“Yohan.”
Patrik’s voice brought him back to the present. To trouble.
The two were passing through an open stretch, wider than any number of tight, confining turns they had passed in recent hours.
Yet the tribesmen had chosen this spot, rather than any of those others, for the ambush. That alone spoke to the confidence they felt in the certainty of its result.
The snow had stopped falling, so the four figures emerging from cover ahead were perfectly visible. As were the four behind.
And all the others. Ten, twelve, perhaps as many as twenty. It hardly mattered, for there was no fighting this…though Yohan intended to, anyway. He had made this decision long ago. There were no compromises in this quest; there was only success or failure, rescue or revenge. No turning back, no surrender.
Revenge it would have to be, then. How many, before I fall? Four, like the bodies at the rapids? Five? Ten?
“Yohan.”
He was not alone, of course. That was a shame…but Patrik had chosen, too.
“Drop everything but sword and shield.”
Unhurriedly, the barbarians fanned out in a circle.
“Take three breaths. Tell me when you’re ready.”
For some reason, the enemy did not seem eager to attack, to overwhelm, to get this over with. If they did not, he would.
“Ready, Yohan.”
“Remember, don’t stop for a second. Move with me. Try to keep them off my back.”
He stared back at a dozen of their faces. Dirty, tired, determined. No different from him. Murderers, every one of us.
A stillness had fallen, without sound or motion.
Then an excess of both.
Ahead. Into the tide.
Yohan sought to inflict as much damage as he could, as quickly as he could, for fatigue and injury would come soon enough, and with them the end.
He sidestepped one blade, turned another with his own, blocked a third on his shield, each followed by a quick counter thrust of varying effectiveness. One enemy fell, dead. Another staggered. Another missed the target entirely.
He wondered why they moved in slow motion. Was it the cold? If so, would that not affect him, as well?
Whatever the reason, he took advantage. A feint raised one barbarian’s eye level, and with it his axe, only for Yohan’s sudden slash to slice through his calf. The man tumbled back, and Yohan longed to finish him off—but he dared not slow his step, and the tempo of the fight carried him past.
Twisting, turning, lunging, blocking. Expecting to feel blade or bludgeon at any moment.
None of them used shields, which gave Yohan a decided advantage against one or two. But he constantly found himself facing more, and spent more time than he wished moving away from untenable positions. Every moment not used in attack was wasted energy.
So he pushed himself forward, ignoring the risk. For all their uncoordinated tactics, they were competent warriors as individuals, more than capable of seizing an opening if he gave them one. He moved in endless anticipation of a crippling blow in every exchange.
He feinted left and slashed right. His blade swung beneath the attempted parry and across the thick fur of a rotund belly. The tribesman howled in pain and clutched the wound with both hands. Yohan dismissed the foe from his mind, for that one was out of the fight. Whether he lived or bled out made no difference for now.
Next Yohan focused on a maceman, half-blocking, half-turning the powerful weapon with his shield. The follow-through left the man exposed to a quick thrust beneath the arm pit. The tribesman recoiled and pulled back, but would have trouble lifting his weapon again.
Yohan moved on, flowing between enemy soldiers as a river past stones. They were moving much more quickly now, and his attacks assumed a new desperation.
He took his first wound a moment later, a searing gash into his right forearm that split the meat but stopped short of severing muscle. The back of Yohan’s mind knew the injury would become incapacitating in time, once the pain outlasted his battlelust. For now, the front treated it as only a nuisance that made every swing a tolerable agony.
Slide, slash, parry, thrust…block.
He lost the shield then. An axe blade split it down the center, then a mace blow finished the destruction. Yohan left behind the broken pieces as he pushed forward with his sword in a two-handed grip. But his left arm had been deadened by the mace, while his right continued to bleed.
For the first time, he stepped away from an opportunity to strike, resisting the fatal urge to rest on a knee. His chest heaved, lungs aching, while two quivering arms barely held up the sword.
For a split-second, he waited to feel that blow. The one that would kill him, or stagger him, or sever a leg or arm—which all amounted to much the same end.
A second is all you bastards get. One gasp of breath and he pushed himself forward again. The blow would come, but he would keep fighting until it did.
He caught one swordsman off-guard, driving him back with a slash to the thigh.
But the momentum had shifted. Now he moved slower than they. His body felt heavy, his muscles as tired as only combat could make them.
The enemy was still all around. Had he thinned their numbers at all, or were his memories of fallen foes simply the product of an exhausted mind?
They were waiting for him to collapse, no one of them eager to risk the next attack. Not when victory was inevitable.
They were as certain of his death as he was himself. And so he asked himself a simple question: Of what did he desire his last thoughts to be?
It was a question he had never considered before, and the asking made him feel strangely calm. The answer was music—come not to his ear, but to his heart. Summer’s song, played on a familiar fiddle, unexpected, but not unwelcome.
It was a different sensation from the pure battlelust he felt before, but it still restored enough strength to go on fighting. How long had passed? A few seconds, no more. He might still find a hero’s death, after all.
He lunged at the closest leg, knowing the target would pull back, then shifted his aim to the next man in line. His sword connected with the kneecap, sending the brute sprawling.
Having learned their lesson, they came at Yohan quickly now.
The nearest tribesman on the left moved first, seizing the opportunity while Yohan still recovered his balance. The blow was coming down toward his shoulder.
And was easily turned aside. A counter-thrust through the neck and the man fell. Another took his place, only to fall in turn.
They were moving slowly again, dancing a beat slower than the music while he kept time, the fatigue ebbing away, replaced by a sense of elation.
His feet moved again of their own volition, in time with the song’s living pulse. He clung to the music, clutching each note in his heart, wanting to hold it there for his last breath.
Why did they not strike him down? Hurry, you cowards, before I lose the song.
He moved toward them and amongst them, faster and faster, desperate to feel that fatal blow. Instead, all he felt were cuts and slices, painfully annoying but thoroughly inadequate.
Enraged, Yohan struck back with twice the force of before. He beat back their blades bit by bit, and when the blades were no longer there he lashed out at anything else in range.
Yet the harder he pushed them, the less they seemed capable of fulfilling his wish. Rather than crowd around and strike him dead, they began to shy farther away.
He yelled at them, gesturing with impatience and disgust. And one by one, then pairs and groups, they disappeared from his sight.
Yohan stared at the last two fleeing figures, struggling to understand what had happened. The song faded, then so too his resentment. Awareness took its place.
They had fled, back down the trail.
The song was over, and Yohan felt the wounds now. And the weakness. His chest heaved, his lungs ached, and his muscles trembled. But he dared not sink to his knees, for he might not e
ver stand back up.
He blinked, then stabbed his sword into a drift of snow. The enemy would be back.
Not all of them, however.
He scanned the ground—the battlefield—and saw too many bodies to count just now, lying in unnatural positions. Yohan stood alone, for the moment.
Alone. Where is Patrik?
Yohan found him near the center of the field, not far away from the splintered halves of his shield. The caravaneer had not been able to keep up with Yohan, because of course he had not. It had been unreasonable to ever expect him to.
He was not dead—not yet—but his abdomen was sliced so far open that it could not be closed, and the surrounding snow was a wide circle of red.
It would not be long before he went. Minutes, not hours.
Yohan did not attempt any empty banalities. There was no point, for the deathblood already flowed from the mouth, and the staring eyes showed perfect awareness.
Patrik’s lips moved, but the sound was garbled.
Taking one knee, Yohan leaned close.
“My bow,” Patrik whispered.
Nodding and numb, Yohan went back to the gear they had dropped before the fight. His own pack he kept, for he would go on. Alone. Again.
Patrik had managed to shift into a sitting position, where he could lean against the nearest rock. He accepted the bow into his trembling fingers.
“Can you fire?” Yohan asked. I can end your pain now, if you prefer.
Patrik nodded, so Yohan laid the leather quiver within easy reach. Four arrows remained.
He looked down the trail, where there were still no signs of activity. Then up the trail, where he would be going. As soon as he could pull himself away from his friend.
Patrik whispered again, unintelligibly.
“Save your strength,” Yohan suggested.
Patrik coughed the dark liquid out, then repeated the word. “Promise.”
Yohan nodded. “I promise.”
Patrik looked away, saying something else, though the voice was garbled again. It might have been, “Hurry.”
But Yohan was already standing, staring up the trail once more, feeling his hatred come back into focus, pushing the weakness and pain aside for the time being. In the distance, the lights continued to dance not more than an hour’s walk away.
Enough.
As he resumed the march, Yohan bound the worst of his wounds. He wrapped a torn stretch of cloth around his bleeding swordarm, letting it soak as much as it could. Then he replaced that cloth with another.
“Tricks and deception at every turn, Soldier Yohan,” he said aloud. We can all play that card.
He tied the first bloody rag around the bicep of his throbbing left arm. Then he took a much longer piece to fashion a sling. Flinging it over his neck, he slid his left arm inside, and winced.
Too tight. He loosened it slightly and tried again.
It’ll do.
The sun was beginning to set and the temperature to drop once more, giving him even more reason to quicken the pace.
He did not wish to have this confrontation at night.
Yet as Yohan reached the place that gave Sea’s Pass its name, he could see that he was too late to avoid that result. The last vestige of daylight faded behind him, though still potent enough to reveal the wide valley and its contents.
He watched the falling snow, casting the scene in pristine innocence. He viewed the frozen lake, and what was beyond, and knew he was in enemy territory.
Then he started down, a single insignificant figure on a canvas of white and gray.
As the path descended, the sun soon disappeared entirely. Moon and star and magick illuminated the rest of his way, bright enough to reveal the cave opening long before he reached it.
He wondered how he would see inside, then dismissed the concern. There were no trees along this stretch of the trail, the ice of the lake provided no useful alternative, and he was not about to turn back for even the short time it would take to fashion a torch. He would make do.
A brief pause at the entrance showed him that the cave interior had a light of its own—a dim, red glow from deeper within.
Yohan drew his sword and stepped inside. Favoring his left side, holding his slung arm close to the body, he walked slowly while his vision adjusted. This was his most vulnerable moment, when anyone inside could see him better than he could see back.
No attack came, and his eyes became accustomed to a darker world.
Tendrils of white mist swirled up and around his legs, his torso, his arms. Though it must be imagination, he felt the added cold and moisture seep through his skin and muscles in search of his bones. His palms felt slick, and he squeezed the leather grip of his weapon tighter.
Glancing left and right, he saw side rooms in abundance. Any one could contain enemies, biding their moment to spring.
He did not stop, however. His eyes found the source of the light—an unnaturally glowing head of a bird, carved from black rock. Beyond it, an immense flat dais. And on its surface, three unmoving bodies. Two of them lay together, bodies touching, light and dark hair commingled.
His cheeks twitched, then tightened. He forced them to relax, needing his eyes to be clear.
Tricks and deception at every turn, Soldier Yohan.
Someone, or something, was here. And it surely expected him to race to the corpses.
Holding back the impulse to do just that, he moved slowly toward the nearest doorway on the left. Prying his eyes from the altar, he began an unceasing scan of the mists, searching for any sign of movement or danger.
A few more steps and he glanced into the first side chamber. It was little more than an alcove or cell, filled wall-to-wall with wooden crates and burlap sacks. Nowhere for an enemy to hide.
He went on, a few more steps, and saw the second room was much as the first. Perhaps a little larger.
The mist was rising, and getting thicker. He could now only see the dais through ghostly clouds of white, and at times not at all.
There were two more doorways on this side of the room, another four on the far side, and one more behind the platform. This last was the most obscured, and the most obvious hiding place for an ambush.
Yohan stepped toward it, taking a moment to peek into the third room. More supplies.
If all the rooms were filled, this cave network carried stores enough to last a hundred people all winter. Or thousands for a tenday or more.
Now he knew what the parties returning to Threefork had been up to.
At least in part, he corrected himself, stopping to peer through the haze at the dark smudges now appearing. Stockpiling had not been the only thing going on.
He stepped over the body of a large man—or someone who once was. The corpse was now little more than a husk.
Yohan stepped over another, trusting his feet to find their way, unwilling to take his eyes off the swirling mists. They were growing thick as winter fog, and he moved deeper into them guided more by memory than sight.
He had no fear for himself, for life had become meaningless. He had been too late to save them.
The attack came from the left, as he had known it would.
Yohan’s arm slipped from the sling, his hand catching the staff in mid-swing. His sword was already in motion. The aim of the thrust was true, the blade entering the neck of the Chekik just beneath the chin.
For the first time, Yohan found himself face-to-face with his eternal enemy. Its gray eyes stared into his with pure disdain. Then, a split-second later, surprise. One heartbeat passed, and they went dim.
He let the body fall, giving himself over, at last, to grief. The warrior who had fought impossible odds to come this far lost control of his legs as he stumbled blindly toward the altar.
The darkness was nearly complete, for the glowing light had died with the Archon. Yohan kicked the side of the platform with his boot, steadied himself with both hands, and pressed his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, there w
as just enough light to see outlines. He stepped onto the dais and kneeled, then crawled toward the women.
He could now see their dying positions. One of Summer’s arms lay draped over Jena’s chest, the other tucked under. The harpa’s last living act had been to hug—or cradle, or simply touch—the princess.
At least they were friends at the end. That was not much, but it was something.
He took one hand in each of his own, noticing the long cuts across their wrists. Summer’s arm had far more blood, though both were as cold as the stone.
Yohan did not care about the blood, nor the cold. He wanted to stay with them as long as he could. A few minutes, at least. Beyond that, he had no idea what he would do.
The opportunity for his own death was not far away, should he seek that. Or, more likely, even if he did not seek it.
Jena, I will always love you. Summer, I don’t know how to go on without—
He felt a faint squeeze in his right hand. His heart stopped. His mind stopped.
He stared down at the curved perfection of Summer’s face.
“Soldier Yohan.” Her eyes did not open, but the thin lips curled into a smile.
He let go of her hand, just long enough to tear strips of cloth from his own undershirt, then hurriedly begin wrapping her wounded wrists. Then he grabbed her hand again, squeezing it as hard as he dared.
“Summer, can you hear me?”
Her voice was not much more than a whisper. “Aye.”
“Summer, I’m sorry, but I have to move you.”
She nodded weakly.
Yohan lifted her, surprised by how little she weighed.
Fatigue and injury be damned, he would carry her for as long as necessary.
The mist had receded to merely a thin veil, but the darkness remained an impediment to speed. Yohan felt out with booted foot before every step, not daring to risk anything that could make him drop his precious burden.
Her next words were stronger than the previous. “We’re going up.”
Shield and Crown Page 30
