The General had no way of knowing. How did you defeat someone who could move in mists, who could kill with a touch of his finger and the power of suggestion?
Despair gripped Tulkhan but he clamped down on it, knowing this was what Reothe wanted.
When the men lit the funereal pyre, he rose to his feet, his decision made. He would find the last contingent of his men before Reothe slaughtered them, too. Then he would return to T’Diemn and report to his half-brother before going to the Stronghold.
He needed to warn Imoshen and more. He needed her to tell him what manner of man he was fighting. Did Reothe have a weakness? Of course he did. If anyone knew T’Reothe’s weak points it would be Imoshen.
Tulkhan tensed. What was he thinking? How could he confront Imoshen with the news that her betrothed still lived and in the same breath demand she tell him, the Ghebite invader, how to defeat her T’En kin? How could he ask her to betray Reothe, her betrothed?
Did she love him? Did love enter into the proceedings of a T’En betrothal? In Gheeaba a man looked for compliance and good family connections in his wife. Family loyalty . . .
Who would Imoshen choose to support, her once betrothed and near kin, or himself, the invader who had taken her Stronghold by force? Did he really want to know?
Imoshen and her mount made the crest with energy to spare. It was good to escape the confines of the Stronghold along with the constraints of her position. She turned her horse to face the distant settlement. From here she could see the great walls and towers of the Stronghold and the new town that sprawled at its feet.
Because the town had been designed, not grown, there was a broad avenue leading directly to the outer gates of the Stronghold and wide streets which fanned out to ring the outer walls. Smoke rose from the many chimney tops. The familiar, reassuring smell of baking and humanity carried on the afternoon breeze to her.
The sky held a heaviness which promised cold, perhaps snow, tonight. She shuddered, thinking of how many people they would have lost without the efforts of the last small moon cycle. There was still work to be done. She had been busy settling disputes, while greater and lesser guilds had been formed and guildmasters elected to deal with their internal problems.
She sighed. There was still no word from General Tulkhan. But she had heard how he had calmed the townspeople of T’Diemn and despite the rumor that it was the king who had ordered these changes she recognized Tulkhan’s hand in them. She also knew that he was in the southern highlands, hunting the rebels, and she was troubled.
On a purely practical level, if Tulkhan should die her position would be precarious. She would have to deal with young King Gharavan, who from what she had heard would not be easy to reason with.
With the passing of the small moon cycle she knew the Aayel had been right. She had conceived. If Tulkhan died while she carried his son where did that leave her and the child? Her hands tightened on the reins as frustration filled her. She was still a pawn in a larger game with no security.
Imoshen’s horse shied and snickered. She stood up in the stirrups, twisting in the saddle to survey the woods behind her. The refugees’ voracious need for timber for fuel and building materials meant undergrowth had been cleared and suitable trees taken. Consequently the woods had retreated farther from the Stronghold. She had traveled quite a distance through cleared land to reach this knoll.
Come spring she hoped to see tilled fields below the knoll, stretching from here to the outskirts of town. They’d be needed to supply food for the new township. With a shudder she realized her world was changing. Her home would never again be as it was during her childhood.
Truly, she felt as if the person who had watched General Tulkhan’s army march across the rolling grass was someone else. She had seen so much since then and so many others depended on her now.
It was a relief to get away from the constant demands of the Stronghold, to be truly alone, her own person. Imoshen wondered if she would ever be as free as the child-woman who had unwittingly ridden into the woods with Reothe.
Knowing a little more now she wondered if her parents had realized who he really was. They couldn’t have known the extent of his abilities, else they wouldn’t have let her ride off with him. She flushed and bit her lip.
He could have had her there on the grass and she would have welcomed him. The knowledge stung her pride, stained her cheeks. But even now the memory stirred her body and she could feel the tug of like to like.
Out here away from the mundane demands of her position she could face her fears. Was it true? Did she crave Reothe because only in his arms could she know her true mate, one whose abilities meshed with her own?
Something stirred and flickered to life in the back of her mind. She swallowed, noting a strange taste in her mouth, the way her heart pounded in her chest. Suddenly, surrounding sounds and colors seemed unnaturally clear and bright.
Fear curled through her body, intimate as a lover, insistent as pain. No. She would not call on the T’En gift which lay dormant in her. She feared what she did not understand and could not control. Worse, every time she flexed her powers it appeared to make her more vulnerable to Reothe. For an instant she seemed to hear his mocking laugh echo on the cry of a bird. She shuddered and banished him from her thoughts.
Since the night of the harvest moons nothing strange had happened. She had studiously avoided any use of her ability.
She hadn’t even tried to use her gift for healing. It was fear that held her back, fear of the unknown. If only the Aayel had lived!
With a sigh, Imoshen urged the horse off the crest and down into the woods behind. The path she had forged led back around the base of the rise and down onto the plain.
So preoccupied was she that she had no presentiment of danger. When the body darted from the undergrowth and grabbed the horse’s bridle there was nothing she could do. Before she could aim a kick at his head, another body tumbled from a low branch onto the horse, pulling her to the ground.
She fell with his weight atop her, knocking the wind from her chest. Stars spun in front of her eyes. Desperately, she fought to drag in a breath.
Someone pulled her upright into a sitting position and she blinked, trying to focus on the face. She must catch her breath, discover who her attackers were and figure out how to escape. As yet she didn’t fear for her life.
“My Lady?”
She knew that voice. “D . . . Drake?”
He grinned, well pleased with himself. He looked leaner, scruffier. He was dressed in a farmer’s practical winter furs, as were his two companions. They also smiled, pleased with themselves and with her.
Imoshen had a sinking suspicion. “I’m glad you are safe, Drake. You know you and your friends can claim sanctuary in my Stronghold anytime—”
“No. You don’t understand.” He gripped her arm, pulling her to her feet with the strength of a fanatic. “Reothe sent me to bring you. We ride now.”
Chapter Seven
Her first impulse was to refuse him, emphatically.
She had already refused Reothe once when he had come to her, and a second time when she had unwittingly gone to him.
But now it appeared her once-betrothed had tired of waiting. Imoshen knew a moment’s panic.
She did not want to spend the winter hidden away in the deep woods, snowed-in with Reothe for company. It would give him the chance to work on her, claim her physically and then try to lay claim to her will, her gifts. What kind of abilities would they have if they were bonded? Was that why Reothe had been so eager to claim her last autumn?
For an instant she had a vision of Reothe and herself— beautiful, terrible dictators ordering the lives of the inhabitants of Fair Isle. She shivered. No, she could not spend the winter in his camp, in his arms. Who knew what would be left of her “self” come spring?
But she could not explain this to Drake when it was only an instinctive suspicion. She must play for time, choose her moment.
“Drake, y
ou found him?” She searched the young man’s face for any sign of doubt. Her hands went instinctively to his own, to feel his bare flesh. But all she received in response was a flash of overwhelming certainty.
“I found him and others. More join us every day. The whole Island would rise if it were known the last of the T’En rode together,” he assured her.
“And what would happen if I left the Stronghold after giving my word? Think, Drake! Don’t you care about the fate of our people there? Thousands rely on me. General Tulkhan would be justified in making an example of them. Would you have me abandon my people?”
She glanced swiftly to the other two, recognizing their origins—farmers, shepherds. They were practical people, unlike Drake, who had known the comfort of town living. It was easy to be idealistic when you had enough to eat.
Drake looked stunned.
Imoshen pressed home her advantage. “I can’t abandon my people!”
“Your people?” his voice rose. “You abandoned them to these Ghebite barbarians. Your betrothed, the last of the T’En, waits for you, T’Imoshen. The people would rise behind the true rulers. Now is the time to think on a grander scale! What is the fate of one Stronghold when the whole Island is at stake?”
Imoshen’s heart sank. The other two nodded, convinced by Drake’s rhetoric. She looked down. Now was not the time to resist—she was outnumbered three to one.
“Come.” Drake caught her arm. “Reothe waits. I promised I would not fail him.”
One of the men led her horse. Drake held her arm in what was meant to be a courteous grasp, but in effect he restrained her.
As they stumbled down the slope into the deeper woods, Imoshen’s mind spun with ideas. She had to get away before they rejoined their larger party. While there were only three of them she might yet escape. Her horse whinnied and another answered from behind the thicket. Four mounts as scruffy and ill-fed as their riders waited patiently with a fourth man holding the reins. His eyes widened when he saw her and he made the sign of obeisance.
“Truly,” he whispered. “She has the same look as our leader.”
Drake laughed. “Why do you think he chose her?”
“We were betrothed,” Imoshen corrected.
Without warning Drake spun her around, pulling her arms behind her back.
“Reothe warned me that the Ghebite General has influenced your mind, my Lady. Forgive me.” He signaled the men. “Bind her.”
One of them moved behind her and she felt him tie her hands with a leather strip. Imoshen resisted the urge to struggle, instead she managed a shaky laugh.
“Is this how you deliver Reothe his bride, bound?”
“Only a precaution, Lady T’En,” Drake said.
He helped her climb onto her horse and took the reins. She could have struggled but that would have reduced them to rolling in the damp leaf litter in an ungainly heap and served no purpose. No, when she made her bid to escape she would make sure it was successful. Anger flashed through her, sharpening her senses, making her aware of that strange taste on her tongue, that tingling in her body.
Drake mounted his own horse and pulled on the reins of her mount. One of the rebels rode before them and another two behind as Drake led her through the woods.
Imoshen’s innate sense of direction told her they were heading away from the Stronghold. Dusk closed in early as the temperature dropped, promising snow.
Imoshen shivered. She was not dressed for this. Soon her own people would wonder where she was. Would the Stronghold Guard turn on Tulkhan’s Elite Guard? Would Wharrd assume she had betrayed them? It would be his duty to report her defection to the General.
What would Tulkhan think? Would he believe she had betrayed him? Her heart sank. How could he think otherwise? He wouldn’t know she had been abducted.
Imoshen ducked her head as they wove under the branches of a grove of stark trees. It was growing darker by the moment and colder. Yet they hurried on. Their destination must be nearby.
Her skin prickled with fear. She didn’t want to face Reothe, didn’t feel she had the resolve to resist the force of his will. She had to make a move soon.
“I’m cold,” Imoshen complained. “Here I am, without even my winter cloak. I’ll be wanting a word with Reothe when I see him. How much further till we reach him?”
“Not far, my Lady,” Drake answered automatically. “I’m sorry, I have no cloak to lend you.”
It was as she’d suspected. Imoshen leaned low on the horse, feeling the warmth of its body. Fleetingly, she wished she was an unimportant pawn like this horse.
A rush of alien images suddenly flooded her mind. Scent. Man smell. Cold, mingled with eager images of food and a warm stall, and underneath that lay a dislike of the woods, a fear of predators.
She lifted her head as her mind cleared, and she knew what to do. It was quite simple really. They were deep in the woods now with poor visibility. A light snow fell, coating everything with its soft white powder. Would it interfere with the scent? She wasn’t sure. She made herself recall the rank smell of the predator which had stalked her and General Tulkhan that day near Landsend, how it had made her skin crawl and her hair lift with fear. She recalled retreating up the slope with Tulkhan at her back, her knife at the ready. Then she projected that memory.
She couldn’t have said how she did it, only that by reliving it, her body reacted as if she were experiencing it again and her horse reacted to the change in her body scent and its fear communicated itself to the other horses and to the men with them. They drew closer.
“Strike fire!” Drake ordered, climbing off his mount to hand out several torches.
No one asked why.
Imoshen couldn’t let them regain the security the naked flame offered. If only the snow would break a brittle branch . . .
Something snapped nearby, triggering a rush of raw energy.
From the dark undergrowth there came a muffled crack and the rapid pad of a heavy carnivore charging.
Imoshen’s heart leapt in her breast. “It comes!”
Her mount reared, reacting to her terror. She clamped her knees and leaned forward, keeping her seat despite the angle. The other horses snorted, pivoting as their riders fought to maintain control.
“Hurry with the torches!” Drake hissed.
It wasn’t enough. Panic flared in Imoshen. She needed a real attack, a leaping, snarling shadow which . . .
Even as she thought it, a white snow leopard broke from the trees, all grace and ferocity.
Horses and men screamed.
The last she saw was the cat leaping for the throat of the nearest horse. Then her mount was bolting through the tree trunks and it was all she could do to huddle low in the saddle and hug the horse’s heaving sides with her knees.
Behind her she heard the terrible screams of a dying horse and the knowledge that she had called forth the beast frightened her as much as the knowledge that it was real. Once again her gifts had outreached her ability to control them.
In the mad rush she did not know which way they were going. Snow fell in a thick curtain. It was so dark that the tree trunks were only darker shadows in a dark gray world.
Suddenly before her she saw tightly packed trees with no possible gap between them. Blinded by fear, her mount charged straight ahead. She tried to plunge into its mind as she had unwittingly done before but a solid wall of terror held her out. Or was it her own terror? Too late, the wall of trees were upon them.
She could only hunch down and hope.
Impact stunned her.
Her side ached, and she heard something thunder away.
Imoshen lifted her head to see the hooves of her mount disappearing into the deep shadows. She was lying on her side in the snow with no memory of how she got there. She must have lost consciousness briefly. Something blocked her vision in one eye and she blinked it away, then looked down to see dark droplets staining the snow. Blood.
She was bound, wounded, lost in the woods with
out a cloak in the first snows of winter. But at least she was free!
Fueled by determination she rolled to her knees, amazed to find nothing was broken. True, she staggered as she came to her feet and there seemed to be a lot of blood, but she could still move.
Blood. It was likely to attract predators.
Exhaustion threatened to overcome her but she drove herself forward after the retreating hoofbeats. Somewhere nearby Drake and the men would be regrouping.
Imoshen looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of the stars, but they were obscured by the clouds and her head was spinning so she couldn’t work out in which direction the Stronghold lay.
Her mount would know. She followed the churned snow, hardly able to distinguish anything in the gray-black world. Again she tried to call the horse, concentrating on its scent, its sense of self which she had experienced so briefly.
There, a flicker of recognition illuminated her mind. The horse had slowed to a steady walk not far away and was thinking, if it could be called thinking, of food and its stall. Relieved, Imoshen broke into a run.
Her mount was like a bright beacon in a world of silver shadows. She was so relieved to have discovered the horse nearby, tears stung her eyes.
A whinny greeted her, then it changed to a snort of fear. Icy fingers of dread traveled up Imoshen’s spine. Something was hunting her, just as she had hunted the horse. She could feel it now, probing the preternatural night. She stopped and spun around, searching the woods.
Suddenly she realized the night was not inky black as it should have been. She could make out the fall of the land, the trunks of the trees, everything had a silverish-green cast.
What was after her?
Without knowing she intended to do it, her mind sent out a questing probe, following the sense of pursuit to its source.
Flare!
She met the mind which sought hers and recognized its pure essence, free of the trappings of a mortal body.
Broken Vows Page 22