by J. S. Morin
What now? I can still help Kyrus with his studies, I suppose, but that's no proper trade.
"So Tomas," Brannis called out, bringing his horse up not quite even with Soria's. "What is it that we bring you back to, anyway? Your father always monopolizes any conversation that happens within earshot. What is it that occupies your days?"
"Scant little, I'm afraid. Officially, I manage my father's interests in Scar Harbor, but I have men that handle the details of it. My real job is to give those men a hard look in the eye, and convince myself they aren't robbing me," Tomas replied with a self-deprecating chuckle.
Soria turned in the saddle. Brannis noticed that Tomas leaned out of her way as she did so. "Thinking about signing on as an apprentice, Sir Erund?" she teased. Her face fell, eyes wide. "Aw, horse piss, we're being followed!"
"What?" Brannis exclaimed, wheeling his horse around. He scanned the forest behind them. "I don't see anything."
"Well, spit, if you'd been paying attention before, maybe you would've," Soria retorted. "Rakashi, we've got to move!"
"I think not," Rakashi called back. "She is in no condition. We must confront whoever it is."
Brannis still searched the trees for signs of the pursuers Soria had seen. "Tomas," he called over his shoulder. "Can you ride?"
"Of course," Tomas replied, indignant. "I've won ribbons at it." Wonderful, if we need any fences jumped, we'll have you to look to.
"Take mine then, and get Abbiley on it with you," Brannis told him hurriedly. "Don't go far, else they circle around us to get to you. Keep just far enough away to stay out of harm's path." Brannis swung himself off his mount, still feeling the shape of it between his thighs after a full morning in the saddle.
Tomas climbed straight from Soria's horse to Brannis's, showing a spirit-buoying aptitude in keeping with his boast. Soria then moved to help Rakashi transfer Abbiley from his horse to Tomas's.
"What's going on?" Abbiley asked, as she was hoisted in front of Tomas. With no time to secure her properly, it was the safest place for her.
"Not to worry, my dear," Tomas reassured her, "our friends just appear not quite done with saving us. They're about to do a bit more. You shall be safe here with me in the interim."
Brannis stood with Avalanche drawn, waiting. He saw Soria dismount and take cover behind a tree, and he followed suit. She saw him looking over at her.
"Never learned to fight from horseback," she told him.
F-f-f-f-f-f-thook!
An arrow embedded itself in the tree Soria sheltered behind, then two more.
A voice called out something, it must have been Kheshi, for he only understood a single word out of all of it: "Tezuan."
* * * * * * * *
"Come out, and make it easy on yourselves. We are Tezuan warriors, and you cannot escape us," the voice called out into the woods. Soria swallowed hard, wondering what it would be like facing Tezuan brothers as mortal enemies. She hoped they were like the two that Parjek Ran-Haalamar had employed in Marker's Point. She suspected not.
Tezuan mercenaries went as far as coin demanded. Kheshis knew their value, and the best rarely had to travel far to earn great fortunes for the temples. A twinborn noblewoman? She had likely hired the best.
"If you've come from the keep, you must have seen what we're capable of," Soria shouted back, not moving from behind the tree. "You don't have to try to avenge your employer."
"I don't know what happened at Hronsvaar Keep, but if you are responsible, it is all the more reason to bring you to justice," the voice called back. Soria could hear them coming. The horses' hooves had no artfulness in woodland sneaking; they crunched leaves and snapped twigs at every step.
"What are they saying?" Brannis asked.
"They seem pretty intent on not going away quietly," Soria replied. She reached back and drew her daggers—make that dagger. Gut me, I've only got the one left. The other was somewhere amid the rubble of the keep they had destroyed.
"They are moving to surround us," Rakashi shouted.
"Can you get a count?" Soria asked. She looked all about. Surrounded by bowmen could mean trouble.
"A dozen, perhaps," Rakashi replied.
"We can't let them surround us completely, we need to keep Abbiley and Tomas protected," Brannis called back.
"What's your plan, then, grand marshal?" Soria asked.
What plan, indeed?
Brannis ransacked his memories, overturning shelves and spilling the cupboards out onto the floor. They had no bows, nor pistols or muskets. Their foes were mounted and must have had at least two bowmen among them, the rest carrying unknown arms. There was only one means of combat that put them at advantage.
"We charge," Brannis answered.
Leading from the fore, Brannis stepped from behind his sheltering tree, and sought the first hint of movement. He saw a pair of horsemen, still some ways off, obscured by the undergrowth. He broke into a run in their direction, screaming a wordless war cry to draw their attention.
A pair of arrows whizzed his way, one missing cleanly, the other glancing off his breastplate. The two horsemen seemed unsurprised to see an armored foe still in pursuit. They dropped their bows and drew swords. They turned to meet him, their mounts restless in the face of a foe.
Brannis chose at random, and veered for the horseman to his right. The Kheshi warrior was armored like the others, in the thick, sleeveless leather armor that the Tezuan favored. By his attack, he was not much of a creative warrior. The Kheshi reached across his horse to hack straight down at Brannis. Avalanche caught the blade, deflecting it wide. The Kheshi was quick with his sword, and had a parry ready to line up with Brannis's counter, but Avalanche tore the blade from his hand before cutting the man in half.
The second horseman had maneuvered himself around to come behind Brannis, but stopped short when he saw what happened to his companion. He urged his horse around a tree, and put it between himself and Brannis. Brannis took a swipe at the horseman anyway, splintering the tree as Avalanche passed through. The tree fell straight down, at first, the upper portion clipping the newly formed stump, and spiking into the earth near its own roots. It creaked and moaned, tangling with the branches of other trees as it toppled. Brannis and the horseman fled to opposite sides of it.
"Brannis!" Soria screamed. "Watch that sword of yours or you'll bring the whole forest down on us!"
Bring the whole forest down ...
That was the answer. The horsemen had the advantage of speed over them, and bows. Limit their options. Block their paths.
Brannis shouted back. "Just watch yourselves as they fall. We want this fight on our terms. Someone's going to catch an arrow in the throat if we keep this up."
Brannis did catch another arrow, but his armor protected him. He darted for the next nearest tree and chopped it through as well. He repeated the process, trying to circle wide around the combat. With a few practice trees, he was even getting the hang of directing which way they fell, forming them into a rough defensive circle.
One of the riders caught on to his plan, or at least understood the threat that dozens of falling trees presented. Brannis turned to see one of the horses vault a fallen tree, the rider's spear leading like a lance. Instinct overrode sense, and Brannis batted the spear away, only to be trampled by the horse. He hit the ground, and a mass of horseflesh passed him by. He flailed about with his blade and heard an equine shriek of agony, followed by a clatter to the ground.
Brannis rolled over to push himself to his feet, scrambling when he saw that the rider had disentangled himself from his butchered horse, and was advancing. The spear was gone, discarded, and the rider had drawn two long daggers.
The rider called out to him, but it was nothing but garbled sounds to Brannis's ears.
"Sorry friend, I'm just a Kadrin, a long way from home," Brannis remarked. It seemed to matter little, telling a man who could not understand him and who would shortly be dead.
His opponent spoke again, but all Bran
nis understood was the word “Kadrin.” Brannis took a step back. He was unprepared for that one word to ring true. The language sounded different as well, not quite like the Kheshi tongue whose cadence and sounds were growing familiar, if no more understandable.
"You Kadrin," the rider said, switching to speaking Kadrin after Brannis had no reaction. Brannis nodded. "Ah, I Ghelk. You die."
"Not today, I think," Brannis replied.
The Ghelkan twinborn took up a stance that Brannis recognized. It was one that Soria used, even down to the choice of daggers. This twinborn was Tezuan trained.
* * * * * * * *
Rakashi counted himself fortunate to have such clever allies. From the moment Brannis's sword first cut a tree, Rakashi thought to turn the battlefield into a clutter of fallen oaks and maples. He had done little before then but play the deer for his huntsman foes.
A bow is a wonderful weapon for hunting, and for holding fortifications against massed troops. It begins to have its failings against targets who are aware of the bowman, and do nothing but keep to cover and dodge. There was little else he could do without giving them too good a target. Unlike Soria and Brannis, he was unprotected.
When the trees began to rain, he was able to watch their dying Sources with his patched eye. With his good eye, he kept track of his bowmen, perched on nervous horses that were unsure how to react to the strangeness of a falling forest. He kept himself to the leafy ends of the trees, concealing himself behind branches. When one of the horsemen leaped to his side of a tree, he dove and rolled under to switch sides once more.
After the fourth time leaping a fallen tree, one horse missed its footing on the landing, spilling its rider. Rakashi rolled back onto the horse's side of the tree and closed the distance to the rider.
The bowman was remarkable in his concentration. He had kept his bow intact through the fall, and even from lying on his side, nocked an arrow. Rakashi did not dodge. He waited for the bowman to take his measure, and watched his aim. If a man were to assume Rakashi lacked depth perception due to his patched eye, he would find himself wrong. If an archer were to wager his life that a one-eyed Takalishman could not place his half-spear to deflect an arrow mid-flight, he might find himself dying quite by surprise, with a half-spear in his throat.
* * * * * * * *
"Tomas, what's going on?" Abbiley asked, a tremor of panic rising in her voice.
"Well, my Kheshi is poor at best, but I must imagine that there is an un-rescue attempt afoot," Tomas replied. "I'm not sure quite where they would take us, since our last accommodations are a mountain of rubble, but Khesh is big enough that they'd find a place, I'm sure."
"What about Sir Erund, Lady Soria, and that Takalish fellow?" Abbiley asked.
"Well, they seem to be faring well thus far. I've taken us a bit wayward of the fray, of course, so I can't get much of a view. You can hear as well as I though, that they still shout to one another."
Tomas looked about. The others were far more a threat than he was, and he was not fleeing, so the riders had paid them scant attention. One of them took that moment to crash by, just a few lengths of a horse from where they sat.
"What's this now?" Tomas exclaimed. "I think I recognized that one. These fellows are the guards Lady Skaal kept with her on our ride south. And to think, we shared tea with some of them!"
* * * * * * * *
Soria's opponents circled her, keeping well out of her lunging reach. They had dismounted unwillingly, their horses dead nearby. One wielded a long axe in two hands, the other stood unarmed—the greater threat. Both had the sann—the Source—of a Tezuan adept, and the balance and poise to show they were trained.
"You are one of ours," the unarmed Tezuan said to her. "We should trade names, the better to sell our services to our next employer, whoever proves the stronger here. I assume you are from one of those mongrel schools ... more's the pity."
"I am Soria Coinblade. And no, I didn't study in the north," Soria said, spitting on the ground to punctuate her statement. "I trained at the Temple of the Sun."
"Liar! The Temple of the Sun would never take in a northerner," the Tezuan shot back. "You get no name from me until I get a proper introduction from you."
"Suit yourself," Soria replied. "Maybe when you lay dying, you'll change your mind. Frankly, I don't think I'll name the likes of you in my boasts."
"You little whore!" the unarmed Tezuan exclaimed. He rushed her.
In her aether-vision, Soria saw the one with the axe coming for her as well. Still facing the unarmed Tezuan, she flung her lone dagger behind her. The axe wielder was caught unawares, and the dagger buried itself in his chest.
The remaining Tezuan closed the distance to Soria, and began an onslaught. His punches came in a blur, and his kicks came in stride, never overbalancing him. Soria kept up with him by sheer force of aether, speeding her hands, quickening her ducks and dodges. The Tezuan was a better fighter than Mother Stina had ever been. Soria still had tricks of her own when it became clear that speed and technique alone were not going to be enough.
Soria allowed a punch to land—a clean shot, right to her face. There was a quick flash as her shielding spell caught the blow, which barely turned her jaw. She leaned into the blow, gaining the reach to put a knee to her foe's chest and grab hold of his wrist. Even through the hardened leather armor, she heard his ribs crunch. The force of the blow would have flung the man away from her, but she had hold of him by the arm, and he could only stumble that far from her. He tried to jerk his arm free, but he was larger than Soria, and she allowed herself to be pulled toward him. The kick that followed broke the man's neck.
Soria allowed the dead man to drop to the ground. She took up her dagger from the axe wielder's body as she gathered her breath once more.
Another horse approached, and she readied to throw the dagger at its rider.
"Well fought, Soria," the man complimented her. He held no weapon, nor had any about his person that she could see. There was something familiar in his face though. "I can only imagine how formidable you would have become if you had finished your training. You fight with a novice's skills, but the sann of a dragon."
"I've seen a dragon, and I think you overestimate me," Soria replied. He must have been at my temple, but who is he?
The man laughed. It was the easy, genuine laugh of a man at ease. "The man you killed was named Jall. He was quite good. You ... wait, you don't know who I am, do you? Has it been so long, Soria, that you have forgotten me?"
"I put the temple behind me. I kept what I needed to know. I said I left all grudges behind me."
"Yes," the Tezuan said, "but you also said you might remember friendships."
Soria shrugged. The Tezuan frowned.
"I suppose this might be easier, then," he said. The Tezuan got off his horse. Soria waited as he tied the reins to a branch of one of the fallen trees. "Knowing you held no affection for me, I will not have my heart holding me back."
Soria searched the little wardrobe in her mind for a face that might have been a younger version of this Tezuan warrior's, but came away with nothing. It was an ill-kempt wardrobe, cluttered with memories of two childhoods. It was filled with moonlit boat rides for two, rides in the countryside, the wonders of nascent magical skills developing, and occasionally—here and there—memories of a dusty stone temple run by grim disciplinarians. The faces from the latter were covered in dust.
Soria studied his Source and was shocked. It was something that belonged in Veydrus, not Tellurak. She had to remind herself that the same could be said of her own, but that was scant comfort when that same distinction accounted for her advantage in combat over nearly every opponent she had faced.
The Tezuan held his palms out before her and focused. She knew he was inspecting her Source in much the same way.
"Oh, wonderful. I had never mastered the sann sense while you were still at the temple, Soria, but now I see why you were always so strong, despite being so sloppy," the Tezua
n said.
"I'll give you the same choice your friend had. If you want to give me your name, fine. If not, I'll either have it from your dying breath or not at all," Soria told him. She strengthened her shielding spell, drawing from her own Source as the Tezuan taught. The Tezuan's eyes widened.
"That trick they never taught. You learned that somewhere else, didn't you?" the Tezuan asked. Soria was tempted to slide back into aether-vision, just to keep that smirking, self-congratulatory smile out of her sight. "Come now, Soria. Who else are you?"
Soria's blood chilled. This pig-sticking bastard is twinborn. She redoubled her efforts to remember him, but caught nothing but wind. The boys at the temple kept their heads clean shaven. The shoulder-length mop of golden locks and the sculpted beard sharpening his chin could have hidden any childhood acquaintance.
"Not talking, eh?" he said. He took a passive Tezuan stance. "Fine. But you are to be killed by Barum, whom you once claimed to love."
Barum? She had been a girl, not yet ten, when she had claimed to fancy Barum. It was imitation of the older girls and their illicit affections. She and Barum had been playmates, as much as playing was allowed at the Temple of the Sun, but nothing more. I guess it meant more to him than to me.
"Sorry, don't recall the name," she said. Barum's face contorted in a fury.
"Liar!" he exclaimed, and rushed her.
He fought like Jall, a blur of motion that Soria fought to keep up with. More than one blow of his rang against her shielding spell. He was faster than her, and his technique flawless. Soria backed away as she defended, giving ground to buy time. She found a fallen tree and ducked beneath it, forcing Barum to either go over or under it to follow her. He leaped over the trunk, and Soria dove back under. She was relieved to find she was at least nimbler afoot.
"Cowardice? Is this how you act when overmatched?" Barum taunted.
Pride isn't going to get me killed today, Soria promised herself. She glanced around the forest. All she saw was the horse with Abbiley and Tomas; the noble fop had acquired a sword from somewhere, and was brandishing it at the trees. She heard, but could not see, Brannis and Rakashi. The whole of the area was a roving battle.