Krea finally headed out into the forest. Sorin frowned. He had forgotten about that. All of the food was with him. Did he let her go hungry but teach her the importance of hiding her tracks, or go to her rescue and hope she listened to him before the consequences were far more serious than a lecture? As he considered just how long this trip would be with an undisciplined, spiteful adolescent on his hands, Sorin came to the hard conclusion. She had gone hungry before. Going without dinner wouldn’t kill her, but real bandits might. If she didn’t learn to curb her tongue, he most definitely would teach her.
Decision made, Sorin dismounted and hurried to set his own camp in order before the sun disappeared completely. Just as the last tendrils of light pulled out of Krea’s valley, Sorin watched the girl tuck into an old deer bed, money bag in hand, and smiled. At least she had that much figured out.
###
Life didn’t look nearly as wonderful when Krea snapped her eyes open to the dusty dawn light. Instincts kept her where she lay, still half-covered by pine needles, but her heart thumped so loudly she imagined her chest must be shaking. Hoofbeats drummed through the ground, and she could tell from the sound that more than one horse was stomping about her camp.
Holding to her spot in the roots of the tree, she reached out to Caldir. He was close, but unhappy and alarmed. She had forced herself awake several times during the night to be sure he hadn’t wandered away, so she was getting good at sensing his presence. Likewise, she knew his nervousness was warranted.
Very slowly, Krea lifted her head out from the blanket. At first, she saw nothing; only her pack lying by the rock where she had left it. Then she noticed the saddle was missing. So was the bridle and saddle pad. Krea was just about to venture a better look when black hooves attached to long, brown legs appeared right in front of her.
She held her breath, fighting not to sneeze as dust from the horse’s footfall sprayed across her face. Those weren’t Drindoc’s legs. Someone else was in her camp, and whoever it was had her horse.
A low whistle cut across the clearing. Moments later, the horse pivoted away, nearly stepping on Krea in the process. She jumped back but then froze again, praying that the rider hadn’t heard her. The horse continued across the camp.
She assumed she was still undetected, but that wasn’t terribly relieving. She had to do something. She couldn’t just let them take her horse, especially since he wasn’t actually her horse to take. Sorin could demand ten years of servitude as payment for Caldir if she lost him to these raiders. On the other hand, they could capture and sell her as a slave once they were outside of the Empire. Neither option sounded overly appealing.
Krea squeezed her eyes closed and forced her brain to work. She knew she could get out of this, but how?
From somewhere behind her, she heard Caldir’s worried nicker. She started to calm him with her mind, but then thought better of it. Perhaps she could use the horse as a distraction and at least get herself to safety. Then she would figure out a way to get her horse back. Now the trick was figuring out how to explain her plan to a horse.
Krea sent a picture of Caldir rearing and running around, but the horse didn’t respond. She yelled at him to run with her mind. He still didn’t seem to understand. She tried asking, but she heard nothing but the muffled conversation of her invaders across the camp.
What was wrong with her! She had done it before. Twice, actually. So why couldn’t she scare the beast now?
She thought back to the previous times. She hadn’t actually thought any one thing at her horse that had spooked him. Rather, she had thought too much, too intensely. With that in mind, she tried again. Krea reached out, found the horse’s mind, and threw all of her fear into it. In response, the gelding cried out in panic, and a snapped tree branch testified to his decision to leave the danger behind.
A man yelled from across her camp in the choppy trader language that she knew too well. The invader’s brown horse ran by her hiding place, followed by a second and then a third. How many remained, she couldn’t guess, but Krea knew she was going to have to take her chances.
As quietly as she could, Krea hugged her money purse to keep it silent, slipped out of her burrow, and ran for the cover of the nearby trees.
She hadn’t taken more than five running steps when a single voice cut across the heavy morning air, commanding her to stop with hair-raising authority. She would have kept running, except it was a voice she recognized. Now the question was whose side was he on?
Slowly, Krea turned and looked up at Sorin, who seemed impossibly tall astride his huge bay stallion. He, however, was not looking at her. His hawkish gaze was locked on something else entirely.
“I said stop,” he repeated, this time more quietly, but no less convincing. “Release that animal instantly. Krea, go get your horse.”
Krea hesitated for only a second, but then ran to the stream where Caldir was fighting against the rope of one of the invading horsemen. The man stopped trying to pull the horse along, but he didn’t drop the rope.
“And who are you that you would command my people?” called another man from farther up the hill.
Sorin’s answer was an incredulous glance up the embankment.
“Sorin…,” the man said, obviously disturbed. “I did not recognize you, milord. What brings you out this way?”
“Tal Sorin, trader, and my reasoning is my own. By what right do you seize my property?”
Krea blinked back at the caller. She had heard that title before in the alleyway, but couldn’t place its meaning. Whatever Tal meant, it created a stir among the other riders. It was either that, or the fact that Sorin was pulling off his gloves.
The man holding Caldir’s rope dropped it instantly, and the other two quietly backed away, giving Sorin a wide berth as he rode the rest of the way down the embankment, his wooden hand resting casually on his lap. The man on the hill made no move to approach.
As Krea hurried to slip the noose off her horse’s neck, she watched the astonishing confrontation. Sorin was outnumbered five to one, yet he sat upon his horse as if he were passing sentence on a vagrant tenant.
“My apologies, Tal,” the man corrected. “I was not trying to steal your horse, though I certainly understand why it would seem that way. He…he was loose. We were only trying to catch him…hold him until his rightful owner could be found. I had no way of knowing his owner was so close.”
“I see,” Sorin said, brushing Krea and her horse with a brief glance. “Odd how he managed to tack up before running off.”
The trader shifted in his saddle. He started to speak, but opted for silence in the end. “Trader Kalni, I am going to assume this entire encounter is the result of a terrible misunderstanding. After all, I would hate to…”
A shriek pierced the small clearing. Krea looked up just as one of the horrid proth dropped down from the trees. It would have raked its deadly claws across Caldir’s back, except that the clearing was not wide enough for its broad wings. The vile creature’s tattered wing snagged on a small branch as it dove, throwing it off course. As it swooped sideways, a knife plunged into its chest.
“Run!”
“Krea, move!”
The traders shouted in their clipped language. Where had the knife come from? Had one of the traders thrown it? She hadn’t seen any of them fingering a throwing knife.
“Krea. NOW!”
Sorin’s scream barely rose above the din. She knew she should try to think about what he was telling her, but it was just so hard to focus.
The proth clawed its way down the tree like some kind of giant, misshapen squirrel; the limb still dangled from its wing.
“Look away. Don’t look at its eyes!”
A trader swung a sword at the monster’s furry neck, but it barely made contact before the creature swung its deadly claws around and ripped the man open. Blood spurted from the place where his stomach had been.
“Goddess, Krea, MOVE!”
Move. She heard that word.
Move.
Another sword slashed down in front of her. The trader bearing it shoved her backward. Finally, the clearing came back into focus. She rolled sideways, surprised to find herself on the ground, and scrambled toward the first tree she saw. Another man screamed behind her, but she didn’t look back. No doubt those endless orange orbs would be waiting for her again.
A man grunted. Krea tucked in closer to the tree and squeezed her eyes closed. She didn’t even have her knife. That would be the first thing she bought in Faythor. A knife. A big knife.
“Kalni, move away. I can kill it.”
Sorin sounded winded. Or maybe that was just frustration.
Another gurgled scream. It seemed a waste to buy a knife when she could probably steal one. Then again, stealing a sheath was almost impossible and she was getting herself a proth-killing knife. That kind of knife wouldn’t fit in her little sheath. Better to just pay for it. She did have the money.
Bright light filled the woods. Another of the traders yelled.
“Mashter will…” The voice wheezed out of a throat not used to speech. Whatever else he was trying to say was lost. A sticky silence fell over the clearing.
Krea waited a few beats before chancing a glance around her tree. The proth was gone, probably vanished by the sunball like the two in the alleyway. Sorin stared at a spot in front of him, his expression grim, his sword still clenched in his right hand. The trader he called Kalni stood much the same way to Sorin’s left. For a long moment, no one spoke. A soft shuffle broke the impasse.
Both men spun at the noise, swords raised. “Stop,” Kalni said. “That’s my son.” He sheathed his sword and ran toward the injured man limping out of the woods.
Krea looked around. She needn’t have bothered. The other two traders were dead.
“Get away!” Kalni yelled.
Krea turned back to see him, sword once again drawn and pointed at Sorin, who stood several paces away, his hands held out in a gesture of peace.
“I may be able to heal him,” Sorin said.
“I said get away.” The trader’s tone took on a dark edge that made Sorin step back. “I heard that thing call you master. You are a spy. Now get away from my son.”
“Kalni, think about what you are saying. You know what I am. I heard that proth say something, but it sure didn’t call me master. How could I possibly be a spy?” Sorin held up his wooden hand. “After all I have done for the Empire, how could you call me a spy?”
“Seems to me you haven’t done anything but hide in Trasdaak for years. Maybe you’re helping bring the Tisher over? Maybe getting that hand left you with a grudge against the Empire? I just know what I heard. That thing looked at you and you looked back. The proth magic didn’t touch you, did it, caller? Why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because it was here to do your bidding. Now get out of here.”
The two faced each other for a few moments longer. Sorin looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he turned to Krea. “Get your things.”
She wasted no time gathering her belongings and shoving them into the roll. In minutes, she was leading Caldir across the clearing, but she paused in the exact spot the proth had been killed. She knew that was the spot because the knife that had been buried in its chest was lying right at her feet.
She glanced around. Kalni leaned over his son, his back serving as a curt dismissal. Sorin stared at the two dead men whose disemboweled bodies lay on the bank like dead rabbits. She pushed dirt over the bloody blade with the toe of her boot. Now that was a proth-killing knife, if ever there was one. Maybe it hadn’t actually killed the proth, but it had made a strong effort anyway.
Krea pulled her sleeve down over her hand and checked around one more time. In a quick, fluid motion, she bent over, scooped the knife into her sleeve with the help of her boot, and started walking out of the clearing. Of course, she didn’t have a sheath, but she would deal with that later.
“Give me that,” Sorin said before she had even made it to the edge of the trees.
Where had he come from? She turned to face him. He was pulling on his gloves not five steps from her. “You weren’t even looking at me. How could you possibly have seen?”
In answer, he just held out his hand.
“Goddess, Sorin.” She slapped the knife into his gloved hand. It was a nice one, too. Well balanced. Not too ornate as to call attention to itself, but well made. “It’s not like he needs it. He’s dead.”
Sorin’s face scrunched up in something between disgust and astonishment, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he shook his head and looked down at the knife. After spinning it around in his palm a couple of times, he flipped the knife over, grabbed the blade between his thumb and forefingers, and threw it full force at Kalni.
Krea didn’t have time to scream. She slapped her hand over her mouth and bit back a yelp as the blade sank deep into a tree an arm’s reach from Kalni’s shoulder. To his credit, the man barely flinched as the blade bit into the wood, but did not otherwise acknowledge Sorin’s implied threat. Sorin then turned, gave a low whistle that brought Drindoc out of his hiding place in the woods, and mounted.
Only after they were well away did Sorin finally speak. “That could have gone better.”
She nodded.
They rode in silence again as Krea reviewed the whole incident in her mind. “How did you know I was there?”
“Because you left a trail that a blind man could follow across that grass field. It practically begged for an attack. You have to be more careful.”
She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t even thought about it when she left the main road. All her efforts at hiding once she reached the waterfront were useless. She probably would have been safer camping right on the road.
“I didn’t even see the rider on the hill,” she admitted. “There he was, riding a big black horse, standing on the side of a hill, no less, and I didn’t see him.”
Sorin shrugged. “Don’t feel too bad about it. I am a man on a big, dark horse. I was standing on that same hill most of the night, and they didn’t see me until I rode down to stop them from stealing my horse.”
“Oh? Stealing your horse. That’s why you rode down? So what if they steal me and sell me the second they cross the river, but don’t let them steal your horse.”
The tiniest smirk nudged its way past Sorin’s stony expression. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a horse like Caldir?”
All at once, her brain latched onto his earlier comment. “Did you say you had been on the hill all night? Were you watching me?”
“Aye. I was going to be the one raiding your camp this morning. I hadn’t planned on having to run off the real raiders. You did a good job taking care of your horse, by the way. Do you have all of your belongings out of the clearing?”
She nodded.
“Good. Your money?”
“Of course. They were headed for Trasdaak, weren’t they?”
“That’s my guess.”
“And now Kalni thinks you are a spy?”
“He’s just shaken.”
“You hope.”
Sorin didn’t comment, so Krea continued. “Because when Kalni gets to Trasdaak, thinking you are bringing over spies from Tisher…”
“And sees the hands brought in to help the serfs...aye. I can’t do anything about it from here and I can’t go back to Trasdaak now, so it will just have to run its course.”
Krea glanced over at Sorin. “So why did that proth call you master?”
“It didn’t,” he said, still staring straight ahead. “It said something about its master, but I assure you that isn’t me.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Krea said. “After all, why would you kill your own proth?”
“That’s your reasoning? That is why you don’t think I’m a spy?”
“What?” She wasn’t about to tell him his spy status was still in question.
“Nothing. Just ride your horse.”
Chapter 5 - Marked<
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They passed two more trader caravans before midmorning, but Sorin heard them long before the outriders trotted into sight. On both occasions, he pulled Krea off the road to hide in the forest until the traders were well behind them. No sense setting themselves up to be robbed.
After they picked their way through the brush back to the main road, Krea followed Sorin’s lead and slid down from the saddle to lead her horse along from the ground. “How do you know all this stuff?” she asked, pulling the girth loose on the saddle.
“I’ve spent many years on roads like this one. More years than I care to think about.”
“It can’t have been that many. You aren’t that old.”
Sorin snorted. “I’m older than you think, child. The magic hides my years.”
Krea took a good look at her traveling partner. His features were as dark as his mood. Nearly black hair accented his sunbaked brown skin. Pale eyes shrouded by dark brows made his gaze that much more intimidating. Even if he weren’t a wizard, Krea knew she didn’t want to cross him.
Life had left its mark around his eyes and mouth, but nothing that she would consider extreme. In fact, the creases added to Sorin’s regal demeanor. He reeked of nobility, and he didn’t look to have even fifty years—and that was if she stretched it.
Sorin looked over at her and smiled. “You about done?”
“Done what?”
“If you had stared any harder, you’d have hurt yourself.”
The heat of embarrassment burned her cheeks. “It’s just that you don’t look that old. You said earlier that you could be my grandfather, but that would give you at least sixty years, and there is no way you have that many.”
Sorin grinned. “Is sixty old?”
“Are you kidding? Sixty is nearly dead. Not even dragons live much past that.”
Sorin laughed aloud. “‘Not even dragons’ she says. Ah, the voice of youth. Don’t let Kole hear you talking like that.” He shook his head. “I have closer to eighty. To be honest, I’ve lost count. I could have reached my eightieth year and moved on, for all I know.”
Hand and Talon (World of Kyrni Book 1) Page 8