But Timon and his men had gone no more than a mile when a large group of Riders led by Cassius intercepted them, every man armed with a rifle.
According to previous plans, Timon’s Riders assembled in formation behind him. This was the test, of his Riders and Cassius’s, family against family. It would be impossible to avoid casualties.
Cassius made the first move, kicking his horse into a hard run and brandishing his rifle as if he meant to scare Timon off with a display of aggression. Timon rode out to meet him, his own rifle at the ready.
“Surrender,” Cassius shouted, “and there need be no deaths.”
“What have you done, Cassius?” Timon called. “How many of our beliefs have you already betrayed?”
Cassius aimed his rifle and shot one of the Riders behind Timon. The man fell from his horse without a sound. Timon returned fire, but Cassius had already turned his horse around and was galloping back to his own lines.
There was no order to the battle, no rules. The two groups fell on each other, using their rifles to shoot and club, Brother against Brother. More men fell, some with looks of bewilderment on their faces, as if they didn’t understand how things had turned so rotten.
Timon fought with the rest, but Cassius stayed out of his reach. As Timon’s numbers thinned, he began to feel as if he were drowning in a merciless sea of death and horror. It was one thing to ask his Brothers to fight their own people, and another thing to see it, see men he knew die one by one.
Then Garret fell, a bullet in his shoulder. Timon jumped from Lazarus’s saddle and knelt beside his father, checking the wound.
“I’ll live,” Garret croaked. But Timon knew that Garret’s body was too weak to heal such a wound, and the shock alone might kill him.
He raised his head and looked around him. The knowledge struck him all at once: he didn’t have the courage to sacrifice so many when he knew the Freebloods could continue the pursuit of the Erebusians without his Riders. He touched his father’s cheek, took Lazarus’s reins and went in search of a messenger. He glimpsed Orpheus in the act of beating down one of the enemy, caught the other Rider by his jacket and issued a quick order. Then he mounted, fending off attackers as he continued to look for Cassius.
The Rider captain sat his horse on a slight rise, untouchable and arrogant. Timon rode straight toward him. A bullet whizzed past his ear, and Cassius brought up his rifle.
Timon dropped his rifle to the ground and raised his hands above his head. “I surrender!” he called out. “Spare my men!”
After a moment of narrow-eyed hesitation, Cassius fired his rifle toward the sky three times. His men broke off the fighting and rode toward him, and Timon’s Riders, abandoned in midbattle, stared after them.
“You will spare my men?” Timon asked, continuing toward Cassius with his hands in the air.
“If you give up without resistance,” Cassius said, “and accept the punishment coming to you for treason against the Brotherhood.”
Timon dismounted and stood very still as two of Cassius’s men yanked his arms behind his back and bound them firmly. “My father, the Freeblood,” he said. “He’s dying of the virus and has been shot. There’s no need to take revenge on him.”
“Take him, as well,” Cassius said, giving another of his men a quiet order. “Command your traitor Riders to follow me, and we will return to camp.”
With his guards prodding him along, Timon made the rounds of the battlefield and gave the orders. His men surrendered reluctantly, but at least they would live and be permitted to gather their dead once Cassius and Timon had returned to the Conclave.
As he supported Garret, Timon and his Riders were forced to walk while Cassius’s men rode among them. All were silent, as if even Cassius’s riders had suffered a shock from the carnage. They took no pleasure in their victory.
When they reached the Hub, Garret was released and Timon was placed under guard in a small storage tent, suffocatingly hot and close. He didn’t try to free himself. Cassius seemed a man possessed, intent on making Timon suffer, and would undoubtedly keep Timon from taking blood. He didn’t know that Timon was fighting off a blood-bond or he would have been even more pleased at Timon’s capture.
Nothing Cassius could do could match Timon’s worry for Garret, his concern for Jamie and his despair over the failure of the Conclave. He had come here believing he had no stake in its success, but Jamie had gradually influenced his thinking without his being aware of it, and now there was nothing he could do. Jamie would have to carry on.
He reminded himself that she wouldn’t be alone...she would have Artemis and the other Freebloods. And there was still a chance that they would catch up with and overcome the Erebusians. There was still a chance that Jamie, with her courage and determination and her precious secret, could save the Conclave.
He doubted that Cassius would let him live long enough to tell Jamie he would always love her.
* * *
Jamie continued to ask Artemis questions, but the Freeblood would not respond. They had not been at the Freeblood camp but a few hours when Orpheus rode in, his mount mottled with sweat and foam.
“Timon’s Riders met with Cassius near the bosk, and he was forced to surrender,” Orpheus said, panting heavily. “The Erebusians are headed south. He asks your Freebloods to pursue them in his place.”
“Artemis, let me go after him!” Jamie said.
“Impossible,” she said. “He can take care of himself, and we have another job to do.”
“You don’t give a damn about him!”
Artemis met her gaze. “He is my son. I love him, as you do.”
“Garret is with them!”
“I know. What would they want us to do?”
Jamie knew all too well. She would have to trust in Timon’s intelligence, his skill and his instinct for survival.
She would help find the Erebusians. For him. She caught a riderless horse and mounted.
“Go!” Artemis shouted, and half the Freebloods reined their horses toward the river.
Soon they reached a battleground, littered with Rider bodies. Jamie searched for Timon. He wasn’t there, but she recognized many of the fallen.
“He was alive when I last saw him,” Orpheus said as he rode past her. Ignoring the carnage, the Freebloods continued their pursuit. The scouts riding point found the hoofprints, and then Jamie saw dust rising in a cloud as a ragtag group of hooded horsemen fled ahead of them.
A dozen Freebloods split off from the band and rode at an angle to cut off the Erebusians’ retreat. They forced the scattering Opiri to merge together, horses pushing against each other, followed by a scuffle of confusion as the Erebusians attempted to get their mounts under control.
That gave the Freebloods the advantage they needed. They used a pincer movement to trap the Erebusians between them, and gradually closed the jaws of the trap, squeezing their prey into a tighter and tighter line.
It was soon obvious that the Erebusians had guns themselves, but the weapons were nearly useless in such close quarters. Some on both sides resorted to knives, but Artemis ordered Jamie to stay well clear of the fighting.
Forced to obey, Jamie hung back until the Erebusians had been subdued. Once the Freebloods had them off their mounts and on their knees, Jamie dismounted and strode along the line of prisoners.
“Where have you hidden it?” she demanded, stopping before a dusty and defeated Lord Makedon.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Makedon said, his eyes burning with contempt.
“The cure!” Jamie said. “Where is it?”
“I’m almost certain they don’t have it,” Artemis said, joining Jamie. “And that means it’s probably back in the tent city.”
“Unless someone else managed to take it away,” Jamie said.
; “If we believe that, we have no hope,” Artemis said. “Do you still have hope, Jamie?”
“Always,” Jamie said. “We have to go back to the Conclave.”
“Agreed,” Artemis said. “But this is no time for another frontal assault by an army. You and I go alone.”
Chapter 40
The tent city was as hushed as a graveyard. There were no mobs or disturbances; the humans remained in or near their tents, and the Opiri seemed to be in a state of tense anticipation, as if they no longer felt the need to display their anger.
Riders at the perimeter saw Jamie and Artemis approach, and one of them turned his mount toward the Hub. The other Riders closed in, their faces expressionless but their actions less than friendly.
“Where is Timon?” Jamie asked.
The Rider remained silent, and there was no further conversation until the first Rider returned.
“Bring them,” he said.
“Where?” Artemis said, maintaining a firm hold on her horse’s reins.
“To Cassius,” the Rider said. “He’s waiting for you.”
Cassius was sitting in a camp chair outside the quarantine tent, a faint smile on his cold, pale face. “Ah, Ms. McCullough,” he said as two of the Riders gave the women a quick pat-down, seemingly unaware of the knife hidden in Jamie’s boot. “I have been waiting for you.”
“Where is Timon?” she asked. “What have you done with him and his Riders?”
“See for yourself,” Cassius said, opening the tent flap.
Jamie and Artemis entered to find Timon sitting, hands and feet bound, against one of the risers. His body pulled against the ropes, muscles hard and jaw set.
Ready to run straight to Timon, Jamie stopped in her tracks when she saw the other prisoners. They were not bound, but stood in the center of the tent, staring at Jamie and Artemis with expressions ranging from alarm to sorrow.
Amos. Garret, sporting his bullet wound. And a woman Jamie recognized with a shock.
Mother.
There in front of her was Eileen McCullough, who had supposedly died when Jamie was a child. Eileen, so much older but alive and looking well.
“Not the reunion you were expecting,” Cassius remarked.
Great sadness filled Eileen’s eyes, but she didn’t speak. Jamie controlled her first impulse to run to the woman she’d lost so long ago. After a quick glance to reassure herself that Amos and Garret were all right—or at least not near death—she sidled away to crouch beside Timon.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, carefully sliding her knife from her boot and hiding it behind her back.
He looked into her eyes, acknowledging what she was about to attempt. “Whatever he says to you,” he said, “don’t give him what he wants.”
“But her delegation has already given me what I want,” Cassius said. “Amos has confessed. All I require now is confirmation of your guilt, Ms. McCullough.”
“Amos?” Jamie said, maneuvering her knife’s blade to align with the knot at Timon’s wrists. “To what did you confess?”
Her godfather, dirty and rumpled, closed his eyes. “I had no choice,” he said. “I wanted so badly to keep you out of this, but I had to save her.”
His sideways glance told Jamie who he meant. Eileen, tears in her eyes, lowered her head.
“Where were you?” Jamie asked her mother, torn between anger and joy.
“It’s an interesting story,” Cassius interrupted, barely noticing when Artemis went to Garret. “When your mother gave the virus to the Erebusians so that they could devise a means to fight it, they realized she would be useful in creating a cure. They kidnapped her from the San Francisco Enclave and made it appear as if she had died in an accident. She has been living with them ever since.”
“She’s been in this camp all along,” Amos said, scraping at his face. “It was part of the bargain. The Erebusians sent a spy to me in the Enclave, informing me that Eileen was alive and offering to return her. In exchange, I was to take the virus they provided and infect members of our delegation with it, making sure that none of our people gave blood to anyone but our Rider escorts so as to keep the spread of the virus under some control until we reached the Conclave. Then, when they took blood at the donation booths, they would spread it via their human donors.”
Jamie could hardly believe what she was hearing but continued to saw at Timon’s ropes as inconspicuously as possible. “Why would you do this for my mother?” she asked Amos.
“Don’t you know?” Cassius said mockingly. “What would you not do for Timon?”
All at once Jamie understood. Amos, her godfather, loved his best friend’s wife. It was written on his face, along with his shame and despair.
“Tell her why the Erebusians set up the plot, Cassius,” Timon said, baring his teeth at his former captain as he strained to pull his wrists apart.
“Because they didn’t want their cherished way of life to end, and planned to bring the Conclave down with death and suspicion. All hope of its success would be destroyed once they set Opiri against humans.”
“But they put their own people at risk,” Jamie said, feeling Timon flinch slightly as the knife slipped. She tried not to react. “They were responsible for killing dozens of Opiri, perhaps thousands before this is over. We know you’ve been helping the Erebusians, against all the laws of the Riders. Why?”
A bitter smile crossed Cassius’s face, but he didn’t answer. “You have a choice now, Ms. McCullough,” he said. “You can obtain mercy for your godfather and mother by confessing to helping smuggle and spread the virus, or you can see them both publically tried and punished for their part in this travesty.”
Timon tugged at his wrists again, and Jamie could hear the rope slowly coming apart. “What will you do to them if Jamie confesses?” he asked.
“I will give them, and you, a quick death rather than let you be torn apart by an Opir mob,” Cassius said.
Jamie laughed, trying to buy time. “Maybe we’d rather take our chances with the mob.”
“He doesn’t want you to confess simply to confirm Amos’s guilt,” Timon said, his shoulders moving almost imperceptibly. “He wants revenge on you, Jamie.”
“Why?” Jamie asked.
“You stole what was mine,” Cassius said.
Timon, Jamie thought. Cassius believed she had stolen Timon’s loyalty to him and the Riders. The man who’d been like a second father to him.
“How can I gain access to the cure?” Artemis asked abruptly, startling everyone. Jamie had almost forgotten she was there.
“Your mate will soon be dead anyway,” Cassius said.
“Spare him, cure him, and I will give you anything.”
“Bring your Freebloods to my side, and I will see that Garret gets the cure.”
“Let me go,” Artemis said, “and I’ll do it.”
After a few moments of hesitation, Cassius nodded to his men. They escorted Artemis to the entrance.
“If you betray me,” he said, “I will make certain that Garret dies a painful death.”
Artemis and Garret exchanged a long look, and then Artemis was gone. Jamie had no orders, no instructions. She had no idea what Artemis would do.
But she knew what Timon was about to do. He held his hands together behind his back, but they were no longer bound; the last shreds of the rope had parted. Though there was blood on his wrists, he seemed not to notice. Jamie could feel him preparing, the tendons in his neck standing out, muscles sliding under his skin.
Jamie shot to her feet and rushed toward Eileen, as if she couldn’t bear to be parted from her mother a moment longer. The guards moved to stop her. At the same moment, Timon sprang up from kneeling position and charged Cassius.
Jamie stopped and turned to observe, her fingers digging i
nto her palms. She knew as well as Timon did that the guards might interfere at any instant.
But as Cassius hurled himself forward to meet Timon, not one of his Riders moved. Instead they backed away to form a loose circle, only one guard remaining to watch Garret, Amos and Eileen.
They were giving Timon a chance, though Jamie didn’t know why. She pushed the question aside and focused on the battle that had just begun.
Timon grappled with Cassius like a savage predator, a side of him that Jamie had glimpsed only a few times before. His clothing couldn’t hide the flex of muscle and the perfect harmony of body and mind as Cassius tried to fend him off, clearly shocked at Timon’s attack. He seemed unprepared when Timon butted him in the stomach and carried his former captain halfway across the room.
Suddenly Cassius was fighting back with equal viciousness, his fingers curled into claws, his mouth gaping to bite and tear. He sank his teeth into Timon’s arm, but Timon shook him off as if he felt no pain, shoving Cassius away.
Cassius didn’t hesitate to strike again. He lashed out with his feet, but Timon gracefully leaped up and out of the way, catching Cassius’s leg and flipping the captain head over heels. He flung himself after Cassius, snapping at his opponent’s neck like a wolf. His teeth grazed flesh, and Cassius scuttled backward on hands and feet.
He wasn’t fast enough. Timon followed him, pinning him down and lunging again for Cassius’s throat.
This time he succeeded. His teeth clamped on Cassius’s neck, and he held the captain to the ground with the threat of tearing Cassius’s throat out.
The silent, watching Riders closed in around the combatants. Jamie tensed, prepared to rush to Timon’s aid. But the Riders stopped, and one of them, a tall man with dark hair, began to speak.
“We have been loyal to the Brotherhood, and to our captain,” he said. “We, too, have had doubts, but we did not act against the Riders’ law. We said nothing when Cassius broke it instead. Now we suffer the dishonor of knowing we were wrong.”
Twilight Crossing Page 25
