by Deborah Hale
The cries of pain reached out and caught her by the heart. Perhaps she could steal a quick look from the cover of the trees. Just long enough to prove to herself that this was none of her concern. That way the cries might not haunt her dreams tonight... if she managed to get to sleep.
As Maura crawled through the underbrush to the edge of the forest, the caution Langbard had drummed into her from her youngest years battled an insistent urge to help. No one had taught her that.
Peering out from behind a low thicket of mothbroom, she saw what she had expected. The ground sloped downward from the eaves of the forest into a hollow from which many trees had been cut, providing her with a clear view. A large troop of Hanish soldiers, probably from the Windleford garrison, appeared to have ambushed a gang of outlaws.
One of the outlaws was trying to keep the others in a tight clutch, back-to-back, their blades bristling as they retreated toward the cover of the trees. When a Hanish arrow struck one outlaw in the shoulder, the men to his left and right locked their arms through his to carry him with the group. Hanish soldiers circled around the thorny knot of outlaws just out of blade reach, bellowing what sounded like taunts or curses.
Suddenly one outlaw broke from the group, bolting toward the forest through a slender gap in the surrounding ring of enemies. He did not get more than ten yards when the soldiers fell on him and hacked him to pieces.
Maura raised her hand to stifle a scream, but instead she retched up every crumb of the lunch she’d eaten with Langbard.
When she was able to glance up again, the cluster of outlaws had broken and scattered. The men were running in all directions, scrambling to reach cover before swarms of Hanish soldiers overtook and butchered them.
One of the outlaws, the man who had struggled to hold the others together, looked as if he alone might escape. He ran swiftly, now crouching, now leaping over a fallen tree or small boulder that lay in his path. Ducking and dodging, he never held to the same course for long, but ran in a weaving, erratic fashion. Often, Hanish arrows struck the ground where he had been only an instant before.
Against her will, Maura found herself hoping this man would get away. Silently she cheered every inch of distance he put between himself and his pursuers. Her breath caught at each near miss of an arrow, then hissed out in relief when he kept running. Her muscles tensed as if trying to bestow any speed or strength she possessed upon him.
Closer and closer he came, through the clear-cut hollow that gouged a deep wedge into the western border of Betchwood. The Han had dispatched all the others. Now, they joined in pursuit of this one last outlaw... whose endurance was beginning to fade.
No one could keep up such a pace, running uphill, unless aided by powerful magic, which Maura sensed the outlaw did not possess. She could almost feel the air rasping down his throat, scouring his lungs. The hard strength of his leg muscles dwindling, until they would soon be weak and yielding as suet, unable to lift feet that grew heavier with every step.
He stumbled. She gasped.
He rolled with the fall, staggering onto his feet again with renewed desperation.
Then a Hanish arrow struck him in the left arm.
It would all be over soon.
She must not watch, must not care. He was only an outlaw, after all. Langbard’s recent account of her parents had not penetrated as deep as the fear and loathing Maura had harbored for so many years against this man’s kind.
Go to his aid? Unthinkable!
Before such madness could commandeer her will, Maura lurched to her feet and turned to run away.
His shield arm had been hit.
Rath Talward tossed his small buckler aside and wheeled to face the Han. For the fight he was about to make, he would need no defense. Nor would he want it. This would be a fight to the death.
For as long as he could remember, he had lived by a few simple rules: Stay alive. Stay free. Stay fed.
Now that it had come to the sharp edge of a blade, he knew freedom must stand first. Even ahead of life itself. Better to die than be taken to the Blood Moon mines and enslaved with Hanish poison. He would give them no choice but to kill him.
The enemy would soon swarm over him. Rath dragged his left hand up to wrap around the hilt of his sword, then covered it with his right and crouched, poised to strike the first Han who came within reach.
A big one raced toward him—a thick, curved blade held high, shield raised, and a long plume of flaxen hair streaming from the top of the helmet. If a warrior must meet his death, there was a kind of honor to be found in falling before such a strong, fierce foe.
Rath sucked in a breath and rallied his spent body for one last effort before it could rest... forever.
Amid the pounding advance of the Han, and their harsh blood-bellows, Rath heard the oddest sound. A woman’s voice, clear and sweet, raised in a gentle chant that stirred memories of his all-but-forgotten childhood.
It distracted him for a crucial instant. His muscles relaxed and his blade sagged.
The next thing he knew, the big Han plowed into him, hurling him to the ground and driving the arrow deeper into his arm. The Han fell, too, cursing as he stumbled over his fallen foe.
While Rath struggled through a haze of shock and pain to get his feet back under him, the Han lumbered up and kept on running. More Hanish soldiers ran past, their eyes fixed on a point off in the distance.
Had one of his comrades also eluded their swords to make a bolt for freedom? Then why did the rear guard not close in to hew him down?
All but a few of the Han had streamed past Rath without a glance, when something tugged at his sleeve. From out of nowhere, a beguiling voice whispered, “Come this way, quickly! They will soon realize their mistake.”
Rath shook his head hard. Perhaps he’d knocked his wits loose when the Han had run over him.
“Now, I said!” The voice hissed in his ear, like the soft, angry buzz of a wasp. The tug on his sleeve grew more insistent.
Rath stumbled in the direction he was being pulled, up the slope toward the trees. “What are you?”
A chill of fear slithered through him such as he had not felt when running from the Han or facing them to meet his end.
“A friend you ill deserve.” The voice sounded breathless, and somehow vexed with itself.
Rath had heard that same edge in his own voice often enough to recognize it.
A friend?
“What sorcery is this?” Wrenching his arm free, Rath glanced down to find it... gone.
“Sorcery? How dare you! Please yourself, then, ungrateful lout.” The voice grew fainter, moving away from him. “Stay here and let the Han butcher you.”
Rath was tempted to do just that.
The soldiers could only kill him once. With luck it might be over quickly. He had tasted the cruel pain Hanish sorcery could inflict. The kind that made strong men plead for death.
Would this not be just the kind of torment in which the Xenoth took cruel pleasure—tempting him with sweet-sounding false hope?
Well, he would not take their tainted bait.
Rath waited for the voice to return and entice him further. It did not.
Barely discernable beneath the clamor of the Han, he could hear the faint patter of footfall, the snap of a twig, the swish of brush. When he looked in the direction of those sounds, he marked the signs of some unseen creature passing. A creature whose invisible movements betrayed no intention of turning back.
Pain blazed in his arm, then, as if to punish him for ignoring it as long as he had. But when he reached to break off the shaft, Rath could see neither the arrow nor his arm. The invisible fingers of his other hand closed around something solid that felt like an arrow shaft. He snapped it off, biting back a groan.
What if he stayed like this, unable to be seen by anyone, himself included? A few benefits raced through his thoughts, chased out by a hoard of drawbacks.
“Wait!” he called in an urgent whisper, staggering after whatever had
done this to him. “You cannot leave me like this!”
He stumbled into a tall clump of mothbroom, sending a small cloud of yellow blossoms billowing up as if they were real insects that had only lighted on the branches for a moment.
Something latched on to the front of his leather vest and pulled him to the ground.
“Sit and hush!” ordered the voice. “Invisibility is not much protection if you blunder around making noise and bumping into everything.”
That made a simple, workaday kind of sense that Rath did not associate with the Xenoth or any other Han. In fact, it was more the sort of thing he might have said, if he’d had the power to turn people invisible.
Invisible? Rath sank to the ground. His wound must be making him light-headed. Perhaps he was dreaming all of this. For the sake of his fallen comrades, he hoped he’d dreamed the whole horrible day.
“Who are you?” he asked again. “Why did you do this to me?”
“It will not last, if that is what worries you.” The answer came from very nearby. “Another hour. Less if you wash.”
That was a relief to hear, though it did not answer either of his questions.
“Then should we not get as far away from here as we can before it wears off?” Rath was not certain what had made him say we, as if he expected or desired that they should stay together.
Experience had taught him that he fared best on his own. Yet he seemed doomed to go through life picking up followers, the way a long cloak picked up troublesome burrs. “First, I must go see if any of the others are still alive.”
When Rath tried to rise, the world spun and wobbled around him. He collapsed back onto the ground, jarring his injured arm. The pain that had prowled menacingly around the border of his consciousness bit into him once more. He tried to stifle a cry that rose to his lips and partly succeeded.
“You do not sound in fit condition to go anywhere,” said his unseen companion. “Even if you were, I saw what happened. You would find none of your friends whole, let alone alive.”
She whispered a few words Rath did not understand, but which had a strangely familiar sound.
“Fools!” he muttered. “If they had kept together we might have gained the woods and had a chance. I warned them it was likely all a trap in the first place.”
Long ago Rath had learned that, to survive, he must treat death with contempt and anger. Draw a warning from whatever mistakes had led to the calamity, then move on. Grief was a heavy, useless luxury he could not afford to carry.
It was just as well if none of the others had survived. If they had, he’d likely have been compelled to risk his fool neck to help them.
“I think the Han are coming back this way,” whispered the voice. “That madfern worked well considering how thin I had to spread it.”
“What?” Rath understood each word separately, but taken together they made no sense to him.
“Never mind, I was only speaking my thoughts.”
Speaking them in Embrian, too. Not Hanish, or even Comtung. That was another riddle Rath had neither the time nor the patience to untangle.
He could hear the soldiers coming back toward them. A violent rustle of branches told him they were searching the edge of the forest.
“Go,” he ordered in an urgent whisper. “The deeper you get into the forest, the safer you’ll be. The Han do not like trees, especially a great many together.”
“Why did you not tell me sooner? Let us go, then.”
Rath shook his head. Then he remembered his invisible companion could not see him, either. “Do not wait for me. You said yourself, I am not fit to go far.”
“Chew on this.” A small flower floated in the air toward him. Its five outer petals were the color of cream with a faint blush, while the inner ones had a warm rosy hue. “It will ease your pain and give you strength enough to walk a little way.”
“What is it?” As Rath spoke, the flower wafted closer and closer to his mouth, until an unseen hand pushed it in. He almost spit it back out. But when his teeth closed on the delicate petals, a fresh sweetness filled his mouth and the pain in his arm lessened. He heard a soft rustle beside him. Then invisible fingers skimmed across his shoulders and something wedged under his right arm, coaxing him to rise.
To his amazement, Rath discovered he could stand. He was still dizzy, a condition made worse by not being able to see his own feet. His arm still hurt, but in a scattered, distant way, and his invisible legs seemed sound enough to hold him up.
With a bit of help.
He could feel the solid warmth of a shoulder braced beneath his arm. He sensed a fragrant, willowy presence moving at his side.
They had not gone far when Hanish voices grew louder behind them and the bushes began to rustle violently. Rath and his companion froze. For a wild moment he wondered what had become of his sword. Then he remembered he had sheathed it earlier, without thinking or being able to see what he was doing.
Behind them, the soldiers burst into harsh, scornful laughter.
“What are they saying?” asked Rath’s companion in a barely audible whisper, almost strangled with fear.
“Something about a puddle of vomit. They say some lowling must have watched their games.”
Rath wasn’t sure what made him answer so readily. He usually took care to conceal his grasp of Hanish. Long ago, he had learned that every piece of knowledge was a potential weapon. And he lived by the old Hitherland adage, “The most perilous blade is the hidden one.”
Did the same not apply to an enemy?
Rath could not deny this creature of sorcery had done him stout service so far. But what had prompted her? What did she want from him?
The creature uttered a curse. But one so mild it sounded altogether foolish under the circumstances. Rath battled a dangerous urge to laugh.
The Hans’ next words killed his misplaced mirth.
His alarm must have communicated itself to his companion. “What are they saying now?”
“One asked if they should set the hounds after it... you... us.”
She cursed again. A better one this time.
Rath was tempted to teach her some truly powerful profanity. Hanish hounds did not fear forests, like their masters. But they could be every bit as merciless.
What’s more, they would not need their eyes to find him. They would smell his blood. And once smelled, they would not rest until they had tasted it.
Chapter Three
HANISH HOUNDS? MAURA’S organs twisted themselves into an ice-knot.
She had seen those horrid creatures in the village. All hard muscle, sharp teeth and slick black pelts, snarling on the ends of chains that never seemed strong enough to hold them if they smelled blood or fear. The soldiers of the Windleford garrison might not glance at her when she scurried through the market square, but their hounds were alert to her presence.
Alert and restive.
“Run!” growled the outlaw.
Maura did not wait for a more mannerly invitation. Off in the distance, she could hear the chilling sound of baying.
She repented getting herself mixed up in this dangerous situation. Fate had already thrust enough trouble on her shoulders, today. She had not needed to go looking for more.
She and her outlaw made good haste for a while, especially given his wound and the energy he must have spent running from the Hanish ambush.
He was not her outlaw, Maura reminded herself. Saving him from slaughter should not obligate her to this ungrateful ruffian. Yet, in some unjust fashion, it did.
Her legs protested the demands she was making on them. The air she gasped in stung her throat. Every tree they passed seemed to have a low hanging limb to whip against her face. Or a twisted root hiding in the carpet of last autumn’s decaying leaves to catch her foot.
With every step, the outlaw leaned on her more heavily. A chew of fresh queensbalm could provide an astonishing surge of energy and pain relief for one tiny blossom, but the benefits wore off quickly. And i
t was not safe to consume in larger quantities.
Maura plundered her memory trying to recall the route she had taken to get here. She had been so preoccupied with her worries and doubts, she’d scarcely paid heed to where her feet had been taking her. If she got out of her present misadventure alive, she swore to the Giver, and herself, that she would always mind where she was going from now on.
Just when she doubted she could go another step, a soft, welcome sound beckoned her onward—the gurgle of moving water.
“This way,” she gasped. “Just a little farther.”
“What?” The question retched out of the outlaw. “You have... a fortress... of sorcery... where we can take shelter?”
Maura was tempted to drop him right there and let him fend for himself, or not. But those hounds... She could not abandon her worst enemy to them.
“I am... not... a sorceress!” They continued to lurch forward, though Maura feared each step might be their last. “I am an... enchantress!”
A tremor ran through the outlaw, then he let out a hoarse, wheezy laugh. “I feel... much safer... now.”
Not only an outlaw, but an ignorant one. If he did not know the difference between mortcraft sorcery and vitcraft enchantment, she wasn’t about to waste her dwindling breath explaining it to him. He probably would not have the wit to understand anyway.
“Just keep... moving.” She forced the order through clenched teeth. “Or I may... turn you... into... a newt!”
It was an empty threat, of course. The proper ingredients and spell might temporarily lend a person the special abilities of a newt. Whatever they might be.
Maura doubted the Xenoth would bother to cast such a spell even if they knew how. It would not hurt enough to suit them. The Han had convinced most Embrians that all magic was evil. Much as the notion outraged Maura, at the moment she was desperate enough to turn their slander to her advantage.
Ahead of them, the ground fell away, sloping down to a narrow brook. Coming here awhile earlier, Maura had crossed it by scrambling over a pair of stepping stones.
This time she launched herself and the outlaw into the cold, swift-flowing water, instead.