“We have business with the wagons ahead of you. We will handle that business even if you stand in our way.” The voice was familiar, the inflection and the accent.
“You are Garth?”
The shadow that spoke tilted its head then nodded. “I am.”
“Your brother says he lost you in Mentath and that you and yours never returned quite the same.”
“We are changed. We would be with our families just the same. They are our kin, our people.”
“You move only at night. They move only by day. How can you ever be together again?” Myridia looked at the form and saw that there were features on the shadowy shape. They were faint and as distorted and stretched as everything else, but she recognized those features. They belonged to Garien.
“We tire of this conversation. They will be ours again as they were before the Sundering.”
Myridia shook her head. “The what?”
“We did not leave them. They abandoned us. We will have them back again. That is all you need to know.”
There was no menace from the shadowy people. That was the part Myridia found most puzzling. Garien had made them seem as if they might well eat the souls of whatever they came across. He made them seem like a plague that could not be stopped.
Lyraal spoke up. “Garien claims that you seek to hurt the troupe. They are our companions. We cannot permit you to do this thing.” The words surprised Myridia, but warmed her, as well.
“Your world is ending. We can feel that. We can taste the anger of the gods in the breeze. Yet you worry about your ‘companions’ and let them distract you from what you must do.”
“We must reach the Sessanoh. We ride in that direction.”
“Do you indeed?” Garth stepped closer. His body moved and flickered as a shadow moves along a dozen surfaces. Each step he took showed different distortions. His head warped as if he were walking past a wall and a window and perhaps furniture and the shadow ran across those separate surfaces on the way to Myridia.
Others moved the same way, flickering across the air and the land as they moved. It took only a moment to understand that there was one shadow for each of them.
“We are attacked!” Lyraal swept her sword around and dropped into a defensive stance, but she was too slow. The fingers of her personal shadow touched her face and covered her eyes. Lyraal, surely the strongest of them, fell backward, her body seizing and her weapon falling from twitching fingers.
Myridia did not have time to respond before daggers of ice sank into her brain, her eyes, and laid her back in a stupor. Garth’s voice spoke to her. “Watch and learn what Garien and his friends did to us.”
* * *
When Myridia awoke, both the night and the night people had gone. The wagons were gone as well. The rains came down in sheets, the ground was waterlogged and the plants she had seen grow from nothing were drowning in waters deep enough to kill a human. Humans did not have gills.
Her sword lay under a foot of water but finding it was easy enough. She gathered it to her and shook her head. Better a wet weapon than no weapon, but she was glad she’d oiled the blade before the encounter with the night people.
Myridia stood up and looked around the area. The waters were coming faster now, the river well past its banks. The river that had not been there only days before.
In the distance, a mile or more away, she saw the earth tremble and the waters spray upward as if something vast shoved through the earth, pumping and thrusting through the water-soaked but otherwise solid ground.
The movement was fast and violent – and actively veered away from them. That was the part that unsettled her the most. Whatever it was, it likely came from the gods and softened the land for proper destruction.
The others were up and moving. None of them seemed worse for what they’d experienced, though all of them bore the same shocked expressions she imagined she had on her own face.
“What do we do now?” Lyraal asked the question and deferred to her. As if she had any desire whatsoever to lead.
“We leave here. Wrap your weapons in your clothes and tie them to your bodies. We will not be caught without them again. We leave and we swim as far as we can. There is little enough time left to us.”
The preparations had to start.
She looked around again, hoping in vain to find some sign of the troupe, but it was a wasted effort. If the wagons had traveled in any direction their markings upon the ground had been lost to the waters.
Around her the others obeyed her orders and Myridia closed her eyes, felt the pull of the Sessanoh upon her guts and nodded.
Garien. The name echoed through her like a distant memory. She wanted him, yes, but he was gone and they had so far to go. Enough. She had been foolish and Lyraal had let her be foolish. But enough. They had to go.
Garien and his troupe had been helpful, but they had also been a distraction. It was time to move on now. It was time to obey the gods and their decisions.
She felt oddly unburdened. Traveling with the troupe had been pleasant, but she knew in every fiber of her being that she should not have been with them beyond the time it took to gain the clothes needed to survive the cold and to regain the strength needed to travel. They had been an interruption that neither she nor her fellow Grakhul needed.
For several hours they traveled along the river, riding through the waters and making good progress. They came to a passage through the mountains, a place where great crystalline shapes crashed against each other and made a natural opening. The waters of the river moved through that passage and they let the waters take them along. That pulling sensation in her guts told her she was going in the right direction.
On this side of the mountains the day was longer. The sun was not hidden behind stone and crystal, but rather fell slowly. The night was held at bay for several additional hours.
Though they made up for many lost miles in that first day’s journey, they eventually grew tired and needed to rest. That was easier done on the river’s bank than in the currents that would drag them away from any place where they sought to rest, and so they climbed free of the waters and let the change take place, pulling them back to their more human forms.
Both Lorae and Memni flopped themselves dramatically into the mud and gasped at the chilling rain falling from above to wash over them. Myridia smiled indulgently. She had been just as bad in her youth.
When the screaming, ululating noises came cutting across the river and the night, Myridia felt a shiver crawl across her damp body; it made her scalp crawl.
Lyraal glanced in her direction and she looked back, nodding at the unspoken question. There could be no doubt.
The night people were following them.
* * *
“I can’t just point a finger and make it magically happen. It’s not something I control, but something the gods let me do.” The scryer was pretty enough, Ulster supposed, but he rather wanted to sew her mouth shut. Whenever he asked for updates she whined and complained.
“Yes, well, pray or something. This is getting us nowhere.”
A score of hounds and one scryer and they couldn’t find any sign of Brogan McTyre or his people.
It was the damned rains, of course. They weren’t constant, not yet at least, like he heard they were in some places, but they were bad enough to throw off the hounds, and the woman who was supposed to guide them was no better.
She glared at him, her earlier docile disposition lost, apparently forever, more the pity. “It’s not like they draw me a bloody map. They just tell me landmarks. I’ve never left Stennis Brae in my entire life and landmarks don’t mean much out here. I could point you to a bloody tree, but which one should I point to? They’re everywhere and they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Honestly, the land here is mad with trees.”
“Did the gods say anything about a tree?”
“Well, no, it’s just an example.”
“Then unless they do, let’s leave off the fucking trees
and you try to find Brogan McTyre.”
“You’ve a foul mouth.”
“And you’ve a useless fucking talent, scryer.”
She shot him a look that would have withered many men, but he was not impressed. He’d promised to bring McTyre and his lot back alive. He could forgive himself if the whining peasant girl failed to make it home intact.
Without another word, she stomped off to the tent that his men set up for her every night. He had overheard a few of the boys making comments about what they’d like to do with her, and right now he was half-tempted to let them.
No. No, he wasn't. But she was frustrating him to the ends of his wits.
Three days lost looking for any sign of the bastard McTyre, and that was after losing most of a day to recover from the stings they’d all received. Bron would not be pleased if he failed. An unhappy king was never something to aspire to.
The sun had set. They had moved away from the mountains and started south on a proper trail, not because they were certain where to go but because, in Brogan’s situation, there were worse places to aim for than Torema, and Owen was willing to bet five gold coins on the bastards going that way.
Unless and until either the hounds did their work or the scryer managed something, it would have to do. Besides which, out of the shadow of the mountains they could travel longer each day.
Owen came his way, looking tired. They all looked tired. They were riding hard to make up for lost time.
“You’ve got to stop making that one angry.”
“What?”
“The girl, Mearhan. You’ve got to stop making her angry.”
“Why?”
“Because she has better luck hearing from the gods when she’s relaxed and not considering hacking your manhood off while you sleep.”
“Did she say she was going to do that?”
“Not in as many words, Ulster, but she’s not happy with you and she’s angry enough to do it.”
“Owen, I’m not here to watch over her. I’m here to find McTyre.”
“Aye, and you’ll have an easier time of it if you stop infuriating the help. Does it do any good to whip a horse that’s being testy?”
“Well, if you’re going to talk good sense to me…” Ulster shook his head. Life was easier when it was just the troops. They actually did as they were told.
“So might I suggest you go apologize and make nice? All the hounds and hard soldiers in the world won’t do you a damned bit of good if you can’t find the bloody targets of King Bron’s wrath.”
“Life is easier when you deal with soldiers.”
“Aye. But I like a good looking woman better as a tent mate.”
“Let me know if that ever happens.”
Owen laughed and shook his head as he ambled back toward his tent.
The guards were set, the fires were burning. They’d find the bastards soon enough. In the meantime, he had to make nice with the shrieking woman who was supposed to find their enemies or face Bron’s wrath.
With a reluctant sigh he wandered over to Mearhan Slattery’s tent and called out, “I’m coming in.”
She was sitting in a chair, sorting through several bags of herbs. He had no idea if she planned to cook them, smoke them or make a tea. He also did not care.
“I’m sorry for being harsh. You know why I’m being so demanding. You’re the one that warned us, and believe me, I’m grateful. I just… I don’t want to miss the men we seek and risk the world.”
The girl blinked angrily and he understood the expression. She was trying not to tear up. She had an interest in one of the men riding with McTyre. Whatever the case, the man was as good as dead if they were captured.
“I’m trying,” she said finally. “I’ve a few things that might make me more receptive, but it’s a risk. I need silence and I need to be alone. If I can find anything, I’ll let you know.” She did not look at him. He understood the reasons.
Ulster nodded. “I appreciate your efforts, milady.”
He left before he could look at her as more than a servant. She was fair enough on the eye and he was looking for pleasant distractions. Neither of them could afford the time or the potential conflicts that would arise later.
* * *
Harper nodded and breathed the order to attack: “Now.”
The seven archers with him did their part and fired at Ulster’s guards. Bowstrings thrummed and in the distance men dropped. Harper had picked carefully when he chose the archers and it had paid off.
“Walter? Where are you, ye damned fool?” Whoever was calling out was going to ruin everything. Still, one adjusted.
Across their enemy’s campsite he knew that Brogan was working on the horses and Anna was handling the dogs. He had no idea what the witch was doing, but Brogan had likely already opened the pen for the animals. Now it would be up to a quick and painful method of startling a few into action and then–
Whatever his companion had chosen to do, it happened. Two of the horses let out panicked screams and then Harper could hear the sounds of horses stomping and charging. More of them made sounds and the ground fairly shook with the thunder of fifty or so animals trying to escape.
They had been riding hard for two days when the crew that had raided the Grakhul found them. Apparently it was now common knowledge that Brogan McTyre was a wanted man, and several of them had been on the list of hunted men. They came looking for Brogan to explain it all.
He was direct. “Either we all surrender and are killed, or we find a different way. I’ve no intention of being killed to appease gods that took my family from me. I’ll kill them first.”
The argument had gone on, but no one had a better idea. They were all dead if they got captured, and they knew it. There would have to be another way found, and so far Brogan’s was the only option that gave them a chance. Four of the most seasoned mercenaries had gone off on a mission for Brogan. The rest of them were here, trying to break an army.
“What the bloody hell! We’re under attack!” Harper recognized the voice. Same bastard that had been calling for Walter.
One more arrow, then. He targeted, sighed, released and watched the screamer fall backward with an arrow through his face. He was certainly screaming now, but it no longer mattered. The damage was done.
“Try for one more each, lads. Then it’s time to get personal.”
Harper sighted and fired, saw his target start dancing around in pain. The arrow had likely caught on a rib. The man was alive, but very unhappy. Harper let the bow fall to the ground. He’d retrieve it later if he needed but for now he wanted his arms free and his swords in his hands.
The others followed his example. By the time they were done, most of the men in the camp were out of their tents and looking for their attackers.
They were easy to find. Brogan came charging into the camp on horseback and once again Harper was struck by the figure his friend presented. He seemed larger than life in his fury, his braided hair slapping, his face set in a demon’s mask of rage, a sword in one hand and an axe in the other as he rode hard into the middle of the camp, delivering death blows to anyone too slow to respond.
His horse trampled one soldier. Brogan swept his sword at a man with a spear who didn’t realize Brogan was already upon him until it was too late. The axe in his other hand chopped through another man’s neck. The first three men to face him died quickly. The others had a chance to fight back and they were among the king’s finest. They struck well and they struck hard.
Brogan dropped from his saddle and into the fray, screaming his challenge at the enemy.
Harper lost sight of him in the crush of bodies. He’d find him again soon enough.
The soldiers were mostly facing toward Brogan and the men who rode in with him, another six, which meant that they had their backs turned to Harper and his companions. Even as he charged, more men appeared from a third direction, leaving few options for the king’s guard.
There was no attempt at mercy.
>
Most of the men with them had shields and were glad of it. They bashed at their enemies with them, and did their best to run them through or cut them open. The guards were doing the same in return and judging by the screams some were successful.
Harper caught the first man unawares and drove his sword into the soldier’s kidney. He knew the pain on the man’s face. He’d seen it a hundred times on the battlefield and felt it nearly as many times himself.
A sidestep and a turn, and his hooked sword was blocking a strike from a spear. The man wielding it did not throw the weapon but held it in his hands and drove the long blade at the end toward Harper’s chest. He blocked but grunted and stepped back as the force of the blow staggered him. The hook was there for a reason. Harper wrenched the sword to the side with familiar ease and caught the spear’s head in the barb. While the man was struggling to pull free, Harper cut open his thigh just below his manhood and stepped back. Blood erupted from the opened artery and the man staggered back, halfway to dead and quickly moving to finish his journey. There was no saving a man from a cut like that, not in the middle of a battle.
The press of bodies was everywhere. Far less than a hundred people, but they all wanted to get through their fighting alive.
And there was the thing of it. The soldiers were fighting, yes, but they weren’t aiming to kill. They were trying to keep their enemies alive, because they’d been told to. The poor bastards. They were at a very severe disadvantage.
So, naturally, Harper took full advantage.
* * *
Brogan planted his heel in the knee of a man lunging for him and felt the joint break the wrong way. The man started to scream and Brogan’s axe ended his pain.
The fellow on his left came in hard, swinging his shield up to bash Brogan in the face and all he could do was raise his sword arm and take the blow along his side and along his arm. From the elbow down his hand went numb. The axe came up under the shield and the point at the top of each blade cut into the man’s belly. When he dropped the shield, gasping in pain, Brogan headbutted him and shoved him backward. He might live, but he’d hurt.
The Last Sacrifice Page 22