The carriage and its protectors were located directly in the middle of the thickest part of the army, and Nic had no doubt the fighting would be brutal—which made his next words even more difficult. “I have to go, Aron. And I need Tek.”
Aron went stiff in his saddle, and didn’t even turn to confront Nic’s bold statement. Nic sensed Aron using his own mind-talents to assess the truth of Nic’s statement, and felt his friend sag forward when he found it.
For a long few moments, Aron didn’t move at all. As Nic well understood, knowing the truth and acting on it were two different struggles.
At last, wordless and wooden in his motions, Aron placed Tek’s reins on the talon’s neck. Snakekiller and Stormbreaker offered no argument, but Nic saw Snakekiller check the cinching on her stirrups and refasten the strap on her nearest scabbard.
“You can’t go with me,” he said.
“I will ride beside you,” came her response, absolute and unwavering. “If I can’t accompany you to your ultimate destination, I’ll see you as far as I can—or as far as I’m able.”
Nic weighed this as Aron slipped out of the saddle and landed nimbly on the ground. Nic slid himself forward and took Tek’s reins in his own hands, and he understood that Snakekiller would be going with him.
He hadn’t seen that in his visions, but he should have.
Snakekiller would never leave him unprotected, though when he reached the Mab army, she would have to turn back or seek shelter. Nic didn’t have time to weigh out what this would mean, or sort it out in his visions of the future.
All he knew was that when he came face-to-face with his mother again, when he at last stared down her madness and forced her to acknowledge him and the reality of her choices and actions, he would have to do so alone.
Nic paused only to give Aron time to mount Stormbreaker’s bull and secure himself behind his former guild master in the saddle.
“If I don’t come back—” he began, but Aron stopped him with a loud curse.
“Don’t,” Aron said. “Telling me the future—I can’t stand it, Nic.”
“One possible future.” Nic drew a breath, and took a bigger risk. “See to Dari if I don’t come back. I want your word on that, Aron. And see—” Nic’s voice cracked, but he forced out the rest of his words. “And see to my son. I’m counting on you.”
Aron turned to gape at Nic then, and so did Stormbreaker. Some of the nearby Stone Brothers murmured amongst themselves, but Nic couldn’t worry about what they might be saying or thinking. He could only stare at Aron, at the man who had forced him to live, what seemed like four or five lifetimes ago.
“I’ll do it,” Aron said. “I’ll take care of them as best I can. I promise.”
“As do I,” Stormbreaker said, touching his chest to make the promise an oath.
Snakekiller gave no promises, but then, she didn’t have to. Nic had no doubt that if Snakekiller survived and he did not, she would shadow Dari and his unborn child like a viper, silent and deadly to any who might approach them meaning harm.
“When you draw your blades, don’t stop cutting,” Nic told Aron as he turned Tek and aimed the talon north, toward the Mab army. This advice was the best he could do to stay true to the visions he had seen, without burdening Aron with knowledge of the future.
Nic urged Tek forward, with Snakekiller falling in beside him.
“If fate truly does favor the foolish,” Nic said, “I’ll see you again.”
He and Snakekiller plunged into the woods on the far side of the byway, and behind them, the Stone Brothers let loose with a blood-stilling battle-scream. The sound rose like one voice, joined by the trumpets and bellows of the bull talons.
Tek shrilled in response, as did Snakekiller’s bull. Their battle rings sprang outward, spraying oil in every direction.
Nic wiped the stinging, foul liquid from his eyes, relieved, at least, for that excuse for his tears.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
DARI
When Dari captured Aron’s mental image of her sister’s location, she thought she was going to explode. Her Stregan essence felt like an immutable force, tearing at her mind and insides, demanding release.
But Nic warned her.
She couldn’t.
She had to stay in her human form.
Why hadn’t he been the one to speak to her through the Veil?
She would have taken such strength from his mental touch. His absence and slight felt like a hot oil in her belly, but she had no time for minor pains and grievances.
Sword drawn, galloping behind her grandfather with two Ross Guard on either side of her, Dari roared with rage and frustration even as she heard Aron’s battle-cry through the Veil. The sound was magnified by her surging desire to shift, but she held herself back.
Her grandfather charged forward behind his small vanguard, with less than forty soldiers comprising the force behind him.
Dari intended to count for five men, or even ten. She couldn’t see her grandfather’s face, but she felt his fury and determination like a moving wall that would crush anything between them and Kate.
She raised her sword as they burst from the tree cover at the edge of the valley.
The attention of the south side of the Brailing forces had been completely captured by the charging, screeching row of bull talons and Stone Brothers storming down from the main byway into the valley around Triune.
They scarcely had time to turn toward this new attack, much less position their pikes to menace mounted soldiers.
Dari’s guard split wide, taking on any foot soldier who charged toward them. Toronado trampled men under his wide, sharp hooves as Dari swung at helmets and shields and blades. Anything that moved. Anything she saw.
Keep moving, her grandfather commanded, aloud and through the Veil. If we hesitate, we die, and you will not be dying this day.
Like a massive, dark plow, he and his vanguard cleared the field in front of Dari. With each severing sweep of his blade, her grandfather showed why he had long ago earned his nickname—the Sword of Elder. His arm and his tempered steel were little more than a bloody blur, and his battle-bellows terrified whoever he failed to kill on the first strike.
Dari reached for those same talents within her own soul. If they were his, then they could be hers as well. She was his granddaughter. She was his rightful heir, no matter what Eyrie might know or believe—and on the battlefield of Triune, she was determined to fell whatever beast or man the Sword of Elder might miss.
Her grandfather’s legacy surrounded Dari, the full force of his Ross mind-talent, shielding her from any attack she might not expect, protecting her from any form of mental assault. Blood flecked her arms and legs and face, and the stench of sweat and fear and gore made her insides heave. Each impact sent stinging bolts from her fingers to her shoulder. Her arm ached and tingled from blow after blow. Her whole body seemed to jar half out of its saddle whenever her sword connected with another sword, or a neck, or an arm, and soon her sides heaved like Toronado’s. She didn’t look at the men she killed, but she felt them die, every one of them, and she didn’t even know if she was sorry.
“For Kate!” she cried as she raised her sword again, again, again. Throats opened beneath the force of her slashing and driving. Men screamed. Men choked on their own life’s fluids, but she spared them not even a glance. She kept Toronado close to her grandfather’s stallion, even when her guards fell under the onslaught of the Brailing soldiers.
Stinging fire seemed to spread along Dari’s legs as blades nicked her calves. Guardsmen clad in Brailing blues and yellows charged ever closer to her. Pikes jabbed at Toronado, and the stallion’s terrible squeals of pain only doubled the force of Dari’s thrusts. She blocked blows, knocked away two spiraling daggers and struck down spear after spear after spear. Her breeches soon hung in rags, and her leather boots had been sliced open.
Keep moving! came Lord Ross’s repeated command, as compelling as any Aron could give, and Dari m
oved. Left, then right, then left again. She struck out with her sword, and with her graal, too, knocking back anything that drew near to her.
Throaty trumpets of talons drew closer, and even through her grandfather’s protections, Dari sensed Aron’s presence thundering toward her.
She didn’t sense Nic’s.
Was Aron shielding Nic?
Her eyes widened, and the battlefield came into sharper focus.
Ross Guard were dropping so fast she couldn’t even figure how many were left.
Where was that carriage?
Had they turned astray in the madness?
They weren’t going to make it!
Her chest tightened until she could barely force herself to gulp air.
The talons and Stone Brothers hurtled toward what was left of the Ross soldiers, crushing the Brailing soldiers between the two groups even as more Brailing Guard rushed in to try to surround them all. From farther ahead near the castle came the crashing boom of a battering ram striking wood, and the smash-crash of catapulted stones blasting into the castle walls.
Battle-cries rippled along the battlements, adding to the morass of sound and stink and movement filling Dari’s senses.
A burly Brailing man with a mace waded toward her out of the blur, knocking aside Ross Guard like they were no more than twigs.
She jerked her stallion’s lead to avoid him, but not in time.
The big, spiked metal hammer caught Toronado in the chest, and her faithful stallion spilled beneath her, his wild consciousness tearing free from Dari’s mind and shredding a piece of her heart. Dead. He was dead before his big, beautiful body even struck the bloody ground.
Dari half jumped, half fell free of him, shouting at the loss, then screaming as her sword flew from her grip and planted itself tip first in the dirt.
She, however, never struck the ground.
Powerful hands gripped her forearms and swept her straight out of the air.
She looked up, hopeful, expecting to see Blath or Iko or another Sabor, shifting into full gryphon form and hoisting her above the battle to fly her straight to Kate.
Instead, she slammed into the oily, smelly side of a lumbering bull talon.
Scales scratched her face as for a moment she saw Aron. Felt the soothing, forceful surge of Aron’s graal.
Then he was gone, dropping away and striking the ground beside her at a full run, short sword and dagger in hand, but quickly falling behind.
Dari scrambled for balance behind Stormbreaker, and he turned loose her arm as she grabbed his waist. Lightning blasted around her, and thunder seemed to shake the skies.
Stormbreaker. Aron.
They had been riding together?
“Where is Nic?” she shouted to Stormbreaker, but her words were lost in the roar of the battle and the endless clamor of weather from his renegade graal. He trembled beneath her grip, and she realized his energy was almost at full ebb. Instinct drove her to reach for his thoughts, to offer some of her own graal to fuel him, but he shoved her efforts away.
Yellow bolts from the sky fractured the ground near Brailing soldiers, sending them flying like children’s toys. Rain broke out in patches, and wind knocked down yet more Guardsmen attempting to charge at Lord Ross. Brailing horsemen, just now joining the fray, fought with their mounts, horses hardened and trained to battle, but not to withstand thunder exploding next to their sensitive ears, or explosions of lightning ripping up the earth around their hooves.
Stormbreaker was using his legacy. He was fighting with both swords and his mind. Dari had never imagined he would do it—and never imagined how much damage he could do. Though he didn’t seem to be killing anyone directly with his bursts of energy, he laid low entire sections of the Brailing force.
A rushing contingent of Brailing swordsmen stopped short of Dari, Stormbreaker, and her grandfather, seeming to be confused. They stared down at their weapons, or flung them away like they might be writhing, biting rodents. A few began to scream and run hard away from the battle. Nearby horses seemed to grow addled and run in random directions. Any fighter who came too close to Dari or her grandfather met a strange fate at the tip of a lightning bolt, or staggered as if struck by a sudden blight of dullness, forgetting to fight altogether.
Sapphire light played across the chaotic retreat of the nearest Brailing forces.
The few warriors who fought through the first blast of Aron’s graal commands fell dead before they could raise their weapons. Three men. Five. More than that. Ranks of Brailing Guard twitched, jumped, and collapsed as if Cayn had stormed onto the battlefield to gore them all.
Dari ripped at the sides of Stormbreaker’s robes, knowing what it must be costing Aron to kill in such a fashion.
The bull talon nearest to Stormbreaker snatched a horse from the ground and flung it, rider and all, into another group of horsemen.
Dari realized Snakekiller wasn’t nearby, but she caught a hint of her snakelike energy—from far away, a mile or more in the distance.
Stormbreaker reined in his bull, causing Dari to pull herself closer to him, then push back as Lord Ross, swords sheathed and expression near panicked, reined his stallion next to them.
“Here!” he shouted, and Dari shoved off, leaping from Stormbreaker’s talon into her grandfather’s arms. He caught her and hoisted her onto the saddle in front of him, then drew one sword and pressed it into her palm. “Take the right,” he told her, and she shifted to lean in that direction.
He leaned to the left and drew his other sword.
Both of them swung their blades at onrushing soldiers, slicing as they rumbled forward, his stallion wheezing and laboring beneath their combined weight.
From the corner of her eye, Dari saw Stormbreaker’s big bull flap its wings, leap toward the sky as he shouted and let loose a barrage of thunder, and drop its full weight onto a clutch of archers readying arrows.
The wet, crunching smash almost made her vomit, but she kept swinging, had to keep swinging, as her grandfather clung to the waistband of her breeches to keep her in the saddle.
Flashes of red ahead of them drew her attention.
At first she thought they were charging into a group of bloodied soldiers, but then she recognized the brilliant cardinal robes of the Thorn Guild.
Dari’s snarl was matched only by her grandfather’s as the covered carriage Aron had shown Dari and Lord Ross in his mind-picture came clearly into view.
Kate.
Almost there.
Thorn Brothers ringed the carriage, three men deep, each wielding two barbed swords. They had no graal that Dari could see, no expression on their pale faces, and they didn’t seem to want to move their weapons. They weren’t even in tight formation, as if they assumed Dari and her grandfather would make no attempt to breach their ranks.
“Not much time,” Lord Ross said as he once more pulled back on his stallion’s reins and jumped from his saddle. “Find your sister.”
Dari vaulted off the horse and landed beside her grandfather. Her shredded boots fell from her feet, and her breeches and tunic hung on her like unsewn strips of cloth. Blood oozed from dozens of tiny wounds, but the pain was manageable, at least for the moment. Smoke and flame and the sweet-sick stench of fresh death made her eyes water, but that cleared her vision of soot and dirt. She coughed and spit out a mouthful of battlefield dust as they stopped shy of the Thorn Guard, swords at the ready.
Behind the Thorn Guard and the carriage they protected, just across the moat, Triune’s main gate and keep loomed like the valley’s last sentinel. The Stone Brothers and other fighters spaced along its battlements moved only to knock away flaming arrows or hurled rocks and spears.
Dari reached out with her graal, slamming the entire force of her mind against the carriage before her, but she sensed nothing. Felt nothing.
“Kate!” she screamed, as if her sister could hear her above the unbelievable din of the battle unfolding around them.
The carriage door opene
d—but it wasn’t Kate who came forth.
Stormbreaker and the remaining Stone Brothers reached them on talon-back, forming two lines of protection on either side of Dari and her grandfather. They were joined by the few surviving Ross Guardsmen as Dari stared through the ranks of Thorn Brothers.
At toddlers and very young children.
Three, then five, then ten, now fifteen or more—spilled out of the carriage. They wore red robes like fully vested members of the Thorn Guild, and each bore a thorny spiral tattoo on their right cheek—no matter how small that cheek might be. It seemed like a bad joke or some dark travesty, like these children were nothing but dolls dressed to be guild members.
“Some of them are barely out of diapers,” Lord Ross rumbled, and Dari heard and shared his distress.
No wonder the Thorn Brothers weren’t moving.
Who could swing those awful, spiked swords so close to a group of unarmed children?
Dari couldn’t imagine cutting her way toward them. What if the children moved, or got in the way? Cutting down grown men trying to kill her was one thing—but this?
“How could Thorn carry a load of tiny children into a battle?” she asked, but even as she spoke, she tried to use her mind-talents to better understand these little ones, or see what she could do to protect them.
Once more, she found nothing, sensed nothing—not even the life essence of these children. Yet they were very much alive. None were crying. None had thumbs in their mouths, or bottles, or soothers. None had the soft, innocent look children of that age should possess.
“They’re completely shielded,” Lord Ross said. “Someone’s blocking our ability to touch their thoughts more thoroughly than I’ve ever sensed before.”
Dari’s more powerful graal told her something much, much worse.
She couldn’t stop staring into the bright eyes, blue and green and even golden. She might not be able to see the colors and strengths of their legacies, but their eyes spoke loudly enough.
A Prince Among Killers Page 33
