"Kill them!" he cried, when he saw his men hesitating. He could not believe his eyes. His horse stepped over the dead man as he rode back to them. He grabbed Deon by the throat. Above the scarf that concealed his face, his eyes were wide with terror. "What are you waiting for? Kill them!"
"But these are Kerraunus' men, my lord," Xandros shouted out. "Tygetians. Our men. We are going to attack our own men in the face of the enemy?"
"Our men?" Hurrus heard himself spit the words in fury. "Our men are soldiers, Xandros! Not pillaging reavers! I will not abide this!"
He flung Deon from his grasp, and looked around frantically. He would kill them all himself, if he had to. He saw a man lying under a portico peering out at him from behind a post. He was about to go dig him out of there when a group of horsemen caught his eye. One of them, he saw, was Ramsut the Plunderer, living up to his name.
So these are not just mere soldiers of Kerraunus' corps, but his own companion body!
He remembered Ramsut as probably the vilest of his brother's Snake Men. His house, which he had visited once, was full of booty. He remembered in particular an elephant tusk sheathed in gold and a shield and crossed spear display from some campaign in the south. The shield was covered in the black-and-white hide of an Ashurian tiger. A blank space in the center of the exhibit, Ramsut had glibly announced, was where the former owner's head had been displayed - until it had begun to stink due to inexpert preservation, for which the preservationist had been promptly flogged.
They made eye contact across the square. A light of recognition flashed in Ramsut's eyes. He immediately reined his horse and galloped off down an alley. Hurrus gave chase, just catching glimpses of the horse's backside between gouts of billowing black smoke. The walls on either side of the alley whisked by him in a blur.
The alley opened onto a little dead-end clearing, bounded by the backs of mud brick structures and tangled patches of overgrown foliage. In the center of the clearing stood a brick well. Ramsut rode around the far side of it, looking like a trapped animal. He might have considered the idea of crashing through the weeds and brush between buildings, but thought better of it for the dense masses of thorns and brambles. He drew his sword just in time to block an overhand slash. The enclosed space echoed with the ringing of steel.
"Have you gone mad?" Ramsut cried. He danced his horse to one side of the well and then the other, trying to keep it between them. The well was covered by a little peaked roof. Hurrus swung at Ramsut's head and struck the roof instead, cracking tiles and sending them crashing to the ground.
"You call yourself a soldier?" Hurrus asked.
"I call myself no such thing!" Ramsut said, ducking under a side-armed swipe. The move toppled him from the saddle. He fell to the ground in a sprawl of arms and legs. His white head scarf fell, exposing a clean-shaven cranium that glistened with sweat. His bare torso was covered in dust as he scrambled to his feet, snatching up his sword from where it had fallen beside him.
Hurrus spun from his saddle at the same time that Deon and Xandros burst out of the lane and into the clearing. Their horses skidded to a halt, kicking up dirt and pebbles.
"Hurrus!" Xandros called.
Without looking behind him, Hurrus held out his free hand, holding his men back, while menacing Ramsut with the sword in his other.
"You damned little pup!" Ramsut snapped, his anger flaring, while he backed away from Hurrus' blade. "What do you think you're going to do? I was fighting with swords while you were still wet behind the ears. Now, look at you! All full of yourself."
"Fighting with swords!" Hurrus scoffed. He made a jab at Ramsut's belly. He leapt clear of the slicing steel. "Your days of plunder and pillage are over, Ramsut. This is a Tygetian village, and these are Tygetian people you ravage."
"Listen to you! It was my men who drove the Sarians out of here. This is our village."
Hurrus took another swipe. Ramsut jumped back and Hurrus' blade rang against the brick of the well.
"You better kill me quick, boy, because my men will be coming down that road any moment now. I will take you to Kerraunus myself. How will you like that?"
"Perhaps I have a blade for him, too."
"Oh, but he had one for you, young prince," Ramsut chortled. He slashed an overhand stroke, blocked by Hurrus' sword. Ramsut dodged a vigorous counterthrust. "Only he made a mistake by sending Prathians to do the job of a Snake Man. You would not have escaped so easily had one of us been sent instead."
"What in blazes are you babbling about?" Hurrus snapped. "Who sent Prathians? Where?"
"Kerraunus, you fool!" Ramsut unleashed a series of overhand blows, each ringing louder than the last on Hurrus' blocking blade. Hurrus could feel his sword arm weaken under the onslaught. Some of Ramsut's men had indeed emerged from the lane. Deon and Xandros held their own blades on them, but the men were interested in the contest and did not even bother to draw their weapons, even when threatened.
Finally, Hurrus rolled out from underneath the slashing steel.
Ramsut wheeled, grinning now. "Do you not even see what is right before your eyes? Foolish young pup!"
"Those men in my house…The men who killed Nadia…" Hurrus felt a pressure in his head. For an instant, he felt he might go blind. He charged, slashing. Ramsut's grin fell away at once. "The men who tore her eyes out were sent by Kerraunus?"
Hurrus unleashed a savage barrage of hacks and slashes, each forcing Ramsut back…and back, ever closer to the wall. His men drew their swords now and started toward him, but Deon and Xandros leapt at them. Disarming them quickly, they thrust them up against the wall themselves and held them there with the points of their steel.
"I know nothing of any eyes…" With a loud clang, Ramsut's sword flew from his hand. Hurrus' blade sliced open the flesh covering his ribcage. "Please," Ramsut said, pleading, his voice tremulous. "I know nothing of--"
Hurrus grabbed him by the throat. Throwing him up against the wall, he jammed his sword into the Plunderer's gut. Ramsut's eyes looked as if they would pop from his head. Hurrus shoved the steel in until he felt the gritty chink of the point digging into the mud brick wall behind. He yanked it out and let the Snake Man fall.
Silence fell over the clearing. Hurrus heard only the crunching of grit under his sandals, the crackling of a fire somewhere nearby, the moaning of the wind. Deon and Xandros relinquished their hold on the Snake Men and they scampered off terrified down the narrow lane, abandoning their horses.
Without a word, Hurrus mounted and rode out of the burning village. His twenty men followed him silently and at a distance, not daring to speak. Hurrus stopped and looked to the east. The wind blew against the side of his face. He could feel his long golden hair whipping against his neck. Plumes of black smoke and windblown dust obscured his view, but between gusts the plain stood in stark clarity.
He suddenly saw that the distant ridgeline was alive with movement. Rank upon rank of marching men appeared over the crest, their spear points glinting in the sun. As one rank descended, the next emerged in its place, thousands upon thousands of marching men, an endless army, the largest Hurrus had ever seen. He felt a thrill race through him, but not of fear.
"By the gods," Xandros said in an awed hush, before the wind blew up a cloud, covering the Sarian columns.
Turning his horse to face his men, Hurrus said, "Bring up the Corps of the Eagle Man. Tread lightly! The soil beneath our feet is hallowed ground, for it is soon to be soaked with our blood."
Chapter 18
"Coronea!" Menleco gasped.
He had never seen the woman before, yet he knew at once who she was. Here was the living embodiment of Veronysia, the Huntress of legend, made flesh before him. Had she not been about to kill him, he would have found her beautiful.
"And here you are," Coronea said. "Leader of the demon men. How foolish of you to come out of the safety of your camp."
Menleco had fought his whole life, literally with spear and shield, fought in every land touc
hed by the Middle Sea. He had fought with armor and blood no less than brains. He had pitted his blade against mighty warriors and his will and cunning against kings and princes and had emerged from every struggle stronger than when he had started. To die now in a dead-end chamber at the hands of some overzealous girl seemed to him absurd and unreal. It felt like a dream, one that left him marveling at its strangeness. He wished he had not dropped his dagger now. It lay at Ardonis' feet winking at him in the light of the crimson everflame as from the bottom of a deep well. He should have immediately hurled it at her, trading point for point and blood for blood. Now, unarmed, he would be put away like a dog.
"Kill me and my Shadow Riders will hunt you until your legs collapse from exhaustion." The walls were smooth and featureless. There was no way out but for the way blocked by the Huntress. She stood straight and tall, menacing him with a drawn bowstring. The wickedly barbed arrowhead was red with dancing everflame, already seeming to drip with blood.
"I would gladly give my life to kill you, as would hundreds more just like me."
"My ransom will be paid in gold," Menleco promised. In truth, there were more who would pay for his death than his life. But as long as she was talking, she was not loosing, and he was not dying.
"There is not gold enough to balance the suffering inflicted by you on my people. Even your wretched life is a miserly wage…"
She pulled back the final inch. Muscles straining, her face lost its beauty at that moment. Menleco could not watch. He closed his eyes. From the blackness of his coming death, he heard her cry out, then the sound of the arrow clattering against the stone wall just inches from his face. When he opened his eyes, he saw a figure wrestling the Huntress to the floor. She had dropped her bow and Menleco could see her reaching for the dagger at her belt.
"She has a blade!" he shouted.
The man wrestling her needed no warning. He raised his short sword and brought the pommel down on the top of her head, a savage blow that immediately sprouted red amid her golden curls.
She lay motionless on the floor. Vonos sprang to his feet, grinning ear to ear.
"What a she-wolf!" he gasped.
"You fool! What are you trying to do, get me killed?" Another inch and Menleco would have been wearing the Huntress' arrow in place of his right eye. He bent down, picked up his dagger and calmly resheathed it at his belt.
"Saving your life, more like," Vonos said with a smile. "No charge for that, but four more silvers for the Huntress."
Coronea's head was bleeding onto the floor. Menleco turned her onto her back. "If you haven't already killed her, that is."
"She's not dead." Vonos pulled a dirty cloth from beneath his tunic and put it under her head. He felt at her nostrils for breath and looked up at Menleco, satisfied that she still lived. "I didn't chase her in here only to kill her at half the rate. This one's worth four, and four I shall have."
"Chased her? I led her in here, you fool! What chance did she have in this labyrinth with that bow of hers? She was foolish to enter here."
"What chance? Better than average, I would say, given the circumstances I found her in."
Could not this deceitful little whelp say anything without that self-satisfied grin on his face? Menleco lunged at him and threw him up against the wall.
"You think you're clever, you little bastard? You lead my men into a trap and then try to claim bounties on top of it? How much did the Epirians pay you? Do you think you will leave here alive now?"
"Trap?" Vonos did not struggle, even when his head had slammed against the wall. He blinked in confusion. "You think I led you into a trap? How could it be a trap when your men have killed them all?"
Menleco's grip slackened. "Killed them all?"
Vonos angrily slapped Menleco's hands away. "Killed them all," he said with brutal finality. "Every last one of them. Six dead, one captured. Not just any captive, either, but the Huntress herself. By my reckoning, that's sixteen silver pieces for me. You agreed."
Back at the pass, Captain Raulon confirmed Vonos' claim.
"We lost five of our own," he said. In the moonlight, Menleco could see five horses with black-cloaked bodies draped over the saddles. "Our men were discovered before we had a chance to get into position. It wasn't the lad's fault," he added, answering Menleco's unasked question. "The Epirians were where he said they would be. What should we do with their dead?"
"Leave them lay," Menleco said. "When we ride through this pass at sunup, I want circling vultures to show us the way."
"There will be no missing this road then," Raulon predicted. He nodded to where Coronea lay at Vonos' feet. She was beginning to stir, slowly regaining consciousness. She uttered a little groan. "And who is this?"
"It is the one they call the Huntress," said Menleco.
"Ah!" Raulon exclaimed, looking down at her from his saddle. "Did she fill your heart with love, sir?"
"She almost filled his heart with more than that," Vonos quipped. "She almost filled it so much that it might have stopped beating altogether. Isn't that right, General?"
Coronea rode draped over the front of Raulon's saddle. By the time they reached the camp, she had regained full consciousness. She struggled at first but Raulon kept a strong hand on her back to prevent her rising. Outside Menleco's tent, he cheerfully smacked her buttocks before allowing her to dismount.
"Hate to disappoint you, Captain," Menleco said. "But this one is bound for the Irrylian spymaster."
"I could at least give her a memorable sendoff to cheer her on her way," Raulon said, less jesting than hopeful, Menleco thought.
Raulon jumped down from his mare and on Menleco's order bound Coronea's hands. The general had seen her eying their weapons and he wasn't about to give her the opportunity of taking up arms against them. He knew she would not again allow herself to be lulled into talking when she should be killing.
He approached Coronea and bowed deeply with an exaggerated sweep of his hand. "Welcome to the camp of the Shadow Riders, my lady. I'm sorry your compatriots could not be here to share this with you, but I'm told they are all dead."
She spat in his face. Menleco hardly flinched. He rubbed the dripping spittle from his eye with a corner of his cloak.
"If you were as quick with your bow as you are with your pretty little mouth, I would be dead now and you might still have a chance to live. As it is…" Menleco shook his head sadly. "Quite hopeless, I'm afraid."
Coronea stared at him fiercely and defiantly. When she spied Vonos, her expression changed to one of concern.
"Let the boy go," she snapped. Raulon tilted his head back and laughed. "You said all were killed…"
"All of your comrades were killed, Huntress," Menleco said, smiling when he saw the confusion spread across her face. "But this is not one of yours. He's one of mine."
Vonos' grin changed to a stern frown. "I must avenge my father," he said with theatrical vigor and then burst out laughing. "You believed every word out of my mouth because it's what you expected to hear. Who wouldn't want to take up your noble cause, eh? In truth, my father is an evil man and every day our paths do not cross, I count a good one. I'd impale the bastard myself, if I knew where he was." Vonos laughed again. Coronea stared at him with hard eyes. "I wonder what old Cleonander would say of my performance. Perhaps he would let me play the lead at his next opening."
"He would spill your guts all over the ground first," Coronea said, but the fire had gone out of her. She seemed filled with sadness and could not hold anyone's gaze.
A few officers were up and about, striding through the darkness among the tents, preparing to break camp. Menleco saw Coronea anxiously noticing their stares. "Let's take her inside. She will be safer there. I wouldn't want her to think that we are barbarians here."
Raulon grabbed her by the shoulders. "Do you care so much what I think of you?" Coronea asked.
"No," Menleco said upon reflection. "I suppose I don't." He ducked inside and the little group filed in behind him.
Lyssa was awake now. She sat at a table upon which stood a burning lamp. When the group entered, she stood and turned abruptly, as if she had been caught at some mischief. Menleco eyed the tabletop with suspicion. Lyssa watched him coldly.
"I didn't hear you come in, my lord," she said with unconvincing casualness.
A map of Prathia lay atop a jumble of papers. Menleco ignored her and lifted a corner of the parchment, but saw nothing amiss beneath. His papers would have no meaning to her. Perhaps she was writing love letters. He would have had Raulon search her person if he did not think she would enjoy it.
"Are you planning a trip, my dear?" Menleco asked.
"A trip?" she asked, puzzled.
He motioned toward the map. "You've been studying. I hope this does not mean you're leaving us?"
"Oh, that…the map…yes." She was a poor liar and always had been. Young ladies from royal households had not much use for lies. They found the world at their feet sure enough without them. "I was just looking at the road we would take into Prathia."
"And did you find our route satisfactory?"
She looked down and nodded.
Menleco narrowed his eyes. He lifted her chin with a bent finger and scrutinized her face. "Are you ill, Lyssa? You look…tired. Have you been sleeping well?"
"You know I have not," Lyssa snapped, her mask falling away. She pulled her face back from his hand. "Why do you persist in your cruelties? You know I am not happy here. I want only to go home."
"Lyssa, dear, please…We have guests."
She seemed to notice them for the first time. She looked at Vonos. His mind was as transparent to Lyssa as it was to Menleco. Not even a grin could hide his lustful musings. She looked away from him in a hurry. Her gaze, however, lingered when it found Raulon's face. The captain instantly lowered his eyes, perhaps remembering wisely that Menleco made no idle threats. Lyssa pursed her lips and Menleco thought she might cry. When she saw Coronea, however, she brightened immediately.
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