to keep everyone else with any healing skill busy, she reflected grimly, listening to the moans of the wounded and dying men littered across the courtyard. She gazed at that carpet of writhing bodies—and the ones which would never writhe again—and knew her childhood memories of Chergor would never be the same.
“Leeana?” Her father had raised the visor of his helmet and his voice was sharp with the same concern she felt welling out of Gayrfressa.
Macebearer glanced up over his shoulder.
“Your daughter’s going to be fine, Tellian,” he said, and Leeana’s eyebrows rose as he called her that.
“It’s more than a scratch, but it’s also shallow and clean,” the Prime Councilor continued as she lowered the bloodied shirt she’d raised to let him get at the wound. “We’ve both seen people take far worse in their first fight, at any rate.” His lips twitched in something midway between a smile and a grimace. “And we’re lucky she was here to take it; without her, they would’ve carried the veranda and gotten to the King after all. It hurts my pride to admit it, but she’s not just better with a blade than I am now. I’m afraid she’s better than I ever was. And”—the fleeting almost-smile disappeared and his voice went harder—“the number of these bastards the two of you killed between you should convince just about anyone that you weren’t the one behind the attack.”
“I hope you don’t expect some of them to admit that,” Tellian said, never looking away from Leeana.
“Probably not,” the Prime Councilor replied, standing back and leaning against one of the veranda’s supports while he watched Leeana tuck her shirt back in. “It’s a point I intend to make, however, since your daughter’s warning—not to mention her sword skill—means I’ll be around to make it.”
“That’s the second time you’ve called her my daughter,” Tellian observed, and Macebearer shrugged.
“Did you think I thought you’d stopped loving her just because she become a war maid? I’m sure it would shock any number of our lords warden to hear me say it, but at the moment I don’t really care very much.” He snorted a sudden chuckle. “No doubt I’ll get over it in the fullness of time, but at least for the moment, I think it’s more important for her to be who the two of you think she is than who the law says she is.”
Tellian looked at him for a long, still moment, then nodded and looked back at his daughter. She saw the worry in his eyes, the darkness deep within them as he tried to keep them from clinging to the blood on her shirt and the stain where it had run down over her breeches.
“Are you really all right, love?” he asked in a much gentler tone, and she knew he was asking about far more than a cut.
“As close to it as anyone could be,” she told him honestly.
She looked down at her right hand, wondering why it wasn’t quivering the way it felt it ought to be, thinking about how many of those dead and dying men in the courtyard had been put there by that very hand, and tried to understand her own feelings. She didn’t—not really—and if she didn’t understand them herself, how was she supposed to explain them to him? She thought about that for a moment, then looked back up at him.
“I’ll be all right, anyway,” she said. “That’s probably the best anyone can say after his—or her—first fight, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
She’d never heard her father sound quite like that, and a deep, heart-melting surge of love went through her as their eyes met. She was his daughter, and the daughters of Sothōii nobles were supposed to be protected, cherished—kept safe. He’d never in his worst nightmare expected to see his daughter, the treasure of his heart, whirling through a cauldron of blood, screams, and shearing steel. And yet, despite the terror he must have felt, despite the bone-deep training which insisted in his heart of hearts, whatever his mind might tell him, that women—and especially his daughter—had no business shedding their blood,
or anyone else’s, he was fighting so hard to keep that dread, that fear, from showing. He was failing, but that only made her love him even more for trying.
“Sir Jerhas is right,” Tellian continued, looking at the bodies sprawled on and about the veranda. “Without your warning, they would’ve overrun us before we even knew they were here, and that doesn’t even count this.” He gestured briefly at the bodies. “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t think we’ll be discussing this in any great detail with your mother, and at the moment I find myself really wishing you’d never become a war maid, but”—he looked straight into her eyes—“I’m proud of you.”
“I had good teachers,” Leeana said.
“I’m sure you did. But I’ve just decided what to give you and Bahzell for a wedding present.” Leeana cocked her head, and he snorted harshly. “If you’re going to be a wind rider, you need the armor to go with it, and I happen to have friends in Dwarvenhame. I’m sure they can help us out with that.”
Leeana laughed just a bit shakily and turned back to Macebearer.
“I appreciate the bandage, Sir Jerhas. I only hope you didn’t shock the rest of the King’s gentlemen too severely.”
“I’m sure some of them will be suitably horrified later,” the Prime Councilor said dryly. “For now, I doubt somehow anyone’s likely to make any...inappropriate remarks. And as for the propriety of it,” his blue eyes twinkled suddenly as they cut briefly to Tellian’s face, “my younger daughter is at least ten years your senior, young lady. I believe I can put a bandage on your ribs without being overwhelmed by lust.”
Leeana blinked at him. For a moment, she was certain she’d imagined his last sentence, but those blue eyes gleamed, and she heard something shockingly like a crack of laughter from her father’s direction as the Prime Councilor stroked his luxurious mustache and returned her goggle-eyed look with a bland smile.
“I see you have hidden depths, Milord,” she told him finally, and he chuckled. But then he sobered and shook his head.
“I won’t pretend I suddenly approve of the entire notion of war maids,” he said, “because I don’t. But without you, my King would be dead. Whatever I think of the choices you’ve made, nothing can erase that debt.”
“No, it can’t,” another voice said, and Leeana turned quickly as King Markhos stepped out onto the veranda.
The King looked around the body-littered courtyard, his expression hard, and anger smoked in his eyes. Anger made even worse, Leeana realized, because he’d been denied the right to strike a single blow in his own defense.
She doubted Swordshank could have enforced that edict if Markhos had brought along his own armor. It had been difficult enough as it was, yet the King had been forced to acknowledge the overriding logic of his personal armsman’s argument. If he fell, their attackers won, whatever their losses; if he lived, then his guardsmen won, even if not one of them survived. He owed it to those guardsmen—and especially to the ones who were certain to fall in his defense—to live. To make their sacrifice count. And so while every instinct cried out to join the battle, he’d made himself accept the far harder task of waiting at the center of his defenders’ ring of swords while they died to protect him.
“I can think of very few men, noble or common, who have ever served the Crown as well as you have this day,” he said now, turning back to Leeana. He glanced up at her father, but his eyes came back to meet hers, and his voice was level. “And I can think of none at all who have ever served it better. I stand in your debt, and my house remembers its debts.”
Leeana flushed and shook her head quickly.
“Your Majesty, I’m scarcely the only—”
“Of course you aren’t,” he interrupted her, looking out over the courtyard once more, watching a half dozen of Swordshank’s surviving armsmen dragging wounded assassins out of the pile of dead and dying. His bodyguards’ expressions suggested those prisoners would soon be telling their captors everything they knew, and his eyes hardened with grim satisfaction as he continued speaking to Leeana.
“The Crown owes a debt to a great many people today, and I’m afraid it isn’t the sort anyone can truly pay. But I overheard at least a portion of your conversation, and Sir Jerhas is right. Without you and your wind sister, all of my armsmen would have fallen in my defense...and they would have fallen in vain. Your father”—the King’s expression didn’t even flicker as he called Baron Tellian that—“has always served me and the Kingdom well, yet there have been times, especially of late, when that service has threatened to turn the entire Kingdom topsy-turvy, as well. I suppose there’s no reason I should expect his daughter to be any different in that regard.”
Leeana opened her mouth. Then she closed it again, and Macebearer chuckled.
“I think—” he began, then broke off as Gayrfressa’s head snapped up. The mare wheeled, looking to the east, and her remaining ear went flat.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Trâram watched the first flight of flaming arrows trace lines of smoke across the sky and smiled thinly. He hadn’t had many archers to begin with, and it had become painfully evident in the assault across the wall that the ones he did have weren’t as good as King Markhos’ armsmen.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to be for what he had in mind.
The steeply pitched, cedar-shingled roofs of the main lodge, the stables, and the enclosed barracks showed clearly above the cursed ornamental wall. They were big targets, and the plunging arrows struck firmly into them. Within seconds, more smoke began to curl upward, and Trâram’s smile broadened. The defenders had economized on manpower by defending the buildings, firing from cover as his men crossed the wall and falling back on the doors and windows as the attack rolled in. But large and ornate as the lodge was, the entire area enclosed by its wall wasn’t all that spacious, and after the casualties they’d taken in the initial assault, the King and his guardians couldn’t possibly have enough manpower for firefighting on top of everything else. Once the buildings were nicely alight, they’d be driven from cover, forced to huddle in the limited space where nothing would burn and hemmed in by torents of heat and moke. They’d find their defensive options badly cramped when that happened.
Flames began to leap and dance along the roofs, the columns of smoke growing thicker and denser, beginning to billow on the fires’ growing updraft. He watched those columns climb and waited.
* * *
Some of the armsmen and servants dashed for the watering troughs and the lever-arm pumps that served them. It was an instinctive reaction, but one Leeana knew instantly was futile. There were simply too many arrows, too many separate pools of flame spreading across those roofs, and her heart sank as she pictured what the heat and smoke were going to do to their ability to defend the King.
But then she heard a sound even more horrifying than that thought—the screams of panicked horses.
“The stables!” she shouted, and ran madly across the courtyard, ignoring the scattered rain of burning arrows hissing out of the heavens. More feet pounded behind her, following her towards the stables with the bone-deep instinct of all Sothōii.
Hooves thundered on box stalls, more whistling screams of terror rose from within the smoke, and Leeana heaved desperately at the bar across the stable doors. Someone skidded to a halt beside her, helping her, throwing the locking bar aside, grabbing the huge double door panels and hauling them wide. Smoke, heat, and those bone chilling screams b
illowed out of them, and Leeana coughed as she ran into the heart of chaos.
She flung open the stalls nearest to the entrance, dodging frantically as the horses in them threw their weight against the opening doors. Those horses saw light, knew where the door was, and terror gave them wings. They thundered out of the stable, fleeing madly from the crackling flames, and Leeana coughed again, harder. The smoke was incredible, and the stablemaster had stored a loft full of hay against the coming winter. Burning bits of shingle and roofing timber spilled into the loft, and the dried hay caught instantly. White smoke joined the seething coils of wood smoke, and it was suddenly impossible to see more than a foot or two through the choking, suffocating waves of heat.
Leeana heard her hoofed sister, but even Gayrfressa’s voice was lost and far away, somewhere beyond the immediacy of her mission. She staggered in the blinding smoke, finding the stall latches by feel more than by sight, throwing them open, but these horses couldn’t see the entrance, and even if they could have, crackles of flame danced and leapt between them and the stable door. The path to escape and life lay between those flames, but they eyed the wall of smoke with ominous red glare, and the panicky horses shied away from the visible menace. They reared and trumpeted madly, deadly in their terror, and Leeana jumped aside, barely in time, as one of them blundered blindly deeper into the death trap of the burning stables.
She caught another by the halter, and was nearly dragged from her feet by the terrified creature. She managed to hang on, wishing desperately that she could somehow bandage its eyes, but that would have taken an extra set of hands. All she could do was speak to it as soothingly as the tumult of sound and her own coughing breath would allow while she dragged it towards safety.
She’d managed to get it almost all the way to the entrance when a flaming bit of debris landed on its croup. The fiery piece of wreckage wasn’t especially large, but the burned horse squealed and bolted forward, nearly trampling her as it broke free of the stable. She staggered, almost falling, then started back into the roaring inferno once more.
