by Jenna Rhodes
“We’re indeed lost if we throw everything we have at Diort and the Raymy hit our back.”
Her gaze flicked to Bistane. “Would you have me split forces and face both without enough to prevail?”
Osten looked into Lara’s face a moment, then shook his head heavily, answering in Bistane’s stead. “Of course not. We’re caught between the rock and the hard place.” He pushed himself forward and drew the map toward him. “Let’s see what we can do to make sure this becomes our advantage and not our defeat.”
They drew together and bowed their heads over the map and the small game pieces scattered upon it.
Rivergrace leaned upon the hallway wall, her small mirror cupped in her hand, her thoughts still lingering on the words she had overheard, as she withdrew a few steps, quietly, so as not to hit the boards that would invariably creak. She slipped her mirror quickly into a pocket before her shaking hand could drop it. A faint flush of guilt for having eavesdropped warmed her face, replaced by uneasy confirmation of what she had feared, that the talk might touch upon her and the queen’s treatment. Had Tressandre suggested that she might be offered? Was she no more than one of those tiny clay pieces they pushed about upon their map?
She knew, of course, that in Lara’s eyes she was not. She also knew the distrust and uneasiness she saw whenever Lariel looked her in the face since those moments by the river, a happening she could not quite remember other than as a heated and desperate power that surged through her. Something which, in Lariel’s eyes, kept her from being accepted and embraced into their society. Not one of them, and not ever to be one of them, not even to be married to a half-breed whom Lara had embraced. She knotted her fingers in her pocket. Grace could either ride upon the current of this river or she could defy it, and use it to take her where she willed. She was, she reminded herself, a Farbranch if nothing else, one of a family which Tolby Farbranch had often, and proudly, declared was so stubborn that if they fell in a river, they would float upstream.
Before she made that move, she would talk to Sevryn again, and Nutmeg. That seemed the wisest course.
Grace dropped a shoulder to turn quietly in the hallway, and hands as hard as steel caught her, and a voice that sounded as if it were rarely used and broken as a shattered reed spoke low in her ear.
“Do not move. Or cry out.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
GRACE FROZE. THE SMELL of old sweat and fresh rain, woodsmoke and horses rose from her captor, along with leather and weapon oil, and something herbal that he chewed, perhaps for a toothache, perhaps just to chew something. He drew her against his body, retreating, forcing her a few steps back from the conference room, away from the voices sharp and conciliatory, argumentative and suggestive, away from whatever help she might have cried out for. Another man moved past her, even as her captor forced her to the bend in the corridors. She recognized Quendius in his long vest of curly white wool and his regal soot-colored skin as he took an arrow from the quiver on his back and nocked it. Her breath caught. The arrowhead glinted like a crimson jewel, catching the fire of the light, and she wondered how it was no one in the conference room could see him in the doorway, bow in hand, fiery arrow aimed toward them. The man who held her tightened his grip in anticipation.
She fell limply in surrender to his pull. His weight twisted in surprise at her move, and she wrenched free, crying, “Attack!” Something loud clanged behind her with Nutmeg’s triumphant exclamation, “Tree’s blood! That should settle you!”
The conference room erupted with shouts, the scraping of chairs, and the table being overthrown. Quendius loosed his arrow as the immense form of Osten filled the doorway charging outward. The great man staggered back a step, his hand grasping at the shaft in his barrel chest as he let out a grunt of pain. But the arrow did not give to his pull and his body blocked the doorway as Quendius lowered his bow. Osten grappled with the shaft. Two daggers flew past the bulk of the general’s body toward Quendius. He dodged them nimbly, and they clattered to the floor as Osten roared in frustration. A great font of blood spewed from his mouth as the arrow drilled its way deeper into his chest, burrowing. Dropping his sword, he wrestled with it as if it were a mighty beast fastened upon his throat. He spewed blood with every cry of anger, and then sheer pain and panic filled his voice. The arrow shaft wiggled its way deep into Osten, and the gory wound swallowed even the flights. He dropped to his knees with a low moan. A greedy light filled Quendius’ face and he stood, one hand outstretched. The arrow fought its way out of Osten’s back and then, still in flight as if freshly loosed, returned to Quendius’ hand. He replaced it in the quiver and nocked a fresh arrow, aiming at the chaos before him, as Osten toppled over with a last gasping cry of shock and anger.
Grace threw herself at Quendius. A hot sting skimmed her ear as she blundered into him, but he’d already loosed the arrow and it flew, straight and clean through the air, at Lariel.
Sevryn threw her a glance, the briefest of looks, before he dropped his shoulder to fling himself across Lara and the arrow sank into the meat of his shoulder. He grunted in pain as he flung an arm back, clawing at the shaft. Grace kicked and punched and she heard the clang again, and saw a dented chamber pot being swung by its bail as the two men buffeting her fell back. Nutmeg charged them again, chamber pot resounding as it caught Quendius on the side of his jaw. Grace kicked her way free. She saw Sevryn pull the arrow shaft free and drop it. It made a sound . . . how wood could have a voice she didn’t know, but it did . . . a sound of yowling and rending that pierced the eardrums to hear it. Quendius barked out a word, and the thing returned to his hand. Both men turned in the corridor and took to their heels, leaving Nutmeg staggering in their wake, blistering their heels with Dweller curses upon themselves, their family, and every tree and root in their home. The chamber pot swung from her hand.
Then she rounded upon Grace and hugged her, holding her upright, both of them shaking. Grace only had eyes for Sevryn, as he got to his feet, his wound already staunched, and they traded looks. She recognized then the voice of the weapon: Cerat. Why had the demon not killed him as it had Osten? What further power had it awakened in Sevryn? She feared the answers as he bent over Lariel and gave his hand to help her to her feet and to Osten’s side. His face paled as the blood drained from it. Everyone else in the room began to stir, righting the table once more and getting to their own feet, moving to pull Osten from the doorway and lay his body out straight just in case, in hopes, that he was not dead.
If she thought to see love and concern in Sevryn’s face, she did not. Instead, his eyes narrowed and a fearsome, hard gleam that looked like a flame shone at the back of his pupils. She put her hand back to Nutmeg, stepping away. Like a stranger, he hadn’t come to her aid. Like a Demon, he’d gone to where blood was promised even though his action had saved Lariel. Had he intended to? More than she feared not knowing herself, she worried that neither did he.
Nutmeg dropped her mangled chamber pot. “What do we do now?”
“We leave,” Rivergrace told her and withdrew from the scene of Vaelinars mourning their dead and their loss.
Chapter Twenty-Five
LARA STOOD OUTSIDE HER CHAMBERS for a moment, wiping her hands on a cloth although she had already washed and dried them several times over. The healers had finally sent her away, saying that they would finish dressing Osten’s body for the memorial services. She put her forehead to the satiny wood of her threshold. Now she had no choice but to call upon Bistel. He would answer; Bistane had already assured her as they laid out Osten. There was no question of his answering.
It was Bistel’s faith in her that would be called to the fore. If Quendius had hoped to disrupt her plans by taking out the general in charge of her forces, he had erred grossly. The warlord Vantane had been her first general, but he had disagreed with her, firmly, about her battle plans. “It is folly,” he’d said, “to depend upon the undependable. A Way cannot be the linchpin of your victory.” And he had resigned from
his duties.
But he would know, intimately, of her plans and would step into Osten’s place smoothly, if disapprovingly. Not a single one of the troops under his command, indeed, not even his own son, would know of the real reasons he and Lara had disagreed. He would, to his death, follow the strategy she had laid down.
Only, she thought, if he believed, it would not lead to the deaths of most of them. Or so she hoped.
She wiped her hands one more time as if they still held the stain of Osten’s blood and then opened the door to her apartments. Tiiva’s head stared at her from her desk, blood pooled at the stump of its neck. A step carried her inside and the smell hit her. She flung a hand to her mouth to stifle her cry.
She held no safe ground anywhere. Her guards had not kept him from her innermost sanctuary. The living as well as the dead betrayed her.
Dear Mom and Da, A quick note before I dash off into an adventure of my own. I beg your forgiveness if I embarrass my family, but it seems I have to let my heart rule this time, even if it sends my head over my heels! Don’t be worrying about me. Weather watchers on the estate grounds say that the drought is everywhere, and I worry about your vines, Da. I have sent you some of my coin, by the Oxfort guild banker who rides through here, to help pay for the water being drawn for irrigation. The banker also told me of the news through the cities that the Gods are bending down again to talk and listen to us. I told him, silly Kernan, that the Gods never stopped talking to us, that Their Voice is in every root and leaf of everything that grows! He accused me of blasphemy, but he took my money anyway! I send you all my love wrapped in this hasty bundle! ˜ Nutmeg
Neither dawn nor Nutmeg had stirred within her rooms when Rivergrace awoke and quietly slid from bed. She took as few things as she could gather quickly without waking her sister, and then slipped out the door. A plan had crept into her dreams, rising as softly and ethereally as mist off a river, until the fog lay over her even as she began to awaken. Only this fog, instead of obscuring the landscape, seemed to sharpen and detail it for her. She needed answers she would never get by asking directly, for any information she got from a Vaelinar would be wrapped in machinations and obligation. There was only one place and one person she could go to, and she packed accordingly.
Outside the door, she wrote a few lines of farewell and reassurance on a scrap of paper and slipped it back under. Then she capped her pen and placed it with her writing things and paper in her pack, along with the other items she carried. The back stairs of the manor would be busy even this early in the morning with the laundresses and downstairs the cooks and helpers, so she took the main staircase, staying well to the shadowed side of it. Rivergrace moved as stealthily as she could despite the murmur of the wood beneath her feet.
Yesterday, the manor had been in a furor over Osten’s death until Lara’s fury had descended into grief. Grace and Nutmeg had stayed in their apartment and dined there. Grace had been scolded by her sister for stepping into harm’s way where only her own brisk use of an empty chamber pot could have saved her. Never mind that Nutmeg had just as stealthily followed Grace down to the conference rooms to spy on her, just as Rivergrace had been spying on the gathering. Whatever the reason, Grace could not argue with Meg for she had indeed been saved by the lusty wielding of one chamber pot. After scolding one another and then consoling each other, the two had finally fallen into bed where Rivergrace had lain awake for a very long time and Nutmeg had fallen into a fitful sleep where she murmured Jeredon’s name now and again, and thoughts she could no longer deny crept into Rivergrace’s mind. No one skulked about the hallways today to stop her, although she breathed shallowly and stepped lightly just in case. Once outside, she took a deep breath before heading to the stables.
Outside, a predawn chill lay on the ground, with clouds simmering on the crest of the mountains beyond the forests. It might clear today or it might rain or sleet. She pulled the hood up on her cloak and drew the ties close. The hem of the cloak swirled along with bits of frost and fog as it swept along the ground. Inside the stable yard she could see gusts of breath from the warmer horses as the stable lads turned them out for the morning, even before their hooves and eyes flashed as they frisked into the briskness of the day, and loped into the pastures awaiting them. She watched them as they charged from the barn at a controlled speed, their ears up, their luxurious manes and tails cascading about them as they plunged from the barn door to the whistles and chirps of the lads who cared for them. It occurred to her that she’d outsmarted herself, for there wouldn’t be a horse left in the barn for her to take. She slowed as she neared the yard.
Her fear lessened as she saw the farrier stoking up his small fire and forge, and sharpening his hoof cutters. He looked up and gave her a wave, his heavy leather apron protecting him from the cold of the wintery morning, its hide scarred with teeth marks and even hoofprints.
One of the stable lads came out with a barrel of muck and stopped. His face curved in a smile. “Fair mornin’, m’lady Rivergrace. Out for a ride this early?”
“Before all the talking and the memorial begins seems the best time to go. Have you anyone for me that isn’t turned out?”
“Oh, I’ve a handful or so still in their stalls, impatient and stamping the ground.” He appraised her. “I imagine you want a sweet-tempered sort, with a good gait and stamina. You’re not the kind to go racing after the hounds and hawks.”
She smiled. “That would do me just fine.”
“I’ll get Long Shanks, then. Be back in just a bit.” He muscled his steaming cartload of pungent muck off to the far side of the yards, to be spread and herbed and dried before it would be turned into the fallow fields. The stink lingered after him and Rivergrace rubbed at her nose, trying to stave off a sneeze.
She was not expecting an elegant-lined tashya horse to be led out to her, but when the lad reappeared, he had a tawny, black-pointed gelding by the halter, with head held high and ears flicking back and forth as though deciding what to make of her. Long-legged and groomed within an inch of his life, his hide shone like a newly minted gold coin. His forelock was so long, the gelding had to tilt his head a little to eye her, and he did it with a slightly vain cast that reminded her so much of the handsome Lord Bistane that Grace had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing at her thought. The sun, peeking in and out of the clouds, set his tawny hide to looking like bronze, well polished and rich. The lad brought out the tack, finished his grooming quickly, and began to equip the horse for riding.
“Quite right not to laugh at him,” the lad said, his hands moving in fast, efficient blurs. “He’s a pretty one and he knows it, but it’s not his fault. We’ve all been telling him that for all of his years, and he listened. He’s got the smoothest stride of any horse in the queen’s stable, and he’ll take you as far as you want to go.”
“Oh, I’m not going far,” Rivergrace said. She tried to hide her daypack somewhat behind her riding skirt.
“I would, iffen it were me. The lords and ladies will come pouring in here soon enough, and their demands and airs and such, looking for a hard ride to chase away the grief. We’ve seen ’em all before. Begging your pardon if you’re friends with any of ’em,” he added, with a slight blush, as he tightened the girth and began to check the strength of the stirrups and other bindings. He both soothed with his hands and straightened, and the gelding leaned against him a little in affection, lipping at his sleeve.
“You can’t be calling him Long Shanks.” A name liked that belonged to a Dweller or Kernan mount, not befitting one of the sleek tashyas.
The lad chuckled. “No, m’lady, indeed not. His name is Barad, meaning in the Vaelinar tongue, well-struck.”
He translated easily for her as if she did not look Vaelinar enough to know the language, although the word was one she wasn’t familiar with. Even he could not tell her lineage other than she was a favorite of the Warrior Queen. Her cheeks stung a little as the lad pressed the horse’s reins into her hand.<
br />
“Shall I be tellin’ ’em where you’re off to?”
Rivergrace shook her head. “I’ll be back soon enough, and today is not a day for merrymaking, is it?”
“Indeed not, ma’am. Osten Drebukar left a mighty hole to be filled, that’s to be sure. The hunters came back from the hills late, their horses worn and blowin’ hard, but not a sign of th’ murderers had they found. So don’t be riding off far, now.” The lad looked vindicated as she swung up and slung her daypack from her shoulders. She fit her boots into the stirrups and let him shorten them a bit more for her and inspect them, making sure she would be comfortable. He patted Barad on the withers. “He’ll take you as fast as you want to go. He’ll run his heart out for you, but don’t be letting him, aye?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I won’t.”
Satisfied, the lad slapped a hand on Barad’s rump, sending them clattering out of the stable yard and onto the open road. What he did not tell her was that he had sent Lord Sevryn out even earlier, when the dark purple cloak of night still hung heavily upon the skies, and he’d ridden out much quieter, and took a different road out of the stable yard. The lad watched her go much as he had the other, none the wiser for their missions nor even particularly curious as to what drove them on their way. Such curiosity, he’d learned, did not befit a mere lad of the stables.
Rivergrace deliberately did not take the lanes. She turned Barad’s head to follow the Andredia and so the gelding did, with a spring in his long-striding walk, and curious ears flipping back and forth as they startled birds and small animals from their path. He did not startle when they flushed and scurried out of the way, but he did let out a whicker now and then, or a chuff, as if to acknowledge they had both been surprised. The brief rain of the day before had left dew sparkling in the grass and the gelding’s hooves struck and scattered the drops like diamonds as he took her along the riverbed, the holdings of the Warrior Queen falling farther and farther behind them.
