Shain's jaw dropped. "Where the hell did they come from?"
Joti tried to point, but his arm felt too leaden to lift. "That's them."
"How can you tell?"
"That's them, and she's with them."
Shain loosened her sword. "I want confirmation. We're going to take a closer look. Do not let yourself be seen—and on no account are you to engage them."
A ditch had been dug perpendicular to the river. In the summer, it would be used to water crops, but it was currently empty of everything but weeds. Shain dropped into it and strung her bow. Joti and Nod did the same. Brakk looked more calculating than he normally let himself appear. The four of them jogged toward the town, stopping every minute to climb the side of the ditch and take a peek at the battle.
The air filled with shouts, screams, the clang of steel and tonk of wooden shields. Shain stopped again, scaling the ditch. She beckoned the others to join her. Joti crept up through the snow.
The town's outskirts began just a few hundred feet away. A score of bodies sprinkled the torn-up grounds of homestead farms. Past this on the main street, a group of citizens with spears and clubs held the plaza, facing down a loose and larger group of warriors with blue cords tied around their waists. The town's defenders were protected from on high by archers and slingers who were currently pelting the disorganized attackers from the windows of houses.
A woman hollered forth. Distantly, Joti understood her words—she was ordering her soldiers to form up—but he could only hear the voice itself. The same voice he'd heard bawling commands to her people outside the Yatto winter camp.
"She's here," he said. "Next to the two pine trees."
Shain's gaze snapped to the trees, homing in on the one they'd come to refer to as the Orange Lady. The commander still bore her thick braid. Still walked with her shoulders swept back and her chest thrust forward. Iron plates protected her shoulders; scaled mail safeguarded her middle. She was just close enough to make out the calm smile resting on her face as she watched a column of her soldiers raise their shields and charge the defenders holding the street.
"She looks like a brute and a half," Shain muttered. She watched as the column belched a throaty roar and slammed into the ranks of townsfolk. Within moments, the defenders began to fall back. "Well, I'd say we've found them. Time to retreat to a safe remove and sort out what on earth they want with some backwater hamlet."
She lowered herself down the bank of the canal, jogging back the way they'd come in. Joti waited for Brakk and Nod to follow behind her, then fell in at the rear. His brain and senses felt so swollen he would have sworn he could hear his skull creaking. He moved without seeming to have made any decision at all, rushing back up the side of the canal and taking a knee.
With the swiftness of a flooding river, he raised his bow and nocked an arrow. He sighted down the shaft, targeting not the Orange Lady's broad back, which was girded in her armor, but the base of her skull.
He breathed out, thought of his father, and loosed the arrow.
He could see the arrow's path was perfect, and could somehow feel the next few moments unspooling within his mind as if they'd already happened: the arrow closing the gap, a thunderbolt of justice, bound with perfect accuracy for the skull of his foe. Then it would enter the back of the woman's head, punching out from her mouth in a spume of blood, her knees buckling beneath her, her already-dead body toppling into the snow as her warriors fought on, unaware they'd just lost the commander who'd carried them across years of time and hundreds of miles of space.
The arrow closed the gap. A thunderbolt of justice. Bound with perfect accuracy for her skull.
The Orange Lady stiffened and went still, as if listening to a voice on the wind. With her back to the arrow, she flung herself to the side. The missile passed through the place her head had been an instant before. Joti shuddered like he'd been struck by his own shot.
The woman landed hard in the snow, powder billowing to all sides, and swung her head to stare directly at him.
"Joti!" Shain's voice cleaved through the shouts and clangs. "Move! Move move move!"
The Orange Lady pressed her palms to the ground and pushed herself up. She inhaled and lifted her arm to point at him. "Slaughter the attackers!"
Forty warriors held in reserve charged across the brush-studded ground. The woman drew her long sword and followed them in. Joti loosed another arrow at her, but she dodged it without even seeming to try.
He dropped down the canal and ran after Shain. The snow at the bottom of the canal rose to his lower thighs. When they'd been creeping along through it, its depth hadn't been an issue, but now it reduced them to a high-stepping slog.
Shain scrambled up the far side of the canal, motioning the others to join her. As she waited for them to catch up, she drew her bow and loosed an arrow. There was a thump and a grunt. Joti pulled himself up the lip of the canal and dashed toward her. With a twang, Shain fired a second arrow. Joti was the last to reach her. She popped to her feet and sprinted away from the oncoming horde.
"Shooting at an enemy army!" Her cloak snapped behind her. "What a wonderful idea!"
"She should have died." Joti was only now starting to feel like he was returning to himself. "She somehow knew the arrow was coming. It was like she could feel it."
A horn sounded behind them. Joti glanced over his shoulder. The band of warriors was already starting to get strung out as they spilled into the canal and thrashed their way up the other side. A few of the fastest might be able to catch up with the No-Clan party, but the rest would soon be left behind.
Hoofbeats drummed to Joti's right, alternating in a two-part beat. He knew the heavy sound at once. Wozzits. A half dozen galloped in from the side, spit frothing around their tusks, saddled and mounted by warriors carrying lances and throwing axes.
"Cavalry," Nod said.
Shain grimaced. "I know."
"Will catch and kill us."
"I know!"
As the riders neared, Shain veered back into the ditch, almost falling twice. She climbed up the far side as fast as she could. The riders swung away from the canal, snow spraying from the wozzits' hooves, then veered sharply back toward it. The boars launched themselves forward, falling into the canal with hard thumps. Moments later, they scrambled up the bank and resumed the chase.
"Can't keep crossing," Shain said. "The warriors will catch up to us."
Nod's eyes darted to all sides. "Take the cavalry?"
"Only chance, isn't it? Joti, I hope Dolloc's kept the rust off you."
She whirled, unshouldering her bow and drawing back an arrow. The six riders galloped toward them, lowering their lances. Shain loosed her arrow, the missile streaking for the lead rider. He flailed upwards with a small shield on his left arm, deflecting the arrow with a ringing spang.
Joti aimed at the rider's right shoulder and let his arrow fly. The man was trying to get his shield back in place and had no time to react before the arrow slammed into his upper chest. He jerked back in the saddle and involuntarily pulled back on the reins, causing the wozzit to skid and rear back, dumping him into the snow.
But the other five were almost upon them. Shain dumped her bow and unsheathed her swords, one long and one short. Nod drew a thin blade that he'd seen her make dance like fire. Joti unsheathed his flame-forged sword. Brakk produced a curved dagger, the innocence that usually masked his face replaced by a cold sneer.
Joti couldn't muster up the same defiance. For he knew a few things about wozzits. He'd grown up with them. Ridden and cared for them. And he knew that, as fearsome as the Marshals might be, a warrior on foot versus a warrior on a wozzit was a walking corpse.
The animals rumbled upon them, steam gouting from their wet nostrils. Shain stepped forward, bending her knees and extending her left-hand weapon. The air seemed to hold its breath. Between her and the charging boar, motes of light blinked like earthbound constellations. From nowhere, hope and fear flooded Joti's mind, as if horror
and greatness existed together in the same moment.
Shain smiled.
She lunged forward, blade snapping toward the wozzit's blunt nose. Hope and fear slammed into a single point. Though Shain hadn't even struck it, improbably, the wozzit startled and stiffened its front legs, attempting to stop before its nose encountered her blade. A hoof caught on something hidden under the snow. With a gruesome crunch, the boar's leg snapped beneath it. It went down with a piercing squeal.
Shain was already springing upon its massive flat head, thrusting her sword into the rider's chest. The four other riders galloped onward. To Joti's right, Brakk's squeal echoed the wounded wozzit's. The small man scrambled toward the canal in an ape-like swing of limbs and flung himself into its depths.
The next riders neared, lances extended like condemnations, the hooves of their mounts punishing the earth. Heart fluttering, Joti threw himself against the bulk of the downed wozzit. To his left, a rider bore down on Nod, who bobbed side to side, as though she were a leaf on the current. That same sense of undecided fear and hope arose in Joti's chest.
Nod stepped to the right. The rider adjusted his lance to follow. She feinted another step, then jumped bodily to the left. Lance and hooves scraped past her as she slashed toward the ribs of the beast. It romped past with no apparent injury. As the rider pulled the reins to bring the wozzit about, he tilted to the side, then fell off the boar along with his saddle, its severed straps whipping every which way.
The remaining three cavalry rumbled past. Nod slipped her sword into the fallen man's ribs.
Shain stood from the cover of the injured wozzit, blades held out to either side. "A final warning: those who oppose me oppose their own lives!"
Her words drew Joti out from behind the wozzit. The riders swung about, readying for another charge. Shain and Nod stood defiant. Easy to do when you had the Warp to guide you away from the thrust of the lance and the stomp of the hooves. Joti had no more than a sword, a couple of years of training, and the typical odds of a footman against a mounted foe.
The three cavalrymen came about and arranged themselves single-file, the one in the middle somewhat to the left of the one in front, and the one in back further left yet. The tactic was clear: if Shain and the others tried to dodge to their own right, they'd put themselves in the direct line of the next attacker. If they tried to run to their left instead, they'd be easier for the riders to pin with their spears, which they held in their right hands.
Shain glanced behind her, her defiant expression faltering. "The warriors are almost upon us. If we don't take down the riders now, we'll be surrounded!"
She ran forward and to the right, positioning herself across from the furthest rider. Nod moved behind and to Shain's right, to where she'd confront the middle boar-man at the same time Shain clashed with the one in the rear. Uncertain what he was doing, Joti put himself back and to the right of Nod. He'd barely planted his feet before the cavalry were roaring down upon them.
"Something's wrong!" Shain yelled out. "The Warp—"
The lead rider hurled an axe at her, following instantly with a jab of his spear. Shain spun to the side, blades flashing. She and the rider tumbled into the snow. The next man galloped toward Nod, bracing his spear against himself. Nod dodged the tip of her foe's lance only to be cracked in the side of the head with its shaft. She fell limply.
The third rider closed on Joti. The boar tossed its head, gobs of saliva wheeling away from its tusks. Its rider smiled grimly and tucked his elbow against his side, adjusting his spear. With the two Marshals down, all sense of hope vanished from Joti's heart. He tossed himself as far to his left as he could, taking a half-hearted slash in the general direction of the rider. His sword hit nothing. By training, he tucked his head, landed on his shoulder, and rolled over the snow.
The riders swept past, beginning to turn about. He sat up. Nod wasn't moving. Shain was, but she was still lying down, a bloody hand grasping about for something to help pull herself to her feet. Advancing along the canal, the forty-odd Faval Rusk warriors and the Orange Lady leading them screamed cries of war and blood, breaking into a dead run. Joti knew he should get to his feet, if only to honor his mother and father and the Ridik family in a good death, but no part of him could be made to stir.
Hoofbeats thundered to his right, advancing quickly. Joti closed his eyes.
"Brakk comes bearing gifts!" Brakk's voice rang with triumph. Joti threw open his eyes. Brakk sat in the saddle of a galloping wozzit, jounced about by its bulky movements, but keeping a firm hold on the reins. "Cold iron, hot wrath, and a long rest in the snow!"
He plowed into the infantry. The boar tossed its head, sending bodies flying. Brakk snapped his wrist, slinging knives at anyone who moved toward him. His charge stopped the infantry's front line in its tracks. The second line stumbled into them from behind, tripping each other into angry piles.
Laughter burst from Joti's throat. As the two remaining riders swung about yet again, seeking to trample the Marshals into paste, Joti took up a fallen lance. He planted its butt against the ground and angled its tip toward the lead rider. The man grunted and aimed his own lance. The wozzit drove closer, the pounding of its hooves vibrating up through Joti's feet.
He held his ground. The rider leaned forward. At the last instant, the man's grin reversed into a rictus. Joti's lance took him through the throat—and the rider's lance struck Joti square in the chest.
The world seemed to turn, but that was just Joti falling on his back. The light of the sky receded until there was none left at all.
~
Something bucked beneath him. This thing was big and it was also smelly. This thing was a wozzit.
He cracked an eye open, inspecting his captor. A metallic cloak hung from her trim shoulders. A long black ponytail fluttered behind her head. She was, in fact, Shain.
"What?" Joti insisted.
Shain glanced back without any special worry. "If you're awake, you might want to sit up before this beast snaps your spine. We won't be slowing down any time soon."
Joti swore at her, which was supposed to express something like "How am I supposed to sit up when I've got a hole punched straight through my chest?" Then he frowned down at his torso. No blood. No punctures, either. His chest ached, but it was more of a deep, thudding pain than the piercing, crawl-into-a-hole-and-wait-to-die type of pain he'd experienced from the occasional stab wounds he'd suffered during his training.
There was a rip in his jersey, however. He pulled the rip open, exposing his chest armor. Three of the dragon scales bore a long scratch.
"Correct," said Shain, who had an unnerving ability to see things she wasn't looking at. "Saved by the skin of the beast you killed. A potentially disturbing lesson to take to heart. Fortunately for the continued existence of all other life, most creatures can't save you by being chopped up and draped over your shoulders."
"Yeah." He tried to sit up in the saddle, then decided this was a bad idea. "You were hurt. So was Nod."
"I'm fine. A little stabbed, that's all. Nod took a good bash to the skull, but I believe she'll be okay."
"What about Brakk?"
"Brakk." Shain chuckled ruefully. "That simpering little thief may have earned himself an early release from service."
"Everything's all right, then?"
"Everything except the part where you defied direct orders and nearly got every one of us killed!"
Now he did sit up, head swimming. "My shot should have killed her. It was only the Warp that saved her."
"Oh yes, just a minor mystical power known as the Warp! When you accepted this mission, you accepted that you would be operating under my command. If you can't follow basic orders, you won't even last at Dolloc Castle."
"I'm sorry I disobeyed you. I'm sorry I put us at risk. But I'm not sorry I tried to kill the person who hurt my family."
"This is precisely why we're trained to abandon our old bonds. They're worthless. They do nothing but distract us from
achieving our cause. Do you understand me?"
Joti gazed across the snow-filled plains. "I understand."
Her shoulders lifted and slumped in a sigh. "Good. Because the forces we're up against are more powerful than we realized. Someone among them—or perhaps multiple someones—tried to bend the Warp away from us when we were fighting the wozzit. We are extremely lucky to be alive.
"But we are, and we emerge with vital knowledge. There was no reason to attack the town except to seize control of the ferry. With it, they have the only river crossing for miles and miles. They now control trade south into the desert. And passage between east and west. If they use their reinforcements to take the northern hills, they'll command the entire valley—including the border itself."
"Then we can't let them dig in and wait for reinforcements. We have to move against them."
"Agreed." Shain turned her head, smiling grimly. "And once we brief him on what we've seen, I believe Chief Loton will agree as well."
Joti blinked, sitting tall in the saddle. "You mean to muster the No-Clan."
"I mean to muster as many swords, spears, and axes as I can."
The wozzits were tireless and they rode throughout the day, finally stopping once they'd put thirty miles between themselves and The Place Where We Ate All Those Herons. They kept watch through the night, but the lowlands were quiet.
In the morning, Shain gave Nod a thorough physical and mental once-over, confirming her brains hadn't been scrambled. After a bit of discussion, the Marshals decided to split up. Nod would return to the overrun river town to keep watch on the invaders. Shain, Joti, and Brakk would make full haste for the Peak of Tears to rally the No-Clan.
Pushing the wozzits as hard as they dared, the three of them arrived at Dolloc Castle in just two days. As they trotted past the fort, Joti eyed the battlements, but he didn't see Lashi among the sentries. They left their wozzits with the castle's stable boys and hopped in an empty cart being hauled upstream by the constantly churning paddles.
They crossed the roaring falls and hopped out onto the platform at the edge of the Peak. Only then did Joti remember that he wasn't supposed to be here—that he'd failed, resigning in disgrace. What if Faddak saw him? Or Kata? Would they laugh? Or glance at him with pity, then look away, too ashamed for his sake to meet his eyes?
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