Lady Zorana raised her bow when Firekeeper would cross the perimeter around the pavilion, her expression grim.
“No one may interrupt the king, not even you, Lady Blysse. He is in deep and confidential conference.”
“No!” Firekeeper swallowed a snarl of frustration. “Not with Prince Newell?”
“That's right.” Lady Zorana looked slightly puzzled, but her bow and that deadly arrow remained steady.
Other of the guards were drawing weapons as well. Realizing that even she and Blind Seer could not take out so many—especially when she wished these people no harm—Firekeeper decided to risk the arrow. Feinting left, then ducking in the other direction, she dashed for the pavilion. She hadn't reckoned on the skill of the daughter of Purcel Archer.
Lady Zorana corrected her aim while Firekeeper was still pounding across the open ground. The wolf-woman heard the bowstring sing out and leapt up, but Zorana's aim was tme. Only the fact that Zorana had not wished—despite, or perhaps because of, her political rivalry with the king's presumed heir—to kill Firekeeper preserved the young woman's life. The arrow plowed across the flesh on the outside of Firekeeper's left thigh, cutting a deep furrow through skin and muscle.
Ox's courage when she had seen him wounded sprang to mind, balancing but not diminishing the searing pain. Fire keeper had been hurt many times before, but most of those injuries had been of the pummeling variety. When she had been cut, it had rarely been deep. Nothing in her experiencehad prepared her for the sensation of muscle being neatly sliced and of control vanishing.
Yet she leapt forward on her strong leg, relying on her arms as she had when a pup. Carried by momentum, she pitched through the pavilion's door. Blind Seer bounded be-side her, alert, though whimpering his concern.
Firekeeper nearly surrendered to the pain when she saw what awaited her within. Prince Newell bent over the high-backed chair from which King Tedric had commanded his forces. The king's form was still upright; his hands still grasped the carved arms of the chair, but his eyes were shut. There was a pallor to the king's face that Firekeeper did not like at all and he did not seem to be breathing.
Prince Newell straightened when he saw her.
“Lady Blysse,” he said, his tone for a moment as casual as it had been when they met at the ball. Then it altered, filling with concern and shock. “You've been wounded!”
“The king,” she said. “What have you done to the king!”
“Nothing,” he responded. “I was telling him about the at-tempt to assassinate Duke Allister when His Majesty collapsed. I fear the news was more than his heart could take. I was attempting to revive him.”
Firekeeper knew nothing of medicine's deeper mysteries, but it did not seem to her that Newell had been reviving the king. Why then was the king's wig knocked to one side? Why was there none of the sharp stink of stimulants that she recalled froiji her visits to the king's chambers? Why were the king's pale lips slowly shaping one word?
“Help… “Tedric hissed.
“He lives!” she said to Blind Seer. “Quickly! Get Doc!”
“But Prince Newell!” the wolf growled in protest. “He reeks of treachery!”
“Go!” Firekeeper repeated. “You must not be here when I deal with him.” And the great grey wolf slipped beneath the edge of the pavilion's scarlet fabric and was gone. From without Firekeeper heard cries of alarm, but she could not attend to them. Her argument with Blind Seer had taken half the time it would have in human words but still she had wasted too much time.
“I think,” Newell was saying, already drawing his sword and lunging at her, “the shock of your death, little Blysse, will finish my job for me.”
Firekeeper leapt back, knowing that she could hope for no assistance, even if those outside overcame their reluctance to disobey the prince's orders. They would see her as the attacker and Newell as the bold defender. Yet she could not abandon the king, unarmed and lightiy armored though she was, not after the proud old Eagle had asked her for help.
She leapt back, stumbling on her wounded leg. Normally she could have gotten clean away, but slowed as she was the sword's sharp point deeply scored the leather armor across her belly. Silently Firekeeper thanked Derian, who had insisted that she wear the stifling stuff, even if she was not to be in combat.
Drawing her Fang from its Mouth, Firekeeper dropped low, coming within the compass of Prince Newell's arm, too close for him to bring the sword to bear. He was more heavily armored than she was, but she jabbed the blade between two metal plates and through the leather. It grated against a rib, then slid in.
Her reward was a grant from Prince Newell and a kiss of warm blood on her fingers. The prince jerked back before she could pull the blade free, leaving her unarmed, her only weapon damming the wound in his side.
Not only weapon, she reminded herself. Have I not called myself a wolf?
More cautious now, Prince Newell held his sword as much to guard as to attack. He must indeed regret the shield he had left hanging from the rust-red charger's harness.
Blood loss was making Firekeeper light-headed, but she remained enough herself to know that she could not charge again. Instead she lifted a small table. The papers that had covered itflutteredto the ground and began sopping up her blood from where it puddled on the rags.
Throwing the table, then a footstool, Firekeeper took advantage of Prince Newell's dodging to close a few more steps. Her leg didn't even hurt now; the pain was as much a constant as her unwavering desire to protect the old man in his high-backed chair.
In the background she heard the sound of someone entering the tent. From the comer of her eye, she glimpsed one of the King's Own Guard. Knowing that in any moment she might have another enemy, Firekeeper grabbed a medicine bottle, a carafe half-filled with red wine, a tray, and hurled them one by one with the pinpoint accuracy of one who had lived by that skill.
Prince Newell was wholly on the defensive now, unable—or perhaps merely unwilling—to close as long as she had ammunition. An angry red mark spread on one cheek where a heavy pottery goblet had broken against the bone. His lower lip was bleeding.
There was the sound of more people entering the pavilion, but thus far no one interfered. Firekeeper's vision was beginning to blur now: fading in and out so that she had moments of great clarity and others where she could hardly see the man whom she no longer recalled by name, recalling only that he was her prey and that this was the most important hunt of her life.
On the periphery of her attention, Firekeeper heard shouts and screams. Considered that they might be important, dis-missed the thought as a distraction from her task.
Relentlessly, she dragged herself after her prey, throwing whatever came to hand: scraps of pottery, bits of blood-soaked paper, a solid metal box. Then, suddenly, the tips of her fingers scrabbled vainly in the plush of the rags. For the first time, she realized that she was on the floor, her weight resting on the knee of her sound right leg and on her right arm. Her left hand quested blindly after something to throw.
A shadow fell over her. In one of those moments of perfect clarity of thought and vision, Firekeeper recognized Prince Newell, battered and bloodied but still alive. Grasping the hilt in both hands, he was raising his sword to pin her to the ground, thus to end her crawling forever.
A dark red eye, bright and wet in his side, looked down at Firekeeper—the gamet set into the hilt of her Fang. With her last strength, the wolf-woman surged just high enough to grasp the knife handle. Shoving the blade in with desperate power, she twisted. The force of Prince Newell's own descending thrust ripped the Fang free.
Then hot, terrible pain forced her face into the bloodied rags. She knew nothing except that faintly, at the very edge of her hearing, a wolf was howling as if his heart must break.
XXVI
EVEN BEFORE THE THIN WAIL of the trumpet signaled the first exchange of arrows, Derian and the other raiders had been long gone. They had left via Good Crossing's river gate huddled b
eneath a tarp on the deck of a cargo boat. To an observer, theirs would appear to be just one of many small boats filled to capacity with those who had decided that it was safer to be away from the city, just in case the defenders did not hold.
However, unlike most of these boats, which went down-river to land at the usually placid hamlet of Butterfield, their boatman carried them only as far as a small cove hidden from the city—and, they hoped, from any observers—by a thick tangle of willows.
Derian felt dreadfully exposed as he climbed from the boat onto the shore, uncomforted by the fact that not even most of the river traffic seemed to notice their detour. Rationally, he knew they were invisible, but he fully expected a roving band of Stoneholders to leap out upon them.
His back tensed against this imagined threat, he steadied the boat as the others climbed ashore. Each raider carried a bow and arrows, a knife, and a hand weapon of choice. Each was lightly armored, any metal dulled, any light tanned leather mbbed dark with soot. None carried a shield, for these would slow them and the raiders had to move quickly and use what cover they could.
Traffic on the road east from Good Crossing, a road that roughly paralleled the Barren River, was nonexistent. In an effort to keep Stonehold from pressing east should they break the army at Good Crossing, the road had been barricaded with fallen trees where it left the open grounds around the city. In any case, no coward or refugee was going to chance a land journey when the river was so near.
Race Forester led them away from the riverbank and across the road, then through a gap in a hedgerow bordering a farmer's fields. The grain was high and—Derian thought—close to being ripe. It made an admirable shield from any-thing.
He glanced up, catching a glimpse of what he thought was Elation lazily riding the air currents far above. Firekeeper had told Derian that the falcon would be there keeping an eye on him and that she would bring Firekeeper if needed. Otherwise, the bird was to stay high enough that she would not draw attention to herself or to the raiders.
Derian thought it was nice that his death would be avenged, but other than that he didn't think the great peregrine would be much help. Realizing that he was woolgathering, Derian forced himself to pay attention as Race reviewed thejr plans.
“We're going to make our way back,” Race said, “just about all the way that boat carried us, but this time we'll angle inland south and west. Jem”—the scout nodded toward a burly, bent man who looked as if his nose had been hit with a potato masher—”has done a good deal of scouting over on this side of the Barren and is going to take us through orchards and fields.”
“And folks’ bams,” Jem granted. “We won't touch a road and the Stoneholders”—he spat—”won't see us until we choose.”
Between practice sessions last night, Derian had talked for a while with Jem, the only Bright Bay scout in their strike force. Jem passionately hated Stonehold because of how a Stonehold sergeant had violendy beat him some years before. His smashed nose was only the most visible of his injuries.
When he had recovered enough to walk, Jem had defected to Hawk Haven and by now was well known and well trasted by the garrison at the Watchful Eye, who knew him for a smuggler who would smuggle information as well as goods.
“I know not all ‘holders are like that sergeant,” Jem had told Derian. “I know it in my head, but in my heart I hate em.
Derian dragged his attention to the present.
“Stay out of sight,” Race reminded them. “The army's providing a distraction for us, but that won't mean everyone's staring toward the front lines like kids watching a puppet show. Some will remember their duty to guard, some won't want to watch, others will have jobs that will take them through the camp. Still, they won't be watching every wagon and supply dump. Those are our targets.”
Derian nodded, his mouth dry. Then he fell into place. In front of him was Joy Spinner—the scout from House Kite—and behind him was another scout, a man called Thyme. Valet was toward the back and Jem out front. Race, nominally in command though this raid demanded initiative as well as obedience, moved alongside Jem, ready for trouble.
Jem's chosen route, however, was clear. Those who owned the farms they crossed were either absent orreluctantto notice an armed group that was so evidentiy just passing through. The bams they cut through were empty of any live-stock other than the occasional chicken or cat. In a surprisingly short period of time the raiders were behind the Stonehold lines and drawing up on their encampment.
In the near distance, shouts and commands, the clash of metal, and the screams of the wounded confirmed that battle had been joined. They came sharply to Derian as he closed on his own battlefield, a reminder of the penalty for failure.
Jem led them through an orchard, die upper boughs of the trees heavy with unpicked fruit, the air smelling of cider. It came up right to the edge of the Stonehold camp. Doubtless even the strict rales against piliaging hadn't kept the soldiers from stealing the more easily picked fruit.
Derian didn't need Race's hand signal to remind him to keep to cover. As on the banks of the Barren, he felt dreadfully exposed, even though he knew that as long as he kept his movements slow and steady only the most alert guard would be likely to spot him through the intervening apple trees.
He knelt behind one of the trees, studying the camp through the veil of low-hanging branches.
The Stoneholders had not unloaded most of the recently arrived wagons. That made sense. If the Rocky Band won today's battle, they would be moving forward to take new ground. If they failed, they needed to be ready to retreat. Many of the tarps covering the wagons had been thrown back, probably to inventory the contents and to haul out what was immediately needed. Those wagons that remained covered clearly contained fodder, for hay poked out at either end.
There's my target, Derian thought. I'm sure I can hit a haystack and even slightly green hay will burn nicely.
He gestured his choice to Race and the scout nodded. A few moments later, he signaled for them to string their bows. Each raider carried several arrows specially prepared for fire. Five of their number—Valet was one—carried clay pots containing coals. As they had rehearsed the night before, they broke into clumps of three and set their arrows tip-down into the coals.
First, Derian reminded himself, light the arrow. The smell of burning shouldn't alert the guards, because they'll have campfires of their own. Wait for Race's signal to shoot. Shoot all your prepared arrows. Then decide whether you can constructively do more or whether the best thing you can do is clear out.
Neat orders. Tidy. Simple when they were just diagrams drawn in the dirt rather than directed toward a living camp that looked far too much like the one you had left behind.
The Stoneholders didn't look like monsters, just like soldiers. The guards were alert, scanning the orchards though more than one spared a glance toward the battlefield where their comrades were fighting. Some of these guards were clearly walking wounded, reassigned after the Battle of the Banks.
A few had dogs with them, heavy, thick-bodied brutes meant for guarding not hunting. Derian was glad that Race had left Queenie behind. The bird dog wouldn't have a chance against these animals. They might even give Blind Seer a good fight. The dogs had a better chance than the guards of spotting the group creeping through the orchard, but the light wind blew from the north and Stonehold's camp was rich with odors so the dogs hadn't scented the raiders.
In addition to the guards, there were other Stoneholders in the camp, men and women who hurried about purposefully fetching stuff from the wagons, darting in and out of tents, hurrying along with serious expressions on their faces. There was even a fat woman washing socks in a cauldron slung from a tripod over a fire.
I've been around Firekeeper too long, Derian thought. People just look like people.
The arrows in the pot had just caught when Race's signal to shoot came. Derian fired, fumbling a bit because—despite practice the night before—he'd never fired a burning arrow with any
speed. To his right, Valet shot off two shafts with neat precision before Derian had readied his own second arrow. When Derian tried to hurry, Valet said softly:
“Make it count.”
Derian slowed. His first arrow had landed in his chosen haystack and fire began to catch the hay. He sent another arrow at the same stack—after all, you didn't use just one piece of kindling to start a cook fire.
As he reached for a third arrow, Derian realized that Valet—having finished with his own prepared arrows—had been poaching Derian's. Momentarily angry, Derian would have laughed at himself if he hadn't been so nervous. What did it matter who fired the arrows as long as they were shot?
Only as he was lowering his own bow did he realize that one of the dogs from the Stonehold camp was charging to-ward him. Its long-muzzled face was set in an ugly, fang-barring snarl that reminded Derian of Blind Seer.
If this had been a ballad, Derian would have reached for an arrow from his quiver and smoothly fired, dropping the vicious canine in its tracks. Instead, Derian yelled and swung his bow. The string popped, stinging as it slapped against his face, but the solid shaft hit the dog soundly along head and neck. The dog reared back on its haunches, yelping in surprise and pain. By the time it attacked again, Derian had dropped the bow and drawn his sword.
Here the practicing he had done with Firekeeper and Blind Seer came to his aid. He knew how the dog would attack; indeed, he nearly misjudged because he expected one of Blind Seer's more subtle feints. This animal didn't feint or dodge. It came straight in, trusting its speed and ferocity.
Derian's sword laid it open along one flank. His second stroke took off its head.
“Very good, sir,” Valet said from beside him. “And thanks.”
Derian grinned, feeling wetness on his face where dog blood had spattered. Excitement made his own blood race and his head feel light. He might have dashed foolishly to where the Stoneholders were turning to face the dozens of fires blazing throughout their camp if Valet hadn't held him. Suddenly, he realized that the attack had come to them.
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