“Ruha of the Mtair Dhafir at your service, Lady Constable.” Ruha glanced at the two corpses lying on the pier. “Their crime was not so terrible. Was it truly necessary to kill them?”
Vaerana’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Only if I don’t want Cult assassins waiting behind every hill on the way home,” she growled. “Now, if you’re through interrogating me, can we get the hell out of here?”
“Yes, of course.”
Feeling sheepish for questioning Vaerana’s actions, Ruha stepped over to the side of the scow. Although Hsieh’s physician had done a remarkable job of healing her wound—her thigh was now swollen to only half-again its normal size—the witch could not help limping as she moved.
“What happened?” Vaerana was looking not at Ruha, but at Fowler.
“Sharks.” The half-orc waved a hand at his two amputees. “Them, too.”
Vaerana looked the men over, then turned to her rotund horse-handler. “This is going to be more difficult than we thought, Tombor.”
“We have a little time.” Tombor was staring toward the shore, where the Black Caps were already ducking for cover as a hail of crossbow bolts rained down on them from the windows of several huts. “Let’s just hope that once we’re mounted, we can charge out of town as easily as we sneaked in.”
“Maybe we should leave the one-legs here,” Fowler suggested, helping Ruha out of the scow. “They aren’t much good to me, and the ride’s liable to kill them anyway.”
Vaerana shook her head. “Can’t do it, Tusks. The Cult’s worse than ever; a ride on a galloping horse will seem like fun compared to what the Black Caps would do to them.” She turned to the grim-jawed rider who had killed Henry. “Pierstar, you and Tombor see to the crew. I’ll take care of Tusks and the witch.”
Pierstar jumped into the scow to help the amputees, while Tombor directed the rest of the crew to come around to the left side of the horses—he had to say ‘port’ before they understood what he wanted. Vaerana led Ruha and the captain to the first pair of spare mounts.
The Lady Constable held out the reins of the first horse. “You can ride, can’t you, Witch?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Ruha’s reply was unduly modest, for she had grown up riding camels. Compared to those cantankerous brutes, even the most spirited stallion was child’s play. She took the reins, gathered up her aba, and slipped her foot into the stirrup. Her only awkward moment came when she had to swing her injured leg over the saddle and did not quite succeed. A fiery ache shot through her entire body. In the tongue of her father, she cursed all fish and wished them a frigid death in seas as cold as ice.
Once Vaerana saw that Ruha could handle her own mount, she passed the reins of the second to Fowler. “How about you, Captain? Can you ride?”
“If I can handle a ship’s helm, I can steer a dumb animal.”
The captain picked Godfrey’s sword up off the pier, then clumsily thrust his large foot into a stirrup and hoisted himself into the saddle. By the time Fowler’s sailors were ready to ride, the Black Caps on shore had broken through the hail of crossbow bolts. They were advancing through the streets toward the end of the quay, where dozens of armored horsemen, all dressed in a similar manner to Vaerana and her companions, were beginning to assemble.
“I thought the Cult controlled Pros!” Fowler commented. “How’d you get so many of Elversult’s Maces into town?”
“The shark bounty; the fishing captains are desperate for crews,” Vaerana explained. “We snuck in a few at a time, pretending we wanted work.”
Vaerana stood in her stirrups and twisted around to look at the quay behind her, where Fowler’s crew sat two to a horse. The amputees were seated before the two strongest men and tied into their saddles with leather straps. They looked rather frightened and weak, but they had heard what would befall them in the Cult’s hands and made no protest.
“Listen up, sailors!” Vaerana said. “Your horses know more about this than you do, so don’t start thinking you’re smarter than they are. If you get in trouble, just drop the reins and hold on to your saddles.”
Arvold immediately released his reins. Though Tombor had already positioned himself at the back of the group, Ruha moved her own horse out of line and deftly backed him to the rear of the line. If the sailmender had trouble, she did not want to miss the chance to repay the debt she owed him.
Once the witch had changed positions, Vaerana pulled her mace and set the spurs to her mount. Pierstar’s horse reared, then bolted after the Lady Constable, and in the next instant the entire line was thundering down the dock.
When Vaerana neared the shore, she gave a loud whoop. The entire company of horsemen began to move, some blocking the alleys and others spurring their mounts straight down the village’s largest lane.
Ruha’s mount left the quay. She saw several enemy arrows streak through the air ahead of her; then she passed across the waterfront and followed the rest of the column into a warren of narrow streets. As the company passed, the warriors blocking the side streets fell in at the rear of the charge, and the witch soon found herself caught in the midst of a herd of snorting, pounding horseflesh.
The company galloped inland past a dozen ramshackle inns, then came to an intersection and turned westward. One of Fowler’s men panicked and jerked his mount’s reins, demolishing a shanty when the startled horse lost its footing and crashed through the hut’s weather-beaten walls. Ruha saw one of Vaerana’s Maces guiding his own mount into the debris to help the tumbling sailor, then she was around the corner and thundering down the muddy lane. A hundred yards ahead, the road passed through the gateway of a timber stockade, then curved around a grassy hill and disappeared from sight. A pair of Black Caps were trying to push the rough-hewn gates closed, but a flurry of crossbow bolts suddenly sprang from the front of the column to cut them down.
That was when a shower of flaming hail filled the air, followed by a flurry of arrows that caught the company in a deadly cross fire from both sides of the lane. Several men cried out, nearly falling from their saddles as fiery pellets pierced their legs and shoulders and even their chain-mailed torsos. Panicked, ringing whinnies echoed off the weatherworn huts as tufts of black fletching suddenly sprouted in the flanks and withers of galloping horses, and one of the beasts fell.
The rider went rolling head over heels down the street, coming to a rest before an alley too narrow to be called a lane. It was simply a space between two shanties. From this crevice shot a glimmering net of golden light, which quickly settled over the stunned horseman before he could recover his wits and rise.
Ruha yanked on her reins, nearly knocking Tombor from his horse as she crossed in front him. She guided her mount toward the lane, kicking its belly to urge it onward. The beast realized instantly what she wanted. The witch barely had time to raise herself in her stirrups before it leapt over the fallen warrior and entered the cranny, its flanks brushing the wood on both sides of the lane.
As Ruha expected, she found herself barreling down upon an astonished wizard who, lacking the time to cast a spell, turned to hurl himself to the ground. The witch spurred her mount forward. The horse caught the sorcerer square in the back with both front hooves, snapping the man’s spine with a sickening crack.
“I love horses!” Ruha cried, reining the beast to a stop. “You are so much more cooperative than camels!”
The witch looked over her shoulder to see Vaerana’s grim-jawed comrade, Pierstar, staring down the alley as the fallen wizard’s net dissolved around him. The witch backed her mount down the lane toward the dazed warrior.
“Stand up, Pierstar!” she ordered.
The astonished warrior tossed off the remnants of the net and lurched to his feet, stuttering his astonished thanks. Ruha emerged from the alley to find a crescent of horsemen arrayed around her, firing their crossbows into the huts from which the shower of Black Cap arrows had erupted.
“That was a damned thoughtless thing to do!” snarled V
aerana Hawklyn, pulling Pierstar onto her own horse. “We go to all this trouble to fetch you, and what do you do? Put yourself at risk!”
With that, Vaerana jerked her horse toward the gate. Pierstar glanced over his shoulders and shrugged in apology. Ruha was so astonished that she could only stare after the Lady Constable.
“Go on, Witch.” Tombor pointed his mace through the gateway. “And don’t mind Vaerana’s sharp tongue. She’s just worried about Yanseldara.”
“Who?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” The cleric spurred his horse after Vaerana, waving at the witch to follow. “She’s the reason you’re here.”
Ruha urged her horse after Tombor. A steady clatter of crossbows sounded behind her as, one after the other, the warriors fired their weapons, then turned to follow the rest of the company through the gate.
The terrain outside Pros was surprisingly clear. Other than a few weed-choked farm plots lying close to the village stockade, the vista was one of grassy, rolling knolls, with a vast sapphire sky hanging so low it seemed they would ride into it. The muddy road snaked its way up a broad, dry valley, meandering back and forth around the base of the dome-shaped hills, gradually growing drier and dustier as it climbed away from the Dragonmere.
At last, the road curled around a knoll and angled up the headwall of a small dale. As the company approached the slope, the largest part of the column peeled off and circled the hill, leaving the wounded and those riding double, save the Lady Constable and Pierstar, to continue up the main route.
Ruha caught up to Captain Fowler, and together they followed Vaerana to the back side of the knoll, where the warriors were dismounting and reloading their crossbows. They dismounted and passed their reins to Tombor, who had been assigned to stay with the horse holders and ready his healing spells. Vaerana cast a wary glance in Ruha’s direction, but turned without comment and started up the slope. Fowler offered a helping hand to the witch, and they began to climb.
During the ascent, they had to pause several times to rest the witch’s throbbing leg, giving them ample opportunity to study the road to Elversult. After cresting the dale’s headwall, it struck out as straight as an arrow across a broad expanse of flat, featureless tableland. Already, the wounded riders and the sailors were a hundred yards across the plain, but the distance before them seemed immeasurable, and the witch could see that there were no knolls or ravines where the company of riders could hide while it regrouped and tended to its wounded.
By the time Ruha and Fowler reached the summit, the Maces had already fallen to their bellies and crawled to positions overlooking the road below. Some of the men had wrapped small strips of oil-soaked cloth around the heads of their crossbow bolts and were preparing small piles of tinder to ignite with flint and steel. The witch made note of where the nearest fire would be, then she and Fowler crawled to the crest of the hill and laid down on either side of Vaerana.
“If we are setting an ambush, I have fire magic that will prove useful.”
“I’d like to keep you secret, at least as much as possible.” As Vaerana spoke, she kept her hazel eyes fixed on the road. “Don’t use your magic unless you’re certain of getting them all.”
“I cannot be certain. It depends how many they send.”
“It’ll be a bunch,” Fowler said. “That arrow squall at the gate was no accident. They were waiting for us.”
The suggestion drew an angry scowl from Vaerana. She remained silent a long time, then reluctantly nodded. “I guess we weren’t as sneaky as I thought. The Cult was watching us.”
“How’d they know you were there?” Fowler asked.
Vaerana shrugged. “Pros is a small town, and we hadn’t planned to be there four days. The Cult probably grew suspicious when they heard the innkeepers gossiping about all the strangers lolling about in their rooms.”
“You are certain they do not have a spy among your men?” Ruha asked.
Vaerana frowned as though insulted. “Not among this bunch. Pierstar picked every man himself.” She glanced down the long line of warriors as though confirming to herself that she was right. “Besides, I’m the only one who knew you were coming. A spy couldn’t have told them anything except that I was in town.”
“When Pierstar fell, their wizard tried to capture him,” Ruha observed. “Perhaps they were curious about what you wanted in their village.”
“Not that curious,” Vaerana retorted. “They’ve had a thousand gold coins on my head for two years. Their assassins wouldn’t pass up that price out of curiosity.”
“Speaking of prices,” Fowler said, “a thousand gold ought to cover what you owe me when we get to Elversult.”
“Owe you?” Vaerana narrowed her eyes and glared at the half-orc as though she were considering running a dagger up his belly. “Why do you think I owe you a thousand gold?”
“Because of my promise,” Ruha explained. “I said the Harpers would buy him a new cog.”
Vaerana’s eyes bulged. “You what?” she gasped. “Why?”
“So he would attack the dragon,” Ruha explained. “It was tearing another ship apart, and it was the only way to persuade him to risk the Storm Sprite.”
The Lady Constable’s mouth gaped open. “You can’t … you don’t have the …” She let the sentence trail off, then shook her head and cocked her brow. “Did Storm say you could do that kind of thing?”
“No,” Ruha admitted.
“But it was a Harper’s promise.” Fowler turned out the collar of his tunic, displaying the pin Ruha had given him. “And I’ve got proof.”
Vaerana stared at the silver harp and moon, shaking her head in disbelief. “You gave him your pin?”
“The ship was a very big one,” Ruha said. “If I had let the dragon sink it, hundreds of lives would have been lost.”
“If Captain Fowler was reluctant to attack the dragon, didn’t you think it might be too much for the Storm Sprite to handle?”
Ruha shook her head. “Of course not—not with my magic.”
A purple cloud settled over Vaerana’s face. “Witch, I don’t know where we’re going to get the money to pay for a new cog—but I can tell you this much: it won’t come from Elversult’s treasury! Yanseldara would never stand for that, not for Storm Silverhand herself!”
Ruha turned to Fowler with a guilty knot in her stomach. “I am so terribly sorry, Captain. They told me that the Harpers always stand behind the word of—”
“What are you apologizing for?” Fowler interrupted. “Didn’t you hear her? Vaerana said we.”
Ruha lifted her brow. “She did, did she not?” The witch looked back to Vaerana. “And I was beginning to think you did not like me.”
“I don’t, but you are a Harper—at least until Storm Silverhand gets the bill for Fowler’s new cog.”
With that, Vaerana fell silent and looked back toward Pros, searching for the first sign of pursuit. The Black Caps were slow in coming, which Ruha took to be an omen both good and bad. On one hand, it suggested that the Maces’ escape had taken the Cult by surprise, which would make it more difficult for them to pursue. At the same time, however, the delay also meant they were taking the time to organize themselves and gather a large force.
After a few minutes, Fowler grew impatient and started to rise. “What are we waiting for? Those Black Caps had their fill of fighting in Pros. They’re not coming.”
Vaerana grabbed the half-orc’s furry arm. “Don’t be in such a hurry, Tusks. It’s a long ride to Elversult.”
“Then the sooner we get going, the sooner I get my gold.”
“It’s not that easy.” Vaerana pulled Fowler back to the ground. “If we don’t discourage our pursuers now, they won’t hesitate to attack us on the open road. I’m afraid the Cult of the Dragon has grown bold since Yanseldara’s catalepsy.”
“Catalepsy?” Fowler echoed. “Something’s wrong with the Ruling Lady?”
The Lady Constable’s mouth tightened, and she looked awa
y. “Someone poisoned her. Yanseldara’s fallen into some sort of trance, and we haven’t been able to call her back. That’s why I sent for the witch.”
“But I am not a healer!” Ruha objected. “I know little of poisons and antidotes.”
Vaerana glowered at her disdainfully. “I know what a witch is.”
The Lady Constable did not have time to say more, for the valley below began to resound with pounding hooves. She turned and nodded to the Maces who had wrapped oil-soaked cloths around the heads of their crossbow bolts. The warriors began to strike their flints, and within seconds several of them had ignited small piles of tinder. Faint wisps of white fume began to rise from the tiny fires, but Ruha did not think the smoke would be visible from the road, especially to someone on the back of a galloping horse.
The first riders appeared at the base of the hill, mounted on skinny horses with frothing mouths and lathered coats. The men were whipping their haggard beasts mercilessly, demanding speed that the neglected creatures could not possibly provide.
Vaerana raised her hand, holding her warriors at bay while the column of Black Caps wound its way around the base of the knoll. The men with the oil darts touched the heads to the small fires they had kindled, and long ribbons of black fume began to rise into the air. Several Cult warriors looked toward the summit of hill.
“Now!” Vaerana yelled.
As one, the entire company of Maces rose and aimed their crossbows at the road below. A staccato chorus cracked over the valley, and the first third of the Cult column hit the ground screaming. Blossoms of flickering orange flame sprang to life on the opposite hill.
“Reload!”
Vaerana’s warriors touched the heads of their empty crossbows to the ground, then stuck their boots into the toe stirrups and began grunting and cursing as they pulled the stiff bowstrings back to the lock plates. On the road below, the anguished wails and cries for help went unanswered as the uninjured Cult warriors galloped forward, trampling their wounded fellows in a desperate effort to round the corner before the Maces loosed another volley. The fires on the opposite hill began to spread, creating an impenetrable wall of flame and filling the valley with a choking pall of smoke.
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