Basiyr: Chronicles of Nahtan: Book 6 (The Herridon Chronicles)

by Kramer, D. L.

  She was about half way down the south side when a church guard appeared in front of her, holding a crossbow ready to fire at her.

  "Stop right there," he ordered her.

  Cace muttered a curse, tightening her grip on her sword. Another guard appeared behind her, turning her and reaching for her sword. She debated attacking him, but knew she wouldn't be able to avoid the one with the crossbow and he was close enough to be sure to hit something vital.

  She hadn't heard them approaching and they'd seemed to come out of nowhere.

  "What's your name?" the one with the crossbow asked.

  Cace just looked at him, not answering as the second guard pulled her hands behind her, tying her wrists.

  That was when she heard the jingling of a horse's harness and barding. She turned, wondering who else was here, and stared at the white Dweller's horse that trotted from the trees.

  "Nicho," she recognized the horse immediately, or rather, the illusion of the horse. Another of Lord Olorun's illusions, the horse wasn't seen nearly as often as the wolves. Kile and Nicho had become so well known together by the church guard ranks outside Valin that he had included the image of the warhorse when he created the wolves. Sightings of the horse were fleeting and rare, and happened just often enough that it would make the BishopLord's men believe Kile had returned to Valin.

  Cace wasn't sure if the illusion version of Nicho had any of the original's personality traits, but she hoped he had his hatred of church guards.

  The horse snorted, walking forward with his head held high. The two church guards backed away, obviously recognizing the threat from the Dweller's horse.

  Cace twisted her hands free from the rope, picking up her sword as Nicho continued to walk toward the church guards. The one with the crossbow fired at him, the bolt appearing to sink deeply into his chest, but it had no effect and no blood flowed from the wound. After a few seconds the bolt simply fell away to the ground. The guard stared at it in horror, the reality of what the horse was sinking in.

  Cace turned to face the two guards. When the first church guard tried to make a run for the trees, Nicho charged after him, stopping him and turning him back. As the guard struggled to draw his sword to fend off the horse, Cace attacked the other guard.

  She reached up, releasing the buckle on her shield, catching it as it dropped from her shoulder. Without her heavy armor, she wasn't going to take any chances. The church guard did his best to fend her off, but between his heavier armor slowing his movements and the obvious fear Nicho had put into him, it didn't take long for Cace to find an opening and drive her sword under the side of his breastplate, making sure to angle it upward so it pierced his lungs. She gave a hard twist, feeling the sword hit bone, then yanked it from him as he fell.

  She turned her attention to the other guard, where he was struggling to reload his crossbow. Nicho was pacing in front of him, keeping him from running away. She walked toward him, hoping to kill him as quickly as the other one.

  She was almost in range to attack when he turned, firing the crossbow. His shaking hands made the bolt fly off target, striking her in the upper left arm as it just cleared the side of her shield.

  Cace cursed at the jolt of pain that shot through her, the force of the bolt turning her partway around. She turned back, gripping her sword tighter and closing the last of the distance between them.

  She didn't even allow the church guard a chance to raise his sword in defense. Between the pain in her arm and the anger and frustration of the previous days' battles, she immediately attacked him with all of her strength. With no weapon, his only defense was his own hands and arms, both of which she quickly cut until they were useless. When he sank to his knees, she drove her sword through his neck, pulling it sharply to the side and sending his head rolling.

  She collapsed against a nearby tree, her sword falling to the ground as she worked her fingers loose from the inside of her shield. She dropped that beside her sword, then tried to feel around the bolt. It had pierced her cloak and tunic, and she could tell the entire head was buried in her arm. Positioned above her elbow, she realized the shot had been pure luck. By all reasoning, her shield should have stopped it. Somehow the bolt had flown at just the right moment and just the right angle to clear the shield and hit her.

  Nicho watched from where he stood, his form standing almost deathly still.

  "I don't suppose you want to come pull this out," she told him.

  He snorted and shook his mane, but stayed where he was.

  "I didn't think so," she sighed. She pushed herself from the tree, walking to the closest guard's body. Pulling the dagger from her waist, she cut his armor loose, then cut a strip from his padded tunic. She then cut a second strip and returned to the tree she'd been leaning against. Bracing the second strip against her leg, she used the dagger to cut the stitching holding the layers together until she could pull off a strip of regular fabric. She resheathed her dagger, then tucked both lengths of tunic into her belt.

  Positioning herself better against the tree, she reached up, gritting her teeth and pulling the bolt out with a hard jerk. She felt blood surge from the wound and immediately grabbed the padded tunic and wrapped it tightly around her arm. Using the second piece of tunic, she wrapped that over the top, using her teeth to hold one end to tie it tightly.

  She took a minute to catch her breath before leaning over to pick up her shield. She carefully worked it over her arm and back up onto her shoulder, then picked up her sword. She continued to lean against the tree for a minute, waiting for the throbbing in her arm to subside.

  "Thank you," she told Nicho. "I don't suppose you're coming with me the rest of the way?"

  Nicho snorted once more, then turned and walked back into the trees, his white coat eventually disappearing in the dark.

  Cace sighed. "Kile would have come," she muttered. Then had to remind herself that Kile would have just played his Dweller's Flute and ridden right through the church guards' ranks.

  Pushing off the tree, she continued heading south.

  She made it the rest of the way to the edge of the woods without running into anymore church guards, though the further south she got, the harder it got to avoid them. She found more than one area where they'd cut down a number of trees, trying to build battering rams or siege engines.

  After avoiding a last patrol, she could feel the ground under her boots starting to change, growing spongier. A short distance further the trees started to change, going from the tall hardwood trees of the woods to the twisted, short bushes and gnarled trees that grew along the edge of the marsh.

  She crept along, watching for one tree in particular. The tree she was looking for was short with a thick trunk and a heavy, spiny moss growing on one side. Finally seeing it, she counted twenty paces past it, then turned west. The ground under her boots was all mud and water now, sticky and heavy. Running here was impossible, and each step had to be kept to a rhythm. Standing in one place too long would make it impossible to move any further. Each step had to be taken as lightly as possible, and the whole body weight couldn't be focused on a single spot for more than a second or two.

  After several yards, she felt her steps became easier as the mud begin to thin. Ahead and to her right, she could hear the church guards as they tried to regroup from their retreat earlier that day. The marshes still burned further ahead and closer to the hold from the fires they'd lit the first day of the battle, but they were now down to low flames and smoldering mounds of old grasses.

  She crept closer, staying low to hide in the tall grasses and dense vegetation that grew all through the marshes. Off to her right she heard a quiet clawing followed by a faint splash as something slipped into the water. She held still, not wanting to draw any closer attention from it.

  She shook her head when she realized that while the wolf had brought out a sudden fear in her, she could stand here knee deep in mud and insect-infested water knowing there were dozens of venomous creatures around her
, and she wasn't afraid to be here.

  A sloshing sound ahead drew her attention and she sank back, lowering into the water and hiding behind a thick growth of foxears.

  A dark figure appeared, walking through the water and mud, a hood obscuring his face as he walked by. He held a torch up high enough to see the area surrounding where he was walking. His dark robe dragged through the muck, pulling behind him but not slowing him. His steps seemed purposeful, as if he knew exactly where he was going and what he was looking for.

  Cace watched him pass her by, then crept out, staying low and moving quickly and quietly through the water, following him. They hadn't seen anyone wearing dark robes in any of the attacks by the church guards. She didn't hear any of the telltale clanking or creaking sounds that would have told her he was wearing armor under the robe. She stayed to the side, shadowing him, but keeping where she could easily duck out of sight if he happened to stop and look behind him.

  After a short distance, he stopped, holding the torch up and turning to look around him. He turned north, walking a short distance further. Cace cursed silently when he stopped. A few more feet and he'd have hit a sinkhole and been gone. She could hear the gurgling and strangled sucking sound it made even from here. She managed to move a little closer, but held back, not wanting to get too close and risk exposing herself.

  The dark robed figure lowered his torch, then began hissing something. The water in the sinkhole began to churn slowly, bubbling and gurgling loudly. After a couple of minutes of hissing from the robed figure, Cace blinked when she saw a head rise out of the sinkhole and a church guard pull himself from the water onto the ground beside the robed figure. His skin was bloated and pale and he was covered in mud and weeds. As he pulled himself to his feet, a second head appeared from the water.

  Having seen enough, Cace backtracked, making sure not to alert them to her presence. That explained everything. Whoever the robed figure was, they were able to bring back dead guards. She knew without a doubt Rylen had been correct and Zared had something to do with it. She then wondered if there were more of them, which suddenly seemed all the more likely considering how many men they knew they'd killed more than once.

  There was nothing they had that could counter this. They'd end up fighting for months with no headway made to end the siege, costing the Mo'ani and Dwellers both hundreds of lives. The only thing they'd found so far that seemed to work was fire.

  Her arm ached and she briefly checked the binding on it. The water in the marsh had soaked it, making it pretty much useless to absorb any blood, but at least it was still tightly wrapped, keeping pressure on it.

  The ballista might be able to reach the back of the church guard ranks to light more fires there, but the archers didn't have the range. They didn't have enough peat in the hold to build up those fires outside the walls to do much good either.

  She did, however, have an entire peat bog in front of her.

  She reached into her belt pouch, pulling out the flint Rylen had given her, then pulling the dagger from her waist sheath.

  "I wonder how upset Lord Rial's going to be with me for burning down his marsh just to kill one man," she muttered. "Hopefully there's more so it's a little more justifiable."

  She started moving again, staying low and heading this time for the peat bog. She knew if she lit the fires in the right spots, they'd spread quickly across the bog, and with any luck jump to the remaining vegetation in the marsh. The smoldering peat would keep any of them from coming this way again, and hopefully the fires would reach the church guard's camp.

  When she reached the edge of the bog, she glanced back, making sure the robed figure's torch was still visible. Seeing it was, she set to work lighting fires every few feet. She then moved to the edge of the bog and started lighting fires in the undergrowth and vegetation. When those plants went up in flames, they would spread to the rest of the marsh.

  With the last fire set, she quickly moved back into the marsh, heading once more for the woods. Her arm felt like someone was holding a torch to it and the smoke that was quickly filling the air was stinging her eyes and throat and making it hard to breathe.

  She had to force herself to move at a steady pace, not wanting to get stuck or agitate any of the creatures that might be around her. After what seemed like forever, she finally reached the edge of the woods again. Looking back at the marsh, she could see a thick layer of smoke rising from the bog as the peat fire spread quickly. Fast moving flames ran through the vegetation, heading out in all directions, though the only direction she cared about was towards the church guard camp.

  She leaned against a tree, sliding down it to sit at the base, her legs exhausted from walking through the mud and her throat burning from the smoke.

  "How's that for a signal, Rylen?" she asked, closing her eyes.

  Cace opened her eyes, aware she wasn't in the forest anymore. She started to sit up, but was immediately pushed back down onto the cot.

  "You're not going anywhere, Lieutenant," Andry said. The healer held her for another second, making sure she was staying put, then went back to working on her arm. "Go get Governor Rylen," he ordered one of the young women helping him.

  "What happened?" Cace asked. Her arm somehow managed to burn, stab and throb all at the same time. Her throat stung and her skin felt hot.

  "I was about to ask you the same thing," Andry replied. "I've been working on your arm for the last three hours." He glanced at her. "I was hoping you'd stay unconscious so I had time to finish." He pulled something away from her arm, tossing it into a bowl.

  Cace exhaled, trying to remember.

  "The fire," she said. "I set the bog and lower marsh on fire."

  "Yes, we saw," Andry replied. He cut something from her arm, then she felt something cool poured over it. "I meant what happened to you."

  "Crossbow," she replied. "I ran into two guards in the woods, one of them got a really lucky shot off before I killed him." A sharp stabbing pain shot down her arm and she cursed, trying to pull away. Andry reacted quickly, pushing her back onto the bed.

  "You really need to hold still right now," he told her.

  "Cace?" Rylen's voice came from somewhere off to her left.

  "Good, you can hold her down," Andry said.

  Rylen came over, standing by her head and putting his hands on her shoulders while Andry went back to work. He was wearing his armor and she could see a couple of new dents that hadn't been there before. That meant the fighting had resumed.

  "That was one hell of a signal," Rylen told her.

  "I had to burn it," she said. "There was a dark robed man, he was doing something and I saw dead church guards coming out of one of the sinkholes." She took a shaky breath, her arm stabbing again down the whole length. "The hold?" she asked Rylen.

  "Still fighting," he told her. "But whatever you did, no more are coming back from the dead."

  "Good, that means I got him," she sighed, relaxing some on the table where she was laying. She cursed when she felt Andry's knife cut into her arm again. Rylen pushed against her shoulders, holding her still.

  He looked at what Andry was doing, then back down at her. "Cace," he said, his voice low. "You really need to hold still."

  "Easy for you to say," she told him. "It was a single crossbow bolt, just sew it up and let me get out of here."

  Rylen and Andry exchanged looks.

  "That might have been possible if you had left the head of the bolt in for me to remove," Andry told her. "Or not tied the binding so tight, or soaked it in filthy marsh water or been bitten by Halona knows what while you were unconscious before Governor Rylen, Lord Jaron and the marsh scouts found you." He stopped what he was doing to look at her. "I had to take your arm from just above the wound," he told her. "Now you really need to hold still so I can finish, or you may end up losing it at the shoulder because the cut you had there got soaked by the marsh water as well and may still get infected."

  "Rylen--" Cace looked up at him, the s
hock of what Andry had said evident in her voice. She was certain she could feel pain all the way down her arm, but when she tried to move fingers on that hand, she realized there was no sensation of movement. She struggled with trying to grasp the idea of losing her hand and arm and how she would be able to function now as a Mo'ani. Being able to serve Valin and Lord Rial had been such a large part of her life for so many years now, she wasn't sure she knew how to do otherwise.

  "You'd have been dead if we hadn't found you," Rylen told her. "Jaron was able to find you through your bond with your horse. The marsh scouts got us to you. Otherwise it could have taken us days of searching. You were halfway out in the marsh."

  "No," she shook her head. "I was at the edge of the woods. I remember that very clearly."

  "Whatever bit you probably dragged you out there," Andry said. "Your hand and forearm were pretty torn up. My guess is the fire scared it away before it could finish you off. You're luck it didn't leave you face down in the mud or water." He took a pinch of something from a bowl and dabbed it into the wound. He looked up at Rylen. "I'm ready to start sewing the skin flap over the end. She's probably not going to be very ladylike."

  "We wouldn't know what to do with her if she was," Rylen grinned at Cace.

  "You realize I still have my sword arm," she told him. She slammed her fist against the side of the cot when Andry poked the needle through her skin. That realization gave her some comfort. So long as she could still hold a weapon, she could still serve Valin.

  "I think you're done for a while, Cace," Rylen told her. "We'll be able to finish them off soon enough now. They can't retreat and they can't advance. All we need to do is wear them down and kill them off or convince them to surrender." He glanced at where Andry was working. "So just how long is that bog going to burn?"

  Cace managed a chuckle. "Oh, it'll probably still be burning in some places long after you and I are dead," she told him. "The surface is going to smolder for months if not a year or more. Down deep, it can go so long as there's fuel for it. I don't know of any way to put it out unless we divert the river and flood the whole thing."