by Matt Heppe
“Segreg is already running,” Arno said. “There should be two horses in pursuit of the children. Bera and Fend are on foot and won’t be able to keep up.”
“You can take my horse, Arno,” Calen said.
Hadde shook her head. “The people will listen to you, Father. You should stay and organize the pursuit.” She turned to Calen. “Come with me. You are an excellent rider and the best tracker in Long Meadow. And I saw how you took down that Idorian horse. You are truly a full hunter now. In all but ceremony.”
“I don’t know—”
“You can do it, Calen.”
He nodded his assent.
Arno glanced around and then leaned in close to Hadde and Calen. “You have to harden yourselves to this task,” he said. “The only way you bring the children back to us is if you think of them as already dead.”
Calen stepped back. The words hung for several heartbeats.
“The Idorians can’t leave Landomere,” Arno continued. “If they do, you’ll never see Maret or the children again. To stop the Idorians you’ll have to kill them. You’ll have to harry their every move.”
“And if they kill Enna?” Hadde asked.
“They won’t.” Arno met Hadde’s eyes. “You make the Idorians the hostages. You make them realize that the only way they leave Landomere alive is if they leave Maret and the children behind.”
Hadde took a deep breath and nodded. Would they do it? When the first arrows came flying out of the darkness and struck down the Idorian would they kill Enna? And what if they did?
She would kill them all before dying herself. “The way of the warrior is death,” Hadde said.
Calen’s brow furrowed at the words. Her father stared impassively at her.
“A Saladoran knight said it to me,” Hadde said. “Sir Nidon. He said that when there is an equal chance of life and death, the warrior chooses death.”
Enna emerged from the cottage with a small sack. “Jerked venison and hard biscuits. Camp food,” she said, breaking their silence.
“Thank you, Mother.”
“Come back to us. Both of you. And bring Maret and the children safely home. Remember what I said.”
“I have to say goodbye to my mother,” Calen said. “She thinks I am only going to Fallingbrook.”
“I will wait for you at Old Gaw’s Stone,” Hadde said.
“I’ll be right there.” Calen mounted and rode through the village.
Arno pulled Hadde and his wife into an embrace. “I love you both,” Hadde said. “I’ll bring them home.”
“Be safe,” Enna said. “Find another way if you can.”
“I will do what I can, Mother. I can’t make any promises. But know that I love you both and I will return.”
Hadde mounted, and then with a last glance at her parents, she rode from the village. A few people waved farewell, or called out for her good luck. But most were too occupied with their own preparations for the pursuit, or simply too busy recovering from the raid.
Hadde rode to Old Gaw’s cairn stone. He had died defending the village from the varcolac raiders two years ago. Everyone had loved him and his passing had been hard.
A gust blew through the forest and Hadde glanced off to the dark storm clouds gathering to the west. Anything that slows them is welcome. She looked back toward the village for Calen, twisting her thumb ring with impatience. She had almost resolved to go back for him when he appeared, cantering toward her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “She is not happy to see me go.”
“She’s your mother. Of course she is worried. Come on. I want to catch them before dark.”
They passed under the dark forest canopy, the afternoon sun already falling toward the horizon. “When Belor and I rode off for Sal-Oras, we didn’t really understand the danger we rode into. This… this will be hard. I know it—I feel it.”
“What will we do?”
“We find them first,” she said. “It isn’t as though tracking them will be difficult. And after we find them, we’ll attack them. We’ll get in front of them and lay traps. At night we’ll sneak close and shoot them. As much as I hate to say it, we’ll kill their horses.”
They rode on for a time in silence, their horses held to a trot as the two hunters kept alert for trouble. Both held their bows in hand with arrows nocked. The air became oppressive and the sky darkened like night, even though dusk was still a quarter day away.
Hadde reined Quickstep in. “The Idorians camped here last night.” The ground was churned by hooves and a neat row of fire pits had been covered over, the charred ends of logs still visible in some.
“Do you think they had more men here waiting for them?” Calen asked.
Hadde frowned. “I don’t know. I hope not. There are already too many of them.”
Calen peered into the forest. “How long do you think they’ll ride?”
“Saladorans don’t have night vision like we do. I suppose Idorians are the same. If so, I doubt they’ll ride too late. They’ll stop before nightfall.”
They rode through the camp, following the path of the retreating Idorians. Tracking fifty horsemen was a simple task, and Hadde and Calen made good time.
“Be wary,” Hadde said as they rode. “Bera and Fend should still be ahead of us, but we don’t know that the Idorians haven’t taken them or laid an ambush for us.”
They were still deep in the forest, maybe a full day’s ride from the Kiremi plains. Fallingbrook would be to their east, and Hadde thought for a moment of sending Calen there. But she knew her uncle would have already gone there to give warning.
“Look there,” Calen said, pointing. “A spirit bird.”
Hadde’s eyes followed his finger. The bird fluttered its wings on a nearby branch. “Father and I used to call them silverjays.”
“Why? They’re the Spirit of Landomere in bird form.”
Hadde smiled. “I used to think it superstitious, until the Great Spirit spoke to me.” She paused as she watched the bird. Almost as big as a raven, a spirit bird would flash silver and gold in bright sunlight. But at dusk, or under dark storm clouds, they seemed to faintly glow with their own light.
“Mother says that the Wasting almost killed Landomere,” Calen said.
“She was dying before the Wasting,” Hadde said. “The Great Spirit had been dying ever since the veden massacred the spiridus and destroyed Belavil five hundred years ago. The Wasting was almost the final blow.”
Hadde remembered the last time she had seen a spirit bird. It had been just after Enna’s birth, the day Orlos was born. And the time before that was the day she returned from Salador. “The Great Spirit thanked Maret and me for saving her when we brought Orlos’s spirit to Landomere.”
“I feel the Great Spirit around me in the forest sometimes,” Calen said. “But she’s never spoken to me. What will happen to her if Orlos is taken from Landomere?”
Hadde shook her head. “He’s the only spiridus. We can’t let that happen.”
They had only ridden another two arrowflights when Hadde caught movement in the corner of her eye. She raised her bow, but before she could draw, her friend Bera rose from behind a fallen oak giving the hunter sign, stop. The Landomeri huntress, thirteen years Hadde’s senior, jogged to them. She was taller than Hadde, reed thin, with the first wisps of gray appearing in her braided black hair. She ran lightly over the rough ground. Hadde signed, danger?
Bera signaled back. Three arrowflights west.
Close, Hadde thought. Closer than she had expected. “Where is Fend?” Hadde asked as Bera approached.
“Off to the left, still scouting them.” She pointed into the forest. “They moved quickly at first, but have slowed in the heavier woods here.”
“How are Maret and the children?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. It was difficult keeping pace with them and their rear guard kept a good watch. They’re not fools.”
“There are fifty in all?”
“Arou
nd that. And ten pack horses and our eight stolen horses. They’re all armed in mail and carry crossbows and swords. Their leader and his two men wear more armor.”
“Thank you, Bera. Find Fend and go to Long Meadow. Let them know that Calen and I are on the Saladorans. Father is organizing the pursuit.”
Bera nodded. “We brought nothing with us. We only came to make certain they didn’t circle back.”
“Join the others. Segreg has gone to Fallingbrook for help. They should return in a day with horses and weapons.”
“Good hunting, Hadde,” Bera said. “I’ll gather Fend and we’ll head back.” Without waiting for a response she ran east, quickly disappearing into the trees.
“Only three arrowflights,” Calen said. “They’re close.”
“We need to get ahead of them. If we ambush them it will slow their progress.”
Calen nodded. His lips were tight and he wiped sweat from his brow.
Hadde and Calen rode hard, trying to get ahead of the Idorian column. Attacking from behind would do little good. Their rear-guard could hold off the two Landomeri while the rest of the column rode on.
“We ride too close, Hadde. We should ride further east.”
“It will take too long. Dromost! They’ll reach the plains tomorrow and move much faster after that. I want to ambush them in the forest.”
Hadde kept her eyes focused front and left. Somewhere out there were the Idorians. She had abandoned tracking them and now kept a path based only on experience and knowledge of the terrain. If the Idorians did something unexpected… how long would it take to find them?
“Look,” Calen said. “Wolves to our left.”
Hadde saw them. Six dark-furred forest wolves less than two arrowflights away. They loped a course parallel to Hadde and Calen’s.
During the Wasting there had always been a danger that starving forest wolves might attack someone out on their own. But food was plentiful now, and the wolves usually stayed clear of humans.
“Keep an eye on them,” Hadde said. “They shouldn’t be in plain sight with us so near.”
They rode another four arrowflights and always the wolves kept the same distance. They weren’t hunting; at least they were not hunting Hadde and Calen. The wolves paid the riders no heed.
And then, beyond the wolves, she saw an Idorian. He was on horseback, riding away from them. Hadde’s heart suddenly beat heavy in her chest. With the early start they had taken she had expected a more difficult chase. They were either riding slower than she expected, or they had stopped.
“Calen! Idorians!” Hadde said, her voice urgent and low. Beyond the soldier, through the trees, she spotted other riders.
“Where?”
Hadde nodded in the soldier’s direction as she halted Quickstep. The Idorian hadn’t seen her yet. And she didn’t want to give him a chance. She drew her arrow to her cheek, pain from her wound tearing at her side, and let fly.
The Idorian’s horse bucked and spun, throwing his unsuspecting rider from his saddle. She hadn’t wanted to shoot the horse, but a flight arrow might not have penetrated mail at that range. And a rider without a horse was much less a threat.
“Come on!” She put her heels to Quickstep and they raced away from the Idorians and deeper into the forest. Only it wasn’t deeper. Three mounted Idorians appeared from the trees in front of her. Quickstep veered to the right under her leg commands.
Two crossbow bolts whipped past her. She drew and let fly, not watching to see whether she hit or not. There were shouts and a horn call behind her.
She nocked another arrow, turned and loosed it. Six Idorians, maybe more, pursued her. Calen was twenty strides ahead of her, also riding hard away from the Idorians. Only he wasn’t loosing any arrows at them.
A bolt struck a tree as she rode past. She heard another fly past her head. They couldn’t span their crossbows at the gallop, she thought. She hoped. She loosed another arrow. An Idorian pulled up short, clutching at an arrow in his arm.
Calen was too far ahead. If only he was closer they could have turned on their immediate pursuers. At close range she was certain their arrows could punch through the Saladorans’ armor, while the crossbowmen would have been hard pressed to reload.
As Quickstep weaved between the trees, she realized their pursuers were pushing them southeast. The wrong direction. Was it on purpose?
“Calen!” she shouted, but he was too far off to hear. She desperately wanted to cut left, across the front of the pursuit. The change of direction would take her north as well as give her several good shots at her pursuers.
She had to do it. Calen was a hunter. He would find her. She turned Quickstep hard to the left and nocked another arrow. Two Idorians were closer than the others. Behind them one blew a horn.
Hadde loosed an arrow at her closest pursuer, but it struck a branch and was deflected high. Neither of the Idorians had their crossbows cocked. She could be on them and away before help arrived.
She turned closer to them and drew a heavier arrow from her quiver. Just as she nocked it, a horn sounded from in front of her. Four more Idorians appeared from the cover of the forest. In moments she would be cut off. She wrenched Quickstep to the right.
Just as one of the soldiers raised his crossbow a ferocious howl erupted from the forest near them. Several dark shapes flew out of the forest and attacked the Idorians. Horses panicked and screamed their fear as the wolves wove amongst them and tore at their legs.
The Idorians struggled to control their horses. One crossbowman swung his bow like a club, lashing out at the wolves around him. Others drew their swords, and leaning low, stabbed at the wolves.
Hadde slowed Quickstep. She couldn’t believe the wolves had attacked, but they had done her a great favor. Stay and fight? All of their attention was on the wolves.
Thirty strides separated her from the nearest Saladoran. She loosed her arrow, nocking another without taking her eyes off the flight of the first.
The arrow struck an Idorian in the back and bounced off his mail. He arched his back in pain, but was not unhorsed. That decided it. With two soldiers closing on her she had to flee. Three of the wolves were down, but they had given her the chance she needed to get away.
“Go, Quickstep!” She put her heels to her horse and clods of dirt flew high as they raced off. The Idorians didn’t pursue long and soon disappeared behind a low ridge.
She spotted Calen riding towards her. “You can’t leave me like that,” Hadde said as he rode up. “You have to stay close.”
“Why did you charge him? He’d already been thrown and his horse wounded.”
“I rode closer to finish him and maybe take down another one.”
“You risked everything charging at them!” Calen’s voice rose as he spoke. “We need to be smart. We need to make plans, not attack every Idorian we see.”
“It was an opportunity. I had to take it.”
“No you didn’t! Shooting the first man might have been a good risk to take, but you saw how the others came after you. And what if those wolves had attacked us instead of the Idorians?”
He was right. But why had the wolves attacked at all? The small pack had thrown themselves at six charging horsemen. She had never heard of wolves behaving that way. Unless they were guided to do it.
“We should get ahead of them and place traps,” Calen said. “I want to stop the Idorians and save Maret and the children. But I don’t want to throw away my life doing it.”
A wolf howled in the distance. The mournful sound echoed through the forest.
Chapter Nine
Maret held the children close as a violent wind tore at her tent in the deepest dark of the night. The canvas tent walls had long ago given up resisting the heavy rain. A steady stream of drips had soaked Maret’s shoulders and back.
At least the children were asleep. Finally.
Maret heard men’s voices close by and a shadow appeared at the flap. “What’s this?” asked Saunder into the dark
ness of the tent. “Why is the flap open? You are still in there, Lady Maret?”
“How I wish I wasn’t,” she said. “The tent has soaked through. And the flap blew open and I can’t exactly get up to fix it.”
“You’re dryer than most,” he said. “Some horses broke free in the storm. Scared off by the thunder. We’ll track them down. How are the children?”
“How would you expect them to be? You’ll make them sick putting them through this.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’ll be safe in a keep soon enough.” He pulled away, tying the tent flap closed before departing.
Once again complete darkness engulfed her. Maret leaned back against the tent post. Her legs were soaked. She would have to sleep this way if she hoped to keep the children dry. They had to sleep. She had to as well, but didn’t see how she could accomplish it.
Hadde is out there. She has to be. She’ll be furious she was away when the Idorians came. But then she’d have been disarmed and horseless like the rest. No, she would be with me—a prisoner.
And what will I do? How do I escape this? She looked down at the two children. She could only make out the barest of shadows in the dark. How do I escape with two babies at my breasts? Or do I not escape at all?
Maret shifted her weight, the mud squelching under her. Her head nodded despite the occasional shout, the wind, and the wet. She fell asleep thinking of her cottage in Long Meadow.
Maret woke to the sound of voices outside her tent. Loud voices. How long had she slept? The storm had passed, but the darkness was just as complete.
Maret turned her head and grimaced at the sudden spike of pain. She had slept sitting upright, her back against the tent pole. Both children still slept in her lap.
“Wake up, Lady Maret,” Saunder said from outside. “We depart soon.”
“It is morning?” she asked.
“We still have almost a quarter night before morning.”
“Why so early? The children hardly slept.”
“Lady Maret, there is no time to discuss my orders.”
“I need light,” she said. “I must feed and change the children.”