"Might be a rearguard for Warrigan," he suggested. "If he is, they might have a shortcut planned where the rearguard can catch up and tell Warrigan if he's being followed."
"He must have seen us."
"I'll take two men and go after him." Gabriella nodded, and Erak wheeled his mount around. Pointing to two soldiers and beckoning them to come with him, he rode after the other rider. Gabriella and the remaining ten men stayed on Warrigan's trail.
As Erak and his two men gained on the rider heading west, Erak began to think there was something familiar about him. He was dressed in black, with shaved head and a topknot. With a start, Erak realised he matched the picture Gabriella had drawn of the man who had attacked her in the alley.
For a moment he considered sending one of the men back to follow her and tell her that here was a chance for revenge. Better sense quickly prevailed; she had a more important job tonight and he wasn't going to give this bastard a second chance at her life. He spurred his horse onwards, the two soldiers keeping pace with him.
Warrigan led them south to a trail that led up to the top of the escarpment, then headed east until he descended into a natural bowl with a small lake at the centre. A stream led past several buildings and a horse corral.
"The Golden Huntress," Gabriella said to her soldiers.
It was a two-storey affair that seemed to have been converted from a sprawling farmhouse. She kept her distance for the moment, observing the den of ill repute. There were only a handful of horses in the corral and from what she could see through the windows of the Huntress, the place didn't look like very full. Perhaps it was simply too early in the day. Drinking, gambling, smoking Dreamweed and whoring were all things most people seemed to do late in the evening.
"Your orders, Enlightened Sister?"
"Let's knock on their door."
Travis Crowe woke with a scream dying in his throat. It was mercifully dark in the room, but he was still blinking the green and purple spots out of his eyes as the whore next to him sat up.
"What's happening?" she asked.
He caught his breath; it was a difficult chase. "Nothing," he said at last. "Just a bad dream."
She reached under the sheets and gripped what she found there. "Couldn't have been that bad. You paid enough for the whole eclipse and there's still a while till sun-time you know."
He stared into the darkness for a moment, concentrating on getting his bearings. "You know all the right things to say to a man, don't you?"
"We learn pretty fast in this business."
Crowe grinned . "So, how much more have I bought?"
The girl leaned on one elbow for a moment, just looking at him.
"Don't go anywhere," she said, rolling off the bed. She disappeared through a door, and reappeared a moment later, with another girl. This one was a little shorter, but just as pretty and just as naked. Good enough for Crowe. "This much," the first girl said.
Crowe leaned back and grinned, certain that this was shaping up to be one of the best days of his life.
Despite all his best efforts, the assassin's horse was outpacing those of Erak and the soldiers. The man didn't seem to have noticed that he was being followed, but his mount wasn't carrying so much weight. The Knight and soldiers were armoured, while the assassin was not and their horses began to tire sooner than his.
Erak was debating with himself as to whether to give up and rest the horses - at least the assassin couldn't try again if he had fled town - or ride them to death to get at the murderous bastard.
The decision was unexpectedly made for him, when a flurry of arrows thudded into his mount's neck and he was hurled painfully to the ground as it fell.
The inside of the Golden Huntress belied the decrepit exterior. Once through the doors the setting was as plush as any in Miramas or Volonne. There were ten gaming tables on the ground floor, with a highly-polished bar along one wall. Silk was draped from the walls and coloured lamps hung from the ceiling, swathed in the smoke from Dreamweed. Opposite the bar, a wide staircase swept up to the first floor.
Men paled and women screamed as the armoured Swords stalked in and Gabriella kicked over a gaming table. Strong-looking guards in leather jerkins rode from their seats or entered through doors, with hands on swords and maces.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Tonight's entertainment is cancelled, by order of the Anointed Lord. Warrigan!"
Warrigan was carrying a saddle-bag through an interior door and looked around. "What?"
"You were expecting Kurt Stoll?"
Warrigan glanced sideways at the patrons in the main room, who were mostly frozen like mice under the gazes of cats.
"If you've come to renegotiate the arrangement we had with Enlightened One Stoll -"
Gabriella shook her head. "Kurt Stoll was never as Enlightened as he liked to think. But it was nice of him to help us trick you into leading us here." She grinned. "I have Stoll I have you, and I imagine I'll have this Travis Crowe you mentioned next."
"Feel free to take Crowe," Warrigan said. "It'll save me paying him for his latest delivery. But I'm walking out of here."
"Under escort."
"There are less than a dozen of you," Warrigan said in a low voice. "Not too much trouble for the Huntress' men. They might spend their time protecting the girls from thoughtless drunken pigs, but they're well train -"
Everyone hit the floor as the doors burst open, almost coming off their hinges as a dead horse crashed through and into the saloon.
Warrigan drew a sword. "What are you joyless fanatics doing now?"
"That wasn't us," Gabriella managed to say, drawing her two blades. She had barely released the words when a swarm of wiry figures with leathery hides and grotesque scars and tattoos flooded into the Huntress. They were barefoot, bedecked in weapons and their teeth were filed to points. Their reptilian scales and red eyes were far from human.
"Goblins!" someone shouted and then all hell broke loose.
Half of Gabriella's men were felled before she could cut down her first goblin. She slashed one with both swords and back-stabbed another. Gamblers and whores were cut down as they tried to get past the melee and reach the doors. Some of the more eager goblins sliced off fingers or ears and swallowed them even as they moved onto their next target. Gabriella was too busy to feel sick, so she concentrated on trying to regroup with her shrinking number of soldiers.
A goblin jumped at Warrigan's back and he turned to fight it off. Gabriella kicked it in the head and one of her men speared both it and Warrigan.
One of the Huntress' guards leapt to the back of the room and pushed with one palm. A wave of tables and chairs immediately hurled themselves into the morass of people and goblins. Gabriella made a long slide across the floor and came up with each sword in the gut of a goblin.
A goblin shaman gestured at the human who had made the chairs move and the man exploded into shrieking flame. Gabriella wasn't about to give him the chance to do the same to her; she scooped up a fallen knife, the hilt slick with greenish blood, and hurled it into the goblin magician's neck before he could notice her.
He fell but there were still many goblins in the Huntress and as they rushed across the room, Gabriella backhanded one with the pommel of one sword and ran a second goblin through with the other. She ran up the stairs after a female goblin and plunged both swords into her back. The first goblin recovered, spitting out teeth, and came up after her. She kicked him in the face and he fell to his hands and knees, before scrambled up after her. He made a grab for her, but she twisted her hips and threw him off. He slammed into a door and, when Gabriella rammed a knee into his gut, they both fell through it.
The room was designed for dubious pleasures and was flooded with the scent of Dreamweed. A man wearing a pair of leather trews and an open grubby red and black shirt, was helping the first of two women wearing only paint to climb out through an open window. They paused and looked on in surprise as Gabriella fenced briefly with the goblin before pit
ching it back out of the room, with a gaping wound in its chest.
The two slatterns hesitated and Gabriella gave the nearest one a shove towards the window.
"Don't stop. Climb out and run."
They made a quick getaway as directed. The man didn't climb out, but lifted a broadsword from beneath the bed. He was a little taller than average. His shoulders were broad and his collarbone, visible through the open shirt, was covered with the pink scarring that only flame could give. He had a youthful, angular face, betrayed by silver stubble. His eyes were clear and penetrating, the right one underlined by a scar, and his unnaturally white hair was tied into a ponytail by a leather thong.
"You're not Crowe, by any chance?" she asked, remembering what Warrigan had said downstairs.
"Might be." He looked at her askance. "You don't look like a whore."
"Is that meant to be a compliment, or an insult?"
"Just an observation. This is a brothel. I'd kind of expected to meet whores in it."
"Then you'll just have to be disappointed."
"Not necessarily." He hefted a leather pouch, which jingled. "I don't know how much they pay members of the Order, but I doubt it's so much that a little extra wouldn't come in handy."
"You can put that purse away, before I shove it so far down your throat you'll be dropping silver into the privy for a week." She pushed past him and glanced out through the window. "Come on, we're getting out of here."
"Good plan. Didn't expect gobboes this far out of the World's Ridge. I mean, God's hairy bollocks, but it wasn't the night I had in mind -"
Gabriella slapped him. "That's for the blasphemy. Just be glad I'm taking the mitigating circumstances into account."
He lifted the broadsword and levelled the wide point at her throat.
"And you just be glad that I'm taking the gobboes, and the need for as many blades as possible when running into said gobboes, into account." He lowered the blade, and nodded at the swords in her hands. "I hope you know how to handle that cutlery of yours."
"I'll bet you do."
She glanced towards the wall beside the shattered door as a creak came from the other side. She leaped across, burying one sword into the wall up to the hilt. When she pulled it free, the blade was slick with bile-like greenish blood and there was a loud crash from the landing. The plasterboard wall exploded inwards, a war-axe tearing through it. Gabriella dodged, using her swords to force the axe down into the floor. She kicked out at one of the muscled arms holding it, breaking the elbow loudly, then ran the creature through.
Crowe wasted no time in heading for the window but, before he could dive out, a lanky, snarling goblin swung into the room from the guttering at the edge of the roof outside, and caught the broadsword's edge in the face for its trouble. It disappeared with a burbling scream.
Crowe leapt out of the window and Gabriella followed. They dropped onto the awning that covered the Huntress' main door and from there jumped carefully to the ground.
"Let's get out of here." Crowe said as they reached the ground.
"First things first." She ran back into the barroom, cut down two more goblins and then sheathed her swords. Then, finding a few spirit barrels suitable for her purpose, she grabbed a crowbar and used both hands to provide the maximum possible force, levering off the lids of the barrels. She kicked them over. Neat spirits sloshed out and flowed across the floor of the tap room.
Crowe sneered from the doorway, slicing the arm from one goblin and kicking another in the groin.
"You one of those temperance nutters, girl? Think you need to get rid of that stuff? Nobody's going to be drinking it for a very long time. Unless you're concerned about the souls of the gobboes."
As if summoned by his words, another half dozen goblins swarmed down the stairs and several others emerged out of a back room, leaping over smashed furniture in their haste to get at the two humans.
"Oh, I'm thinking about the goblins all right." Gabriella smashed the lid off another barrel and grabbed a lantern as she ran for the nearest door, shoving Crowe ahead of her. "Not so much their souls."
Crowe understood immediately. "Oh, right. Good one. I like the Faith better already."
Gabriella turned and hurled the lantern back through the Golden Huntress' shattered doorway. It flew in a perfect arc, landing exactly where it would have the most effect. A soft whooshing sound heralded a blue flame that rushed out across the floor. And then there was the first of a series of explosions as the fire reached the barrels of spirit.
As Gabriella and Crowe ran, the Golden Huntress erupted.
Every remaining shutter blew off the windows and the walls visibly bulged outwards. A few goblins were blown into the corral and the lake in screaming pieces as the building's roof collapsed and vented roiling black smoke.
Gabriella kept going, glancing at Crowe as he ran beside her.
"That won't be all of them," he said. "And the rest will soon be coming for us."
"Keep running." She shoved Crowe ahead of her and made for where the Sword's horses were tied. "Can you ride?" she asked.
"I'm a horse thief, among other things; what do you think?"
"Pick a good one. Fast and strong."
Crowe approached a strawberry roan, calming it with hand gestures and soothing sounds, before mounting it. "Well, it's been... interesting knowing you."
"Don't think you're leaving the custody of the Faith yet, sinner. A little confession is good for the soul and I'm not going to let yours stay bad."
"Even if it kills me? You don't need to answer that, all right, love?" Crowe dug his heels into the roan's flanks and set off. Gabriella rode her mare right out after him.
She had to keep ducking as they darted through an avenue of trees, but soon they were galloping across open ground and she quickly caught up with him. "God's -" He broke off as she drew within arm's reach with a warning glare. "Now comes the fun part." He jerked a thumb behind him. Gabriella looked back and saw a dust cloud closing on them.
"Goblins."
"Sorry pet. We should have lamed or killed the other horses."
"They're innocent animals."
"Not any more."
Erak's first thought had been that the assassin had stationed men along his route to throw off pursuers, as the assassin in Kalten had done. This idea was quickly dismissed when, with a screech, a goblin leapt at him.
Still half-stunned, he shoulder-charged it, knocking it to the ground, then stamped on its head as he drew his sword. As he finished it off with a quick cut, one of the soldiers was shot from his horse by another arrow. Both Erak and the other soldier spotted the goblin archer at the same time, and headed right for him. The soldier got there first, his sabre taking the goblin's head from its shoulders.
Three more goblins ran in from their hiding places behind rocks, but Erak had killed one before it even raised its weapon, and turned to parry a cut from another. The creature was strong but not well trained and he got his blade under its arm and cut wide, disembowelling it.
The soldier killed the last goblin with a vicious backhanded swipe from his sword.
Erak paused to catch his breath and looked around for the man they had been following. There was no sign of him anywhere; just the rolling hills, rocks and the occasional tree.
"Damn."
The man had got away, but by now Warrigan would have led Gabriella and her troops too far from where they had split up for him to catch her trail again.
Erak's own horse was dead, so he recovered the fallen soldier's animal and mounted that. There was nothing for it but to return to Solnos. If there were goblins in the area, they would need to be fought.
There was a bright side, at least, he thought. He was relieved that Gabriella hadn't ridden westwards. She might have been the one shot from her horse.
Something slapped at Gabriella's calf and her horse reared, shrieking with a surprisingly human-sounding voice. When she looked down, there was a clothyard shaft stuck into her horse's side
, slapping against her calf as the animal ran. Another two arrows thudded wetly into its flank and the animal was already slowing. Gabriella focussed on the horse's face and noticed that the eye she could see was rolling in pain. But the creature was brave and kept going.
She patted its neck, suddenly feeling guilty for being a burden to it, and wishing it wasn't so hurt. As if it could understand her thoughts, its eye regained focus, but it was already lurching to one side and ready to topple at any moment. Gabriella knew its effort wouldn't last, as it was losing blood quite quickly now. She looked at the gear that was hanging from the flanks of Crowe's horse. "You any good with a bow?"
"For hunting game, maybe. Not for warfare."
"Thought not. You're good with that horse though."
"I bet there's a Final Faith Proscription against that too."
"Give me your hand!"
"What?"
The horses were thundering along next to each other, spittle from one flying in the face of the other's rider. Gabriella risked another look back and saw that the pursuing goblins were gaining rapidly. They were almost within the range of a throwing dagger now, let alone bowshot.
"Stretch out your hand!" she ordered. Crowe did so and she grabbed hold. "Keep your knees tight!"
Before he could ask what she meant, she had planted her feet on her horse's shoulders and leapt across to his horse. His eyes wide with fright, Crowe almost tumbled from his mount under her weight on his arm. The leverage was only there for a second and then Gabriella was crouching in front of him, on his horse's shoulders, and swinging her leg across the beast's neck so she could sit properly.
She let go of his hand so that he could grab the reins with it again, which left her facing him in an almost-embrace. Her horse tumbled immediately, landing hard on its neck. Gabriella ducked left, stretching out a hand around Crowe's hip. "Girl, I thought I was a little wild, but..."
The Light of Heaven Page 15
