savage 04 - the savage vengeance

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Calia's resolution deepened.

  No one would have her while breath dwelt in her body.

  They had not the right.

  Daniel knew how to fight. He was unsure of how Calia would proceed with her engagement with the fragment which stood in front of them. However, raw experience had taught him she was deft in battle... and otherwise.

  He imperceptibly loosened his hold on her arms, giving her the element of surprise, it seemed that was her best weapon at the present.

  Lyle moved forward, free of the vestiges of his outer clothing and looked at Daniel. “You'll have your turn if you but hold her still while my two friends here lay hold of her. She's wily, this one.”

  Daniel swallowed hard, it took everything that he was not punch the fragment's teeth down his throat.

  But there was time enough for that.

  Instead, Daniel heard himself respond with, “I'll hold her.” Saying less was better, there was greater room to err if some of what he thought leaked out. Daniel was a master at schooling his emotions, he'd been doing it his entire life. But now there was more to lose than himself.

  There was Calia.

  Daniel tipped his head close to the top of her head and closed his eyes for a moment then as Lyle's hand was almost upon her, he released Calia.

  Calia felt Daniel's grip loosen and she had been ready. She did not hesitate but smoothly shot her dominant hand into the ruin of the fragment's nose, feeling the damage she had made before, expand into the breadth of his face.

  The pain was so overwhelming on the second strike that Lyle didn't move for a moment. When he did, he staggered back, arms flailing as the two others went for the female.

  Calia struck Lyle high then crouched, punching out with her left hand in a fist of brutality, striking the second closest fragment on her left in the underside of his weapon of assault and he collapsed to the ground as a tree felled, his hands clutching his testicles. Calia stood from the strike, balanced and true, her fists loosely clenched, standing ready.

  Daniel tried to get to the third fragment before he could lay hands on Calia but she was exactly in the path and couldn't react in time, his fist striking her unguarded temple and leaving her stunned.

  Daniel had his dirk unsheathed and embedded in the neck of the fragment before he could lift his fist for a second strike.

  Meanwhile, Calia lay dazed and blinking at his feet.

  He had to get them out of here.

  Now.

  Calia leaned in avoidance but the third fragment was too near. She felt the numbing blow strike her head and her vision wavered, her meager breakfast lifting in her stomach in a hot lump.

  As she fell she saw Daniel land a killing blow on the neck of the fragment who had meted the damage to her throbbing head.

  Calia tried to sit up, and her vision tripled, the world swirling in front of her.

  Then Daniel was on his knees before her.

  “Can you walk?” his lips asked as he narrowed then expanded before her vision.

  Seeing she was overcome, he brought Calia to her feet. Her knees buckled and she folded against him.

  He sighed. Successful escape was in question.

  Daniel looked behind him, seeing the two of the fallen fragment. There was simply no time to kill them, he needed to get Calia somewhere she could safely heal this injury. He shifted her weight onto his shoulder and began to run with her.

  Calia felt the motion of Daniel moving through the forest and knew he distanced himself for a reason.

  Her.

  She opened her mouth to tell him to return, kill the fragment. They would never forget the episode in which they were defeated. They would use any and all energy to pursue them, stopping at nothing.

  Calia knew this because she would have.

  Before she could utter the warning, she was lulled into the unconsciousness of the concussion she had received, her body furiously mending the damage as Daniel made excellent progress in a large loop.

  He was coming back around to meet with the Band. To assist at the region where the meadowland of Outside separated the Great Forest and Clara's sphere.

  Daniel knew what Tucker planned. He had sufficient men. Now all he needed was surprise and numbers.

  After all, it was all the fragment used, guile aplenty mixed in perfect combination with ratio... they would win.

  The greatest question was: could he get to his party in time to warn them of the oncoming assault? Daniel did not know. Calia was a small female in weight, but she was unconscious, her weight like lead, encumbering his movements, slowing him.

  Daniel counted the number of the Band in his memory and found it wanting. He did not think Clarence and Charles could be counted for the fight. They were soft from their upbringing in the sphere.

  Daniel growled low in his throat, his frustration causing the birds to loosen from their roost in the trees, taking flight.

  Not too far from his position Tucker frowned as he saw a small flock of birds flee the moorings of the forest. It wasn't twilight yet... odd, he thought.

  Then he noted that Lyle had not returned with Calia. His neutral expression digressed to a frown.

  Understanding dawned too late.

  Tucker should have never left her in the care of Lyle, he would let lust and emotion rule the better part of logic and wreck the surest trade they'd ever possessed.

  Dammit.

  Tucker barked orders to ready the horses, they would traverse the wood after Lyle's last position. He would know the back of his hand.

  Or worse.

  Far worse.

  *

  “How much longer?” Evie asked, looking around the wood. Every bit of the forest looked the same. She was beginning to lament her wheedling to accompany the group. Clara was safe, that crazy select had now complicated matters terribly and stabbed Philip! Ugh! She could not be right in her own mind, stabbing the Band and running off in a huff while the fragment were about.

  Of course, Evelyn had run off and been at the spring when the fragment had come upon her.

  That had been the fault of the witches of the sea clan, Jocelyn and Ella, she reminded herself. Better to keep her irritation in check for the moment.

  Bracus turned and sighed. “It will be no more than an hour hence.”

  Maddoc rolled his eyes and Evie caught him. “Oh and you partake in such sport. This is distracting... for you?”

  “Nay, but I do not complain about it as a school-girl,” he responded, feeling every inch the elder of the two.

  “Humph!” Evie exclaimed and brushed her heels against the horse's side. In so doing she startled her mount, the beast taking off as if the devil was after her.

  Evelyn held on for dear life. She was an excellent rider usually.

  When she was in control of her mount.

  This one, once startled, had taken it into its head that it must race for the hills and beyond to escape a phantom threat.

  Evie leaned forward, burying her face in the horse's mane and hoping that if she held on, the steed would become fatigued and quit racing.

  Maddoc saw the horse startle and charge off. He grunted in annoyance, the foolish girl! Evie never listened! She was by far the most stubborn female he was acquainted with. Evie drove him to distraction.

  He raced to Clara's horse and she slid off with Matthew's help.

  Bracus shook his head. A very amateurish move on Evie's part. Had she not been trained on the horse from a wee lass?

  Maddoc swung atop the steed and kicked its sides, racing after Evelyn.

  Evelyn kept tears in with an effort. She could not hear anything save for the roar of hooves beating the snow and ice beneath them into submission. It seemed as if hours had passed yet it had been but fifteen minutes of hard running when the horse pulled up short. The abruptness of the motion caused Evelyn to slide forward, gripping the mane more tightly.

  Evie opened her eyes and beheld what was before her.

  The fragment.

 
; Tucker saw the horse racing for position on a dead run and waited until it was quite close before his men and he stayed its course by moving into its pathway.

  Tucker's scowl turned to a smile when he marked the rider as female.

  It broadened when he recognized who sat atop the steed.

  Sometimes there was such a thing as luck.

  Maddoc leaned forward, his backside in the air, the positioning of his body assisting in the aerodynamics of the ride, the horse flying along the course that Evie's horse had laid.

  When his keen vision tracked Evelyn's horse, Maddoc slowed to a trot, then finally a walk.

  His hands clenched on the reins. He saw her pale golden hair floating all around her as the men of the fragment approached. He was helpless to assist, their number twenty and five, a normal contingent. His mind railed against it as a possibility. Had not the boy who be the witch dispatched many? How had their leader garnered these numbers with such haste?

  He had no Band at his back.

  Maddoc had never been one to cry.

  Actually, he realized in a numb stupor, he never had.

  Tears like a burning wall of fire lanced the back of his eyes.

  He pressed his heels into Briar Rose's side.

  Toward Evelyn.

  Toward certain death.

  *

  Evie slipped off the horse and turned before her feet found the ground, running in the opposite direction of Tucker and the rest. She knew very well what awaited her with him.

  How had this most miserable of accidents resulted in this circumstance? As she ran, her eyes pegged a figure in the distance. He caught sight of her and she ran faster.

  She knew the flame-like hair even from this distance.

  It be Maddoc.

  Oh dear Lord! Maddoc saw Evie dismount and begin running toward him. He knew the instant that she recognized him and his heart squeezed. He kicked his heels into Briar Rose's sides, she grabbed the frozen ground. Trained for battle.

  For need.

  Her graceful neck leaned forward as she ran for Evelyn, never flinching as Maddoc's long sword slid from its sheath in a long hiss of metallic music carried on the wind.

  Evie saw the sword in Maddoc's hand and moved to the opposite position of the oncoming horse. She knew how true Briar Rose rode, having been Bracus' steed for ten and two years. If she could but reach Maddoc before they were upon her. Even now her lungs burned and she heard the feet as they crushed the snow behind her.

  Like so much broken glass, her ears hurt with it.

  Then it was their breath. Evelyn was sure she could feel the heat of it at her nape.

  She saw Maddoc's eyes widen, she was that near to him when a meaty hand grabbed her hair and jerked her backward, her feet popping off the ground.

  Maddoc saw the brute clutch Evie's hair and lost all reason. He lifted his sword and Briar Rose did as she was trained and lowered her head to avoid the strike and he swung low and wide, taking the man's arm off at the shoulder, the gruesome hand never let go of Evie's hair and she fell from the loss of its tether come undone.

  Evie felt herself come away from the ground, jerked backward and anticipated the contact of the male when all momentum of the pull ceased abruptly and she fell on her side, momentarily knocking the wind out of herself. She got up on her knees and opened her mouth for air she could not get.

  Evelyn staggered over to Maddoc's horse as three more of the fragment were almost upon them.

  A warm spray of blood burst against her back as the one closest to her received a hit that nearly took off his head.

  She still could not get the precious oxygen she needed, craning her neck to look up at Maddoc, blood and gore a splattered spray everywhere her eye could touch, his feet firm in the stirrups as he brought the blade down on the second of the fragment who followed the first.

  Evie stumbled close to the horse's side and a mighty hand from atop the horse clutched the fabric of her dress and hoisted her onto its back.

  She swung her leg over and when she was righted gasped in her first breath of air and whimpered in abject fear when she faced who came.

  Tucker strode toward the horse. The imbeciles! He would kill them himself! Three of the fragment felled by a lone rider of the Band who looked to be the youngest he'd ever seen! Ridiculous... he knew, if you wished a job done to your specifications, then by all that was holy, you must commit to it yourself!

  He came very close to the horse and raised his long sword.

  The horse's death would assure the capture of this female, the demise of the young Band and an end to this despicable group stealing what was rightfully his.

  Briar Rose saw the weapon and knew what it meant for her.

  She stood still, giving only the softest neigh of sadness. For as long as she had lived she had loved her Steward. The large male of the Band, his scent, his watchful care... her duty was assured, true and untested. Her sole regret was that her Master did not sit upon her back.

  There would be no farewell.

  She bowed her head a final time.

  *

  Daniel and Calia came around the bend and into the open meadow which separated the sphere from the Great Forest.

  Instantly Daniel saw the fragment and their engagement of Maddoc and Evie. Daniel did not take time to wonder as to why those two were separate from the remaining Band. He put Calia on her feet and she remained steady, slowly sliding down to the ground and he wrapped his hand around the familiar weight of his quiver. With a stout jiggle, he loosened the quivers one from another and plucked an arrow out. Its fletching was perfectly suited to the distance required.

  He saw Evelyn's precarious mount of Briar Rose and a heartbeat later he nocked his arrow in position for his target.

  When the gleam of metal shone in the low light of the sun he saw it arc for the head of Briar Rose and sprung his arrow.

  Daniel had a moment of silent prayer.

  Hoping that he'd saved all.

  If he saved the horse, all was not lost.

  The rider and female would be safe on its back.

  Daniel waited with a semi-conscious Calia at his feet.

  His options were exhausted.

  If this did not succeed, his position would be discovered, his motives more than clear.

  Daniel readied another arrow, his shoulder muscles fluidly bunching from use and practice.

  *

  Tucker felt like he'd been hit with a fist that stung and his swing at the horse's bowed neck glanced away, maintaining his grip was—impossible. He threw his good arm behind him as the horse, a trained battle steed, backed up and turned without guidance, cantering back the way she had come.

  Who had slung the arrow that pierced him?

  Not that it mattered. Tucker watched as the remainder of the group broke through the woods.

  More Band.

  And the queen.

  Tucker smiled through the pain. He was down three of the fragment but that shouldn't matter. He counted the males even as he stumbled to an upright position.

  Five Band, two males of the sphere, and two females.

  One held special interest to Tucker:

  Queen Clara appeared as a rider atop a steed, directly behind her was a slightly older woman, hair like pale wheat. As Tucker stared, he noticed something disturbing, she was select as well.

  Battle ready.

  Make that six of the Band.

  Tucker heard a noise at his left and out of the furthest reaches of the Great Forest, Daniel came, with the wretched female. Unharmed.

  Where was Lyle? And the other two?

  Much would need to be explained. Daniel would make him privy to the whereabouts of his men.

  He continued staring as the remaining fragment came behind him.

  Tucker wrapped his fist around the shaft, the arrow head barbed, and jerked off the shaft cleanly at the tip. The head remained embedded high and deep in his chest, very near his shoulder. He flexed and swiveled his arm. The pain was
terrible but he'd fought in worse. The arrowhead acted as a cork. As long as it was present, he might not bleed out. And he was a good healer.

  Another benefit of the blood of the Band.

  Even as he thought it, he knew that Caesar made his way to Clara's sphere. Whether they knew he was behind the taking of Clara was yet to be determined. It didn't matter. Caesar furthered Tucker's goals as he distracted the Band from aiding the very thing they wished to return to defend.

  It was a perfect plan of diversion.

  The Band broke away from the camouflage of the forest border and immediately readied their weapons. Bracus saw Evie's hair flying like a golden flag behind her as Briar Rose tore toward them.

  She skidded to a stop in front of Bracus and he took a sugar cube out of his small rucksack at his hip, the fragment twenty horse lengths from their position.

  Briar Rose walked forward, her hips rolling smoothly beneath the extra weight of the small female rider, her breathing slowing. Her Steward kept her in excellent health, she did not panic and falsely start in battle.

  The small sweet treat lay on the flatness of the backside of his fingers and she scooped it up with the softest part of her mouth, sucking the delicious morsel into her mouth.

  She had been a good horse. Had done her job well.

  That is why she received the sweet treat.

  It is what her Steward gave her after a conflict with many of his kind.

  She neighed her pleasure softly, turning her neck to flick a glance at the ones they had left behind, tramping her foot in readiness.

  There would be another engagement.

  Briar Rose knew this from experience.

  She was ready.

  Maddoc slid off the steed and helped Evelyn down, her scalp stinging badly after the treatment by the fragment. They now lay bleeding out a sea of red upon the snow of the land around them, the earth a willing sponge for their lives.