by Airs
“I tried to explain,” Peter said. “But I don’t know enough words. And now he thinks, because your horse lets me near…”
“You’re only a boy,” Philippa said. “Two more years, and she wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I know that, Missus, he don’t. He don’t know nothing about winged horses.”
Sunny finished the water and lipped around the bowl, searching for more. “Later, Sunny,” Philippa said, patting her. “Not too much yet.” She was relieved to see Sunny pick up her wings and fold them, rib to rib. Her eyes looked a bit brighter, and her breathing sounded better already.
“Will she be all right, then?” Peter asked.
Philippa nodded, keeping a protective arm around the mare’s neck. “She’s all right for the moment,” she said. “But we have to get away from here, Peter.”
“Can she fly with us? Both of us?”
“No.” Philippa cast a glance at Hurg, who had taken a step closer. “No,” she repeated. “Together we would be too heavy.”
“There’s no place to go, anyway,” Peter said sadly. “I’ve tried it lots of times. They always find me. The last time Hurg knocked me in the head, and I lost my tooth.”
Philippa touched his shoulder, wishing she could comfort him. Sunny, with a snort of fear, laid her ears flat and began to back up.
Philippa spun about.
Hurg was coming toward them, his rolling gait making him look like some sort of bearded drunkard. He had the rope he had used on Peter in his hands, coiled, but with one end free. He had made a loop in it, and was holding it out, ready to put it over Sunny’s head.
The Aesk chieftain had such an aura of sweat and fish and ancient furs about him that Philippa wondered it didn’t choke him. Sunny’s nostrils flared, showing red. She had little room to move, and when her hindquarters struck the sod wall, her hocks bent as if she would try to back right through it.
“No!” Philippa shouted at Hurg. “She won’t tolerate it!”
But Hurg, his narrow eyes gleaming with avarice, pressed forward. He even began to swing the rope, as if to throw it. Philippa tried to step in his path, but he batted her away with the coiled rope. She dragged at his heavy arm with both hands, and he swung a fist at her. She fell back just enough that the blow missed, but she lost her footing in the dirt. By the time she regained her balance, Hurg was within rope’s throw distance of Sunny. The mare whinnied in fear, and reared, her front hooves clawing the air a hand’s breadth from the barbarian’s face.
Hurg hesitated for the first time. A winged horse on its hind legs, hooves flailing, teeth bared, was a daunting sight. He even took a half step backward, but then, with a muttered exclamation, lunged forward again. Perhaps he had meant to surprise the horse, to get the rope around her neck before she could evade it.
Winter Sunset exploded. Her wings opened, though Philippa cried out to her to keep them closed, and they beat uselessly in the cramped space. Her forefeet came down, barely missing Hurg’s face, and she reared again, striking her head on the thatched roof so that pieces of it fell in dusty clods over her back, over Hurg’s head, over Philippa. Hurg roared something, and one of his guards, the whites of his eyes showing, ran into the hut and froze, openmouthed, transfixed by the sight of a winged horse in fury.
Philippa said, “Peter! She might kill him if he doesn’t—” But it was too late. Sunny whirled, and fired at Hurg with both hind feet, so fast the movement was impossible to see. She caught him directly in the chest.
Hurg’s body sailed across the hut, slamming against the wall, slumping to the dirt floor. The guard shrieked, and ran.
But Sunny wasn’t finished. She had been pushed too far, and until Philippa could get her away from the smell of men, she wouldn’t be calm. She bucked, and squealed, and her wings flapped against the walls, against the floor, against Philippa as she tried to get close. She kicked at random, so that even Philippa had to fall back.
“Peter! I have to get her outside!”
And Peter, shouting something in the Aesk language, managed to clear the guards from the door, to get Jonka out of the way. Leaving Hurg where he was, stunned and still, Philippa seized Sunny’s rein, and pulled, calling her name.
At last, with Aesks shouting and running around them, Philippa and Sunny were out in the clean air, where Sunny stood, sides heaving, breathing the cold scent of snow, cleansing her nostrils of Hurg’s scent. Philippa finally succeeded in persuading her to fold her wings. Warriors, keeping their distance but with spears at the ready, circled them. Jonka, having retrieved her knife, stood to one side with the weapon in her fist, a look of satisfaction on her ruined face. Peter stayed by Philippa’s side, the two of them with their backs to the winged horse, facing the enemy all around them.
Hurg, looking dazed, staggered out of the hut. He lurched over to Jonka and seized her knife from her hand. He turned, with the knife held out before him, and loudly proclaimed something.
Peter said, “Nay! Nay!” His freckles stood out on his ashen face.
Philippa said, “What is it, Peter? What’s happening?”
Peter said, in a tone of pure horror, “Missus! Zito’s ears, Missus. He says if he can’t fly her, he might as well eat her!”
SNOWfell intermittently all day, covering the meanness of the compound with clean, glittering white. Not until evening did the snow stop. A hard wind blew in from the sea, and the clouds lifted, showing cold white stars and a frozen landscape. Philippa and Peter shivered together in the hut, where they had been forced to go by Hurg and the guards. Through the crack in the door, they saw that a great fire had been started in the fire pit.
“I can’t believe he would do this,” Philippa said, over and over, in an agony of fear for her mare. “It’s an abomination.”
“All I know is,” Peter said once, “there’s been no meat in this place since we came. Only fish, fish, and more fish.”
Many times, Philippa pulled back the leather panel to beg to see Jonka, or Lissie, or Hurg. Each time the guard leveled his spear at her, flat face unreadable. Only the wardog seemed to respond, so that the last time she had gone out, the beast wagged its tail when it saw her. This won it a vicious yank on the collar, but it still watched Philippa with something like intelligence.
My only ally, she thought. A dog.
Sunny had been circling the shallow valley all through the afternoon, whinnying, calling to her bondmate.
Philippa had screamed at her, when the Aesks dragged her and Peter away, to run, and Sunny had, her wings rippling beside her, her red mane and tail flecked with snow. One or two of the warriors, to Philippa’s horror, had thrown spears at her, but their weapons were clumsy, with their double points, and their range was short. Still, Sunny would not go far, not with Philippa still in the compound. She galloped around the rim of the valley, neighing frantically, and the wardogs responded with barks and howls. By
the time the bonfire was raging, Philippa was dry-mouthed and shaking with fear.
“They can’t catch her,” Peter said.
“But she won’t leave,” Philippa told him. Her voice cracked, and she struggled to maintain her composure. If Sunny would stay far enough away, until the darkness fell, until the Aesks gave up and went to sleep…Exhaustion blurred her mind, confused her thoughts. She had to concentrate, to focus on what to do next.
When Hurg appeared at the door, the bonfire was raging into the night sky behind him. He snapped something at Philippa, pointing with a thick finger, and Peter translated. “He wants you to come out,” he said.
Sudden alarm sent a sharp pain up Philippa’s neck. “Why?”
Peter stammered some Aesk word, and Hurg laughed. He gestured, and when Philippa did not move at once, he came toward her, gripping her arm with a hairy hand, and dragged her forward. He leered at Peter, and said one short word.
Peter gasped, and paled. “What is it, Peter?” Philippa cried. The Aesk’s fingers were like iron. She struggled to keep her feet as h
e hauled her through the door. “What did he say?” she begged. “What?”
Peter followed on uncertain feet. “Bait,” he whimpered. “He said, ‘bait.’”
A great shudder ran through Philippa. Peter was right, of course. There was only one way Hurg could get Sunny to come into the compound, and that was to use her, Philippa, as a lure. Her thoughts swirled desperately, but she couldn’t think what to do about it.
She would have to sacrifice herself first. There was nothing else.
The fire blazed in the center of the compound. The snowfields around the longhouses glistened with reflected flame, and the stars faded before its brilliance. The Aesks were gathered, avid gazes fixed on their chieftain dragging the foreigner along by her arm. The guard in front of the hut came after, his spear leveled at her back.
Philippa, with the last of her strength, set her feet, and ripped her arm from Hurg’s grasp. She turned to face the guard, and his spear, and she screamed, wordlessly, but with intent, and threw herself toward him. Let him stab her, let him put an end to her, and Sunny would never come into the compound, never let herself be taken. What would happen to her after that, Philippa could not bear to think about, but she would not, could not, allow Hurg and these primitives to commit this abomination.
The guard’s lip lifted from his teeth in a gleeful snarl, as if he were one of the wardogs, and he lifted his spear.
Philippa shouted again, gathering her courage, and ran at him.
But the spotted wardog, with a roar, leaped on the guard from behind. Its great teeth closed on his arm, and its claws tore at his back. Blood spurted from somewhere and spattered the snow with scarlet drops. The guard shrieked in shock and pain.
Tumult broke out, shouts and yells, the howling of wardogs, the screams of the guard. From beyond the
compound, Sunny whinnied. The spotted wardog growled and snarled, and Hurg leaped forward to try to pull it off his man.
Philippa, her strength gone, collapsed. She was barely aware of young Peter dragging her away from the fray, all the way through the compound and back into the hut where she had spent the night. She slumped on the cold dirt floor, and Peter knelt beside her, calling to her, “Missus! Missus! Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
At that moment, an explosion rocked through the compound from the eastern side. There was a breathless moment of silence, filled only by the reverberation of the blast, then another explosion filled the night.
Philippa roused, staring up at Peter with unbelieving eyes. Another crash of sound came from the west of the compound, and a child began to scream.
Philippa’s mind cleared, all at once, as the night wind had cleared the sky, and she understood exactly what Rys must be doing. “They’re here! They’ve come! Peter, we have to get out of this place!”
It took only moments to topple the empty barrels at the back of the hut, but it took a few more to pull out the bricks of sod Philippa had loosened the night before. They climbed through, and saw that the compound behind them was full of smoke, people running this way and that, confused by the explosions of the matchlock guns. Philippa could see that the Klee were coming from two flanks, but the shock and the shattering noise must have made it seem to the Aesks that there were hundreds of attackers.
She gave it no more thought. Winter Sunset was all that mattered to her now, and Sunny, too, would be terrified by these explosions. She had to find her. With the very last of her strength, Philippa seized Peter’s hand and began to run.
THEdeadly efficiency of Rys’s soldiers stunned Francis. The matchlocks were unwieldy and awkward, but the practiced way the men fired them, then reloaded, waiting till the flanking force had fired theirs, then firing again, was something he would never forget. The Aesks ran like frightened ants from one side of their compound to the other. The enormous fire blazing in the center of the longhouses made the scene even more threatening, more chaotic. Beyond the circle of lurid light and black smoke, Francis could see nothing. Within that circle, he saw men and women, and what he feared were children, go sprawling. Had he not been so angry at Philippa’s imprisonment, such carnage might have turned his stomach. No doubt, one day, the memory would do just that, but for now he could not help exulting in the Klee soldiers’
overwhelming advantage.
Rys had told him to stay back, out of the line of fire. The initial barrage would go on for a time, until the enemy was thoroughly bewildered and disheartened, and then the soldiers would go down into the compound, and take control with their smallswords and daggers. Francis paced behind the line, torn between bloodthirsty satisfaction at seeing the Aesks punished and fear for Philippa. He scanned the longhouses, and the space between them, wondering where she was, hoping she was safe. He walked a little away from the smoke and flame, and it was then that he saw the horse.
It was Winter Sunset, it had to be! She was too far away for him to see her wings, but Francis knew there were no horses, or indeed any large animals, in this northern land. She was galloping wildly, this way and that, on the rim of the valley, her head high, her tail arched. But what was she doing, out there in the snow, by herself? Where was Philippa?
Fear clutched Francis’s heart. The Klee soldiers were intent upon their goal. Rys, who had taken the opposite flank, strode purposefully behind his men, calling orders. There was no one to look for Philippa or the children. No one but Francis himself.
“Zito’s ass,” he swore, drawing his smallsword. “I did not come this far to watch from the battlements like some fainting girl.”
None of the Klee fighters took any notice as he strode away from the firing line and down the slope toward the compound. He circled to the north, to stay out of range of the matchlocks. He moved more slowly as he came near the longhouses, where he could hear the moans of the wounded. He saw spears hurled aimlessly into the darkness by frantic men shouting in fury at an enemy they could not see. He heard the raging of dogs, deep-throated barks and desperate howls. And then, ahead of him, he saw Philippa and a small boy, just emerging from the broken wall of one of the sod huts, racing away from the battle through the unbroken snow. Francis dropped down the slope to run along the rear of the longhouses, to intercept them.
On the far side of the valley, Winter Sunset sensed her mistress’s flight and came galloping down the slope, mane and tail and loose reins flying, whinnying to her bondmate.
One of the Aesk warriors appeared suddenly from between the longhouses, his thick figure outlined against the firelight. He was no more than an arm’s length from Francis, but his attention was fixed on the winged horse. He lifted his arm, and took aim with his spear.
Francis took no time to consider. A winged horse of Oc was being threatened. He spun on his toes, his body remembering those long-ago drills, and he ran the man through with his smallsword.
When he pulled the weapon free, there was a noise he would remember all his days, the sound of blood and ruptured flesh and the gurgling of a dying man. Francis felt the rising of his gorge, but he fought it. He left the warrior where he was and sprinted after Philippa.
THErelief Philippa felt, when Winter Sunset skidded to a halt before her, wings shivering, foam on her chest and on her lips, almost sent her to her knees. She seized Sunny’s dangling rein, pulled her mare’s head down to her chest, and held it there for one long moment, while Sunny and she both struggled to regain their breath.
In the valley, smoke from the bonfire and from the guns obscured the battle, but could not deaden the sounds. Peter stood staring at the billowing gray clouds, his eyes wide, his mouth open. “Oh, Missus,” he breathed. “What about Lissie?”
TWENTY-FOUR
“WEdidn’t think we dared wait another day,” Rys said to Philippa.
They sat on the beach in the cold morning, Philippa wrapped in a blanket, Sunny nearby. Philippa cast Rys a weary look. “Sunny couldn’t have waited another day, my lord, so you were right.” She shuddered, remembering. “It’s hard to comprehend such evil,” she said.
“And I’m having difficulty believing I’m free of it—that it’s over, and Sunny unhurt.”
“It’s a great relief to me, as well.”
“But how did you—I looked around at those men, and those dogs, and I couldn’t see how you were going to pull it off.”
“Classic flanking maneuver. And of course, we had the matchlocks. They aren’t very accurate, but they make a terrifying noise and a lot of smoke. Confusion, and surprise…there was risk to you, of course.
You broke free at the perfect moment.”
The Baron nodded to his cook, who came around the campfire to pour more of his excellent coffee into Philippa’s cup. Before she drank it, she looked over her shoulder to where Sunny stood, now warmly blanketed and brushed, with a bucket of fresh water before her. In an hour or two, when Philippa could be sure Sunny had had enough to drink, she could give her some of the grain Rys had ordered brought from the ship. She would rest her all day, and tomorrow, they could fly home. Tomorrow, Sunny would be strong enough, and the sky bade fair to be clear and cold.
Philippa turned her gaze up beyond the beach. Smoke still roiled from the Aesk compound. Rys’s soldiers were “mopping up,” the Baron had told her. The firing of the matchlocks had ceased when the soldiers poured down into the compound. They were archers, Philippa knew, and swordsmen, and their attack was lethal. There had been screams among the Aesks throughout the night, wails and shouting.
Now, a weighted silence filled the little valley.
As Francis had led her and Sunny, with Peter close by, in a circle far from the battle, down to the safety of the beach, Philippa had seen the bodies already piled up at one end of the compound, and had averted her eyes. It was hard to feel sympathy for the Aesks, after what they had done to Rosellen, and what they had threatened to do to Sunny, but she had no stomach for killing. The thatched roofs had burned with alacrity, and she could only hope that the people—especially the children, whose screaming haunted her—had gotten out of the longhouses before the flaming thatches collapsed.