“Right,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They were in the stables before Coilla said, “Aren’t you going to tell Krenad and the enlistees?”
Stryke tossed a saddle onto his horse’s back a little harder than necessary. The beast sidled in protest. “They took their destiny into their own hands, just like us. They wanted freedom. They’ve got it. What they do with it is up to them.” He jerked the cinch tight.
“Not if Jennesta comes down here in the morning it’s not,” Alfray reminded him. “She’ll skin them alive.”
“What do you want me to do? Try and hide with a whole army of orcs? Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but it’s not as if we’ve got a lot of choice.”
Alfray said, “We ought at least to warn them.”
Jup backed him.
Coilla was more forthright. “Still scared you might start attracting a following?”
“What if I am?” Stryke whirled to glare at her. “I never said I wanted to take on Jennesta! Or anybody else for that matter. All I want is to get out of this in one piece. Let some other bastard wave the flag.”
Alfray was disgusted. “So you’re just going to leave Krenad to Jennesta’s tender mercies? You’re not the orc I thought you were.”
Stryke stuck his face right in Alfray’s. “Wrong. That’s exactly my point. I’m a leader of a warband and that’s all that I am. You’re the one who’s trying to make me into something else. Coilla, go and find Krenad. No, wait. I’ll do it myself. The gods know what sort of hash you lot would make of it.”
He found the enlistees’ chief singing rude songs in a tavern.
“Come here.” Stryke said brusquely.
Krenad was too happy, and too drunk, to get off the barrel he was sitting astride. “Wossamatter?” he mumbled.
Stryke hauled him outside and stuffed his head in a rainbutt until the deserter’s eyes focused.
“Right. That’s better. Now listen, Krenad. In case you didn’t notice, the leader of the other army out there today was Jennesta.”
“Nah. Couldn’t have been. Was a silly human in a skinny hat.”
Stryke held him under again until his sputtering grew frantic.
“Not him, you idiot! The other, Mani army. The one on the hill. With the harpies. Remember?”
Suddenly Krenad was completely sober. “Yes, sir. What time are we pulling out, sir?”
“We’re pulling out now. You can pull out whenever you like.”
“You mean we’re going to split up and rendezvous later?”
“No. Look, Corporal, don’t think we haven’t appreciated you being around for the battle. But let me make it clear to you one last time. I’m not recruiting. I never have been recruiting. And tomorrow, when we’re far away from that murdering bitch, I still won’t be recruiting. It’s every orc for himself. Got that?”
Later that same night, far across the hills as the stars wheeled towards dawn, the look Krenad had given him still haunted Stryke.
As the sun tiptoed above the eastern wall of the stockade, Krista Galby stood aghast in the temple.
One of the guards, nursing a sore head, was saying, “. . . and couldn’t do a thing about it.”
For a long minute the Priestess kept silent, staring at the toppled pillar. At last she sighed and said, “I don’t imagine anybody saw them leave during the celebrations, but I suppose we at least have to ask.”
She paused, schooling her face to calm. Almost dreamily she said, more to herself than to the men with her, “We have to find it and take it back. We built the temple to house it. It’s been the centre of my life, and my mother’s before me, and all the Priestesses’ right back to the time Ruffett first settled here. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his finding the star in the pool in the first place, he never would have settled here.”
Unnerved by her preternatural tranquillity, the sore-headed guard mouthed into the silence, “Shall I ask the Commander to get a troop together?”
Krista gazed at him. “No. We don’t want Stryke’s band punished. Not after he saved Aidan’s life.” Her voice trailed away, to come back stronger as she added, “Round up all the temple guards who can still sit a horse. And saddle my mare for me.”
The man was horrified. “You can’t go, Priestess! Without the star we need you here more than ever.”
“Who else can explain why we need it? Don’t you see? I have to go.”
In less than half an hour Krista was in the square before the northern gate. Sure enough, one of yesterday’s widows had been mourning by her window. Long after the revelry had died away, she had seen a band of some thirty orcs riding out, with their horses’ hooves muffled in rags. The gate-guard himself had no recollection of it. All he remembered was somebody coming over to offer him a drink and then clouting him on the back of the head.
Tenderly Krista hugged her son. Although he still couldn’t walk far, his old nurse had asked one of the temple builders to carry him out to his mother. “Be good, Aidan, and do what Merrilis tells you. We want you to get strong again, don’t we?”
The boy clung to her arm. “Don’t go, Mother. Stay with me. There’s bad things out there.”
“There are good things too. And I have these fine guards to keep me safe. Don’t worry, my love. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Krista looked at the old woman and the burly carpenter. “Take care of him for me. And Aidan, pet, you can stay here and see the Queen ride in. Won’t that be nice?”
The chief of the temple guard came up and handed her the reins of a fine bay mare. Krista Galby blew her son a kiss.
Then she rode out with her followers as though a tidal wave was at her back.
Jennesta’s chariot was decked with flowers.
She’d had the whirling knives removed. It wouldn’t do to upset potential subjects by cutting their legs off. Now she nodded and smiled regally at the commoners lining the road to the gates of the squalid little town. What was it called again? Ah yes. Ruffetts View, or some such romantic notion. Though what was romantic about a collection of filthy hovels so far from her capital, she couldn’t imagine. Behind her rode a fraction of her army, just to remind them who was who.
Men were cheering, girls were throwing late blooms, their bronze and crimson petals soon trampled into the muck. Jennesta glanced sidelong at Mersadion, sitting stiff in his saddle beside her, with his scars coming along nicely. At least he could see these unwashed peasants knew how to honour a queen.
Then a sunbeam lanced down, kissing the plume of magic with deeper fire. Her eyes were drawn upwards. The sight of such power brought a sly gleam to her eye. In her hands the reins fell slack and the horses slowed to a walk.
Their snorting brought her back to herself. Almost at the gates, a band of riders dared to cross her path. Without a word they pelted by at full gallop, hardly stopping to acknowledge her station.
But from within the gates came a roar as the townspeople saw her approach. Jennesta forced a smile to her lips and entered amid all the pomp she could muster.
In the very centre of the square was a muddy pool, rimmed with a low wall. Before it a man sat on a tall horse whose coat had been brushed until it shone. Despite the rapturous cheering, he seemed, of all things, to be glowering.
Rellston came back to himself with a start and bowed from the waist. His smile, Jennesta realised, was no more sincere than her own. But then, Rellston knew her reputation.
“Welcome,” he said unenthusiastically. “And thank you for your timely aid.”
Mersadion tipped his head a fraction towards the Queen.
Rellston took the hint. “Your Majesty,” he added.
“Think nothing of it,” Jennesta said, her voice like poisoned honey. “Do you happen to have a band of orcs in here? I’d like to . . . thank them personally.”
“We did have. Your Majesty. But they’ve gone now.”
“How disappointing,” the Queen hissed. “Did they happen to say where?”
“No, Your Majesty. They left sometime in the night.”
Mersadion edged his horse away, waiting for Jennesta’s volcanic explosion of wrath.
It didn’t come. With monumental effort the Queen said between gritted teeth, “And where is your High Priestess? Why is she not here to greet me?”
Rellston stiffened his back still further. “She charged me with messages of gratitude, Your Majesty. But I’m afraid she has . . . left on an errand. An urgent errand.”
The Queen stared about her vindictively. Suddenly, out of the crowd, came a beefy man carrying a boy pickaback. Not in the least afraid, unlike the other cretins who stood gawping at her, the boy was a handsome black-haired charmer. He looked too cocksure to be the child of someone unimportant.
“And who is the urchin on that big human’s shoulders?” she enquired acidly.
Reluctantly Rellston said, “It’s the High Priestess’s son, your Majesty.”
“Is it? Is it indeed?”
He didn’t like the way Jennesta eyed the boy with sudden sultry interest. It made his stomach turn to see her smile at Aidan with all the lasciviousness of a hired courtesan.
In the shelter of the copse at the head of the valley sat a tall, wiry human on a horse.
To either side of him bands of Unis were creeping away through the trees, but they didn’t seem to see him. Nor did the few desultory scouts Mersadion had sent out on mopping-up operations.
The man’s auburn hair gleamed in a dancing beam of sunshine. Thoughtfully, he observed the populace acclaiming Jennesta’s triumphal entry into Ruffetts View.
Then he turned his stark white stallion and vanished into the woods.
20
Sickened, Rellston watched Jennesta all but drooling over the boy.
The Commander had felt obliged to offer her hospitality in the least damaged hostelry on the square. But the conversation wasn’t exactly flowing, and she hadn’t touched the goblet of mead the landlord had brought her. Aidan, however, was excited to be the centre of her Majesty’s attention. But as the afternoon wore on, the young convalescent began to yawn.
Jennesta turned to him and said coldly, “I bore you, do I?”
“No, Your Majesty! I think you’re beautiful.”
She preened.
Aidan yawned again.
Forestalling the Queen’s wrath, Rellston intervened. “Forgive him, your Majesty. He’s not yet recovered from a wound he took two days ago. He was so badly hurt that for some time we didn’t even expect him to live.”
She flicked her fingers in contemptuous dismissal, not even deigning to ask how he had made so astonishing a recovery. Indeed, the Commander realised, she lost all interest as soon as he himself had stopped glowering at her.
Chagrined at being made game of, he remarked, “Your soldiers don’t appear to have had much luck in searching for the objects you spoke of, ma’am. Perhaps you would care to join us in our meagre supper?”
Jennesta looked at him as though he’d crawled out from a latrine. “I don’t think so,” she announced imperiously, then stood up so abruptly her chair skidded across the floor of the inn. “I shall return to my army. A good commander sees to her forces.”
Rellston bowed ironically but she missed it. She had already swept out.
As soon as her chariot was out of sight, he allowed his impatience and frustration free rein. He’d sneak out of Ruffetts if he had to. He’d do whatever he had to. But he couldn’t leave the High Priestess out there with only a handful of men to protect her.
Late that afternoon, a ragged band of some thirty riders slowed to a walk. Before them lay a shallow incline but the horses were too exhausted to take it any faster.
Stryke looked at the slow, pewter waters of the Calyparr Inlet on his right. A brackish breeze rose to his nostrils. Not half a mile away lay the edge of the Norantellia Ocean but it was out of sight, behind a low, scrub-covered mound. That meant it was still several hours to Drogan Forest. He cursed and dismounted to give his horse a rest, leaning into the cold, sullen downpour as he plodded uphill.
“What’s that?” Coilla whispered, pointing at a series of fast-moving shapes ahead of them.
“Unis, I think,” Haskeer replied. “Fucking weather! Can’t see a thing.”
“They don’t seem to have horses,” Jup volunteered.
“Good!” Haskeer said. “Serves the bastards right, having to walk in the rain they’ve brought down on us. I’d kill every one of ’em if I had my way.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Stryke wearily informed him.
At last they breasted the ridge and climbed back into the saddle. At a trot they rounded a rocky outcrop.
Stryke pulled up sharply. Straggling across the road were some twenty of Hobrow’s routed troops, but they had no heart to fight. Swords drawn, they backed out of sight into the dripping shrubs. The band galloped on.
With enemies everywhere, the Wolverines made the best time they could. The further they went, the more frequently they passed dispirited custodians. A time or two Jup, riding scout, urged them under cover as bands of orcs rode past, but whether they were enlistees or loyal to Jennesta there was no way of knowing.
Eventually, as the day died into a sad grey twilight, Stryke reined. They seemed to have outdistanced all pursuit. Dark along the northern horizon lay the line of Drogan Forest. A watery moon peeped coyly through the clouds.
Not risking a fire, let alone being able to find anything that might burn, the Wolverines lay down to rest until full dark. Soon snores were sawing across the darkness. Every now and then came a slap as a sleeper flailed at a whining insect, but there were no larger beings within the sentries’ sight.
Unable to nod off, Stryke wandered down to the Inlet. For a while he sat on the bank, throwing pebbles into the water. With the rush of the flow he didn’t hear Coilla coming up behind him. The first he knew she was there was when she plumped down beside him, arms around her knees. “So what now, Stryke?” she asked. “Do we push on to Drogan and seek Keppatawn’s hospitality again?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know.”
“Don’t see where else we can go with Jennesta plaguing this end of the inlet.”
“Then again,” Stryke suggested, “that might be the first place she’d come looking for us. Gods! I haven’t a clue what we do now.”
Coilla threw a pebble of her own. It splashed into the Inlet. “What’s most important to you?”
“Just staying alive, I think.”
“What about the stars? Don’t they matter any more?”
“Who knows? I wish we’d never started this.” He leaned back on a mossy boulder.
Twin pebbles splashed into the water. After a time Coilla turned to him. “So what were you and Krista saying to each other back there while I was in the temple?”
“Nothing.”
“You stood there talking for half an hour without actually saying anything? I don’t believe it.”
“The Priestess told me I might be a sport,” he admitted reluctantly.
“A what?”
“In my case it’s an orc who can feel magic.” He took the stars out of his belt and flipped them between his hands as Coilla stared at him.
“That’s not natural. Sorry, forget I said that. Did you tell her about the dreams?”
“I didn’t have to. She seemed to think that was one of the . . . symptoms, whatever.”
“Have you ever considered that pellucid might be responsible for them?”
“The crystal? Course I have. For a while I kind of half believed it was. Now I’m sure it isn’t.”
She changed tack. “What are we going to do?” she repeated.
“Beats me.”
Stryke fussed with the stars, three in one fused piece and two still independent. Then he wearied of it and pushed them morosely across the grass.
For a time the two orcs peered through the moonlight at the puzzle. Neither of them could see how the instrumentalities were joined. T
he spikes melded them seamlessly together in a way that seemed to defy the laws of nature. There was something strange about the spidery mass, something that seemed to disappear into infinity.
Stryke took to fiddling with them again. Almost immediately the Ruffetts View star joined to the others with a dull click.
Coilla was impressed. “How did you do that?”
“I’ve no idea.” He tried the last, the green, five-spiked one they’d lifted from Hobrow’s settlement at Trinity.
“Here, give me that,” Coilla finally said, and snatched it from him. She had no more luck than he did.
At last Stryke gave it up. He put the stars back into his pouch. “I guess we’d better be getting back. The others will be worried about us.”
They hadn’t taken a dozen steps when two figures stepped out from their hiding place and blocked their path.
Micah Lekmann and Greever Aulay.
“You’re starting to make a habit of this,” Coilla told them.
“Very nice,” Lekmann said, his sword already naked in his hand. “Couple of lovers on a secret tryst.”
“Shut up, Micah,” Aulay snapped. “Why talk when we can kill?” He had his blade up too, its tip circling, as the orcs drew their swords.
On the banks of the Calyparr Inlet, two duels began.
Lekmann feinted at Stryke and slammed in a low hit. But the orc jumped his blade and spun to kick the bounty hunter in the knee. Lekmann swayed aside, almost overbalancing. Stryke’s backhand stroke scored along his curving back, but Lekmann brought up his blade. It slithered along the edge of the orc’s weapon, knocking it aside in a shower of sparks.
Meantime Coilla sprang back as Aulay drew something from under his coat. Then she watched, almost bemused, as he twisted his stump-cup free and plugged in a wicked knife. She leaped in at him but Aulay caught her blade on the long dagger he suddenly whipped out of his other sleeve.
“Gonna kill you, bitch.”
“Is that with or without your other eye?” she returned, the tip of her sword just missing his cheek.
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