The horse was worth something. The woman was worth something, ransomed or to the slavers who infested these hills. The baby was worth something likewise.
Himadra’s men, however, would have no use for the brigands. Only their horses and gear. That, in itself, constituted an advantage.
And Himadra had another advantage. He himself had no need to get close to the fight.
* * *
The road vanished down into a narrow, steep-sided erosion valley, and the churned path of hooves followed it. Himadra, though, spotted a side trail that veered off to the right. It was much narrower and rocky, climbing steeply along the valley’s rim.
Elevation, too, could be a tactical advantage, and even a stone could make an effective weapon when dropped from a height.
Himadra turned Velvet off the road, despite her desire to follow her companions. She lurched and struggled up the steep trail head down and snorting, haunches bunching. Every surge jarred Himadra painfully, but he was not much weight for her to bear.
They came to the ridgeline, and Himadra could hear the hoofbeats more clearly now. They rose up from below, no longer baffled by the twists of the road, layered and complicated by echoes.
He would be silhouetted on the rim, but he took a reasoned chance that only his own men would have the presence of mind and the discipline to check along the rises while their blood was up from the pursuit. And a shot from below would have a poor chance of hitting him.
A calculated risk, but he took it.
From Velvet’s back, he could see half the valley floor. The wrong half, currently. But if his reckoning was solid, once he came around the bend ahead and cleared the outcrop, he should have a view of the road.
He laughed out loud when he came around that turn in the trail and caught sight of one of his own men, Guarav—his best archer—dismounted from his mare and standing with arrow knocked just in the spot where Himadra had meant to stop and peer down.
Guarav turned, bow drawn and arrow leveled, the wind playing with the mirrored ends of his sash. He identified Himadra quickly and swung back to the sharp-cliffed valley below.
“Farkhad doesn’t need me at all,” Himadra said, reining Velvet in.
Guarav did not shift his attention again. But he did say, “We do try to pay attention, my lord.”
The echoes of hoofbeats were growing sharper, and closer to the initial sound. A lone horse hove into view, running desperately down the road, so fast Himadra expected it to end-over-end like a tumbler. It was a gray, maybe, though so mud-spattered from the shoulders back that it might have been a chestnut.
It was flying so desperately because a few moments after it charged from obscurity, six others burst into Himadra’s field of vision. Even a tired horse will run if you chase it.
That burst of speed was the gelding’s last, however. Even from here, Himadra could see him struggling, the vast flare of his nostrils as he heaved.
The others were playing with his rider as they too burst down the trail, taking turns reining their animals in to rest them and surging ahead to harry the fugitive.
And if here was Guarav … where were the rest of Himadra’s men?
Could he hear them? He held very still on Velvet, and pushed his long locks behind the rim of his ears to clear them. He let his mouth fall open, the better to hear.
Velvet, not pleased to be so close to the cliff edge, shifted, but bravely held her place.
The echoes layered one over another like the rhythms of a hammered drum, creating overtones that confused the ear and the sense of direction.
Exhausted, staggering … the valiant gray horse fell. Just to its knees, and somehow the rider stayed on. Clutching the saddlebow and perhaps a fistful of mane. Himadra could not see the toddler slung against her chest from this angle. He prayed Drupada was still safe, still there.
“Aim for the lead brigands when they come in range,” Himadra told his man.
Guarav grunted agreement. He did not speak. His breathing slowed as he stretched himself broad and wide, within the curve of the bow. Shooting down a defile was not easy, either.
The brigands were whooping now, slowing, yelling incomprehensible glee at a successful hunt as they rode pell-mell down the hill, racing now to be first to their victim.
The gray horse struggled to his feet, blood streaming down his forelegs. He stumbled a step, limping but putting weight on both front feet.
Himadra let out a breath, then held it out so that the rattle of his gasp would not distract Guarav. The avalanche rumble of the riders echoed, rebounded, an earth-trembling drumbeat under their shrilling voices.
Himadra admitted to himself that he had seriously underestimated this particular gelding, but the horse was done. The nurse kicked the gray, her wrapped skirts flaring. The gray balked. She kicked him again. He put his head down, heaving. He would run no more.
Guarav’s arrow sang from the string. Himadra, chest aching, gasped a breath. The second arrow was in Guarav’s hand while the first took flight. On the string while the first was still climbing its arc. The third left the bow as the first found its target. The fourth launched an instant after. Himadra saw the nurse scrambling awkwardly down from the gray, sliding out of the saddle in a manner that would have gotten her killed if the horse hadn’t been too tired to move.
Admittedly, Himadra thought, he’d never tried to dismount while carrying a baby.
Then Guarav, Velvet, and Himadra were all scrambling back from the cliff edge and toward where Guarav’s horse was picketed as the brigands began to return fire. A volley of arrows and balls shattered against the cliff and sailed over the rim.
Even as he and Velvet ducked, Himadra glimpsed the effect of Guarav’s arrows. The archer had aimed at two riders. He had feathered the first one twice, and the man, tangled in his reins and stirrup, had slid half-from the saddle. His panicked horse whirled in circles, scattering the other brigands.
Himadra had not seen if the second rider had been hit. It was likely; Guarav did not miss often, even from such a difficult position. Even if he had, though, they had evened the odds a little.
Now that the headlong chase of the brigands had been broken into milling and shouting, Himadra could hear the more rhythmic hoofbeats of the horses of Farkhad and his other man. And so, he realized could the brigands. Once the return shots ebbed, Guarav crept forward from where he had intelligently picketed his horse a little back from the edge, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it getting shot. His low crouch concealed him and the nocked bow in his hands, and Himadra reined Velvet over to the other mount.
The horses stood side by side for comfort, ears still pricked toward the sounds of chaos from below. In a moment, when no further projectiles sizzled above the rocks, Guarav jumped up, drew his bow, and loosed again.
He dropped as fast as he had stood. “Two fallen,” he reported from the area of Velvet’s knees. “They’re withdrawing into the rocks. Also, I think the girl is climbing the cliff.”
“The … cliff?”
“Toward our position.”
Well, it was a terrible idea, but he supposed she wasn’t a tactician.
“Move down the ledge that way,” Himadra ordered.
“The angle of shot isn’t as good.”
“They’ve seen you here twice. I don’t want to improve my ratio of men to horses by losing you.”
More shouts rose from below. Himadra recognized the yelping jackal cry of his own people. Farkhad and Jeet, Himadra’s second man, had arrived. Despite himself, Himadra’s heart surged. The thrill of battle licked him like a heady flame.
Guarav, having scuttled down the cliff, risked another glance. And another arrow. Then one more before he ducked. “We’ve engaged,” he reported. “Three left. They’re trying to run.”
“They should have picked on someone their own size,” Himadra said. “We need their horses. Follow me down when it’s over.”
He reined Velvet around and touched her forward. She went willingly, ac
celerating on the slope. Ahead, Himadra could hear cries and combat, echoing as elaborately as had the running hooves. Velvet moved down the slope like a waterfall, carrying him over the steep, churned, slick road with nary a misstep. He slowed her as they approached the sounds; the last thing he wanted to do was charge into a skirmish.
Velvet shook her head at first, but accepted the contact.
The moments it took for the two of them to career down the switchbacks felt like ages. But swords were still clattering when they rounded the final curve and he got his first sight of the engagement.
Three men lay on the ground. One was still strung tangled between stirrups and reins, his terrified horse whirling ceaselessly to the right with its head sharply inflected. Himadra’s men crossed swords with the last two brigands, who had managed to find shelter behind the rocks so that Guarav’s continued attempts to pick them off were thwarted. Farkhad and Jeet charged forward side by side, on short, disciplined bursts, as much trying to force the brigands out of cover as to kill them. This was a sensible use of force—as long as Guarav hadn’t run out of arrows—and Himadra approved.
The brigands were, understandably, on the defensive.
The nurse, as Guarav had predicted, was somehow halfway up the cliffside. And stuck, it looked like; she seemed to have treed herself on a ledge under an overhang, and was pressed into it, her skirts a flash of crimson against the muddy brown and ochre of the valley wall. She was high enough that Himadra winced thinking about the risks involved in getting her down again.
Even if she managed to scramble back down on her own, the nurse too would stay pinned there as long as Guarav didn’t run out of arrows. And as long as she didn’t realize that Guarav would not kill or harm her. Or her horse, which still stood exactly where she had left him, head down and eyes half-closed, unable to even summon the will to walk farther away from the combat.
Having assessed the larger tactical situation, the clash of swords drew his attention back to more immediate problems. The biggest of the brigands had rallied and kicked his horse, a big bay, forward against the pressure of Jeet’s defense. He shouted and slashed with a heavy saber, pushing Jeet and Jeet’s smaller mare back, and back again. He was going to try to escape up the road past Himadra, Himadra realized. Perhaps, locked in combat, he had not even realized that Himadra was there.
Himadra drew his third and penultimate pistol. He aimed carefully: Jeet was in his line of fire. And he discharged it into the back of the big man’s head.
The other whirled to assess this new threat. Jeet kicked his horse into a charge now that his opponent was dead. The brigand backed his horse to gain a little clearance from his enemies—
—and threw his sword aside.
“I surrender!” the last brigand shouted. “I surrender!”
Farkhad checked his swing, turning it aside a moment before it would have taken the man’s arm off. Jeet reined his horse into a sliding stop instants before contact. The horse looked extremely pleased at this trick.
Himadra sighed and raised his fist, knowing that Guarav on the cliff above would see him. His men reined aside to make a path for the brigand to come toward him.
If the brigand decided to pull a pistol and shoot, just then, there would be nothing anyone could do to stop him. Unless Himadra could get to his own last pistol faster.
The brigand looked at him, then at the two men-at-arms. Cautiously, he reined his horse forward. The horse blew hard and moved with tight, nervous steps down the trail.
As the man rode out from the shadow of the outcrop, the light fell across his face. Himadra saw the tiresomely familiar look of recognition on it.
“You’re the one they call … I mean, if I knew the woman was yours, my lord—”
Himadra let drop his hand.
The brigand’s expression of surprise became comical as the shaft of Guarav’s arrow seemed to leap out of his right eye. As he toppled backward from the saddle, it was joined by one on the left.
His horse, like any sensible creature, bolted.
Himadra let himself relax into his painful saddle, just a little. He called out to Jeet, who was good with animals, “Catch those damned horses, would you?”
“Yes, Your Competence. And you will be…?”
“Hoping I don’t have to catch the girl.” Himadra held out his fragile arms. “I’d be terrible at it. Farkhad, with me.”
* * *
It was a short distance down the road to where the nurse had treed herself: a ride of no more than sixty heartbeats, and they were not riding fast. It seemed more prudent to come up on the terrified woman slowly, giving her plenty of time to examine them. And it gave Himadra time to examine her, as well, which made him realize he had not paid her the attention he should before. A man who doesn’t notice servants is a man who is asking to be betrayed.
She was older than he had assumed, and obviously—given her current position—fitter and more agile. Her clouted skirts blew in the curiously dry breeze along the valley, a flicker of red like flame against the stone. The child in his wrap was a diagonal bundle across her front, one arm protruding, one small fist knotted in the collar of her blouse. She had gotten herself high enough that her features were a thumbprint-sized smudge against the stone.
As he and Farkhad rode up, she spat down on them.
She was too high. It was a long, long way to fall.
Himadra gestured Farkhad to lean down to him. He turned his head and shielded his mouth with his hand. “Well, this is a stick in the dick and no mistake.”
Farkhad’s mouth quirked at the corner. Black humor kept you going through the nights of war. “A thorny problem, my lord.”
Himadra dropped his hand and stared accusingly. “Just let me do the talking.”
Farkhad waved him forward with a courtly gesture.
As Himadra rode Velvet forward, it was he who was snorting and shaking his head. The mare, on the other hand, was an arch-necked lady, placing each hoof with such dainty precision it seemed as if she were making a point. Possibly about the mud, and all the sprinting about in it.
They passed the gray gelding. His head was finally starting to come up, his breathing slowing. Himadra dared to hope his wind wasn’t broken.
He stopped Velvet a little short of the base of the cliff. Because it was uncomfortable to crane his neck back too far, and because if the nurse jumped, he didn’t want to be under her. He was sure he had her attention, so he did not bother with hailing her. He simply plunged—an unfortunate choice of metaphor—right in. “Madam, if I offer my assurance that you will come to no harm, will you climb down? We can have a rope lowered if you like. It would be less strenuous and safer.”
He wasn’t sure she heard the final two sentences, as she had begun laughing uproariously before he got to it. “After what you did to that man who surrendered?”
“I did not accept his surrender,” Himadra said. “Right now, I am offering you my protection.”
“You had that man murdered!” Her voice was crisp, and very precise.
“That man who surrendered would have sold you into slavery. And the boy too, if he hadn’t decided the boy was too young to be worth selling and dashed his brains against a wall.”
“I should better kill us than serve your mercies!” the nurse yelled down. She kicked a rock at his head. He couldn’t tell if it was on purpose. “Humane as you are!”
The rock bounced away in the wrong direction.
I really should have found out her name, Himadra thought. Names are useful when you need to talk to people.
She made as if to step off the ledge. Himadra held up his hand. “Please, madam,” he said, as reasonably as he could with his heart in his throat. “What is most humane? A merciful arrow and a painless death with relief in his heart, or to leave him here without horse or supplies amidst the curdling of the earth to starve, boil, suffocate? He attacked two princes today. And a defenseless woman. Surely the penalty for that is death, and his goods are forfeit for it
. Besides. The roads are a little safer without him on them. For the next traveler. Or refugee who passes.”
She didn’t seem to have an immediate answer to that. She didn’t kick any more rocks. At least, not right away.
Himadra turned to Farkhad and lowered his voice. “Would you go see if either of the others knows her name?”
Farkhad blinked at him with lashes like a camel’s. No doubt the women loved them. “I know her name, Sire.”
Himadra closed his eyes and breathed out through his nose. When his temper was stanched, he said, “Then would you very much mind telling it to me?”
“Ili, my lord.”
Himadra nodded. He turned back to the cliff and the woman clinging to it.
“Ili,” he began—
—and was interrupted by her barking laugh.
It also had a certain resemblance to the yelping of jackals, he noticed. “If you want to impress me,” she said sardonically, “try getting my name right.”
Himadra glared at Farkhad. Farkhad shrugged apologetically.
Himadra said to the woman, “Is that the respect you showed your rajni?”
“My rajni was not a kidnapper!”
“Fine,” Himadra said. “What is your name?”
She blinked at him. It seemed to take a while for her to realize that he was still speaking to her, and what he was saying. “Iri,” she answered.
“Well, I was close,” Farkhad murmured.
Himadra ignored him. “That child you are holding is your prince, Iri. He is the hope of rebuilding your land and reuniting your people. And because I brought you and him away from Ansh-Sahal, he is alive.”
She scoffed. “You can’t tell me your motive was to protect him,” she shouted back.
The Red-Stained Wings--The Lotus Kingdoms, Book Two Page 13