“No, lord,” Kathlan interrupted. “And begging your pardon. We’re followed not from the west but from behind. Were they to mark our movement, the Ilvani would be observed across the river or in the shadow of the trees.”
At the echo of his own words to Venry, Chriani saw the lieutenant’s expression darken. He refocused his gaze to the north, though.
“This is something else,” Kathlan said. “They’re square behind us, almost due north tonight. Following our path exactly. You can see them best at dawn when the light’s off the meadow, but with the cloud breaking and bright sky…” She pointed. “Look there.”
Chriani focused, unblinking. Beside him, Venry shaded his eyes. Before them was the flat of the river valley, a twisting course that faded quickly to become no more than a mud-brown stain against the green. The sky above was bright, though, the cloud to the north torn to threads by brisk winds. Caught side-on in that brightness, showing the gold shimmer of the sun setting now behind the forest wall, faint shapes marked the horizon.
“I see them,” he said quietly.
“I don’t.” Venry’s tone was cold, but Chriani had no doubt he spoke the truth. “You’ll forgive my skepticism, sergeant.”
“I would if I cared. Don’t trust me, though. Trust Kathlan. Something’s there.”
A year and a half into service and Kathlan was already one of the best riders in the prince’s guard. Called to the rangers as a tyro. Likely to make rank before the next High Summer unless Chriani held her back. Even if he hadn’t loved her, Chriani understood that he would trust Kathlan with his life. A thing he vowed he would tell her before this night was done.
“Lack of traffic behind us notwithstanding,” Venry said, “it could still be anything.”
Dargana spoke then. “Not three days running by dawn and dusk, it couldn’t. They’re always a horizon away. A league, I’d mark it now. As far away from us as they can get while still seeing us ahead of them. Not trusting just to tracking. They’re watching.”
Chriani saw and felt a dark wave of animosity flicker in Venry’s eyes. He realized this was the first time Dargana had spoken in the presence of any of the Aerachi rangers.
They were losing the light. He had no time for this.
“Venry, get your best rider. Kath, that’s you for me. Pick the five freshest horses, get them ready to go. We need to take a look.”
Kathlan’s expression was still cold, but she met Chriani’s gaze at least as she nodded. She rolled off the ridge and out of sight from the distant horizon before she stood, raced back to the camp at a run.
“Dargana, you’ll come.” Chriani still had no idea how much he could give the Ilvani in the way of orders, but he wasn’t anxious to make it appear in front of Venry that he was begging her for favors.
“This is too much. I will not ride…” Venry started, but Chriani had his counter ready.
“You leave her here unguarded with your squad, you’ll come back to half a squad and a nightmare’s worth of reports to make to your duke, lieutenant. But more important than that, we’re losing the light. We can make use of her eyes, especially if it is Ilvani watching us. If it’s a ruse meant to split our forces, set a full watch with fires every twenty paces, archers at the ready behind the stones. Anything that comes in, they’ll be able to see it before it reaches them. If it’s us coming in, tell them to listen for the horn but not to drop their aim till they count all of us off. Call your rider, and quickly.”
“Jeradien,” Venry said coldly, his contempt for Chriani’s orders clear. But he followed Kathlan’s lead as he slipped back along the hillside, not rising until his body was blocked from sight to the north.
When the lieutenant had gone, Chriani spoke to Dargana. “Anything else I need to know that Venry can’t?”
“How about your eyes being all the sight you need, half-blood?” Dargana smiled.
Chriani said nothing as he fished the talisman from the pocket of his belt. He cradled it in his hand to shade it from the light but saw it still quiescent. No pulse of red within its gold-clasped stone. He slipped it back as he motioned Dargana to follow him, shifting back along the hill, then away.
Kathlan had wrapped all the moving points of the horses’ tack with felt to keep them quiet. However, the wind blowing strong from the north as they set out would do a better job of masking not just their sound but their scent as they made their way up and away from the river. Without the wind, it would have been impossible to range as far on horseback as Chriani knew they needed to without being heard. On foot, he wouldn’t have liked their chances of reaching the target before full dark, the Clearmoon shimmering bright to east and north but not ready to rise.
He took them on a wide course off the track they’d followed through the day, looping south first, around the campsite hill and into a light screen of scrub trees that provided additional cover in the fading light. They were riding blind, shadowing the track they had followed during the day and hoping they didn’t overshoot the resting place of the party behind them.
Chriani had no idea whether their pursuers would have moved off the track, but it was a safe assumption that they had no fire burning, for fear of it being seen from the rangers’ camp. That camp was a bright distraction behind them now, watchfires lining the hill to crown it with bright points of flame in the gathering dark.
Venry made the ride in silence but stayed at Chriani’s side, just behind Dargana on point. Jeradien shared her lieutenant’s sullenness, but she kept well back even of Kathlan in the third rank, like she was obeying some need to stay as far from Dargana as possible.
They came in from the west, circling around through tangled groves of witchwillow between the trail and the river. When they had measured off a distance near to a league in Chriani’s mind, they approached to within clear sight of the water, tethering the horses within the trees.
He used the fact of the pursuing party watching the rangers to his advantage, keeping the fires of the camp in view behind them. Just as those fires were nearly lost to sight, Chriani signaled for the others to slip forward in a single line. They moved with bows and blades at hand, crouched low and with Dargana leading. Chriani was behind her, the falling shadows bright around him, as he knew they were for her. Meadow grass muffled their footfalls, the wind still strong from ahead as they approached.
Dargana spotted the horse track through the trees, signaling a stop as she fell back. She motioned to the north, Chriani seeing a low rise set with moss-crusted rock that would have seemed only a smudge of darker shadow against the falling night to the others. He nodded, Dargana leading again as they dropped low to the ground to advance.
The crest of the rise provided a good vantage point, the last light of the sun sinking now beyond the looming forest behind them, setting a muddy haze against the cloud-streaked sky. Dargana scanned the shadows for a long while, Chriani trying to not make it obvious that he was doing the same.
“There,” the exile hissed.
Chriani had spotted them even as she spoke. A faint blur of bright movement, barely visible even to his eyes. Horses at tether, figures moving around them. Two hundred paces away, he judged, and screened by scrub trees where the unknown pursuers had pushed back from the track but kept themselves within sight of it.
“Riders,” Dargana whispered. The wind was rising, Venry and Kathlan pushing close to hear her. Jeradien stayed where she was. “A camp. Eleven horses that I can see.”
“Ilvani?” Chriani was focused, trying to bring the glimmering shadows of the distant camp into detail.
“Ilvani don’t make camp in the open while within sight of their own wood.”
“We need to get closer,” Venry whispered. “Or get some light on them. Startle them.”
“And accomplish what?” Chriani asked.
“Let them know their secrecy’s undone. If they’re bandits, they’ll break. If they’re not…”
Chriani heard an unspoken thought left hanging in Venry’s words as the lieut
enant’s gaze found his. “You think you know who this is,” Chriani said flatly. No more than a guess, but Venry’s expression told him he was right.
“The Prince High Vishod prides himself on his intelligence. He likes to keep his hand in all things. Especially where political advantage might be gained.”
Chriani stared at the lieutenant a moment, incredulous. Then he looked out to the dark camp again, felt the pieces of his understanding shift. “Vishod sending to Teillai for this mission lets him keep his distance from it if it fails,” he said darkly. “But he won’t let the Duke Andreg take all the credit if it succeeds. You knew this, and when told that we were pursued, said nothing?”
“I suspected,” Venry said sharply. “I already know which of my squad Vishod has paid to be his eyes and ears here, and how my orders will be mysteriously rewritten depending on the outcome of this futile exercise. But for him to take a more active stance is as much a surprise to me…”
“I don’t doubt that the sun rising comes as a surprise to you…”
“Pardon me again, lords.” Kathlan’s whispered hiss from behind silenced them both. Even without the sharpness of his eyes, Chriani would have been able to read her annoyance. “It’s getting dark. Whatever we’re doing, it needs to be done quickly.”
Chriani nodded. A decision made. “Return to camp, break at dawn. We set out south again, away from the forest. Find a good spot for a squad to hold back and out of sight. Wait for them to catch up, then surround and deal with them.” He waited for Venry’s nod, which was terse when it came. “Fall back,” he whispered.
Jeradien and Kathlan began to slip down the ridge and into shadow, Venry after them. Chriani motioned Dargana to follow him.
The exile didn’t move.
She was still flat to the ridge, still staring to the darkness ahead. No sign that she had heard or cared about the whispered conversation around her. A look of absolute fury was in her dark eyes. A look of recognition.
“You’ll need light,” she called, loud enough that Chriani knew she was talking to all of them above the hiss of the wind. “Don’t let them ride.” Then she launched herself over the top of the ridge and was running for the dark camp ahead.
“Treason-bastard!” Jeradien’s cry sounded out like steel on steel. Chriani tried to grab the warrior as she hurtled past him, but he wasn’t fast enough. Venry was shouting behind her, calling her to stop, but the Aerachi guard was gone after Dargana.
With a look back to Kathlan, Chriani was up and running, down the slope and into darkness.
SHADOW WAS DROPPING around them, uneven ground threatening to send Chriani stumbling as he ran. He heard Venry and Kathlan behind him, felt the urge to give them an order, but he had no idea what to say. No idea who they were facing, no sense of what was going on. Knowing only the raw hatred he’d seen in Dargana’s eyes, but the list of people the Ilvani exile hated was likely a long one.
He was running flat out, but across the distance of two hundred paces that Chriani had measured in his mind, he could only watch as Dargana and Jeradien pulled steadily away from him. Movement shimmered in the shadows ahead, the figures in the camp in motion, horses snorting as they heard racing footsteps approach through the darkness.
He was close enough now. He saw what Dargana had seen. Ilvani in dark cloaks, slipping like ghosts through the trees.
“Valnirata!” he shouted. “Keep them from the road!”
He slung his bow off his back and nocked an arrow as he dropped to one knee and slid to a stop, needing to anchor himself. Kathlan broke to the right beside him, Venry going left. Chriani fired two shots into the darkness, picking the closest target, a tall Ilvani still slinging his quiver on. He fell with both Chriani’s arrows in his chest.
Then he was up again, running left for a dozen strides, then cutting hard right. The hiss of bowshot rose around him, arrows flashing past. He dropped again, shot twice more, taking another archer in the arm. As the Ilvani stumbled backward, he made no sound.
A pulse of light came from far right. Kathlan had a torch lit, hurled it into the camp where it flared to daylight brightness. She hit the ground and rolled hard as three arrows streaked her way. From the left, Chriani heard Venry shooting, saw the Ilvani he’d tagged stumble back. As the figure twisted away, Chriani saw the war-mark gleaming dark at his shoulder.
One down quickly, and two more hopefully out of combat. Unless the Ilvani were riding doubled or Dargana had miscounted the horses, he and Venry had taken the fight to slightly better odds. If the Ilvani spread out beyond the light, though, the battle would turn in short order.
As the clash of steel rang out ahead of him, Chriani rose to sprint forward again. He shot on the run, no accuracy to his aim but intent only on hemming the Ilvani in, giving himself a chance to get close before it was too late.
It did him no good. By the time he got there, it was done. He was able to watch it, though.
Jeradien had been pursuing Dargana when she took off down the slope like a shot. Most likely thinking the Ilvani was fleeing from them, meeting up with compatriots in the woods. Chriani had no idea what might have happened if the Aerachi warrior had reached Dargana before Dargana reached the camp, but the exile got there first. She drove straight into the closest sentry as Kathlan’s torched landed, axe and bloodblade in hand. Their steel gleam flashed to blood-red as she spun in and hit hard.
The Ilvani sentry fell. Jeradien saw it from three paces behind. She shifted left, her focus off Dargana as her longsword arced up and over. It carried all the momentum of her run as it hacked through mail and bone, dropping the Ilvani who had been pushing forward to strike at Dargana’s back.
Three more Ilvani were pressing. Chriani watched Jeradien and Dargana cut into them as if they were standing still.
Movement at the edge of the light, three figures scrambling back from the brightness and the flurry of steel at the center of it. Bowshot rang out, arrows arcing through the light. Dargana spun to knock one shot aside with her axe, dropped to let a second pass. Jeradien wasn’t fast enough, struck in the leg. Chriani tracked the shooter as he pushed forward, slowing long enough to shoot. He heard Venry shooting from his left again, saw the figure fall.
Two Ilvani still uninjured if the count was right. One of them appeared behind Jeradien as if melting out of the shadows of the trees. Even wounded, the Aerachi warrior slashed a backsword attack away from her left side, carried through and swung up to get a piece of the Ilvani’s leg. A fast counterstrike, Jeradien’s blade coming up just in time as her wounded leg gave way. Then the Ilvani warrior fell as Dargana rose up behind him, sunk the bloodblade deep into his shoulder as he tried to twist away.
“We call for quarter!” The voice of the wounded Ilvani rang out in Ilvalantar as he fell to his knees. Dargana was above him, ready with a killing stroke. But as the warrior dropped his backsword, both she and Chriani saw the clear blue of his eyes at the same time. No sign of gold there. Dargana snarled as she stepped back, but her blades stayed where they were.
Chriani was ten paces away. He saw those Ilvani who were still moving respond to their companion’s call as if it was an order. Weapons down and arms spread, no hesitation. The golden light of the cult was nowhere to be seen in any of their eyes.
One of the Ilvani was still moving, though, not hearing or not caring that the others had submitted. Going for the horses. Chriani sighted his shot carefully, arced it through the trees and into the target’s leg. He heard a muffled cry as the figure fell.
“Watch them,” he called to the others. Though it was reported from time to time along the frontier, Ilvani offering free surrender without being beaten completely down in combat first was outside the scope of Chriani’s own experience. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he wasn’t going to run the risk of one of them escaping while he sorted it out.
He dropped his bow, drawing his longsword as he sprinted for the horses. The figure he’d tagged was cloaked but barefoot, head shrouded as she trie
d to stand. All the Ilvani warhorses but one had stood stock-still through the noise of combat, but the injured figure was fighting for some reason to clamber bareback onto that single nervous steed. Chriani was there to haul her off, drop her to the ground.
He saw the blade flash in her hand, almost too late. As he rolled, it caught him in the shoulder instead of the stomach, punching in clean on the left side. He smashed her arm free of the grip, grabbed and twisted to force her down in front of him. He rose to his knees over her, the tip of his sword at the back of her neck.
The cloaked figure didn’t move. She was face down with hands at her side, breathing slowly.
Setting his teeth, Chriani pulled the knife from his shoulder. It was a jagged blade, meant for striking and tearing at the soft flesh of the belly, for punching up under the ribs. He was lucky to have rolled with it, watching the Ilvani darkly as he tossed the knife away.
It was quiet around him. He saw Venry with the surrendered Ilvani, tying their hands behind them while Dargana and Kathlan circled slowly around them, blades at the ready. There were five of them, clustered tight together now. All wounded but none in danger of dying, Chriani judged. Jeradien was watching the prisoners as well, sword drawn but not moving. She had cloth stuffed into the broad gash in her leather where the arrow had tagged her.
All of the Ilvani’s eyes were bright in the torchlight. Blue or green, brown or violet. Still no trace of gold to be seen.
“Let us know if you need assistance with that one, sergeant,” Venry called, his tone cool.
Chriani shrugged off the pain at his shoulder as he ignored the lieutenant. “Kathlan, Dargana,” he called. “Check the fallen. Watch yourselves.”
Kathlan nodded as she slipped back into the shadows. Dargana hit Chriani with a dark look, but she did the same.
“What happened to the Valnirata not making camp outside their woods?” Venry called coldly. He tied the last Ilvani prisoner, stood and wiped his hands on his leather like he might be rubbing some stain from his fingers.
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