Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 01

by Airs Beneath the Moon

  “But she won’t leave,” Philippa told him. Her voice cracked, and she struggled to maintain her composure. If Sunny would stay far enough away, until the darkness fell, until the Aesks gave up and went to sleep . . . Exhaustion blurred her mind, confused her thoughts. She had to concentrate, to focus on what to do next.

  When Hurg appeared at the door, the bonfire was raging into the night sky behind him. He snapped something at Philippa, pointing with a thick finger, and Peter translated. “He wants you to come out,” he

  said.

  Sudden alarm sent a sharp pain up Philippa’s neck. “Why?”

  Peter stammered some Aesk word, and Hurg laughed. He gestured, and when Philippa did not move at once, he came toward her, gripping her arm with a hairy hand, and dragged her forward. He leered at Peter, and said one short word.

  Peter gasped, and paled. “What is it, Peter?” Philippa cried. The Aesk’s fingers were like iron. She struggled to keep her feet as he hauled her through the door. “What did he say?” she begged. “What?”

  Peter followed on uncertain feet. “Bait,” he whimpered. “He said, ‘bait.’”

  A great shudder ran through Philippa. Peter was right, of course. There was only one way Hurg could get Sunny to come into the compound, and that was to use her, Philippa, as a lure. Her thoughts swirled desperately, but she couldn’t think what to do about it.

  She would have to sacrifice herself first. There was nothing else.

  The fire blazed in the center of the compound. The snowfields around the longhouses glistened with reflected flame, and the stars faded before its brilliance. The Aesks were gathered, avid gazes fixed on their chieftain dragging the foreigner along by her arm. The guard in front of the hut came after, his spear leveled at her back.

  Philippa, with the last of her strength, set her feet, and ripped her arm from Hurg’s grasp. She turned to face the guard, and his spear, and she screamed, wordlessly, but with intent, and threw herself toward him. Let him stab her, let him put an end to her, and Sunny would never come into the compound, never let herself be taken. What would happen to her after that, Philippa could not bear to think about, but she would not, could not, allow Hurg and these primitives to commit this abomination.

  The guard’s lip lifted from his teeth in a gleeful snarl, as if he were one of the wardogs, and he lifted his spear.

  Philippa shouted again, gathering her courage, and ran at him.

  But the spotted wardog, with a roar, leaped on the guard from behind. Its great teeth closed on his arm, and its claws tore at his back. Blood spurted from somewhere and spattered the snow with scarlet drops. The guard shrieked in shock and pain.

  Tumult broke out, shouts and yells, the howling of wardogs, the screams of the guard. From beyond the compound, Sunny whinnied. The spotted wardog growled and snarled, and Hurg leaped forward to try to pull it off his man.

  Philippa, her strength gone, collapsed. She was barely aware of young Peter dragging her away from the fray, all the way through the compound and back into the hut where she had spent the night. She slumped on the cold dirt floor, and Peter knelt beside her, calling to her, “Missus! Missus! Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  At that moment, an explosion rocked through the compound from the eastern side. There was a breathless moment of silence, filled only by the reverberation of the blast, then another explosion filled the night.

  Philippa roused, staring up at Peter with unbelieving eyes. Another crash of sound came from the west of the compound, and a child began to scream.

  Philippa’s mind cleared, all at once, as the night wind had cleared the sky, and she understood exactly what Rys must be doing. “They’re here! They’ve come! Peter, we have to get out of this place!”

  It took only moments to topple the empty barrels at the back of the hut, but it took a few more to pull out the bricks of sod Philippa had loosened the night before. They climbed through, and saw that the compound behind them was full of smoke, people running this way and that, confused by the explosions of the matchlock guns. Philippa could see that the Klee were coming from two flanks, but the shock and the shattering noise must have made it seem to the Aesks that there were hundreds of attackers.

  She gave it no more thought. Winter Sunset was all that mattered to her now, and Sunny, too, would be terrified by these explosions. She had to find her. With the very last of her strength, Philippa seized Peter’s hand and began to run.

  THEdeadly efficiency of Rys’s soldiers stunned Francis. The matchlocks were unwieldy and awkward,

  but the practiced way the men fired them, then reloaded, waiting till the flanking force had fired theirs, then firing again, was something he would never forget. The Aesks ran like frightened ants from one side of their compound to the other. The enormous fire blazing in the center of the longhouses made the scene even more threatening, more chaotic. Beyond the circle of lurid light and black smoke, Francis could see nothing. Within that circle, he saw men and women, and what he feared were children, go sprawling. Had he not been so angry at Philippa’s imprisonment, such carnage might have turned his stomach. No doubt, one day, the memory would do just that, but for now he could not help exulting in the Klee soldiers’

  overwhelming advantage.

  Rys had told him to stay back, out of the line of fire. The initial barrage would go on for a time, until the enemy was thoroughly bewildered and disheartened, and then the soldiers would go down into the compound, and take control with their smallswords and daggers. Francis paced behind the line, torn between bloodthirsty satisfaction at seeing the Aesks punished and fear for Philippa. He scanned the longhouses, and the space between them, wondering where she was, hoping she was safe. He walked a little away from the smoke and flame, and it was then that he saw the horse.

  It was Winter Sunset, it had to be! She was too far away for him to see her wings, but Francis knew there were no horses, or indeed any large animals, in this northern land. She was galloping wildly, this way and that, on the rim of the valley, her head high, her tail arched. But what was she doing, out there in the snow, by herself? Where was Philippa?

  Fear clutched Francis’s heart. The Klee soldiers were intent upon their goal. Rys, who had taken the opposite flank, strode purposefully behind his men, calling orders. There was no one to look for Philippa or the children. No one but Francis himself.

  “Zito’s ass,” he swore, drawing his smallsword. “I did not come this far to watch from the battlements like some fainting girl.”

  None of the Klee fighters took any notice as he strode away from the firing line and down the slope toward the compound. He circled to the north, to stay out of range of the matchlocks. He moved more slowly as he came near the longhouses, where he could hear the moans of the wounded. He saw spears hurled aimlessly into the darkness by frantic men shouting in fury at an enemy they could not see. He heard the raging of dogs, deep-throated barks and desperate howls. And then, ahead of him, he saw Philippa and a small boy, just emerging from the broken wall of one of the sod huts, racing away from the battle through the unbroken snow. Francis dropped down the slope to run along the rear of the longhouses, to intercept them.

  On the far side of the valley, Winter Sunset sensed her mistress’s flight and came galloping down the slope, mane and tail and loose reins flying, whinnying to her bondmate.

  One of the Aesk warriors appeared suddenly from between the longhouses, his thick figure outlined against the firelight. He was no more than an arm’s length from Francis, but his attention was fixed on the winged horse. He lifted his arm, and took aim with his spear.

  Francis took no time to consider. A winged horse of Oc was being threatened. He spun on his toes, his body remembering those long-ago drills, and he ran the man through with his smallsword.

  When he pulled the weapon free, there was a noise he would remember all his days, the sound of blood and ruptured flesh and the gurgling of a dying man. Francis felt the rising of his gorge, but he fought it. He left the
warrior where he was and sprinted after Philippa.

  THErelief Philippa felt, when Winter Sunset skidded to a halt before her, wings shivering, foam on her chest and on her lips, almost sent her to her knees. She seized Sunny’s dangling rein, pulled her mare’s head down to her chest, and held it there for one long moment, while Sunny and she both struggled to regain their breath.

  In the valley, smoke from the bonfire and from the guns obscured the battle, but could not deaden the sounds. Peter stood staring at the billowing gray clouds, his eyes wide, his mouth open. “Oh, Missus,” he breathed. “What about Lissie?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “WEdidn’t think we dared wait another day,” Rys said to Philippa.

  They sat on the beach in the cold morning, Philippa wrapped in a blanket, Sunny nearby. Philippa cast Rys a weary look. “Sunny couldn’t have waited another day, my lord, so you were right.” She shuddered, remembering. “It’s hard to comprehend such evil,” she said. “And I’m having difficulty believing I’m free of it—that it’s over, and Sunny unhurt.”

  “It’s a great relief to me, as well.”

  “But how did you—I looked around at those men, and those dogs, and I couldn’t see how you were going to pull it off.”

  “Classic flanking maneuver. And of course, we had the matchlocks. They aren’t very accurate, but they make a terrifying noise and a lot of smoke. Confusion, and surprise . . . there was risk to you, of course.

  You broke free at the perfect moment.”

  The Baron nodded to his cook, who came around the camp-fire to pour more of his excellent coffee into Philippa’s cup. Before she drank it, she looked over her shoulder to where Sunny stood, now warmly blanketed and brushed, with a bucket of fresh water before her. In an hour or two, when Philippa could be sure Sunny had had enough to drink, she could give her some of the grain Rys had ordered brought from the ship. She would rest her all day, and tomorrow, they could fly home. Tomorrow, Sunny would be strong enough, and the sky bade fair to be clear and cold.

  Philippa turned her gaze up beyond the beach. Smoke still roiled from the Aesk compound. Rys’s soldiers were “mopping up,” the Baron had told her. The firing of the matchlocks had ceased when the soldiers poured down into the compound. They were archers, Philippa knew, and swordsmen, and their attack was lethal. There had been screams among the Aesks throughout the night, wails and shouting.

  Now, a weighted silence filled the little valley.

  As Francis had led her and Sunny, with Peter close by, in a circle far from the battle, down to the safety of the beach, Philippa had seen the bodies already piled up at one end of the compound, and had averted her eyes. It was hard to feel sympathy for the Aesks, after what they had done to Rosellen, and what they had threatened to do to Sunny, but she had no stomach for killing. The thatched roofs had burned with alacrity, and she could only hope that the people—especially the children, whose screaming haunted her—had gotten out of the longhouses before the flaming thatches collapsed.

  And Lissie was still there, somewhere.

  The peace and order here on the beach was shocking, by contrast, in its civility. There had been a substantial breakfast, prepared over an open fire. Rys’s cook had produced scrambled eggs, some kind of pan bread, rich with soda and butter, and thick rashers of bacon. Young Peter ate until Philippa feared he would burst, grinning at everyone, showing his missing tooth, giving voluble thanks that there was no fish being served. She herself, despite her worry over the still-missing Lissie, ate heartily after two days of nothing but greasy fish soup. When the cook tried to persuade her to eat more bread, she protested. “I must fly tomorrow,” she said with a little laugh. “You will make me as fat as that gull over there, if you persist.”

  He bowed and took her plate and linen napkin. The sun was fully up now, and the black sand and boulders glittered. Philippa even had a chair to sit in. It was more of a stool, really, canvas and wood, but it was set up before a well-laid table with a sheet of framed canvas as a windbreak. It was hard to believe that only a short distance away a battle was being concluded. People had died, could still be dying, but the cook appeared unperturbed by the circumstance.

  Baron Rys, on the other hand, looked somber, sitting a little apart, head bent to speak with one of his captains. Francis paced the black sand and stared up at the smoke swirling into the sunshine with a hard expression Philippa had never thought to see on his gentle features. She left Peter devouring the last of the pan bread and went to join him.

  He looked up at her approach. “Winter Sunset will be all right, I think,” he said.

  “She’s fine,” Philippa said. “Tomorrow she’ll be able to fly.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m well enough, none the worse for the last two days. Though I am in desperate need of a bath,” she added, with a little laugh.

  He didn’t smile. “I was frantic for you,” he said. “This should never have happened. We should have gone after them the moment they attacked the village.”

  “You’ve done all you could, Francis.”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. There’s still a child missing.”

  A breeze from the sea gusted around them. Philippa wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the chill through her tabard. Francis frowned. “Where’s your coat?”

  “Some barbarian has it,” Philippa said. “It’s probably burned to ash by now.”

  Francis shrugged out of his own cloak, a finely made piece of black wool with a worked-silver clasp at the throat. “Here, Philippa. Please.”

  She accepted it. As he wrapped it around her shoulders, enveloping her in a circle of warmth, all the sweeter after the reeking blankets of the Aesks, he said, “You have blood on your neck, Philippa. Are you hurt?”

  “It was only a scratch.”

  He didn’t answer. A muscle jumped at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes strayed again to the smoke above the beach. He put his hand on the hilt of his smallsword. “I’m going back there,” he said in an undertone.

  Philippa said hastily, “No—Francis, no. Let Rys’s soldiers do what needs to be done.”

  “I can’t. My whole life has been one of privilege. We are effete, we lords of Oc.”

  “Francis, you’ve never been effete.”

  “I’ve never done anything real,” he said, shaking his head. “And I’ll never again be content to think of myself that way.”

  “Francis, don’t talk nonsense! You arranged all of this! None of it would have been possible without your diplomacy—that young boy would still be a captive, and the Aesks—”

  “They still have one of my citizens.”

  Philippa was so struck by his phrasing that for a moment she could think of nothing to say. What a fine duke he could make, however reluctant! He could restore integrity to Oc, leadership to the Palace.

  When he strode away from her, his boots sinking deep into the fine black sand, she watched his tall, lean figure with a regretful admiration.

  She turned about, half-expecting Baron Rys to dissuade him. But she found Esmond Rys gazing after Francis, nodding slightly. Approvingly.

  FRANCISpaused in his climb through the scattered black boulders to look back at the camp on the beach. He was so relieved by seeing Philippa seated there, the winged horse blanketed, tethered, and safe, that his blood seemed to run warmer in his veins, his breath move easier in his lungs. Why did William not feel these things? How could it be that William did not feel the compulsion he, Francis, felt, at knowing one of Oc’s citizens was still held captive?

  It may be that the girl Lissie was past saving, but he could not go back across the Strait until he knew.

  He, it seemed, was the only Fleckham left to answer to his people.

  He drew a deep breath, spun about, and marched up toward the compound.

  Francis saw, as he approached the smoldering longhouses, that the row of bodies had lengthened. Some corpses lay in quite staggering pools of blood, and one of them, at least, had die
d at his hand. There were children among the dead, and Francis supposed such tragedies had been unavoidable. He tried to remember the deaths that had sparked this mission, the dead fishermen and the stable-girl Rosellen, but the stillness of the corpses sickened him. His only consolation was that none of them wore Klee uniforms.

  Or a flyer’s habit.

  The fighting seemed to be at an end. He paced through the center of the compound, smoke billowing about his ankles. Someone, huddled in the ruins of one of the longhouses, was sobbing endlessly. Francis turned. An Aesk woman squatted in the ashes with something in her arms, something small. Francis

  looked away, not wanting to know for whom she grieved.

  Rys’s men had herded the survivors of the battle to the far end of the compound, where a couple of buildings still stood, more or less intact. One was a sort of hut, with the same walls of sod and thatched roof as the longhouses. The other was a covered pen, and here he found several enormous dogs that whined and cowered against the far wall, as far as their tethers would reach. A center pole still held them fast. If the fire had reached this enclosure, these dogs, great creatures with huge teeth and restrained by the heavy spiked collars, would have died where they were. As it was, Francis could see that the fire and noise and smoke terrified them. He supposed they could smell the blood on the air. He could smell it himself.

  One of the soldiers turned at his approach and pointed to a sagging hut next to the dogs’ pen. “That’s where they kept the horsemistress,” he said shortly.

  Francis stared at it, aghast. It was little more than a cave, dark and stinking and cold. He turned back to the soldier. “Are these all the people left? Surely there were more.”

  The soldier nodded toward the Aesks huddling together, with Klee soldiers surrounding them. Francis looked at them more closely, and frowned. “They’re all women and children.”

  A captain heard his question and threaded his way through his men to stand beside Francis. “The men fled,” he said. “Those that weren’t killed in the initial incursion.”