“Got you!” Brolli grabbed her by an arm and held tight until she braced herself against Rag and got her boots set. When she finally caught her breath and looked up, Rag was giving her the look she normally reserved for noisy stable hands who woke her before her hour. Brolli was hanging half on, half off her saddle, one hand firmly in her mane.
He flashed his huge canines. “I stand in the saddle. This makes me a trick rider, no?”
Caris let out a tight laugh. “You climbed from Idgit onto Rag?”
“Your beast is wise and patient.”
Caris pressed her head against Rag’s neck and caught her breath. “Yes, she is.”
“Are you safe, Lady Caris?” Mudruffle called from his basket on Idgit. “If I were not hindered by these straps, I would have endeavored to do as Brolli did, though my construction somewhat limits my agility.”
“Yes, thank you, Mudruffle. Thank you, ambassador.”
“It is my pleasure.” Brolli released her arm, but remained dangling from the mane and saddle to watch, as if he expected her to fall again. Which isn’t unlikely, she thought, since she had no feeling in her feet.
Forcing herself to be patient in spite of her fears of Gygon, she resumed the push against the stream. When she finally rounded the end of outcrop, the narrow ledge rose from the water and opened onto a broad pan of sunbaked sandstone. The pan stood a good fathom above the river and spanned forty paces across, hemmed by cliffs and water on three sides, and steep woods on the other—the first time they’d had trees on their side of the river. After the claustrophobic ledge, it seemed like acres, and plenty of room to turn horses.
*
As soon as she stepped clear of the water on dry ground, her eyes went to Molly, where Willard had stopped her in the middle of the pan. To Caris’s surprise, Molly appeared calm. At least, as calm as any Phyros ever was, which meant snorting and glaring as at invisible enemies. And Willard, too, seemed unworried. He sat back against the rear cantle of his saddle, smoking and staring at a chute of rapids that cut down through the cliff at the head of the pan. Harric had ridden all the way to the head to get a look at the rapids.
Caris exhaled a sigh of relief. False alarm. Something about the roar of the river in the canyon must have warped the sound of Molly’s whinny. Or maybe it had been Snapper she heard.
As soon as all three of the horses in her train stood on dry land, she mounted Rag and rode to join the others.
“Here is the end of our stone path,” Mudruffle announced. The golem extended a spidery finger toward the slope of lodge-pole pines that marched to the edge of the pan, replacing the cliff to their right all day. “There is an elk trail through the trees, and that is our trail now.”
Caris rode to where he pointed, and frowned at what she saw. Though the trail appeared wide enough for them, the trees in that part of the canyon had grown so dense that it seemed as if generations of dead ones still stood among the living, and their bleached silver branches gleamed like claws that would tear at a careless horse or rider.
“How much farther till we’re out of this canyon, Mudruffle?” Willard said.
“Here begins the end of the canyon,” the golem replied. “You see it grows wider here. In one mile up this trail, we enter a new valley, almost at the feet of the Godswall.”
Father Kogan emerged from the gap at the foot of the pan, splashing and dragging Geraldine behind him. He led the dripping musk auroch to the foot of the elk trail and peered up it. “This our trail?”
Caris nodded.
A strained whinny from Molly shattered the peace and sent a shudder of nerves through the rest of the horses. Rag skittered sideways into Geraldine, whose bulk easily withstood the check. And then Willard was cursing and struggling against Molly as the Phyros reared and whinnied and danced in a circle. As her tail spun past, Caris caught sight of winking flesh, and knew that she hadn’t imagined the nature of the earlier whinny.
“If you don’t fancy being stepped on by the mad wench, follow me,” said Kogan, starting up the trail.
“It’s Gygon,” Caris said.
Father Kogan stopped in his tracks.
“Yes, he’s done it, gods take him.” Willard hauled Molly’s head to one side to halt her rearing. “The monster found a way around.”
“What monster?” said Brolli.
“Bannus. He’s near. Probably above these rapids.”
Kogan now looked up the trail as if it might lead to a dragon. He backed Geraldine away. “You sure, Will?”
“Wind’s from up the gorge.”
“Then we must flee back down the canyon,” Brolli said. “Better face his men than Bannus.”
Willard could not respond, for Molly began a series of violent, twisting leaps that took all his skill to survive in the saddle. Rag shied sideways from Molly’s fit, and both Idgit and Holly, still trailing behind Rag, crowded Rag’s rear, increasing her irritation.
“Father, turn around,” Brolli said. “We must go back.”
The priest did not appear to hear; he was squinting up at the cliffs across the river, and his face had gone slack. He pointed a thick finger. “There,” he said, breaking into a crack-toothed smile. “The fool’s on the wrong side of the river.”
Across the river, the red-stone cliff rose into the sky like a series of broken towers peppered with pine trees. On a ledge directly across from them and some twenty fathoms up, Sir Bannus sat upon Gygon, watching them like a bird of prey over a chicken pen. The Phyros stallion’s violet scars glowed in the rays of the setting sun, and Sir Bannus’s soot-marred armor gleamed dully. How they’d traversed the cliffs and slopes to reach that point, Caris could only wonder. But the priest was right, gods leave him. Bannus was stuck on the other side of the river. And in that moment, though she had cursed the water many times that day, she blessed it with all her heart.
When Molly saw Gygon, she ceased all struggle and stared at him, nostrils flaring.
Willard chuckled. “Sir Bannus, you look the fool today. There is no crossing here, and there is no passage north. You must return the way you came, and we shall escape you.”
Even at that distance, Caris could see that Bannus’s armor seemed had been badly scorched, and of his once glorious Crown of Horns, only burned stumps remained. It had to have been resin fire from Abellia’s fire-cones to have burned them so quickly. Gygon must have fled the conflagration even as the white-hot flames outraced his strides, for the stallion’s once magnificent fetlocks, his glorious stallion mane, and his glossy wine-black coat had been scorched to the skin, leaving sheets of violet scar. Surely his rump and flanks were the same, and his tail a naked whip.
A swell of pride and triumph for Abellia rose in Caris like a shout.
Bannus’s immortal voice boomed over the river. “Hear, Abominator. My hunt has been long, and I have grown impatient, so I tell you briefly. Three things I require. The ambassador. His ring. Your head. I shall not leave until I have them.”
“Words, Sir Bannus,” said Willard, his own voice taking on immortal volume and girth. “I say again, you have failed. Go back to your bootlicking slaves. They will tell you how puissant you are, and how wise.”
The scars of Bannus’s face writhed. “I see you have returned to the Blood! That is good. I have waited for this day. The day you might give me satisfaction—not as a withered husk of mortal weakness, but as a true immortal—in just combat. Indeed, you satisfy me in part already, for in taking the Blood, you break yet another sacred oath—the oath to your lady—and once again prove yourself unworthy in all affairs. Willard Oath Breaker. Willard the Untrue.”
The mad gaze flicked to Brolli. “Do you not guess you are lied to, foolish ambassador? This man is as faithless as his bitch queen. When they betray you, you will find the Old Ones your allies against them.”
Brolli snorted. “I like not your kind of faith.”
White teeth flashed inside Bannus’s helm. “Then you deserve your fate.”
Gygon’s upper lip
lifted as he caught Molly’s scent and snorted. Molly whinnied and pawed the sun-heated pan beneath her hooves as if beckoning to Gygon.
“Yes,” said Bannus. “Gygon shows us a miracle. The famed Molly will breed in Arkendia!” He lifted his face to the sky and spread his arms in prayer. “How wise you are, Lord Krato. How good and wise. For you make him who betrayed us into the vessel of your rebirth in Arkendia. See, Worsic! See, Malgus! See, lost brothers, our god’s revenge!”
He leveled a finger at Willard. “Gygon shall take Molly while you sit in her saddle. Then you shall watch as your bond mate revives the Old Ones in this land.”
“Spare us your stale fantasies,” said Willard. “You shall have nothing, and only your words will reach us today.”
“I bring reckoning, Sir Willard. And sooner than you believe.”
Bannus turned Gygon from the brink and disappeared behind the lip of the ledge.
Caris started breathing again; it came in short bites. “Gods leave us,” she muttered. Bannus knew Molly was in heat, and he knew that she could breed on Arkendia. But he didn’t know she already had a Phyros foal. He hadn’t noticed Holly.
“Terrifying even when impotent,” Harric said.
“Yes.” Willard almost seemed to be laughing. “But he will seek a way to ride north, and therefore we must ride north faster. Come.”
A clatter of falling rocks or hoofbeats echoed between the cliffs, and Willard looked up. In the next instant, the unmistakable sound of hoofbeats grew louder, and Caris glimpsed the tips of Gygon’s ears as he galloped toward the brink of the ledge.
Willard’s mouth went slack and the ragleaf dropped from his lips.
In the next instant, Gygon and Bannus rose into view. Caris had not imagined there might be space enough behind the ledge for Gygon to rise into a gallop—none of them had—but there he was on the cusp of an all-out run as he approached the brink. A black sword flashed in Bannus’s hand, and Gygon bunched as if to spring across the river.
And in that instant, Caris knew he would succeed—with Sir Bannus on his back—and crash among them like a thunderbolt. “No!” she screamed, and stabbed her hand at the stallion as if she could hold him back with her will—as if she could stop and push him back where he’d come from.
And Gygon balked.
In that instant, the stallion’s eyes found Caris, and his violet rage transfixed her mind like a red-hot spike through her skull. The fire flashed through her connection with Rag, and Rag squealed in pain and terror.
“No!” Caris screamed, but could not tear her eyes from the furious stallion. “Rag!”
But in that moment of hesitation, Gygon’s weight shifted forward over his enormous front hooves and skidded out over the brink. The mighty Phyros wrenched his gaze free as he toppled. Too late, he thrust his hind legs in a tremendous buck—an attempt, perhaps, to salvage the leap—and flipped heels over head above the river. Twisting and snarling, he struck the water flat on his back with a tremendous clap.
A spire of water shot to the sky. Then the river drank it back and swept the Phyros away.
Caris could not tear her eyes from Sir Bannus. He had been pitched from the saddle like a stone from a listing catapult, but most of Gygon’s momentum had gone into sending him—not Gygon—over the river. Limbs flailing, sword flashing in one hand.
He seemed to hang for a moment at the apex of his flight. The great sword gleamed, a dark promise. Then he fell like a stone down a well and crashed behind her with an impact she felt in her bones.
The horses went berserk.
Rag bucked like her mane was on fire. Molly whirled away as if she wished to leap in the river after Gygon. Holly and Idgit were screaming on the ground—either on their side or on their back—hooves flailing and eyes rolling white with terror. It appeared that both had been knocked or wrenched from their feet when Bannus’s armored bulk landed between them on Holly’s lead. Sir Bannus now lay upon the lead, effectively pinning Holly’s nose to the stone.
“Brolli!” Harric shouted. “Brolli’s down!”
Caris struggled to keep her saddle, but she glimpsed the ambassador sprawled among the roots of a lodge pole. Blood drenched his shirt and his huge eyes were closed—visible now because his daylids had been knocked from his face.
The sight struck like a fist to the jaw. “Brolli!”
Drawing her saddle knife, she cut Holly and Idgit’s lead so she could focus her attention on Rag. The immortal hadn’t stirred since impact, and his hard landing had mashed and twisted his helmet over his face, probably blinding him. Nevertheless, he lay within arm’s reach of the ambassador, and Caris had to get to Brolli before Bannus stirred. But Rag’s terror was overwhelming. The more Caris tried to calm her, the more the mare’s terror threatened to infect her own mind.
As she struggled with Rag, he watched helplessly as Bannus lurched and pushed himself up with both hands, then drew a knee up beneath him. When he raised his head, a torrent of violet blood cascaded from his ruined helmet.
“Take Brolli!” Harric shouted. “Kogan, take Brolli!”
Caris redoubled her efforts and pushed her senses deep into Rag…only to find that Rag was wasn’t there. To Caris’s horse-touched senses, there simply was no Rag.
She tried again, concentrating harder and groping with her senses, but she couldn’t feel the mare at all.
An empty gulf opened inside her, and her voice caught in her throat. “Rag, come back!” She threw herself into the connection and thrust herself at Rag—or where Rag should have been—but all she could feel was a surface, not a mind. Rag had closed herself entirely. To Caris’s senses, she might have been any horse. A frightened, unfamiliar horse.
A sob burst from Caris. She hadn’t meant to touch Gygon. She hadn’t meant to do anything; she’d just reacted, unthinking. And though it had robbed Bannus of his Phyros and may have saved their lives, she sensed without any doubt that, in touching the stallion, she’d lost her dearest friend, forever.
Eyes streaming, she managed Rag like she would any unknown horse—like some common rebellious beast—forcing her submission and breaking her will.
When Molly rump-checked Rag, Caris realized Willard was struggling as much to control Molly as she was to control Rag. She felt like screaming at Willard to kill Bannus while the Old One remained on his knees, but it appeared to take all of Willard’s skill just to stay in the saddle. Molly bucked and whirled as if she wished to cast Willard to the stone. Between jumps, she lunged for the river, squealing for Gygon, ready to swim after him. And though Willard was strong, she had the strength of estrus, and each whirling jump took them closer to the water.
With a wordless cry, Caris stabbed into Molly’s mind as she had done Gygon’s.
And a lance of violet fire struck back through the connection. Molly could not be surprised like Gygon. She’d felt this trick before, and countered fiercely.
If Caris had tried this trick an hour before, Molly’s counterattack might have knocked her from her feet, might have burned out her mind like a nut on a stove. But Gygon’s fire had already primed Caris’s mind. Coupled with Caris’s anger at the loss of Rag, the two blew up into a tempest of fury: fury at herself for betraying Rag; fury at losing her best friend; fury at the immortals who forced the loss upon her. Violet fire streaked down the channel between them, shattering Molly’s lance and stabbing deep in the mare’s startled mind.
Molly faltered, and it gave Willard a chance to grab a mace from his gear and stun her with a blow to the back of her head. A mortal horse would have fallen from the blow, but Molly only staggered. Yet it was enough for Willard to win control and force her back from the brink.
By then, Bannus had risen to his feet. Now with one hand, he tore away his helm and tossed it aside; with the other hand, he held fast to Holly’s bridle, and now he drew her between himself and Willard as a shield and barrier.
Once again master of Molly, Willard called, “Ride!” to Caris, and confronted Sir Bannus, Belle f
lashing in his hand.
“But Brolli—”
“Ride! I say, ride!”
Two men commit the same crime
And face a different fate:
That man gets rack and gallows,
This one crown and state.
—From Arkendia Corrupted, stage play suppressed during King Harnor’s reign
64
Knight Of Krato
Harric managed to stay in his saddle. He and Snapper had been closer to the head of the pan near the rapids when the mayhem began. From there, he’d watched the drama unfold like a tragedy performed in the courtyard of an inn, complete with the appearance of a tyrant king in a balcony above.
Now as Caris whipped Rag up the hillside through the trees, she cried to him, “Ride!” but he kept Snapper where he was; Caris might be under orders from Willard, but Harric was not. And though Brolli was a traitor and perhaps deserved death, Harric couldn’t abandon him to be captured by Sir Bannus.
After snatching Captain Gren’s pack from his luggage, Harric leapt from Snapper’s saddle to the bare stone stage. Calm as Snapper generally was, when Harric tried to tie him to one of the trees at the edge, he surprised Harric by pulling away and bolting after Caris.
Cursing, Harric let him go and pushed into the pines to scramble up the steep slope above the pan. When he reached the game trail that Kogan and Caris had taken, he crept down until he could see the lower half of the pan and the foot of the trail, where Brolli lay in the brush. Bannus stood with his back to Brolli as he held Holly between himself and Willard. The immortal was laughing.
“It seems mortality has dulled your wit, Abominator.”
Sir Bannus began slowly sidestepping away from Brolli, along the edge of the trees. He was moving toward the foot of the pan, keeping Holly always between himself and Willard. In his free hand, he held his black sword high. “Did you think I did not know the god had sent us another mare? Did you think he would not tell me? Why do you doubt my prophecies?”
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