“Get down,” he said. “But don’t even think about running. I’ll put an arrow through you if you try it.”
I didn’t doubt it. I slid down and tottered stiffly ahead of him, on rubbery legs that would barely obey me. Black-Arse and Rose had been let down as well, I could see. But at the head of the column, Valdracu still held Dina in front of him, and his big dark bay seemed to be able to manage the incline anyway.
It was a wet and stony and narrow place. On both sides of the trail the sides of the gorge rose steeply, and muddy rainwater pooled around my feet, so that it was almost like wading through a stream. Directly in front of me was a dappled gray rump, and if I didn’t keep up the pace, I’d likely get trampled from behind; it wasn’t easy for a rider to halt his horse here.
There was a whirring sound in the air, and a thud. Suddenly the rider on the horse in front wobbled in the saddle and pitched forward. There was a scream, but not from him. Somewhere else. More whirring. More thuds. Arrows rained down on us, and men and horses were falling and fighting, struggling to keep their footing, to get up, to get away. In moments, the narrow gorge had become a slaughterhouse, and no one in it could even see the attackers that fired the deadly arrows.
I jumped to avoid the panicked charge of the horse behind me and tried to climb a little higher up the side of the gorge. Below, I could see Rose and Black-Arse doing the same thing. We were far better off than the riders, because we were able to clamber up the steep slope, away from the bottom of the gorge, which had become a chaos of fallen bodies and kicking hooves. But Dina? Where was Dina?
At first I could see neither her nor Valdracu. They had been at the point of the column, hadn’t they? I couldn’t even see that far. I climbed downward, jumped over a dead horse, clambered up the slope again, climbed a boulder… there they were. Valdracu had leaped from the saddle and was running downward, away from the slaughter, with the horse at his back and Dina held before him like a living shield.
I quickly stooped to wrest the sword from a wounded Dragon soldier. He looked at me in wide-eyed terror; I think he expected me to finish him off, but I had more important things to do. I edged past a bewildered and riderless horse and ran toward Valdracu as fast as my legs would take me. I began to catch up, too—Dina was no willing shield; she squirmed and kicked and fought him every inch of the way, slowing him down as much as she could.
I got quite close, near enough to actually touch the bay’s tail, before Valdracu caught sight of me. For a moment he looked startled. Then he pulled the horse around so that it blocked the trail almost completely. He turned to me with one arm round Dina’s throat, and drew his sword with his free hand.
“Stop,” he said. “Stay where you are, or I cut her throat.”
I stopped. Then I thought better of it and took another slow step forward.
“If you kill her, you won’t have any shield,” I said. “If I don’t get you, the archers will.”
An arrow streaked past my shoulder and buried itself in the slope by the horse’s muzzle, almost as if to underline my words.
He seemed to consider it for a moment. Then he shook his head.
“You don’t quite understand,” he said. “You see, I don’t care whether she lives or dies. But you do. I even think”—he raised the blade until it rested against Dina’s neck—“I even think you might prefer to die, rather than see her killed. Am I right? You are her brother, I think?”
I didn’t answer. What was I to say? He might be right; I simply didn’t know. I only knew that if he used the blade now, against Dina’s vulnerable neck, then I might kill him, yes, but I would never again be able to go home.
He smiled. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Stay where you are. Don’t try to follow me. Your sister wouldn’t like it.”
He clicked his tongue, and the horse began to move on.
As he turned to follow it, an arrow streaked across the bay’s back and grazed Valdracu’s right ear. Blood welled from the lobe, and he instinctively put a hand to his neck, letting go of Dina. Instantly, Dina threw herself to the ground, rolled under the horse’s belly, and came up on the other side. The horse cow-kicked at her and leaped forward, and Valdracu, who suddenly had neither horse nor girl to shield him, cursed, dropped low, and started worming his way toward Dina like a snake.
There wasn’t time to think about it. I raised my stolen sword and struck.
I hit him in the side, just above the hip, but I knew right away that it wasn’t enough. He was wearing a mail shirt under his tunic and simply ignored the blow. He didn’t even turn to fight, he just reached out, grabbed Dina’s ankle, and pulled her down into the mud with him.
I struck again. This time, I aimed for his neck.
A spray of blood spattered over both Dina and me. He made a sound, a sort of bubbling cough. I seized him by the shoulder and dragged him off my sister, tipping him onto his back. He lay there, faceup in the muddy gorge, and I could see that I had killed him even though he wasn’t dead yet. The sword had gone halfway through his neck, and he was bleeding like a butchered pig, in quick spurts at first, then more sluggishly. His eyes stared up at me, but after a while I could tell they weren’t seeing anything.
It wasn’t like killing a goat or a deer.
It wasn’t like killing any animal.
It was like nothing I had ever done before.
I fell to my knees beside the man I had just killed, and retched until there was nothing left in my stomach.
DINA
Unharmed
The fighting was over. After the clamor and the shouting and the struggles of the frantic horses, the gorge was almost silent now. One wounded man was moaning loudly. From both sides the archers began to appear, still with arrows notched in case they met with any resistance. But neither Dragon soldiers nor false Kensies were a danger to them now. Those that were still alive had surrendered, and many were in any case so badly wounded that they couldn’t defend themselves, let alone attack.
Davin was on his knees next to Valdracu. He had thrust the point of the sword into the ground and was clutching the hilt as if it was the only thing that kept him from falling.
“Davin…”
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “Not now. Please.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You can look me in the eye anytime. Nothing will happen.”
He made a disbelieving sound, part snort, part sob.
“I mean it,” I said. “That’s why… it was… Davin, I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t. I’m not a Shamer anymore.”
That made him look at me.
“What kind of rubbish is that?” he said angrily. “You don’t just stop being a Shamer.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I just looked at him. And gradually his expression changed.
“Do you mean to say… that that was why…”
“I couldn’t stop him! It didn’t work!” And so they dragged away Tavis, they had killed a nine-year-old boy because of me, and I had not been able to stop it, any more than I could stop the tears running down my cheeks right now.
“It wasn’t really your fault,” said Davin, but I imagined I heard a hint of doubt in his voice.
There was a shout from the slope. “Are you hurt?”
I looked up. I wasn’t too surprised to see Rover among the archers. But it wasn’t he who had shouted. It was the Weapons Master.
For a moment, the world tilted. What was he doing here? I hadn’t seen him in nearly a year; he and the Widow lived in Solark… and then I remembered some of the guards talking about the fall of Solark. Drakan had taken the fortress that everyone had believed was impregnable. Not so strange, then, that the Master was no longer in Solark. But here?
“No,” Davin called back, “we are unharmed.”
His voice trembled a bit, and I thought that no, we weren’t wounded, at least on the outside, but “unharmed” we were not. Not me, nor Davin.
He got to his feet slowly, and so did
I.
“What is the Weapons Master doing here?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. How would he know? But it turned out that he knew more than I did.
“I think he has found a way to fight Drakan,” he said. “He and the Widow have been gathering people for some time now. I think Rover must be one of them.”
We headed up the gorge, toward the Master and the others. There seemed to be dead people everywhere, but I was almost too tired to take it in. Sandor lay there with an arrow through his eye, and I just thought, Oh, he’s dead too, then. Later I would probably have to think about it, but right now there really wasn’t room inside me.
Not many of Valdracu’s men had survived. Morlan was one of them. Two archers were tying his hands behind his back. And behind him was—
I stopped so abruptly that Davin ran into me.
The messenger. The man who had murdered Tavis.
He stood there completely free and unharmed, talking to Rover, and nobody seemed to want to do anything to him.
I didn’t even think. I just threw myself at him.
Taken aback, he staggered and fell backward.
“Murderer!” I screamed, going for his eyes. I might not be able to kill him, not with my bare hands anyway, but I would do my best to blind him, and that would be some revenge at least for poor—
Someone seized me from behind and pulled me off him.
“Easy, easy,” said the Weapons Master. “Let him be. He is one of ours.”
“He is what?” I cried, beside myself. “He killed Tavis!”
“No, he didn’t,” said the Master. “He saved his life.”
“Saved his—” I didn’t understand. “But I saw—”
“You saw a small boy get dragged into the bushes. And a man returning with bloody hands.”
“I had to knock him unconscious,” said the messenger. “There wasn’t time to explain, and in any case I don’t think I could have made him listen. But the blood wasn’t his.” He pulled up his sleeve and showed me a dark cut on his forearm. “I had to do something. Valdracu wasn’t meant to come across you until you were well into Hog’s Gorge.”
“No, we came close to failing completely,” growled the Master. “We need more practice at this.” He let go of me. “Well? Do you still want to scratch his eyes out?”
“No,” I said in a weak voice and had to sit down.
Tavis was alive.
Suddenly, I could breathe again. It was as if I had been tangled in something terrible, cold, and tight that had threatened to strangle me slowly. Now it was gone, and I could breathe. He had not died. I had not been the cause of his death.
“Where is he?” I asked. Right now I had the most burning desire to see his hostile little freckled face, even if he was still throwing me dirty looks and calling me a traitor. Maybe I could make him trust me now. Maybe I could explain what happened with Valdracu. At least I could try. You can’t explain anything to people if they’re dead.
The Weapons Master pointed to the gorge’s entrance. “I’ve just sent a man to get him. If you go up the gorge and turn west, you will find a stream. We were planning on camping there for a bit. You go on ahead.”
For the first time in days, I sat by a fire and had something hot to eat and drink. I had stood in the cold water of the brook for a very long time, scrubbing and scouring my hands and my hair and my face until I felt reasonably clean, but the blouse was a hopeless cause. One sleeve was completely soaked in Valdracu’s blood, and I couldn’t make myself put it back on even though I knew how cold I’d be in just my vest and bodice.
I heard steps and looked about me quickly. It was just Davin. My heart settled again, and I thought that it might be a while before I stopped acting like a hunted animal.
“Here,” said my brother, and held out one of the green and white Kensie cloaks. “It’s a little muddy round the hem, that’s all.”
I hesitated, but only for a moment. It was a good cloak of thick wool, and I felt warmer instantly.
“Why were they wearing Kensie cloaks?” I asked.
“The Master is talking to Morlan right now,” said Davin. “But he doesn’t have much to say for himself.”
“Offer him money,” I said bitterly. “There isn’t much that man won’t do if the price is right.”
“They had been in a fight,” said Davin. “Three of them were wounded. Who do you think they had been fighting?”
“I know that,” said Tavis.
He startled both Davin and me. He had been lying close to the fire, so pale and silent that you nearly forgot he was there.
“Who, then?” asked Davin, trying to sound as if it didn’t really matter. With Tavis, you never knew when he would turn contrary.
“Skaya,” said Tavis. “I heard them talkin’ about it. They were laughin’ and sayin’ that they had taught them Skayas a lesson.”
At first I was just relieved that they hadn’t attacked Kensie—it would have been so easy, no one would have suspected anything until they were too close. But I could see that relief was not exactly what Davin was feeling.
“Black-Arse,” said Davin slowly and quietly, “if a troop of men in Kensie cloaks attack Skaya to—what was it he said?—‘teach them a lesson,’ what would Skaya do?”
“Strike back,” said Black-Arse without hesitation. “But they were not Kensie. Not really.”
“Skaya doesn’t know that,” said Davin, and there was fear in his voice now. “Skaya will attack, then. Where, Black-Arse?”
Suddenly, Black-Arse too had gone completely still and frightened.
“Baur Kensie,” he said. “They’ll attack Baur Kensie.”
DAVIN
Scara Vale
I leaned forward over the horse’s dark neck, wishing that horses had wings. The Weapons Master had chosen the nine strongest for us among those Valdracu’s and Morlan’s people had been riding. But they were still only ordinary horses and not fairy-tale creatures with eight legs or fabulous flying skills. And right now we needed miracles.
Two days had passed since the false Kensies had attacked Skaya. And the journey from Hog’s Gorge to Baur Kensie could not be done in less than three. Our only hope was that Astor Skaya might choose not to strike back immediately. He had a reputation for planning everything, even a simple hunting trip, down to the last detail. Did it take more than five days to plan an attack on Baur Kensie?
There were nine of us—much against my wishes. I would have ridden alone, but the Weapons Master wouldn’t hear of it.
“Too dangerous,” he had said. “What if you are attacked? What if your horse puts its foot in a rabbit hole? No, we ride fast, but we ride together.”
“Together” meant Dina, Rose, Black-Arse, and me, the Weapons Master and three of his men—and Morlan.
“We’ll need some kind of proof,” said the Master. “We cannot expect Skaya to believe our naked word.”
So Morlan rode right behind the Master now with his hands tied to the saddle horn and a rope from foot to foot under the horse’s belly. If his horse put a foot in a rabbit hole, I didn’t think much of his chances of escaping unscathed. But then, his well-being was the least of my concerns right now.
It took us the better part of a day and night to reach the Highlands proper. Luckily there was a full moon, but despite that, the Weapons Master commanded a halt shortly after midnight. “Or else we’ll kill the horses,” he said.
We couldn’t gallop or even canter all the time. The climbs were too hard, and the trail too rocky and treacherous, and we had to spare the strength of the horses. I had to fight my impatience and let the Master set the pace, because he knew much better than I did how hard we could press the animals—and ourselves.
“Sometimes you must make haste slowly,” he said at one point when I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Galloping like mad will gain you nothing if your horse breaks down before you are halfway there.”
I knew he was right, but in my mind’s eye I kept seeing the same sight over and
over again: the blackened lot where our old house had been. The dead animals. The ruined well. Only, now it was our new cottage, and it was not just animals lying there in pools of dried blood. Mama. Melli. Maudi. Nico—I even worried about Nico. If they came to kill him, would he look at them with that cool blue gaze of his and say: “I don’t care for swords”?
The second day we made better time, as the worst of the climbs were behind us. But that night the Weapons Master insisted we rest through all the hours of darkness. I lay between Dina and Black-Arse, staring up at the clouded night sky and hearing Black-Arse talk in his sleep. He didn’t dream of blueberry pies anymore. “Put out the fire!” he suddenly yelled, and I knew his dreams were like mine.
“Are you asleep?” Dina whispered.
“No,” I said.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m completely exhausted, but I can’t sleep.”
“We’ll make it,” I told her.
“You don’t know that,” she said. “You just hope so.”
“Yes,” I murmured. “But what else is there to do?”
Finally I did fall asleep, and I think Dina did too. We were simply too tired to lie sleepless all night. And at dawn we fed our poor horses, brushed them and saddled them, and made ready for another day’s hell-ride. We heard it first in the early afternoon. I thought for a moment that it was thunder. But although the wind was fierce and the clouds heavy, there was no lightning. And then I heard the roaring. It hardly sounded human, but I knew now what it was: the sound of men attacking men.
“Ride!” I yelled, for if we were close enough to hear the sounds of battle, there was no longer any reason to save the strength of our horses. So we rode. We were still half a day’s ride from Baur Kensie, and I had a faint hope that perhaps it wasn’t Skaya and Kensie we were hearing. That hope vanished like a snuffed flame when I kicked my exhausted horse up the final ridge and looked down at Scara Vale.
It was a wide, flat valley normally inhabited only by cows and sheep. A peaceful valley, usually, with a calmly winding stream, green and yellow grasses, a little clover, and a lot more heather.
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