Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  “No, no, the boy’s only been here one other time in the past six months! Feel free to stay! I’ll set him to mending tack and fixing the back stall where it’s been kicked out. I just thought if you were looking for an opportunity—”

  Justin hunched a shoulder. “I’ve got things to attend to, as it happens,” he said ungraciously. “I’ll take a day or two and go about my own matters. And maybe sometime when it’s convenient for me to take time off, you’ll remember how obliging I was now.”

  “Yes, excellent, we’ll work this out,” Delz promised, looking relieved. “I’ll tell my nephew he’ll earn full wages tomorrow.”

  That afternoon, Justin loaded up provisions and headed out, taking the northern road in case anyone happened to be watching him. Once well outside the city limits, he cut sharply southeast, following back roads and overgrown trails till he entered the forest surrounding the convent.

  By this time, it was dark, and he proceeded with caution, staying well off the main trails that wound through the woods. He wished he had Donnal with him to take animal shape and sift the night air for any signs of danger.

  He wished Kirra was here, to turn Justin himself into a wild beast. Such an act was forbidden, but she had done it anyway,twice, and each time Justin had found himself exhilarated by the experience. Now he often found himself wondering what it would be like to be a bird, a fox, a snake. Next time he saw Kirra, he would ask.

  Nonetheless, his human stealth was good enough to bring him unobserved to the edge of the clearing holding the great convent. Still behind a scrim of trees, Justin observed the huge building, white and imposing even by starlight. It lay at the heart of a fenced compound so big that it also contained guards’ barracks, stables, small gardens—what was in essence a self-contained community.

  At every window, in all five stories, a single candle burned, giving the place a look of appealing warmth and welcome. Justin was close enough to see shapes patrolling the top edge of the thick walls—close enough to catch what sounded like women’s voices raised in song. What kind of people would be outside at midnight, singing? Justin supposed they were novices engaged in some convent ritual. The voices were sweet, ethereal, impossible to understand from this distance. Still, they had a sort of mesmerizing effect, making Justin want to push through the tree limbs, run up to the wall, and vault to the top, so he could look into the upturned faces of the girls who must be gathered in the courtyard.

  He wondered if Ellynor was one of the singers. The thought made him even more desirous of getting a closer look.

  He stayed where he was.

  In about twenty minutes, the singing stopped. Now the night air carried fainter sounds back to him, light laughter, muted voices, the echo of a door pulling shut. The guards walking the high perimeter conferred as they passed each other, but there was no other movement, no other noise, from within the walls.

  Soon, he thought, everyone would be asleep for the night.

  Justin scouted the terrain a little more closely, decided he was better off above the sight line. He retreated a dozen yards to secure his horse even farther back—close enough to retrieve quickly, not close enough to be seen from the road— and returned to his first vantage point to climb a sturdy tree. Tayse had been pretty certain the convent boasted only one entrance big enough to allow a contingent of men and horses through. If Coralinda Gisseltess was planning to send her men out on a raid, they would leave through that exit.

  Justin made himself as comfortable as possible on a broad shelf of tree, and settled in to wait.

  CHAPTER 8

  VERY little happened during the next twenty hours. Justin dozed in his tree, less comfortable all the time, and half listened to what he could overhear of convent life. In mid-morning, there were the distinctive sounds of metal against metal—soldiers training for combat, he guessed—and now and then pieces of conversation would float to him when guards on the wall stopped to exchange comments. A couple of times during the day, there was a surge of girlish voices as a wave of novices broke through the front door into the courtyard. At those times, Justin sat up straighter and tried to pick Ellynor out of the crowd. But they were too far away, and her most distinctive feature, her hair, was not on display. None of the women left the compound, though from time to time a solitary soldier would exit and take the road south. Just as infrequently, groups of two or three men would return. No way to know what business they were on, but they did not look large enough to be raiding parties.

  A few hours after sunset, however, he caught the sense of purposeful movement from behind the walls, and the sound of many hooves in motion at once. He craned his neck and saw massed shadows inside the courtyard, and then the ringing voice of some kind of sergeant at arms calling out commands. “Move out. Follow me.” A small detachment of soldiers was about to go on a ride.

  Justin hurriedly shimmied down the tree, collected his own horse, and waited in silence till the column of men made an orderly exit through the gate. Justin counted about twenty men, all wearing the black-and-silver of the Lestra’s livery. When it was clear there were no more stragglers, Justin followed a fair distance back. They would be easy to track, he thought—though, to tell the truth, they were moving with a practiced quietness that would be the envy of the Riders.

  Justin couldn’t think that any group of soldiers setting off in full dark and enforced silence could be on anything except covert business.

  They rode straight west until the trail out of the forest connected them to a wider and more well-used road, and then swung north. Nocklyn territory, Justin realized. He was not conversant with all the alliances and political leanings of the Twelve Houses—where was Kirra when you actually needed her?—but he remembered that Kirra and Senneth had considered Nocklyn likely to ally with the rebels if there was ever an uprising against the king.

  But some of the Nocklyn nobles might not side with the marlord. There might be a few pockets of gentry that considered themselves loyal to the crown.

  Or noble estates where mystics were welcome—who might even claim sons and daughters who had magic in their veins. The Lestra might very well have a quarrel with such individuals.

  The convent soldiers moved a little more quickly once they hit the main road, and Justin increased his own pace to keep up. Still, they maintained a fairly steady gait, designed to cover a considerable distance, and Justin was yawning in the saddle by the time they’d been on the move more than three hours. Around midnight, he guessed. How long did they plan to ride?

  Not much longer, as it turned out. A few miles later, there was a short, sharp order, and Justin sped up in time to see the whole contingent turn toward the right down a much smaller road. They were in flatlands, with trees only in unhelpful and widely spaced configurations, so Justin hung back as far as he dared, not wanting anyone to glance back and catch his shadow on their trail. He almost missed the next turn the group made, onto a well-kept lane that looked like a private drive, but thereafter, it was easy to guess their destination.

  Two turns later, they had entered the grounds of what appeared to be a small estate. Details were hard to see in the dark, but there was a pretty sweep of ground down to a house that was small by the notions of the nobility, but spacious by anyone else’s standards. Behind the house at some distance Justin thought he could spot outbuildings—a barn, a dairy house, possibly a small barracks for the house guard, if there was one—and then an undulation of land into what might be gardens or farmland. Fortunately for him, the eastern edge of the property was delineated by a curve of decorative woods, planted as a windbreak or landscaping element. Justin made his way there while the soldiers rode straight up the carriageway that led to the house.

  Someone was on guard just inside the ornamental gate. Justin had barely found his position inside the tree line when he heard a shout and a challenge, then the quick clash and ring of battle. Two house guards, he judged—both silenced within seconds. He saw the convent guards still in motion, slowing only as
they came right up against the house and fanned out.

  A bright golden flare as someone lit a torch. Then the globe of light danced, reproduced, moved down the line of soldiers, so that each individual raised his own flaming brand aloft. Justin found himself suspending his breath, his hands taut on the reins, as the soldiers all leaned forward at the same moment to hold their torches to the timbers of the house.

  Bright Mother of the blue morning, they were going to burn this house, and everyone sleeping inside it.

  Justin’s horse danced under him, unnerved by his sudden tension or the hard pressure of his hands and knees. What should he do? Shout a warning? Charge in for a rescue? He could not possibly defeat twenty men, not by himself. But to sit by and do nothing while who knew how many people were incinerated in their beds—he did not have to hear Senneth’s strictures to know that was wrong.

  Then—a shout—the sound of shattering glass—voices raised and a sudden commotion. Someone in the house had roused at the smell of smoke or—no! Bodies were pouring from one of the outbuildings. A house guard was at hand after all. Justin relaxed a little; at least now it was not his obligation to raise the alarm. He saw faces at the top-story windows, heard more muffled screaming, caught the frenzied music of blades playing against blades.

  It was quickly obvious that the house guard was too sparse and too poorly trained to offer the Lestra’s soldiers any real challenge. One by one, the lesser fighters were cut down, furiously though they battled. The leaping orange flames threw a garish illumination over the field of combat, and Justin could clearly see each unequal battle, each violent death.

  There were not enough house guards to engage all of the Lestra’s men, and so some of the convent soldiers were watching at the doors as the residents came streaming out. One by one, the soldiers cut them down.

  Justin watched with his stomach clenched, his throat aching with the shouts he swallowed. Many who raced through the front door, intent on escaping fire, appeared to be servants, dressed in plain sleeping garments or very little clothing at all. They were shown no mercy. The few that Justin picked out as the property owners—an older man and a woman who could be his wife, a middle-aged man who might be a brother, a boy and a girl who looked to be fourteen or fifteen—all of them came running out into the flame-streaked night.

  All of them ended up with a sword through the heart.

  Justin felt his own heart grow small as a lump of coal, felt it contract in his chest and catch fire.

  There was a shout and a great rush of motion from the back of the house—apparently there had been an exit there that was not as well guarded as the main one. Three figures broke free of the melee of flame, shadow and sword, racing up the slight incline toward the line of trees where Justin waited. Two soldiers gave chase. More shapes came around from the back of the house and were instantly engaged in battle. The mounted soldiers quickly caught up with the men on foot. But the nobles offered a spirited defense and did not go quietly, shouting out hoarse insults as they lifted their fine, expensive dress swords and tried to bring their tormentors down to death with them.

  Overlooked in the frenzy was a small, lone shape, fleeing on short legs straight to the woods where Justin was hiding.

  A child. A boy. Maybe five or six years old. Seconds away from escaping the slaughter.

  Justin swung himself down from the saddle and crouched, gauging the child’s trajectory. Not a single look back— someone must have told the boy to start running and never once stop. He was three steps from the woods—two—and still no one had seen him. All of the soldiers were preoccupied with larger game. The child came tearing through the trees, head down and fists pumping. Justin snatched him up in one easy motion, his hand across the boy’s mouth, his arms crushing the small body to his chest.

  Not surprisingly, the boy fought, pummeling Justin’s face and shoulders with ineffectual hands, landing a few kicks with surprising force, trying to bite, trying to scream. Justin squeezed him tighter, attempting to hold the boy still enough to understand his words. “I won’t hurt you. I want to save you. I’m not with those men. I can help you. Be quiet. I can help you.”

  Abruptly the boy stopped fighting and looked up at Justin, his eyes huge and liquid in the impossible light. For a reflexive moment, Justin was reminded of Cammon, whose own eyes were so limitless, whose own expression was so fey. Maybe this was the magic child, the one the soldiers had slaughtered the house in order to destroy.

  Maybe Justin had had to sit there, helplessly witnessing all this horror, merely to make this simple find.

  Save this single life.

  “Trust me,” he whispered now. The boy didn’t nod, didn’t move at all, didn’t stop staring up at Justin. “Don’t scream. The soldiers will hear you if you scream, and then we’ll both be dead. I’m going to put us on my horse and ride out of here. We’ll be safe.”

  Cautiously Justin lifted his hand, but the boy did not scream—didn’t make a sound at all. His little body, at first so full of rage and terror, was now alarmingly limp, though he was still conscious, still aware. By the Bright Mother’s red eye, what was Justin going to do with this child? Take him to safety, yes, but where was safety? Could Faeber be trusted? Would someone in Neft recognize this boy, know which household he belonged to? And once word got out that the mansion had burned down, wouldn’t someone wonder how Justin had happened to be on the scene to effect a rescue?

  And if the soldiers truly had been hoping to kill this child, wouldn’t they quickly realize who had come to safety in Neft—and try again?

  Well, Justin would deal with those questions after he’d accomplished his first task, which was to get the child away from this scene of carnage to someplace that was even marginally more secure. Mounting quickly, moving quietly, and frequently looking over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him, he turned his horse back up the private drive and down the quiet avenues that led toward the wide thoroughfare.

  And then—oh, thieves’ luck, which had graced him so often in his miscreant days!—a carriage turned from the main road and began a lumbering descent toward the private property below. Friends or family members gone on a long journey, chancing the night travel because they were so eager to make it home.

  Justin didn’t even hesitate. He charged forward, one hand upraised, one arm holding the lost boy tightly to his chest. “Hold there! No farther! There’s trouble below!” he called out.

  There was a confusion of shouts and horses as the coachman hauled the carriage to a stop and two guards jumped off the back, swords already drawn. A man stuck his head out of one window, demanding to know what was happening, and Justin could hear a woman’s voice, anxious and frightened, sounding inside the carriage. The coachman fumbled for a torch, and there was a sudden brief, inadequate light. Justin rode forward, the boy balanced between his knees, both hands now lifted to show he offered no threat.

  “Go no farther,” he warned. “The house below is on fire. The—”

  “On fire!” the man in the carriage cried. “We must go! Maybe we can help! I see it! Look, Jassie, through the trees— the sky is all lit up! Hurry!”

  “No,” Justin said sharply. “Soldiers are there ready to kill anyone who might arrive. They set the blaze.”

  “Soldiers!” the man repeated, and peered hard through the darkness. “Who are you? What are you doing here? What is— why are—”

  But the woman in the carriage was smarter than her companion. She thrust her head out the window beside him, pale and pretty by torchlight. “Soldiers—from the convent?” she asked in a breathless voice.

  Justin nodded. “Yes. Looking for mystics, I’m guessing— or those who sympathize with them.”

  “Mystics!” the man exclaimed, rearing back as if slapped. The woman stilled him with a touch on the arm.

  “And they’ve—they’ve burned the place down? Everyone in it—dead? Are you sure? Everyone?”

  Justin kicked his horse a few paces closer. “Except this one. I
saw him running and I snatched him up—”

  But he didn’t have to explain the rest. With a muffled shriek, the woman flung herself out of the carriage and stumbled the few paces to Justin’s side. The boy stirred in his arms and cried, “Jassie! Jassie! Jassie!” Clearly Justin had found the one safe haven the boy might have in this world—assuming Jassie and her escort had the sense to get away fast. He lowered the boy into Jassie’s arms, and they collapsed into a small heap on the ground.