“Stay down!” hissed Rose, once more pulling me low. I wasn’t even aware that I had tried to get up.
Davin was gone. I didn’t know whether he had fallen with an arrow through his chest or whether he had dropped low on purpose. I just couldn’t see him anymore. And at that moment, something else was happening on the trail. The dogs were coming back. And they weren’t alone. In front of them ran something dark, square, and hunchbacked, a whirlwind of hooves, tusks, and dark fury.
“It’s a boar,” Rose whispered, awe in her voice. “Where did he get it? I think he really is a wizard. I think he can talk to them.” She meant Rover, of course.
The riders were forced to forget all about Davin. When a quarter of a ton of raging boar is headed your way, it tends to arrest your attention.
“Come,” said Rover quietly, appearing out of nowhere just behind us. “Fools stay to jeer and shout / The wise man runs before his luck runs out.”
He had a point. We ran.
It was late afternoon before Rover brought Black-Arse and Davin back to us. Davin looked sheepish.
“She hit me over the head with a branch,” he said. “I didn’t believe… I mean, I didn’t think she’d do something like that.” He had a bloody furrow at the point of his shoulder where the arrow had grazed him, but apart from that, he was unharmed.
“I wish she had been ugly,” I said, pressing a pad of moss against the wound to stanch the bleeding. “If she had been ugly, you never would have trusted her.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that,” Davin protested, embarrassed. But it had, and we both knew it.
My knees hurt. My feet hurt. My lungs hurt. There must have been a time once when I didn’t just run, fall, get up, run, run, creep, climb, run again, and fall. There must have been a time when the world had had things in it other than wet pine trees, stony slopes, mud, hoofbeats, fear, and flight. It was just hard to remember right now.
Now that we had lost the horses, all hoofbeats belonged to the enemy. And ever since Sascha’s betrayal, they had been breathing down our necks, so close that there had been no chance of sleep, no chance of anything but the briefest of rests. We drank when we could—cold water, at least, was plentiful. I had not eaten anything since we finished the ham the day before.
There was one comfort. The Highlands were near now, and every slope we labored to climb brought us closer to clan lands. It was probably too much to hope for that Valdracu would call off his men and give up once we reached them—he had shown no particular respect for clan rights in the past—but we might find help up there, clansmen who would protect us against Valdracu for Kensie’s sake.
“Can you see anyone?” I asked Davin, who was lying on his stomach on an outcrop of rock a bit farther up.
“No,” he said. “But I don’t think we have lost them yet. That would be too much to hope for.”
“Their horses aren’t as much use to them anymore.”
“No. But then, we don’t have as much cover up here.”
“Can’t we at least rest a bit? Davin, we have to rest. Otherwise one of us will drop off the edge from sheer tiredness.”
He wormed his way backward, off the skyline, and then sat up. His auburn hair was dark with rain and sweat, and he looked tired and dirty and worried. I wanted to stroke the hair away from his forehead and give him a hug. But I didn’t. He wouldn’t have wanted me to. Instead I held Rose more tightly. She had put her head on my shoulder a while ago and had promptly fallen asleep. Black-Arse sat with his back against a boulder, just staring into space. He had had to carry Tavis up the last rise, and it had sapped his strength. Rover was nowhere to be seen; as usual, he went his own way.
“I’m hungry,” said Tavis. You couldn’t say that he was begging for food, because there was no hope whatsoever in his expression or his voice.
“We haven’t got anything,” I said.
“I know.” He sighed. “But what I’d really like… bread and honey, I think. Or a chicken drumstick. Crispy hot roast chicken. Or… or a bowl of soup. Aye, soup for sure. With a marrowbone and carrots and meatballs and—”
“Will ye shut up?” moaned Black-Arse. “My belly had just stopped rumbling.”
“We have to move on,” Davin said. “I don’t think they’re very far away. If only we can get a little bit farther into the mountains, we might—”
He broke off. We stared at each other, because I heard it too. Hoofbeats. Not from below, but from above us. From the mountain.
Wildly, I looked around me. We had pulled back from the path we had been following, and two big boulders gave us some cover. We were invisible from below, I knew. But from above?
There was nowhere to run to. We could only cower behind the boulders, like leverets in the tall grass. Hide as best we could. Wait. Hope.
The hoofbeats got closer. There were many of them, an entire troop it sounded like. But were they really Valdracu’s men? How had they got ahead of us?
They went past. Iron shoes clanged against the rocky path, a horse snorted and jiggled its bit. Cautiously, oh so cautiously, I poked my head around the boulder, close to the ground.
There was about a dozen of them. Tired men. You could see it from the way they sat their horses. Most had spatters of blood on their clothes, and more than one had a dirty bandage around an arm or a hand. But that was not what made my breath catch.
They were wearing clan cloaks. Green-and-white clan cloaks.
“Kensie,” I croaked, hardly able to say the word. “Davin, they are Kensie!”
He leaped to his feet, swinging his arms above his head and hollering like a madman.
“Kensie! Hello, there, Kensie!!”
We all got up. The troop of riders halted, turned, and came back to us. The green-and-white cloaks flapped in the wind like banners.
I could hardly believe it. Kensie men. Had they come looking for us, or was it coincidence? What incredibly good luck!
We were safe. We were finally safe.
Soon we were surrounded by tired men and horses.
“Who the hell are you?” asked one of them, a tall red-haired man who reminded me a bit of Callan. “What are ye doin’ here?”
“We’re Kensie too,” Davin said eagerly. “More or less. Some of us. Black-Arse, tell him—”
But Black-Arse was staring at the men. His eyes flickered from one face to the next, as if he were looking for someone.
“Davin,” he whispered, “I do not know him. I do not know a single one of them.”
Davin’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”
“These are not Kensie,” said Black-Arse, his voice full of fear and conviction.
It took me a moment to take in what he was saying. That was a moment too much. I whirled and tried to run, but one of the riders seized me by the arm and hauled me halfway up his sweaty horse. My feet left the ground and I dangled in midair like a caught fish.
“Grab them,” ordered the man who looked like Callan. “I’m sure Mesire Valdracu can use a few real Kensie folk.”
DINA
Valdracu’s Vengeance
“We could have made it,” Davin said tonelessly. “We were nearly there. We nearly got away from him.”
I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say.
They weren’t in any particular hurry, the false Kensie men. They didn’t know that Valdracu was scouring the woods for us a bit farther down the mountain. They had sent a messenger off with the news of their catch, and instead of riding east toward Dracana, they were going almost due south, skirting the edge of the Highlands and heading for some place they just called “headquarters.” They didn’t know who we were, except that some of us were genuine Kensie. Black-Arse couldn’t hide his origins—they were obvious every time he opened his mouth. And Tavis had been foolish enough to tell them that he was no lowly Kensie, but Helena Laclan’s own grandson. I don’t know whether he thought they would then let him go, but if so, he was mistaken—they now watched him even more carefully
than the rest of us.
They didn’t really ill-treat us apart from tying us up, but they made no efforts to make our lives easier either. We were a nuisance to them, a nuisance they put up with because they hoped for a reward. They allowed us to drink but didn’t bother feeding us that night when they made camp. I was so exhausted that I slept at least part of the night, despite the cold ground and the ropes that numbed my hands and arms. The rest of the time I lay huddled against Davin’s back, trying to keep warm and trying not to think about what Valdracu would do to us once he had us in his grasp again.
At first I had taken some comfort from the fact that they hadn’t caught Rover. Rover the wizard, who would surely think of some way of setting us free. Perhaps he would sneak into camp under cover of darkness and cut us loose. Perhaps he would spook our captors’ horses. Perhaps… but the night passed, and there was no sign of him or any of his magical stunts. And when I thought about it in the harsh, clear light of the morning, it had been an improbable hope. What was one half-crazed beggar to do against thirteen trained men of war—no matter how good his woodsmanship? He had simply run off, and who could blame him?
Just as the false Kensie were striking camp and getting ready for the day’s ride, there were hoofbeats on the mountain path, and a man in Dragon uniform came galloping up to us.
“Message from Valdracu,” he called as soon as he was within shouting range. “The captives are to be brought to Hog’s Gorge to be delivered there into the hands of Mesire Valdracu himself. Immediately.”
“Why the rush?” said the one who looked a bit like Callan—Morlan, they called him. “We have had a hard ride already, and now he wants us to go miles out of our way? If he wants them, he can come get them—at a suitable price, of course.”
“Hog’s Gorge,” repeated the messenger. “At once. And don’t worry—he’ll pay you a good price. Those are gilded birds you’ve caught!”
Morlan growled, but the mention of “a good price” had clearly had its effect.
“To horse,” he called. “Let’s go see what the Dragon will pay for such fancy fowl.”
♦ ♦ ♦
We were quite close to Hog’s Gorge when we ran into a small troop of Dragon soldiers—only four men. At the head of our column, Morlan raised his hand and brought his men to a halt. I squirmed and tried to ease my aching back and legs, but the “Kensie” whose horse I was sharing tightened his grips on my waist.
“Sit still,” he snapped. “This is hard enough on the nag as it is.”
Morlan moved forward a little bit to meet the leader of the Dragon troop.
“Ah, so Morlan has caught them,” said the Dragon soldier. “Excellent. I’ll take over from here.”
“Not so fast,” said Morlan. “I already have my orders.”
Yes, and you don’t want to miss out on your reward, I thought.
“And what are those?”
“To bring the captives to Hog’s Gorge. We’re headed there now.” He pointed forward and to the left, toward a narrow cleft of a valley that we were about to enter.
“Hog’s Gorge? I don’t know anything about that.” The Dragon soldier eyed Morlan and his men suspiciously. “Why there?”
“How should I know?”
“Morlan, I don’t know what your game is, but—”
“Do you doubt my word?”
The Dragon soldier looked as if a bad smell had caught his nostrils. “Your word? Why would I doubt your word—just because you bear a false banner and wear a false cloak? Or perhaps it is a turncoat?”
“You cur,” snarled Morlan, putting his hand on his sword. “I’ll teach ye—”
“I wonder what you’ll teach me, once Mesire Valdracu gets here. Give the signal, Horn!” And one of the troopers raised the horn he was carrying and blew a few loud notes that echoed down the gorge.
Morlan let go of his sword hilt. His eyes still blazed, but he spoke no more of curs and lessons.
“I was promised a reward” was all he said.
The Dragon soldier nodded. “To be sure, Morlan. You’ll get your wages.”
I stared dejectedly down at my hands, which were tied to the saddle horn. Let them quarrel. What did it matter whether Valdracu met us here or farther down the gorge? In the end, the result would be the same.
The four riders were apparently just the outriders. It was only moments before more Dragon soldiers appeared over the ridge above us. Eight men—and Valdracu.
You could tell that he had spent days in the forest, far from the conveniences he liked to surround himself with. Some of the polish had worn off, and his cold rage was almost tangible. His men took pains not to get in his way.
His glare raked over the assembled troops and fixed itself on me.
“So,” he said, and there wasn’t even triumph in his voice, only coldness, “finally.”
He rode Mefisto straight down the crowded trail, and men and horses hastily scattered before him. With a move so fast that I could barely follow it, he freed his chain and raised it. It whistled through the air and would have hit me in the face, except that the horse I was on was no Mefisto. It spooked and sidestepped, and the last few links caught me across the thigh instead. It was bad enough even so, a line of fire that made my eyes sting.
I heard Davin shouting but could see almost nothing for the tears I was trying to blink away.
“Keep that horse steady,” ordered Valdracu and once more raised his arm. I couldn’t even lift my bound hands, could only turn my face away and duck as best I could. The chain struck the back of my neck, just behind the ear. It was like being cut by thin ice, cold at first, then fiery hot, and I felt the blood well and trickle down my neck.
His knife flashed out. I cowered, half-expecting him to stab me with it, but he cut the rope that tied me to the saddle horn instead, seized my arm, and dragged me off the horse. My legs had no strength in them, and I ended up on my hands and knees on the ground, among the hooves. There was a ringing in my head from the blow, and I dared not raise my eyes, dared not risk looking at him.
He must have dismounted too. The next moment, I felt his grip on my neck, almost in the spot where the chain had hit me. He pulled me to my feet and pushed me against Mefisto’s unyielding flank, with my cheek pressed against the saddle flap.
“If you look at me, I’ll kill them all,” he said, a breath of ice right next to my ear. “All of them. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Are you sure you understand?”
“Yes,” I whispered, “I understand.”
“I have my doubts, you see,” he said. “As it seems you did not feel any need to respect our first agreement. Perhaps you think I’m not serious.”
A chill spread from the center of my stomach. “Yes,” I whispered desperately. “I know you are. I know!”
“Be quiet,” he said. Then he raised his voice. “The Laclan boy. Do we have him as well?”
“Yes,” said Sandor, who was holding Mefisto’s reins.
“Good. Then kill him.”
“No,” I screamed. “No!”
Sandor flung Mefisto’s reins to one of the other Dragon soldiers and started toward the horse Tavis was on. I twisted and caught a glimpse of Tavis’s frozen white face. One of the other Dragon men, the messenger, beat Sandor to it and dragged Tavis to the ground.
“Let me go!” screamed Tavis, and tried to kick his shin, but the messenger had him by the scruff of the neck and started dragging him into the shrubbery.
I was screaming my head off. I forgot all about Valdracu’s threats and so-called agreements.
“Shame on you!” I yelled, trying to catch his eyes. “Shame on you, shame—”
“Shut up, you devil’s brat!” he cried with an edge of panic in his voice and tried to get his hand over my mouth. I kept shouting. It just didn’t do any good. There was no hint of the Gift in my voice, and this finally dawned on Valdracu. He stopped trying to shut me up and instead turned me so that he could look into my eyes.
“Dear me,” he said, sounding as if the whole thing amused him, “my rare bird seems to have lost its claws.”
I was sobbing and crying my eyes out and I couldn’t stop whispering “Shame on you,” even though it did no good whatsoever. From the shrubbery I heard Tavis cry out, a thin terrified thread of a scream. Then all was quiet.
The Dragon soldier came back. His knife and his hands were dark with blood.
“What should I do with the body?” he asked. “Bring it along?”
“No,” said Valdracu carelessly. “Leave it. Scavengers have to eat, too.”
DAVIN
Hog’s Gorge
We started down the mountain, into Hog’s Gorge. My head was still buzzing from the blow I had got when I tried to help Dina, but that was nothing compared to the cold feeling of utter shock that made my whole body feel stiff and strange. They had killed Tavis. They had dragged a small freckled boy into the bushes and cut his throat.
I could hear Dina crying. Sometimes there was still a half-choked “Shame on you” from her, but no one paid any attention.
I didn’t understand. Why hadn’t she been able to stop him? What was wrong with her?
Dina, I thought, how could you let him kill a little boy? Valdracu was no Drakan who could look a Shamer in the eye and never blink; that much was obvious from the way he feared her eyes. Or had feared them. Apparently he no longer did.
The trail was steep and difficult. The horse I was on stumbled and nearly fell. It wasn’t easy for it to keep its balance with two people on its back, me and the false Kensie man behind me.
He had realized that too. He cut my hands loose from the saddle horn.
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