by A. H. Lee
Sairis nodded. Maybe Winthrop disposed of him. Or kept him far away. Or maybe... Aloud, he said, “Be free,” and spoke the rune that would break the binding.
Jessup’s eyes grew instantly vacant. The tortured movement of his chest stilled. Sairis hurried towards the sword in the increasingly bright and smoky room, hoping that he really did understand how the hidden exit worked. The weapon rotated easily, and a door opened in the wall, leading to a dark staircase. Sairis looked back once at the still form of Jessup Malconwy.
You fought hard for years, old man, and then you trusted your brother, which should not have been a terrible mistake. I hope that whatever lies beyond the Black Gate treats you kindly.
Chapter 10. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Living Horses
Daphne insisted on riding with the troops. She would stay in the rear, where she could watch the battle and make decisions, but she would not remain in the fort. She had half a dozen royal guards and they were very good. Roland had put them through their paces himself. Still, he didn’t like it. “Daphne, if something goes wrong, we could easily be cut off from the fort. Out there in open ground, outnumbered more than three to one, we’d be slaughtered. A dead queen will do Mistala no good.”
“And a live queen who hides in forts will never hold the Mistalan throne,” said Daphne as they sat on their horses, watching soldiers march through the heavy northern gate. “You know Uncle Winthrop was only echoing the sort of nonsense the border lords are saying, Roland. The men have to believe in me. If we win this war properly, I do not think we will have a repetition of the sort of treason he was spouting at me in the tent. I believe that all of us want Mistala to prosper, and if I give them what no king has given them, they will bend the knee in earnest. But I have to earn it. I recognize that.”
Roland’s gauntleted hands shifted around his helm, still in his lap. He thought it was good for the men to see his face before a battle—to see that he was not afraid. Or at least that he did not look it.
“And the other things he said...”
“About you?”
Roland nodded.
Daphne tossed her hair. “If I know you, you’ll be on the front lines. You’ll be a hero of the war that freed Mistala from a dark sorcerer. No one will dare speak ill of you after today.”
He wasn’t exactly speaking ill of me, thought Roland. He was speaking the truth—a truth that can be used as a weapon whenever anyone wants to threaten either of us.
He shook his head and focused upon the immediate future. We are about to kick a hornet’s nest. Uncle Jessup will be coming over that saddle in a couple of hours, along with Uncle Winthrop and more men than we’ve ever been able to throw at Hastafel’s army. By then, I expect I will be glad to see them, no matter what they think of me.
* * * *
Sairis was halfway down the long, dark staircase when the weakness hit him so hard he stumbled. Godsdamn it! He didn’t have enough magic left to purge Quintin’s spell from his system. Quintin must realize that things in the tower had not gone according to plan and now he was renewing his attack.
Sairis wondered where Marsden was. They don’t trust him or they wouldn’t have gotten him out of the way to set their trap. Sairis hoped Marsden had gotten wind of the trouble before it started. The idea of the old man knocked on the head sent a curious pang through him. If he’d put a real collar on me, I’d be dead right now.
Sairis turned his attention to dismantling Quintin’s spell, but it was annoyingly persistent. He needed light and supplies and time. Instead, he was running down stairs in the dark.
Sairis reached the bottom and groped blindly for a door. He found it at last, lifted the dead bolt, and opened it a crack. He was looking at the main courtyard and gate. So much for a second exit. The stable entrance was about ten yards away. People were shouting inside the fort, but there didn’t seem to be much chaos outside it yet. A steady patter of cold rain looked as though it had been falling for hours, making puddles in the courtyard, filling the air with fine mist. The stables looked quiet in the gray haze.
Sairis wished fervently for his bone charm. Making himself invisible without preparation required an enormous amount of magic that he did not have. At least the rain and mist will help. He tried not to think about riding through such weather in the cold dark without a waterproof cloak. One thing at a time.
Sairis pushed open the door and walked briskly through the wet, chilly air. Don’t run. Behave as though you belong here. No one shouted at him to stop, and he encountered no guard at the stable entrance. Sairis wasn’t sure what to make of this, but dipped gratefully into the dry, dim interior, redolent of hay and horse. He ran lightly along the row of stalls until he came to the spot where he’d left Butterball a few hours ago.
Sairis stepped into the stall. And stopped. His little horse lay crumpled on the ground. Oh, no. Sairis had a brief urge to drop to his knees beside Butterball’s head and weep. He was surprised at the strength of his own reaction, considering dead horses really were so much easier.
However, as he leaned over Butterball, he felt a new sense of alarm. The animal was not dead, but sleeping. Drugged or spelled, it made little difference which. Sairis could raise a dead horse, but there wasn’t much he could do with a sleeping one.
And somebody knew that.
“Well, you’re just as much trouble as I expected.”
Sairis spun around. Quintin was standing in the door to the stall. He wore a cloak with the cowl pulled up, but Sairis recognized his voice. “Everybody says necromancers are hard to kill. Even Hastafel had a go at you and missed, didn’t he?”
“Actually, he didn’t miss,” said Sairis, his mouth running away with his brain as he tried to think of a way to escape. “He put a sword through me. Or his demon did.”
Quintin took a step forward.
Sairis leapt for the side of the stall. He wasn’t much of a climber, but in his fear he nearly made it over the top before Quintin got a handful of his clothes and yanked him down hard into the straw and dirt. Sairis drew on every bit of magic he possessed and spoke a rune that he’d only used once in his life—knowledge dearly won from a book that ought to have been burned.
Quintin gasped and stumbled against the wooden wall of the box. For one instant, his ghost became visible as a mist in the air. Sairis was peeling it from his body as a person might peel a fruit. Quintin screamed. Somewhere further down the line of stalls, a horse gave an answering neigh and there was a crash.
Then Sairis lost the thread of his spell. His body folded against the ground and he crouched there struggling to breathe. He could hear Quintin’s panting as the other magician straightened. Quintin’s shadow fell across Sairis in the dim light from the stable door. The toe of his boot caught Sairis hard in the stomach and flipped him onto his side. Sairis tasted blood and not just from the kick. The spell he’d tried to use was nasty, but he was desperate. And it hadn’t even worked. I don’t know his true name, and he’s got his magic inside me.
Quintin leaned over, grabbed Sairis by the hair, and dragged him to his knees. “You absolute shit,” he spat. “Did Marsden fuck up your collar on purpose or by accident? Well, it doesn’t matter.” He forced something into Sairis’s mouth—something that tasted of iron.
Sairis thrashed, his fear giving way to blind panic. The object seared his throat and tongue. It was bad, bad, very bad...
Quintin pinned him down easily in his weakened state and held his mouth shut. As the bite of the spelled iron slid down Sairis’s throat, Quintin leaned close and whispered. “That’s going to kill you, mate. And I’m going to have a bit of fun while you’re dying. A necromancer on his knees, eh? Couldn’t pass that up. And a prince’s leavings besides. I figure his highness owes me, what with me cleaning up after him all the time.”
Potions can alter appearances. “You killed Marcus,” whispered Sairis, his lips thick and numb around the words.
“Were you his fuck toy, too? Gods, all you perverts know each ot
her. Now, let’s see if I like what princes like while you can still squirm a little.”
In his pain and terror, Sairis forced his eyes away from Quintin. The River, the River, I don’t want to stay for this. But he couldn’t find his center.
Something white floated into view over Quintin’s shoulder. Quintin slapped at it with his free hand. “Bugger off, horse.”
The horse opened its mouth and bit him.
Chapter 11. The Battle is Joined
Sunrise was still two hours off when the foremost of Daphne’s troops encountered the first line of real pickets. The fight in complete darkness was short and brutal. Roland was in the thick of it. No one escaped.
However, the next picket was larger. These men had obviously heard the commotion and were better prepared. The thump of vanishing hoofbeats echoed through the night even before Roland’s men had fully engaged. That will be a runner sent to sound the alarm.
As swords clanged in the pre-dawn glow, Roland caught a rumble from the direction of the sea. Torches blazed through distant shadows. Something howled in the night, the eerie sound floating across the valley.
Well, I believe we’ve got his attention, thought Roland. Here come the hornets.
* * * *
Quintin made an animal scream, muffled because the horse’s blunt teeth were encompassing his entire nose and most of one cheek. The scream broke into a wheezing gurgle as the animal jerked back. The mask of blood that had become Quintin’s head lurched in the other direction.
Sairis stared up at the nightmare of a horse, holding a man’s face between its teeth. “Cato?”
Quintin was still howling, but that didn’t last long. One of Cato’s hooves lashed out and caught the blinded man in the shoulder, bringing him down hard into the straw. One more kick and he lay still.
The spell shattered.
Sairis felt the jolt of the recoil. He’d still swallowed a scrap of poisonous iron, but the deadly focus of the magic that had been spreading through his entrails died along with its maker. I might live.
The iron, however, was still soaking up every bit of magic he might have gained from Quintin’s death. Sairis tried to stand and staggered against the wall of the box. Cato’s head arched towards him and Sairis flinched away. There was nowhere to run. One kick is all it would take. Or is he going to tear my face off, too? The horse nickered beside his ear. Something brushed Sairis’s cheek like wet velvet. No teeth.
Sairis opened his eyes and stared into the black gaze of Roland’s destrier, at the snowy muzzle slick with blood. “Did four days of riding make us friends, Cato?”
Apparently it had.
Sairis patted Cato’s neck—gingerly at first, with hands that shook. “Good horse,” he whispered. He repeated it mindlessly over and over. “Good horse, good horse.” He was shaking all over now. I have to get out of here.
But he could barely stand. More noise was coming from the fort—sounds of fighting, confused and muted through the drumming of the rain.
He glanced at Quintin’s corpse. He heartily wished he could send it walking through the fort, preferably on fire. But he didn’t have the magic, nor did he truly have the will to chase down Quintin’s ghost in the River without knowing its true name. He was a little afraid even to go poking through the pockets, since the man obviously kept poisonous spells, and Sairis did not have the training to recognize or use them. In the end, Sairis only took Quintin’s cloak. It looked waterproof, and it swallowed his smaller frame. With the hood up, no one would see his face...or the blood that had spattered his clothes.
This done, Sairis limped down the hall to Cato’s stall. The stallion had kicked the door hard enough to break the latch. “Good horse,” murmured Sairis again. The destrier followed him. Sairis had to force himself not to flinch when the soft nose nibbled at his ear.
“They said you couldn’t carry Roland in his armor...but what about me?” Sairis surely weighed nothing by comparison.
It took him two tries to get the saddle over Cato’s back. The horse stood patiently while he tightened the girth, cursing his clumsy fingers. Someone burst into the stable while he was working on the bridle. Sairis ducked into the back of Cato’s stall, heart in his throat.
Running feet pounded through the stable. A stall door banged, and a horse whinnied. Sairis listened enviously as someone nimbler and more expert than himself saddled a horse at speed and then rode out at a fast clip.
Sairis got to work again. By the time he was done, another man had run in and out with a different horse. No one seemed to have glanced into Butterball’s stall. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Cato was so much taller than a pony. Sairis’s wobbly legs refused to cooperate as he struggled to reach the stirrup. He ended up climbing the horse with hands and feet in a graceless scramble. Amazingly, Cato stood still for it.
You need to sleep, whispered a voice in Sairis’s head. Heal yourself. You almost died. You’re still hurt.
No.
Exhaustion was a hand on Sairis’s shoulders, pushing him down as Cato stepped from the stables. Do not faint, do not faint...
Men were fighting in the courtyard. One of the outbuildings was on fire in spite of the rain. Sairis couldn’t see very well with his hood up. He sat hunched on Cato’s back as the horse moved at an agonizingly unhurried clip-clop through the mud and puddles of the courtyard. Then they were at the gate, and finally someone shouted. “Who goes there?”
Sairis realized he would have to get down to lift the heavy bar. I’ll never make it back up into the saddle.
Despair washed through him as he stared at the gate. Some wizard you are. You got all this way, survived two attempts to kill you this evening, and you’re going to die because you couldn’t open an ordinary gate.
“I said who are you?” insisted the unfriendly voice, now directly behind him. “Answer me, or I shoot.”
The voice broke off with a grunt. Sairis didn’t dare turn around to show his face. I have to get down. I have to try.
A man’s hand closed around Cato’s bridle from the side. The horse gave an angry squeal, but the hand held him in place. To Sairis’s astonishment, the soldier raised the bar on the gate and pushed it open. Then he stepped aside.
Sairis couldn’t help turning to stare at his benefactor. The fellow had his own hood up, but the eyes looking out of the shadows of his cowl were an unnaturally brilliant green.
Sairis gaped. Mal?
One green eye winked. Then he gave Cato a slap on the rear that sent the horse trotting down the defile, away from the chaos of the burning fort, towards the valley that was living up to its name.
Chapter 12. In the Fog
Sairis didn’t dare urge Cato to gallop. He was uncertain of his ability to stay on a galloping horse at the best of times, much less in his current condition. Soldiers rushed past him. Sairis expected to be accosted at any moment, but apparently Cato’s stately plod aroused no suspicion. At least we don’t look like we’re fleeing after assassinating the commander.
The main trail was a confusion of scattered torchlight in the rain. The dust from the day’s ride had turned to thick mud.
Sairis turned Cato west along the trail, heading further into the mountains. What am I doing? Running away from Winthrop? Running towards Roland? Do I think I can redeem this disaster all by myself?
Maybe, whispered a voice in his head. Maybe... And anyway, you have to try.
It wasn’t long before he passed the last of the waterlogged men and horses, the last of the torches. The sounds of uproar died away behind him. Sairis was in complete darkness on a steep, mud-slick trail, riding a fickle destrier who could toss him off at a whim.
This is the most ill-advised thing I have ever done in my life. To make matters worse, he was feeling increasingly ill. Quintin’s spell had become a diffuse pain in his abdomen, the iron soaking up any magic that might have healed him. Sairis wondered if even human deaths in the nearby fort would provide him with power at this moment. I’ve no idea ho
w to treat magical poisoning.
Cato slipped and Sairis’s heart gave a sickening squeeze, but the warhorse righted himself and continued. Roland spent four years fighting out here, and Cato has been with him the whole time. Cato must know this terrain as well as Roland does. Still, they call this the Valley of False Hope for a reason.
Weakness came in waves. Sairis leaned over Cato’s neck, shivering, unable to see anything in the wet darkness. Don’t faint. Do. Not. Faint.
He fainted.
* * * *
Roland’s initial attack with handpicked cavalry from the fort worked so well that by the time dawn glowed around the horizon, he and his men were perhaps a quarter of a mile from the sea. They’d driven a deep wedge into Hastafel’s surprised army, softening the path of the infantry coming behind and creating chaos that Lamont’s cavalry could capitalize on, in spite of being less experienced in this terrain.
The risk, of course, was that Roland and his men would drive too deeply into enemy territory and become cut off or overwhelmed. Without light, it had been difficult for Roland to judge the state of the action as a whole, but as the first rays broke over the mountains to the east, he turned in his saddle and saw the pass as it must always look to Hastafel’s troops—a long slope that rose up from the sea to a narrow corridor where the dawn was glowing. Roland was at the bottom of the hill now, and there was intense fighting for about half a mile up the valley. It was impossible to see who was winning, but the wave of blue from Lamont’s mounted troops was certainly making a dent in Hastafel’s southern flank.
Roland spotted one of the golems—a lumbering hill of mud. He heard the insane battle-cry of Hastafel’s troops, a sort of human wolf-howl that made his skin prickle. Roland had hoped that, in addition to softening the enemy, his vanguard action would draw the worst of the monsters to the most experienced knights from the fort. If anyone knows how to deal with them, we do. But the handful of golems had remained out of sight or far away on the horizon.