by Greg Keyes
He stepped closer, and suddenly he seemed to enclose her, blotting out everything else around her.
“I am honest,” he said. “I refused to court you for political reasons, remember? And I won’t pretend to court you now when you so plainly have no interest in me. So let us keep things as they are: You my queen and I one of your knights.”
Anne thought she had a reply, but she lost it somehow. She had believed she’d hit on a clever political ploy, but it was suddenly very much out of control. The earl sounded hurt. Was he really serious?
“May I go, Majesty?” Cape Chavel said stiffly.
“Yes, go,” she said.
She heard his footsteps start off. “Wait,” she said.
The footfalls stopped, and she felt a giddy sort of fear.
“I never said I didn’t care for you,” she said softly.
“Do you?”
She turned slowly. “Since we’ve met, I’ve been very…busy,” she said. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“I know,” he said.
“And as I’ve told you, I’ve been hurt before.” She paused. “Not just once. And there is—was—someone else. I admire you, Cape Chavel. I like you very much.”
“That isn’t love.”
“I’ve no idea what love is,” Anne said. “But you’re judging me too quickly. You’re guessing. You will never know if I can love you unless you court me, and neither will I.”
He held her gaze well past the point Anne found comfortable, which amounted to around three heartbeats.
“Majesty, now I have to ask if you are serious.”
She suddenly wanted to make a joke out of the whole thing, explode the moment as she had done with Cazio and back away.
And what about Cazio? She was sure he had feelings for her. If something happened to Austra—
No, she couldn’t think like that.
And so she nodded in response to his question.
“Then I will court you,” he said softly. “And hope I do not regret it. How should I start?”
“Ideally? Long walks in the gardens, riding, picnics, flowers and poetry. But as we’re in the middle of a war and I’m sending you off to fight this afternoon, I think a kiss might be nice.”
And so there was a kiss, and it was nice, and another, which was very nice, and so they spent the rest of the morning as the boats finished burning.
CHAPTER FOUR
FEND MAKES AN OFFER
ONE OF THE WYVERS folded its wings and dropped, hitting the man riding ahead of Aspar in the middle of the back with its wicked spurs. The fellow went flying over his mount’s neck, and the horse reared in terror. So did Aspar’s mount, and he cursed the loss of Ogre one more time. Ogre would rear only to attack.
Trying to control the beast with one hand, he jabbed his spear at the wyver with the other. To his satisfaction, he poked a hole right through its wing.
It screeched, hopped out of reach, and leaped skyward. The wounded wing still caught plenty of air, and in heartbeats it was up with its four brethren.
The attack had come as a surprise, because for bells the things had just been circling, following them. Fend’s eyes in the heavens.
When they reached Ermensdoon, the flying creatures broke off their attack and went even higher in their coiling paths.
“We don’t have long,” Aspar said. “They’ll be coming.”
“We almost beat them,” Emfrith muttered. His face was still tear-streaked. “If we could just find some way to kill the basil-nix. I hear Duke Artwair killed one down in Broogh, with fire.”
“Maunt they may have another fox behind their ears,” Aspar pointed out.
Emfrith nodded. “I won’t argue with you again. We’ll form up here only as long as it takes to evacuate the castle. Then we’re off, wherever you say.”
Aspar felt happier than he ought to at Emfrith’s capitulation. It was the geos again.
Aspar knelt in the brush and looked down across the fields, gritting his teeth against the ache in his leg.
Leshya sighed almost silently and shook her head from side to side.
“I could have scouted alone,” she whispered.
Aspar didn’t answer. Fend and his monsters were just appearing over a low hill about ten bowshots away. He glanced at the sky, but he and the Sefry seemed to have been successful in sneaking away from the larger party without a winged escort.
There were more sedhmhari than ever. At this distance he couldn’t make out what all of them were, but it looked as if there were at least twenty.
“Well, that’s that,” Aspar said.
They made their way back over the ridge to their mounts and turned them south.
“That should convince Emfrith not to fight again,” Aspar said.
“Aspar, where are we going?” Leshya asked.
“A place in the Mountains of the Hare.”
“The Vhenkherdh?”
He nodded curtly.
“But you’ll lead Fend right to it.”
“If it’s really Fend back there. Anyway, Fend’s been there. He nearly murdered me there. It’s no secret to him.” He glanced over at her. “That’s where you wanted to go, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But…”
“What?”
“The child Winna carries is yours, yes?”
“Yah.”
“And Winna was waurm-poisoned. She nearly died of it, as I understand.”
“Yah.”
“Then you must know that what she carries probably isn’t human.”
“I cann that, too,” he snapped.
“But she doesn’t, does she? She doesn’t know what we know, and you haven’t told her.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t.”
Leshya’s eyes thinned to violet slits. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” he replied, hoping she would get it.
But she just blinked and took her horse to a trot. “We’d better catch them,” she said.
They caught up with Winna and the rest a few bells later.
“They’re half a day behind us,” Aspar told them. “They’ve also got reinforcements: twice as many beasties as before the bridge fight.”
“Sceat,” Emfrith said. “Where do they come from?”
“They’re everywhere now,” Leshya said. “He calls, and they come.”
“Why don’t we leave the road?” Emfrith suggested. “With those wagons of his, he’d have a hard time following us.”
“He’s already slower with the wagons,” Aspar said. “When we leave the road, he’ll abandon them, and then they’ll be a lot faster. So I think we stay between the ruts as long as we can.”
“Why hasn’t he already done that?” Winna asked. “The greffyns could catch us, murder us all, and be back at the wagons in a bell.”
Yes, but Fend doesn’t want all of us dead, Aspar thought. Me, maybe, but not you. If he sent the greffyns, they’d slaughter everyone.
“I can’t say what’s in Fend’s mind,” he said. “For whatever reason, he doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry. I reckon he doesn’t think we can get away.”
“My concern isn’t just for us,” Emfrith said. “There’s a village less than a league up ahead, Len-an-Wolth. We can’t lead an army of monsters through there.”
“He’s right, Aspar,” Winna said.
“Werlic,” he agreed. “We’ll go around, then. I’ll ride ahead and warn them, though. Fend’s booygshins will want to feed, and they’ll probably find the town, anyway.”
“Aspar,” Winna pleaded, “let Emfrith send someone. You just got back.”
“I’d better do it myself,” Aspar said, and kicked his horse into motion.
Every moment he spent away from Winna was a moment he didn’t have to lie to her.
As it turned out, they needn’t have worried about Len-an-Wolth; the little market town was already empty of human life, although he saw plenty of bones scattered about. What had killed th
em? Slinders, bandits, monsters? It didn’t matter to them, did it?
It had never been a big place. There was a smallish church, thirty or so houses, and a little tavern whose clapboard proclaimed it “Sa Plinseth Gaet.” Underneath the lettering was a picture of a goat dancing on its hind legs and holding a beer in one forehoof.
He looked inside and in a few of the houses, calling out as he did so, but there was no answer. The buildings were all fine except that a few of the roofs needed to be rethatched.
He was just getting ready to go when a familiar voice called his name.
Fend.
He put an arrow on the string and peered around the corner. It was Fend, all right, with one of his Sefry companions and three beasts that would have looked something like a combination of wolf, horse, and man if they hadn’t been scaly.
Well, sceat, he thought. I should have kissed Winna good-bye.
“There you are,” Fend said brightly. “Somehow I just knew you would have to warn the villagers. I’m glad I was right. Bareback on a wairwulf is fast, but a little rough.”
Aspar drew back for the shot, but then he felt something sharp prick him in the back.
“No,” a soft voice said.
Aspar lowered the weapon, then dropped it. In the same motion he let his palm hit the hilt of the feyknife.
It was only half-drawn before another hand caught his, and then an arm came around his neck. Snarling, he stomped back with his heel, hoping to break an ankle or knee, but he was suddenly on the ground with his face pressed in the dirt, one arm twisted behind his back, and a shin on his neck. He felt the dagger slide out of its sheath and then the ax come out of his belt. Then his arm was released, and the pressure vanished.
He came back to his feet, but the fellow had backed away, carrying his arms.
“I’m not here to kill you, Aspar,” Fend said. “At least not right away. We need to talk, you and I.”
“Everyone wants to talk to me today,” Aspar said, trying to keep his rage bottled so that he could think. What was Fend playing at?
“Yes, but I have to manage to talk to you without one of us killing the other, which is quite a trick.”
“I don’t see what we have to talk about,” Aspar said.
“About this whole thing,” Fend replied. “There’s no reason for us to fight.”
“Really? What about that business back at the bridge?”
“Not much of a chance for talking, was there? Your friends just charged us. Didn’t you expect us to fight back?”
“You’ve been chasing me.”
“Yes and no. After the battle at the Witchhorn, I sent some of my servants out to hunt you. I wasn’t with them until just before the fight at the bridge the other day. Things have changed. I no longer mean you any harm.”
“Last time we met, you tried to bloody execute me. If it hadn’t been for Leshya, you would have. Now you expect me to trust you?”
“You and I have taken turns trying to kill each other for twenty years, Aspar. I’m sure neither of us really remembers why.”
“Sceating saints, Fend; you killed my wife.”
“Fine, I guess you do remember. But it wasn’t anything personal; I didn’t do it to spite you. I always rather liked you, Dirt.”
Aspar flinched at the old nickname but tried not to let it show.
“What do you want, Fend?” he asked.
“The same thing you want.”
“And what is that?”
“To find the Vhenkherdh and restore life to the world. To make a new Briar King.”
That was so ridiculous that Aspar felt as if he were choking. The words wouldn’t come out for a moment.
“You murdered the Briar King, you sceat!” he finally managed.
“Well, yes—but he was quite mad. He was going to bring back the forest, sure, but he was also going to kill us all. He wasn’t the Briar King we needed.”
“Oh, I wat not. What sort do we need, then?”
“Your child, Aspar. Your child can be the new Briar King—or Queen, I suppose, if it’s a girl. You’re already geosed to take her there; I’m just here to help.”
“My child?”
“I know Winna’s carrying your baby, Aspar. The witch knew it when you met her. Your child can heal the world; isn’t that what you want? To fix your precious forest?”
“I do. I just don’t believe you do. And I don’t trust the Sarnwood witch. I know where the monsters come from, Fend. I know they’re born from normal animals touched by the poison in the world, the poison your beasts spread around. Winna was sick from the woorm. Grim’s balls, the woorm you were riding. That means there’s a monster in there. Now, why would the Sarnwood witch want one of her monsters to be the new lord-o’-the-forest?”
“To heal the world. To take the poison out of it, to make it so her children are born without venom. She’s old, Aspar, very old. She kept this world a garden until the Skasloi betrayed her. It was the old Briar King that kept things this way, divided, one nature fighting against another. Your child can bring it all together, make it whole again. It won’t be a monster; it’ll be a saint, the greatest saint of all.”
“If all that’s so, why did your wyver attack Winna?”
“Wyvers are stupid,” Fend replied. “It didn’t know who it was attacking!”
“What about all that business with the fanes, the murders at Cal Azroth? How does that all work in?”
“That was something else,” he said. “Hespero hired me for that. That was just murder for money, really. But then he sent me to get the woorm from the Sarnwood. Don’t know what he wanted, don’t care. The witch showed me the truth, my destiny—to be the Blood Knight.”
“Yah. Then why did you try to kill me?”
“The witch didn’t tell me we would need you. Maybe she didn’t even know at the time; she’s strange like that. And, well, I hate you. You hate me. If I don’t kill you, you’ll kill me. But I’m willing to set that aside for now, and you should be, too.”
“You’re mad.”
“I feel better than I ever have in my life,” Fend said. “I’ve actually got a cause, something to fight for other than my own greed and desires. You ought to be able to understand that.”
“You’re a liar, Fend. I don’t believe anything you’ve said, and I certainly won’t ride with you.”
“That’s too bad,” Fend said. “It’ll make it harder.”
“Harder to do what?”
“To protect you. There are those who will try to stop you.”
“Who?”
“I’m not sure about that. But you’ll need my help. I reckoned it would be easier if we worked this out now. I see we can’t. But the geos will take you there anyway, and I’ll follow and help you whether you like it or not.”
Fend mounted the wairwulf, which bristled but let him on. His companions got up on their beasts.
“See you soon,” Fend said, taking hold of a rope that necklaced the monster.
Then they bounded off, long legs reaching with incredible swiftness, much faster than a horse. The Sefry who had Aspar’s weapons dropped them to the ground. Aspar rushed toward them, scooping up the bow and his quiver, but before he could put missile to string, they were out of sight. He limped to a stuttering run to get to where his horse was wandering, mounted, and gave her his heels, screaming at the top of his lungs as red rage tinted everything.
Whipping around one of the houses, he nearly collided with another rider and for one savage instant thought he would get his fight. But before he let the shaft fly, he realized it was Leshya.
“Fend,” he told her, trying to get his skittish mount back under control.
Leshya’s eyes were wide and her mouth was scrunched up as if she had just tasted something sour.
“You’re alive,” she said.
“Yah. Surprised?”
“I just saw Fend and two of the Vaix riding hellhounds or something, so yes.”
The horse was over its panic now, and
he started off again.
“You won’t catch them,” Leshya yelled after him. “And you don’t want to.”
“Oh, yah, I do,” he muttered.
Leshya was right, of course. The wairwulves were much faster than horses, and besides, his mount kept shying from their scent.
When he finally gave up, Leshya came trotting up alongside him.
“Why did you come, anyway?” he asked.
“I had a bad feeling,” she said. “I get them sometimes, and when I do, I’m usually right. What were they doing, Fend and the Vaix?”
“They were looking for me.”
“Good thing they didn’t find you.”
“Oh, they found me,” he said. “Fend offered to escort us through the King’s Forest. He thinks we’ll need his help.”
“His help with what?” Leshya asked, her tone larded with incredulity.
“I don’t know,” he replied. This time he wasn’t sure the lie wasn’t his own. It felt awfully natural.
“Really?” she asked, the tone deepening. “He was trying to kill you last time you saw him.”
“That’s true. I pointed that out to him.”
“Well?”
“He said things had changed.”
“What things?”
“It’s just another of his tricks,” Aspar said. “I’m not sure what he’s up to, but it’s nothing good.”
“Well, he wants you alive for something, or you wouldn’t be, right?”
“Werlic.”
She shook her head. “Why would the Blood Knight want you alive?”
“He didn’t really say.”
“Curious.”
How long was she there? he suddenly wondered. Did she hear the whole conversation? Is she testing me?
Or was she, after all, with Fend?
Either way, he should probably kill her. He reached for the feyknife casually, as if he were just going to take the reins.
CHAPTER FIVE
AUSTRA
“THAT’S LIKELY IT,” Cazio breathed, gesturing with his nose toward the long coil of the Old King’s Road they could see from the cobbled-together treehouse z’Acatto referred to as their “mansion.” There, a carriage with an armed escort was making its way along the ruts. The driver, Cazio could make out, wore the gold, black, and green livery of the duchess of Rovy, which was Anne’s household title.