by Cindy Dees
Her right hand snaked out lightning fast and snatched at the disk.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed, jerking back. It felt like she’d tried to rip off a patch of his skin with her hard, sharp fingernails.
His eyes widened as her nails extended into dangerous-looking claws and lifted toward him once more. He reached up instinctively to bat her hand away. No way was he letting her slice into him with those things!
“Weak human,” she complained. “Alchemy we use, then.” She reached into her pouch and pulled out a small glass vial filled with lime green liquid.
“If that is a solvent, we already tried it, and the stuff didn’t work,” Will announced. The lizardman girl frowned momentarily, and then her face lit up. She pulled out another vial. The glass was brown, so Will could not see the color of its contents. “What’s that?” he asked warily.
“Acid,” the lizardman girl replied confidently.
“No!” Rosana cried out.
Will threw a protective hand over the disk. The smooth, warm wood felt good under his palm. Inexplicably, he was comforted by the feel of it nestled below his collarbone. “Nothing you can do will remove it,” he declared.
“Gone and done it, you have now!” the lizardman girl flared up.
“I didn’t do anything!” he retorted. “I fell on it, and the blasted thing stuck to my chest. It’s not my fault. I just want it off me.” Although as he said the words the slightest uncertainty rippled through him. I do want it off, right?
“What do we do, now?” the lizardman girl demanded.
Rosana’s eyes widened of a sudden. “Run!” she screamed.
* * *
Raina screamed as a half-dozen armed men rushed out of the woods toward her. They were dressed rough like bandits, but their blades were high quality. Gleamed with recent sharpening. Were well tended. Instinctively she drew magic to herself, but she had no idea whatsoever how to use it in combat. Nonetheless, the massive, crackling ball of energy between her hands gave the charging men pause.
In that breath of reprieve before they killed her Kendrick jumped in front of her, sword drawn. The attackers resumed their charge. Weapons clanged and men shouted. Eben materialized beside Kendrick, forming a wall in front of her all by himself with his muscular bulk.
Although her companions were clearly much more skilled than their foes, there were a lot of bandits. Her father used to say often that quantity would overwhelm quality every single time on the field of battle.
Her initial impulse was to hide, but the sight of the first actual fighting she’d ever seen was so morbidly fascinating she didn’t immediately seek cover. She stared, unable to tear her horrified gaze away from the grisly scene. One bandit dropped. Then another.
Out of nowhere, Cicero charged forward, taking a position on Kendrick’s right side. His sword flicked in and out like the tongue of a hungry beast, seeking flesh and blood and finding it again and again.
More bandits charged into the tiny clearing, Her companions laid into the attackers and mowed them down like tender spring grass. Kendrick had clearly trained with master swordsmen. His technique was elegant, efficient, and deadly, even to her untrained eye. Cicero’s style, while less refined, was honed by actual, life-and-death experience, and the right end of the line of attackers was thinning rapidly. Eben also held his own through raw strength and power alongside Kendrick, although he began to show small nicks and cuts before the other two.
Another wave of attackers, this group mostly made up of rakasha swinging their claws, charged. With their shorter blades, the cat changelings closed aggressively, pressing in hard upon her companions. Raina spied her protectors’ arms growing battle weary and bloodstains beginning to blossom on their clothing.
Eben, on the left flank, was closest, so she made her way to him and laid her hand on his back. “We have no time to do this gently!” she shouted over the noise of combat. She slammed a bolt of healing energy into him.
The jann grunted in pain, but his nicks and wounds disappeared. He nodded a quick thanks as he dived with renewed vigor into the fight.
She made her way behind Kendrick and Cicero to heal them as well. It took a few minutes and several rounds of combat healing into her friends’ backs, but the ranks of bandits gradually dwindled. The sounds of clashing metal and men’s cries grew less deafening. Maybe they were going to make it after all.
And then, without warning, no fewer than a half-dozen heavily armed shapes ran out of the trees from behind them, right into their midst.
Her relief evaporated in a rush of ice-cold terror. Those were not bandits. They were soldiers. Wearing the black and gold of the Haelan legion. Anton’s men.
Powerful arms wrapped Raina in a crushing hold and slapped a hard hand over her mouth. She struggled like mad, but the attacker overpowered her with ease.
With her mouth covered, she couldn’t utter any incants. Without incants, she could cast no magic. And without magic, she could not help her friends. Panicked, she looked around and saw that all three of her friends were down on the ground and similarly restrained. At the end of the day, their foe’s numbers had just been too great for them. Various bandits and rakasha sat on her friends’ chests or stood on their necks. They were the roughest, meanest-looking ruffians she’d ever laid eyes on. The soldiers didn’t look any more reputable. She and the others were going to die.
* * *
Will scrambled for his dagger, knowing even as he fumbled to draw it that the small weapon was completely useless in combat against longer weapons. But it was all he had on him. His staff lay beside his bedroll, useless.
Rosana cried out an incant and a bright flash of magical light flew wild, slamming into a tree with a shower of sparks. A black figure raced past him, momentarily halting the headlong rush of the bandits toward them. The lizardman girl was fleeing the scene by practically barreling through the middle of the bandit line. Coward. One of the attackers peeled off to follow her running figure, but the remaining brigands resumed their advance.
Will assumed a fighting crouch. Not that it would do him a cursed bit of good. At least he got to stand and die like a man. Three bandits squared off against him and Rosana.
“Get behind me,” he muttered to her. She edged closer to him, trembling so badly he could see her shaking.
Grins spread across the assailants’ ugly faces. One of them muttered something under his breath and the other two laughed. Will didn’t need to hear it. Oh yes. He was going to be good fun indeed for these whoresons—a mouse in the jaws of tigers.
The smallest of the bandits, still a powerful man with a broad chest and massive arms, stepped forward. He gave an experimental thrust with a spear, and Will leaped away from its hungry tip. The bandit thrust again, this time a powerful strike that would’ve gutted Will had he not dodged nimbly out of its path. The watching attackers laughed, and the one with the spear scowled.
Spear Guy howled a battle cry and charged. Will retreated fast, but not fast enough. The bandit’s arms came up and forward with obvious intent to imprison Will in a crushing grasp. A flying object whooshed past Will’s ear and a tinkle of breaking glass came from the vicinity of the man’s chest.
Will’s opponent staggered forward, slamming into him. They crashed to the ground and Will, on the bottom, grunted as the air was smashed out of him. Whatever that alchemical gas had been, it had been strong to drop this ox of a fellow.
Will shoved at the bandit and was stunned when the fellow’s arms loosened without resistance. He gave another frantic heave. The brigand rolled away, a telltale hole eaten through his clothing. Acid. The lizardman girl must have thrown some at this poor sod. The bandit looked dead, or at least bleeding out. Either way, he would not be rejoining the fight without some serious healing.
Will leaped to his feet in time for one of the two remaining bandits to peel off and run for Rosana. Will shouted in a feeble attempt to draw the attack to himself as he struggled to free his legs from beneath the downed bandit.<
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He watched helplessly as the brigand charged Rosana, a sword raised over his shoulder. The weapon swung in a deadly arc. At the last moment the fellow turned the blade, striking her in the left ear with the flat of the blade. It sent her flying. She landed, crumpled, in a motionless heap. Rage and terror exploded in a fury of white light behind Will’s eyelids and he finally managed to pull free of the deadweight upon him.
Something glinted overhead, rushing down toward him. Will rolled away from the mace that buried itself in the spongy earth beside his head a bare instant after he dived out of its path. He finished the roll and gained his feet, panting.
He sidled left, away from the stalking bandit coming in from his right. The fellow looked plenty mad now. The one who’d hit Rosana closed in from the left.
Will took a step backward, feeling around with his foot. There. Rosana’s pack. He jumped backward over it, dropping his dagger as he landed in a crouch beyond the leather rucksack. He grabbed the hilt of her short sword and whipped it out, swinging wildly. The blade slowed his attackers enough that he was able to take a few more steps backward and scoop up his staff with his left hand. Better. At least he would die now for lack of skill and not for lack of weapons.
He had no training beyond what his father had taught him with staves, but what the attackers didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Their advance stopped abruptly as they assessed him anew.
He swung Adrick’s staff lightly before him, testing its balance. He stood lightly on the balls of his feet as his father had drilled him endlessly, poised to react to the slightest movement from either assailant. He wished the terrain were more open than this. All the brambles and brush were not conducive to a long weapon like his staff.
Just as the assailant on his right lunged, another alchemy globe whizzed past, burying itself in the fellow’s belly. Sha’Li must be close to risk the expensive alchemy in this cover-laden terrain where her targets could dodge so easily. Of course, with Will keeping the bandits’ attention firmly on him Sha’Li’s odds of hitting her targets went up greatly.
The wounded bandit roared in pain and fury as he charged, lifting up his mace as he came. Will planted a foot behind himself for balance, raised the staff overhead, and braced, taking the mace swing squarely in the middle of its shaft. The sturdy wood held, and the spiked ball slid off its metal-clad tip with a hail of sparks and a metallic screech.
Yanking the staff down, Will lunged forward and past his attacker, swinging a flurry of blows low and fast with his weapon on his way by. He rapped the bandit hard on the kneecap and the fellow howled, hopping in pain. That was the greatest weakness of the staff. It was made for disabling a foe, not killing one.
A shout from behind caused Will to whirl, staff instinctively outstretched. He staggered as a rushing bandit slammed into him, bowling him over. Narrowly avoiding landing in the campfire, Will rolled away frantically from the flames and back to his feet.
A glob of black flew past almost too fast to see and splatted against the attacker’s face. The man went down, screaming and clawing at his face. Will traced the path of the attack back to its source. The lizardman girl. It looked like spittle. He nodded a quick thanks to her for the help. Her timely alchemy and that spit had likely saved his life.
Rosana. What of Rosana?
CHAPTER
19
Raina forced her eyes to stay open against a cowardly urge to squeeze them shut and pretend they were not all about to be skewered or worse. But then a strange thing happened. It was as if the trees themselves came alive and a half-dozen slight beings stepped right out of the trunks. Laughter tinkled in the air like tiny bells. Dryads.
The hand covering her mouth fell away from it as shouts of what sounded like disgust and dismay erupted from the throats of the raiders.
The faerie females with skin in hues of green and gold and dressed scantily in bits of clothing made from leaves and twined vines stepped right up to the bandits and soldiers, practically draping themselves on the furious fighters. Raina was shocked to see how quickly the tension drained from the men’s shoulders. How fast gleams of ensorcelled lust lit their eyes. Those dryads might not be physically strong, but mentally they were lethal.
“Come with us if you wish to live,” one of the dryads trilled in Raina’s companions’ general direction.
Raina and the others followed the fae creature with alacrity a little ways through the forest. Suddenly a glade opened before them, glowing in the moonlight. It was circular and beautiful and ringed by rowan trees—
“I know this place!” Raina exclaimed. She turned to Cicero, who stood warily behind her, eyes downcast at the ground. “This is the grove where the wand brought us!”
“Great,” he grumbled.
For their parts, Kendrick and Eben looked around in wonder. One of the dryads strolled up to Kendrick and stroked his cheek with her palm. He smiled like a pup in love, and Cicero groaned under his breath.
Eben did his best not to look directly at the enchanted females, but when one of them breathed something unintelligible in his ear his gaze jerked to her and he was lost as well, grinning wider than any fool.
Their attackers had not followed them into this place. They must know of its charmed nature.
“Thank you for saving us,” Raina said in relief.
One of them waved an indolent hand. “Oh, it is not you we save. But you are welcome, nonetheless.”
“Will and Rosana!” Raina cried out suddenly. “We must help them!”
* * *
Will jumped to his feet and raced to Rosana’s side. He rolled her over gently onto her back. A lump the diameter of his palm had already raised itself on the side of her skull, but she was breathing normally and didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere.
He heard someone approaching from behind and spun to face this new threat. He looked up. A breathtakingly beautiful female figure dressed in nothing but green leaves stepped forward. The firelight revealed her skin to be gently green in hue as well.
His jaw dropped. The staff wobbled, abruptly heavy and clumsy in his hand. “Who are you?”
He did not know whether to stare at the green female or look away from her scanty attire. To worry more about the threat this strange creature posed or about Rosana lying unconscious on the ground. To attempt to render aid to her or leave her be. In the end, confusion froze him in place.
A ruckus erupted as Cicero, Eben, and Kendrick, in that order, burst into the little clearing followed by two more of the green humanoids. “Are you safe?” Cicero rasped.
Will gestured down at Rosana. “She’s out cold, but she’ll live.”
Raina rushed over to the gypsy girl and knelt beside her, examining her quickly. “The swelling is outward. This is good. Although she should not remain unconscious for any longer than can be helped.” She laid her hands on Rosana’s head and commenced trickling a stream of white magical energy into her injury. Will was so grateful he felt vaguely nauseous.
Eben looked down at a prone bandit at his feet and announced, “What should we do with them?”
Kendrick frowned. “I do not think those were simple bandits. They fought like trained soldiers.”
“Anton’s men?” Eben asked tersely.
Kendrick nodded grimly. “It would be just like him to disguise his men like this so he can get away with attacking lawful subjects.”
Raina murmured distractedly, “A few of the men who attacked us actually wore Anton’s colors. But they were definitely working in league with these bandits.”
Those were soldiers? Horror exploded in Will’s gut. He would be put to death or enslaved forever for attacking the governor’s men! They all would. He told Raina urgently, “There’s one over there … I don’t think I killed him … can you heal him?”
She moved quickly to the bandit Will indicated and cast the required healing magic. The fellow lurched and sat up, looking around in disorientation, and Will was so relieved he could cry. The soldier/bandit blinked e
xactly twice before a dark shape slid out of the shadows and struck him on the back of the head with the butt of a dagger. The bandit fell over.
Will’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t kill him, did you?” he demanded.
“Of course not,” the lizardman girl replied scornfully. “He’ll wake up in a little while.”
Raina moved around the clearing silently. She rendered enough aid here and there to keep any of their attackers from dying, and each time one of them regained consciousness the lizardman girl clocked the fellow on the noggin just hard enough to knock them out. Will thought she took altogether too much pleasure in doing so.
One of the dryads cooed, “Come with us, young ones. We have food and drink and will not let those bad men bother you.”
Without stopping to ask the others what they thought of that idea, Kendrick grinned and plunged into the trees after the females. Eben went after his friend all too willingly. With a shrug, the lizardman girl followed.
“I do not like it,” Cicero announced.
“We’ll be careful,” Raina murmured. “And we girls are immune to their charms. If you boys start acting strange, we’ll rescue you.”
Rosana giggled and Raina joined in.
“That’s not funny,” Cicero ground out.
Will’s sharp ears picked up the sound of movement beyond the clearing. And after the ruckus of the past few minutes, no animal in its right mind would be moving around out there like that. “Funny or not,” he muttered, “I think more soldiers come. We’d best go with the dryads unless you fancy being overrun and killed.”
The kindari let out a long-suffering sigh and turned to follow the others.
* * *
Gabrielle looked down the high table at the Imperial inquisitors seated below her. High Lord Inquisitor Laernan had insisted on sitting below with his men rather than at the high table with her and Regalo. She admired the gesture—it was the sort of thing her own lord husband would do—but she could not help fearing the quiet, polite man. He was, without question, the most infamous torturer in the Empire.
