by S J Hartland
Better than an Isles captain with a drunken father ruling a barren rock?
“Sherrin admires you,” Aric continued in his careful, frown-face tone. “Men only call him the Stone Knight because the family owns the biggest quarry in the Isles but Sherrin is passionate, forthright. You’ll like him and—” He paused. “He’ll forgive much.”
“And you think he has much to forgive?”
“Don’t you?”
Azenor thought about Pairas’ lashes on his high-boned cheeks, his calloused hands on her skin. The enticing male taste of him.
“I won’t give Pairas up,” she said to shock him. “I love him.” Well, desire, at least.
“Curse your foolishness, Azenor,” Aric stormed. “I hoped I imagined that look between you and Pairas just now. What are you doing?”
Azenor laughed, wickedly enjoying his attention. “Nothing you don’t do and often.”
He tore a weary hand through his dark hair again and seized a steadying breath. His temper ran hot like hers. But Aric could push it down in a way she never could.
“It’s different. I know you’re Caelan-born but even so.”
“Don’t ‘even so’ me. Gendrick says that. Then he strokes that pathetic little beard on his chin and looks stern. Say it often enough and you’ll forget how to smile.”
A pulse beat in his temple. He didn’t smile. “Even so, you can’t take whoever you choose to bed. Azenor, listen. I trust Pairas with my life, but that man knows more women than there are grains of sand.”
“I’ll wed him or no one.” Azenor enjoyed her game. His fault anyway she found time to play with Pairas. Aric was too busy swaggering with swords.
“You sound like a petulant child. Duty, Azenor. Both of us must keep the Isles safe. Me with the sword, with my wits. You with—”
“What’s between my legs? I may as well be a tavern girl, or an alley girl.”
“You share Pairas with them already. This has to stop, Azenor. I can easily send Pairas away.”
“And I can easily go after him. Why must everyone tell me what to do? I’m not free. I’m a gilded prisoner.”
“You mean you’re in a gilded prison. Wrong. You need to be responsible.”
“Well, I’m sick of it.” She stamped a foot. “Everyone makes decisions about me, for me.”
“Oh, poor you.”
Azenor blinked in astonishment. Her brother wore furious face, instead of frown face. Or sarcastic face? She liked neither of them. As for his belittling tone—
“Oh go away, Aric.” She spun and marched down the stairs. Her game had turned on her, soured like Isobel’s mouth. “Go dance with your pointed stick.”
“Dance? Stick? Are you witless? Azenor, come back here.”
She ignored him. Her temper carried her down the stairs and into the ward.
“Poor you,” she imitated. “You sound like a petulant child.” A child? How dare he. What did he know? Frown face. Frown brain, more likely. “I’ll show you childish, Aric.”
Her hands fell as fists as she stomped on. “You haven’t seen anything yet. If you think I’m childish now, just you wait.”
She’d make him sorry. He’d frown if he found her gone. He’d miss her, wish he’d been kinder, defended her, taken her side about Sherrin instead of dismissing her as a child so he could pore over stupid maps with Gendrick.
Witless man. He grew up and become stupid. How ridiculous the Isles commander would look if she rode off—on his horse. With his sword. Then he would regret that sarcastic face. That sarcastic tone. Petulant child. Huh.
She wet her lips, the prospect of mischief softening her anger. Time to show him what childish was.
Laughing softly, Azenor crept to her brother’s room, dressed in Aric’s clothes, strapped her hair back, thrust his best sword in a belt and clasped his cloak at her throat.
She grinned at her mirrored reflection. Less a child and more an Isles Prince, frown face? No one stopped Aric going or doing what he pleased.
In her rooms she pulled on boots then tramped to the stables to saddle Aric’s horse. A sleepy groom stumbled in. “My lord?” Head down, Azenor waved a gloved hand to dismiss him. He shuffled off.
The disguise did not work as well at the gatehouse. “It’s not yet dawn, my lady,” a sentry said when she bid him raise the portcullis. “Does your brother know you’re leaving?”
“Do I answer to frown face?” she snapped. “I want to collect flowers in the forest.” For her gilded cage. “Let me through.” Why did men have so much freedom, and she did not? It wasn’t fair.
“Yes, my lady.” He slid a nod to his companion. The second man drifted away.
“Call him back,” Azenor said.
“Who?” the sentry said blandly.
“That man.”
“Call of nature.”
Call of duty, more like. Loyalty to Aric and all that nonsense. “Just hurry up.”
When the portcullis lifted, Azenor walked the horse through the gatehouse.
Murmurs broke out at her back. No doubt dutiful guards arguing about fetching Aric. Too late. If he wanted his beloved sister back, he’d have to come after her. Apologise. Yes, that. Only when he said sorry for his sarcastic words, would she return.
Azenor swung into the saddle and rode across the bridge into the town, a mass of stone and timber behind flanking walls, never still despite the early hour.
A yawning shop owner unlocked his door as she passed. In a fetid alley she glimpsed a man’s straining back and a fair-haired woman, her skirts hitched high.
A friend of Pairas’? Azenor giggled.
The sentry at the town gate stammered her brother’s name and bowed. She put a copper coin in his palm as he pulled the gate aside. A reward for stupidity.
Beyond the walls the road knotted like a frayed cord through sloping hills, etched against a sky curtained with sleek darkness. Dew sprinkled grass meadows.
Grazing cattle paid no heed as she rode past. Distant thunder squalled, its low rumble no match for birdsong or the patter of paws through tall grass.
As the third moon slid into the soft, nectar-scented dawn, she reached a crossroads.
Straight ahead lay the gentler route of merchants, priests and officials to Goradin’s Ford and Dal-Decma. But adventure beckoned on the other road, the one through dark-trunked woods drenched with swirling silences, swollen streams and stone bridges over the Great Digger to the Mountains.
Azenor let the hood shadow her face and turned left.
She met few travellers on this road. A weary soldier wearing Falls’ insignia nodded, head bent against the stiffening wind. A farmer atop a cart loaded with baskets and barrels glanced at her sword and averted his eyes. No one ever looked too hard or too long at armed men.
As the track ground through a rock-walled valley, a long line of riders appeared amid clattering chain mail, jangling harnesses and voices.
Azenor tugged the hood lower and studied badges on shoulders. The thorn tree and mermaid. Lord Fitzroy, the Shield Lord. She stiffened. He’d know her. But the grey-bearded border warden did not appear, and the riders threw her only a passing glance.
She laughed then at how easy deception proved, imagining Aric’s fury when he discovered his missing sword and horse. A naughty, petulant child, eh frown face? He’d be sorry. When Aric came after her, she’d refuse to come home. Until he begged.
In late afternoon, dark clouds burst in a cold, hissing torrent. Azenor left the road to take shelter, shoulders hunched against a fanged wind and driving rain.
Her temper as sodden as Aric’s clothes, that giddy elation at punishing her brother seeped away. She was lost. And how exactly did she think Aric would find her?
“Seems I’m the stupid one,” she confided to the horse. “Not Isobel.”
The rain pattered as night dropped. A starless sky bowled with utter blackness, the moon masked by billowing clouds. Azenor splashed through puddles, squelched through mud, fought bushes and rending b
ranches but could not find the road.
“Curse it. The stupid child is even more lost.” She patted the horse absently. “Don’t suppose you remember which way we came?”
With an exasperated sigh, she turned back, crossing a fast-flowing creek. That wasn’t right. Panic churned in her gut. She beat it down, tied the horse to a sapling and crawled beneath clotted leaves to keep warm. Her belly rumbled.
Tomorrow. She’d find the road, return to Tide’s End. A brighter day, tomorrow. With this thought, despite hunger and itching wet clothes, she slept.
Azenor woke in bleak light barely splintering a canopy of leafy, dark-timbered trees. She stretched, shivering. Damp garments clung to her skin. Water dripped from her hair down her neck. Her empty belly hurt.
Tears brimmed. Angrily she swiped her eyes. When Aric found her, he would not see her crying. Besides, this was an adventure.
With trudged steps, she led her horse into a clearing of wind-flattened grass.
A patchwork of grey and black clouds sped overhead, shadowing land. Wind skittled leaves into piles at the base of trunks. Water burbled close, a rush of sound that lifted her spirits. A river meant villages.
Unless—unless she’d wandered into a snake valley.
“I haven’t seen any snakes,” she reasoned with the horse to fight down alarm. “It can’t be a snake valley. Though what do I know? I’m losing my wits as I’m talking to a horse.”
Hood down, cape tight against the brawling wind, she followed a stream through mushed grass and mud to a wide river, its currents wrinkles in its meandering, green-grey surface.
Drooping trees lined the banks, thick with crisscrossed boughs and leaves glistening with raindrops. Yellow flowers flattened by last night’s squall spilled between moss-green trunks and the reedy water.
The scent of mud was everywhere; on her clothes, in the air, rising from the turgid river. On its far side, woods pressed in a dark mass. The slate sky mottled with clouds, the light a dismal ash.
Azenor didn’t see the ship at once. Just an odd shape jutting from the bank. She drew up, staring. Strewn branches hid a deck.
A hand clamped her mouth. Cold metal pricked her throat as someone grabbed her shoulders from behind and pulled her against them.
“Make a sound and you’re dead.” A man’s voice. “Do you understand?”
Her heart too fast, Azenor swivelled her eyes towards a cowl hiding all but a man’s bristled chin.
“Do you understand?”
She managed a curt nod. His hand fell away.
“Let’s see who you are, little spy.” The man tipped back her hood. “But you’re a woman!”
“Really?” Her voice cracked. “If only someone told me before. It explains a lot.”
Leaves rustled. The wind carried low voices. Close.
“Quickly. Come with me.” The man pulled her back into long grass, a firm, strong body pressed against her. A woodsman perhaps? Who else skulked about in forests in cowls?
“I tell you, I heard something.” Heavily accented Venivan words.
Her new companion pressed a ringed finger to his lips. Azenor jerked a nod, her eyes hooked on that ring. Sapphire set in a silver band. An expensive trinket for a woodsman.
Boots padded over wet leaves. The man gripped his knife.
The Venivan spluttered in surprise. “It’s a horse.”
“Threw its rider?” Another man, also Venivan. “Might be an accident someone’s here.”
“No one comes by accident into a snake valley. Find them.”
A sword swished and slashed through bushes.
The stranger tensed, holding her close as they crouched in the grass. The uneven beat in his chest drummed. Or was that her heart? Azenor thrust her fist in her mouth as men circled, thrashing at undergrowth.
They moved away. Her companion yanked her up. Again he tapped a finger to lips and pointed to an embrace of trees across a meadow of bobbing orange wildflowers and mud.
Azenor followed. He seemed friendlier than the Venivans.
He reached the trees with a swordsman’s lithe, sweet-footed speed. Aric had taught her to recognise those who danced with steel. That cat-like balance marked this stranger, a man with a bladesman’s shoulders, a cloak of fine wool and a ring of silver and sapphire.
A man who did not belong in a snake valley.
They trod on in silence as forest thinned to a grassy hill and Azenor’s pent-up fear at last released in a torrent of questions. “Where are you taking me? Who are those men? They spoke Venivan. Did you hear? We must go back. My horse is there.”
“There isn’t time. They’ll be on our trail.”
“Make time or I go no further.” The retort shot out hotter than she intended. Tough. Her belly rumbled, her clothes prickled with damp and she was lost. “Tell me who you are and where you’re taking me?”
The stranger drew up so fast she nearly barrelled into him. He laughed softly. “Yes, let’s sit down and chat. Who cares that those Venivans are likely slavers and we’ll end up in irons in the Icelands caverns.”
Irritated, Azenor shoved him. He reeled a step. Then the ground collapsed beneath him and with a blink of surprise, he tumbled backwards.
Guiltily, she peered down. The stranger sprawled at the bottom of the hill, his hood flung back from black, glossy hair spilling in rain-misted waves onto a fine-boned face. He was older than she expected, at least thirty-five, but striking none the less.
“I didn’t mean—”
He glared. “That’s quite a temper you have, girl.”
“That’s quite a big, sarcastic mouth you have.”
“I’m told it’s one of my best features.” He shifted, groaning.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you.”
“Why? If I come back up there, do you intend to push me again?”
“A Jape snake is sizing you up. It’s big enough to swallow you whole.”
The man grinned. “Surely it will choke on my big, sarcastic mouth.”
“Well, since you have the situation in hand,” Azenor declared, not really worried for him. The snake wasn’t as huge as she pretended. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait!”
She looked back, eyebrow raised.
“I dropped my knife up there. At least toss it down. Give me some chance.”
Azenor found the blade. “Here.” She hurled it high. The knife thudded in clumped grass about a body’s length from him. A poor shot. Too close to the snake. It coiled, hissing.
Alarm ripped through her. She didn’t really wish to see him hurt.
“Good throw.”
“I aimed for your big, sarcastic mouth.”
“May the gods keep you far from crossbows.” He lunged for the knife. The snake tensed like a spring. Azenor’s hand flew to her mouth. Curse her temper, he was in real danger.
Then he and the snake blurred. She thought it struck at him, that he ripped the knife back and forth, too fast to see. An ugly head flew skywards. A whip-like body thrashed, its tail gashing his arm. Yelping, he sprang away, hands raised.
“Are you all right?”
He looked up. His face changed. He ran up the hill, shouting, “Behind you!”
Azenor turned. Glinting metal whirred. Sharp pain burst through her chest. Her knees hit the dirt. A rage of sounds erupted; a drawn-out scream, a terrible gurgling. A thud. A man collapsed beside her, eyes gaping on nothing. Blood trickled from a slack mouth.
She swept fingers across her breast. Blood? How? Dizzy, she swayed, her mind and body soft with shock.
The stranger thrust his wet knife into his belt and caught her, whispering, “Gods help me. She’s dying. That’s not right. It doesn’t happen like that.”
Azenor only half heard the words. Darkness embraced, as welcome as a lover.
Firm lips brushed hers. Her limbs flooded with warmth and strength. He’d kissed her. In fact, he was still kissing her. Spluttering with outrage, she demanded: “How dare you!”
“Wounded?” That still made no sense. “How?”
“One of those cursed Venivans. Probably thought you were a man and armed. Press here.” He guided her hands to blood pooling on her chest. “Press hard. Three more are coming through the trees.”
She trembled. “They’ll kill us.”
The stranger unfolded a grim smile. Completely without fear. Now Azenor had his measure. She may not know who he was, but she knew what he was. A swaggering dancer. Just as brazenly cocksure as Pairas or Aric.
“I need your sword,” he said.
“Where’s yours?”
“I left it in the cave.”
“You live in a cave?”
He laughed, a warm sound that unexpectedly shivered through her like an erotic caress. Azenor considered the pleasingly strong, elegant lines of his face. Arrogance carved those lips, and a darkness clung to him.
“It’s a very special cave,” he said.
Of course. A swaggerer’s cave. She laughed with him, then broke into a fit of coughing. “Take it,” she gasped.
The man lifted Aric’s blade. His eyes flared hard and cold like a gold ingot, his irises the deepest of blues, a shimmering of light and shadow caught beneath long lashes and arched brows.
“I hoped not to spill blood for one day. Though I didn’t count on them.”
Azenor squinted. Three men with short-cropped blond hair plunged from the trees, roaring. Two carried swords, the third an axe.
The stranger laughed, bitter this time.
“Only three against one. It hardly seems fair.” With a yell, he ran to meet them, swinging.
In his hands, her brother’s sword brutally carved flesh and bone. A blond man shrieked and toppled in spouting blood, his belly opened, an axe slipping from his flaccid fingers.
The other two jerked to a halt. Cautiously they ringed their target. He grinned. Azenor thought she heard him shout “for Ghani-Jai” as they came at him. Swords clashed in a spray of screeching metal, then blood. A Venivan reeled, clutching his shoulder. His companion hammered at the swordsman, but he sweetly matched every desperate stroke.