Gonatas stood. "Look to your left!" he cried. "Quickly! Fly, Coronea, fly!"
He saw her look at him and then dart out from behind the rock just as an arrow flew past his face. Asander pulled him down.
"Fool! Do you want to die?"
Once behind the log, he lost sight of her. When he looked again, she was gone. He scanned the ground, fearing he would find her lying there in a heap, but he saw no sign of her.
"She made it!"
After a few minutes, the arrows ceased and the woods grew still. Shadow Riders walked among the dead and tended the wounded. Gonatas and Asander rose and saw Raulon removing a belt from one of the dead Riders. When he saw them coming, he straightened with a painful hitch that favored his wounded calf.
"You lost her, you lackwit fool!" Gonatas cried. In fact, he wanted to laugh. How odd it seemed to play the officious little prince. It was an act that no longer came natural to him and he was surprised Raulon did not immediately see through his farce. He felt nothing for the half-dozen dead he counted scattered among the smoking embers of the Riders' cookfires. It was all he could do to keep himself from dancing among the corpses.
Raulon inspected the blade of the dead man's sword before replacing it in its scabbard. He tossed the belt into a little pile he had started. "Don't be so certain, Prince. Few escape the Riders."
He went back to poking among the dead when black-cloaked Shadow Riders began filtering out of the trees. One of them was dragging the body of a young Epirian in a rough-spun cloak. The boy's head bounced over the uneven ground and the cloak had gotten all wadded up around his shoulders. Moments later, another Rider appeared leading a horse with one of the rebels draped over the saddle.
"Farm boys, mostly," the Rider announced. "Brave enough to snipe at us from ambush, maybe, but they don't stand up well under cold steel. We're bringing in more of 'em."
"Leave 'em lay!" Raulon snapped back. "We have our own dead to tend to. Any sign of the Huntress?"
The Rider halted and pulled the corpse from the saddle. It fell at his feet like a sack of grain. "I thought she was with you."
"She was with me. She ran off when I got hit in the leg."
"You let her get away?"
"I got hit in the leg!" Raulon snarled. He stopped what he was doing and looked up. "Instead of standing there with that stupid smirk on your face, you might go out and find her. You'll not think it funny when Menleco--"
"Here's one we got alive," yet another Rider called. He emerged from the woods pushing a lean, rough man before him. Older than the previous boys, this rebel moved grudgingly, only stepping forward when the Rider shoved him. Gonatas noticed there was a leaf caught in his hair. He felt bad for the man, but at least it wasn't Coronea.
"And yet another still!" A loud voice barked triumphantly from the other end of the clearing. Gonatas looked towards it and his heart sank. This time it was Coronea. Asander laid a hand on Gonatas' shoulder and Gonatas made a stone of his face.
"See there, Prince," Raulon shouted in what passed for good humor among so many corpses. "Not such a lackwit fool, after all, am I?"
Two men escorted Coronea into the clearing. She did not say a word and, like Gonatas, her face was a stone. Her hands were not bound, but each Rider held a naked blade under her chin as they walked her into the camp. She had doubtlessly not been an easy capture and Gonatas could see that the Riders would take no further chances with her.
What's more, he saw that the Riders were in a murderous mood now that they had living enemies to menace. Two of them had walked up to the rough-looking captive. They seemed to tower over him in their black cloaks. One grasped the man's throat and began squeezing, his teeth clenched.
"Tell this one what we do to those who kill Shadow Riders."
Gonatas thought the Rider was going to strangle him where he stood, but he relaxed his grip and shoved him aside. The Epirian fell to one knee, coughing and gasping for breath.
"We've got two for Pylia now," the Rider said.
"Did you hear that, you little bastard? It's the Irrylian witch for you!"
The Rider kicked the man and he toppled over into the grass.
"And what of the Huntress?" another asked. "How much more do we have to take from this bitch?"
"She needs to learn some respect."
Her two grinning escorts halted, each clutching an arm, their swords crossed at her throat. Coronea stood bravely, chin raised above the sharp steel. Two more Riders approached her. Who knew what they meant to do? Gonatas had had enough of this.
"Raulon!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "Control your men, or I swear to you, it will be three for Pylia!"
The force of his explosion stopped the Riders dead in their tracks. They looked from Raulon to Gonatas and back again.
"I believe the Prince is in love," Raulon said lightly.
Movement from the other end of the clearing caught everyone's eye. The Epirian captive had used the distraction of Gonatas' outburst to bolt for the woods. He did not get more than a few steps before he found Riders blocking his path. He darted one way and then the other like a trapped animal, but there was nowhere to run. Riders surrounded him in every direction. One of them laughed. The Epirian looked at him and then at the others. He pulled a concealed dagger from his foxskin boot and plunged the blade deep into his own bowels. He grimaced in pain, but managed to give the blade a twist before he fell to the ground.
The Riders gazed at him in shock. Coronea uttered a cry of anguish. Her guards let their swords drop and she rushed to the dead man, turning him over onto his back. One of the Riders grabbed her and another bent over the corpse.
"Leave him!" Raulon cried, in bitterness now. "It's a fit enough end for the likes o' him. C'mon, you bastards. Let's get the Huntress to Myssene and collect our fee. I tell you, I was happier when she was lost."
Chapter 28
Xanthippus flung his helmet aside. Silence had fallen over the group.
"Hello, General Menleco," he said in a quiet voice.
Menleco took a step backwards, and then another. "Xanthippus," he muttered in disbelief. He staggered back like a blind man feeling his way with arms outstretched.
"You remember me. How nice to know my memory lives beyond the grave."
Xanthippus stepped forward.
"I knew they weren't Shadow Riders!" the guard exclaimed. "I just knew it!"
Thalen began cursing and swearing to be loosed from his bonds, while Lyssa cried out, "It is Xanthippus! He has come!"
Retreating step by step, the back of Menleco's legs finally pressed up against a table and he could back away no further. His blind-man's hands worked the tabletop, shuffling aside papers. A sword belt lay in a tangled heap just out of his reach. As he felt for it, he smiled broadly.
"And Nydeon, too, I see," he exclaimed, feigning happiness now, his fingers working behind him. "So you both have returned. How wonderful!"
Xanthippus slowly drew his sword, a long cavalry saber. As it hissed from its sheath, Menleco's smile wavered. The light of happiness in his eyes was replaced by a look of terror until he was smiling toothily with his mouth only. The man was an accomplished liar, but this performance was disappointingly unconvincing.
Xanthippus raised the point of the saber to rest on the roll of the aging general's double chin. "I don't believe you are happy to see us. I believe you wanted me dead."
"Dead? No, that is not true." Menleco's hands prodded and probed behind him. Finally, his fingers alighted on the sword belt. Xanthippus brought his saber down, hard. The blade sliced clean through the coiled leather, Menleco's fingers barely escaping the severing cut. The general whirled away from the slashing steel and began backing again, this time towards Lyssa.
"Oh, I think it is very true," Xanthippus said, raising the saber again.
"You don't know what you are saying." Menleco backed, step by step. "You think I would have you killed?"
"I know what I have heard with my own ears."
"It is me, Menleco. I brought you up from nothing. Don't you remember that? You think I would kill you? I was like a father to you…"
"The last man who was like a father to me had his throat sliced open," Xanthippus said. "Nydeon! Thalen! Make sure no one comes in here."
"Let me kill him!" the young guard cried. "Ya stinkin' bastard, just wait 'til I squeeze your damn windpipe and tear it from yer damn throat! See how you like it!"
Surprised, Xanthippus glanced at the lad and then back to Menleco. "You've been making friends, I see."
"It was the Tygetians," Menleco cried out suddenly. "They threatened me. I had to do as they bid. They would kill me, they said. But I knew they couldn't kill you. We have thwarted them! Just as I knew we would!"
"See if you can thwart this!"
Menleco had backed to within an arm's length of Lyssa and when Xanthippus tensed to strike, he whirled around behind her, shielding himself with her body. He held her fast with one arm across her breast. With his other hand, he had drawn his dagger and held it at her throat.
Xanthippus dropped the point of his saber.
"That's right," Menleco said, peering over Lyssa's shoulder, his mouth at her ear. "You wouldn't want to harm the pretty lady, would you? I, however, have no such qualms."
"Nor I," the guard shouted. He scooped up his spear from where it had fallen. "I will run both queen and bastard through as one--"
"No! Put down your spear," Xanthippus commanded. The guard blinked in surprise. He hesitated, but then let the spear fall to his side.
"No! Don't let him get away!" Lyssa cried. Each syllable she uttered caused her soft flesh to dimple upon Menleco's blade. "You must kill him. He sent the Huntress to her death and he killed a boy right before my eyes."
"I will shower you with her blood," Menleco hissed, as he side-stepped towards the door behind his beautiful human shield. "Not one step closer…"
From outside the tent, Nydeon bellowed, "We are found out! Xanthippus!"
The sound of clashing steel followed his cry. Sword drawn, a Rider burst into the tent. "General, what is happening here?" He saw Menleco holding the girl. When his eye caught Xanthippus, he tensed for a fight.
"Behind you!" Menleco shouted, but too late. The young guard skewered the Rider through the side with his spear. The Rider's helmetless face was a mask of pain. Lyssa shrieked, and as another Rider bolted through the door and then another, Menleco grabbed her by the waist and whisked her out of the tent.
Xanthippus heard her voice cry out in a pleading tone. "Xanthippus!" Her graceful neck whip-lashed as she disappeared through the door in Menleco's grasp.
The next Rider was warier than the first. He squared, reared up, and then hacked at Xanthippus with a practiced and powerful hand. His steel glanced off the Prathian's saber. When he brought the blade down, all of the Rider's weight was on his forward, thrusting leg. Xanthippus spun and kicked it out from under him. The killing slash came an instant after the Rider had hit the ground. The razor sharp blade cleaved into his unprotected neck and shoulder, spewing a crimson fountain of blood.
Xanthippus spun again, this time delivering a side-stroke that slashed the next Rider deep in the ribs. He writhed to the ground with a scream of pain.
Xanthippus looked for the next, but instead saw the young Prathian Guardsman fighting like a bull. He thrust his spear into a Rider's belly. He drove it through the man with such force - the force of hatred or loathing or whatever else possessed the lad - that it indeed could have skewered two as one. Queens, generals or mere Riders, it mattered not at all.
"Go get Menleco!" the guard cried, withdrawing the bloody shaft. "These are mine!"
Xanthippus rushed outside and found Nydeon and Thalen fighting side by side. Though engaged with a Rider, Nydeon had managed to grab Menleco's cloak as he tried to fly past him. With his sword in one hand, Nydeon fended off a Rider's slashing blade while he gripped the general's cloak in the other. Lyssa's feet scarcely touched the ground as Menleco grasped her around the waist in one arm. He carried her as easily as though she were weightless. He slashed at Nydeon with his dagger, forcing him to jump back. At the same time, Nydeon lost his grip on the general. Xanthippus moved to intervene but found a single Rider blocking his path.
Then two.
More Riders had streamed into the clearing. The cookfire and torches still burned brightly and the Riders, mounted now, came galloping towards Menleco's tent from all over the camp, their black cloaks billowing behind them.
There were too many. They would never stop Menleco escaping. Perhaps they would not even escape themselves.
Xanthippus heard a cry and clatter from the edge of the darkness. Rising above the gloom of night, he spied a forest of upraised spears. Hundreds of them. He heard the rattle of armor and weapons, and then a single unified "Hrrrummp!" as deep and chest-thrumming as any peal of thunder. At that instant, the spears fell level to the ground. The Riders turned their heads. Their horses reared. At the edge of the clearing, Xanthippus saw firelight glinting on a line of shields, a line bristling with spears. And standing with arm upraised at its head was a man bearing on his helm the snow-white transverse crest of an officer. An officer of the Prathian Guard.
"Myrtilus!" Xanthippus cried when he recognized his friend.
Bellowing the order to advance, Myrtilus dropped his arm and the line of Guardsman began moving implacably forward. The Riders in the clearing began to panic.
"It is the Guard! The Guard is marching against us!"
The bristling shield wall advanced a few yards at a walk, and then started trotting. The Riders on foot turned and ran. Those on horseback tried to calm their mounts as they spun and reared. The Guard broke out into a sprint, yelling fiercely as they burst into the clearing.
The Riders opposing Xanthippus, Nydeon and Thalen turned on their heels and fled. Menleco stood among a knot of mounted men. He reached up in fury, pulled a Rider to the ground and mounted in his place. He gave Lyssa to another. The Rider whisked her onto the rear of his horse and in fear she gripped him around the waist as the entire troop - Menleco surrounded by ten Shadow Riders - tore off in the opposite direction from which Myrtilus' spearmen charged. Xanthippus could see Lyssa's white gown fluttering behind her, almost lost in a sea of black.
Frantically, Xanthippus looked for a horse. He spotted a group of Riders not far from where he stood and dashed towards it. One of the Riders drew his sword and slashed down at him as he weaved among the horsemen. Ducking under the flashing steel, he grabbed at the Riders' legs and tried to pull him from his mount. He had nearly succeeded when he heard a fierce whinny behind him. He spun just in time to see a pair of rearing hooves aimed at his head. He fell to his knees and twisted away. When he regained his feet, the flailing hooves were gone, but in their place sat a Rider with his saber held high, ready to strike him down.
He had rolled right into the path of the steel and he knew that he could not evade it. The man had only to bring it down and Xanthippus would have reached the end of his days. He saw the flash of the blade like a revelation of his own death. His eye caught the expression of the man who would kill him. He grimaced with exertion as he prepared to deliver the killing blow…
…an expression that changed in an instant to a grimace of pain, shock and horror. Xanthippus tore his eyes from his killer's face only to see that an arrow now sprouted from his breast. The saber flew from his hand as the impact of the shot pitched him head over heels from the saddle.
Without hesitating to contemplate his reprieve from certain death, Xanthippus swung onto the horse's back. Whipping the reins, he dug his heels hard into its sides. His own Rider's cloak, now partially stiff with blood, billowed behind him as he galloped after Menleco.
The sounds of Myrtilus' battle in the clearing receded behind him as he sped alone down the road leading to one of the camp's main exits. Turning corners, he had twice caught sight of the horses of Menleco's party kicking up mud as they galloped, and twice Lyssa's white gown
, glimpsed fleetingly as a ghost. He knew that if the Riders made the exit freely, he would never catch them. He spurred his mount to ever greater speed.
Soon he began hearing a tumult of another sort. The exit out of the camp was a causeway over the ditch and through the rampart, forming a natural bottleneck. Outside, stood a Prathian shield wall, shrieking an unearthly cry, charging the causeway. Shadow Riders on foot scampered in every direction. Those who were too slow were trampled mercilessly, skewered by sword and spear. A glut of mounted Riders clogged the narrow causeway. Some had peeled off to try another exit. The rest gaped at the charging Guard in confusion.
At that moment, Xanthippus loved Myrtilus more than any man he had ever known. His old friend had done it, by gods, and he had done it in a big way! Scamper off to the next exit, if you like, Xanthippus thought, but he knew Myrtilus had the camp sealed up tight. It was a Shadow Rider death trap.
He reined up, searching for Menleco among the wild throng of horsemen. Again, it was Lyssa's white gown that gave them away. She was halfway across the causeway when Xanthippus saw her. He rode forward, but could not reach her through the press of men and horses.
"Xanthippus!" she cried out when she saw him. Even through the gloom amid a sea of faces, he recognized the desperation in her eyes. She flailed and thrashed to get off the horse, but the Rider held her fast.
The rest of the Riders must have assumed Xanthippus was one of them, for they did not fight him as he pushed through the glut towards Lyssa. The Riders scarcely noticed him as he wedged his horse between them. He saw their horrified expressions as they witnessed the execution of their fellows in the field beyond. They frantically began trying to turn their horses as the Guard charged towards them. Some gave up and leapt from their mounts and were trampled by their own. Others attempted to scramble over ditch and wall only to be cut down by Myrtilus' faceless sharpshooters. Xanthippus forced his way towards Lyssa, pushing men out of his path.
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