Pushing the thought aside, Lara followed Nana outside where she was blinded for a few paces by the brilliant sunlight, but when her vision cleared, it revealed Aren frowning as he haphazardly hung laundry on a line, a glowering Lia crouched next to a washbasin by his feet.
“I see there have been gaps in your education, boy.” Nana scowled at a dripping sheet.
“I’m willing to accept certain personal failings.” Aren jerked his hand away in horror from a voluminous pair of undergarments that Lia was trying to hand to him.
Nana rolled her eyes. “Useless child.” But Lara didn’t miss the faint smile that grew on the old woman’s face as Aren dried his hands on his trousers.
“You intend to elaborate on why you had me drag Lara all the way here? I assume it wasn’t for a five-minute conversation.”
“Oh, Lara and I will be talking a great deal over the coming weeks, because you’re going to leave her here with me.”
Lara’s mouth dropped open in horror, no amount of training enough to hide her dismay over this development.
Aren rocked from his heels to his toes, eyes narrowed. “Why would I do that?”
“Because she’s the Rat King’s spawn, and I’ll not have her roaming Midwatch while you’re distracted with more important matters. Here I can keep an eye on her.”
And probably arrange an accident within the week.
“No.”
Nana planted her wrinkled hands on her hips. “I wasn’t giving you the choice, boy. Besides, what need have you of her? Despite all the practice you’ve had over the years, you haven’t had her on her back once, by my reckoning. And you aren’t going to have time for it over the next two months, so she might as well be here where I can put her to use.”
Aren exhaled a long, slow breath, casting his eyes up to the sky as though searching for patience. Lara bit her tongue, waiting for his response. Knowing she was screwed if he acceded to his grandmother’s request.
“No. I didn’t bring her to Ithicana to keep her locked up as a prisoner, and I certainly didn’t bring her so you could keep her as a servant. She’s coming with me.”
Nana’s jaw hardened, her muddy fingernails digging into the fabric of her tunic. He’s never said no to her before, Lara thought, amazed.
“You’ve too much of your mother in you, Aren. Both of you blind, idealistic fools.”
Silence.
“We’re done here. Lara, come on.” Aren twisted on his heel, and Lara scampered after him, half convinced that Nana would stick a knife in her back in a last-ditch effort to keep her from Aren. From behind, she heard the old woman snap, “Jor, you keep that boy safe or I’ll cut your balls off and feed them to my snakes.”
“Always do, Nana,” Jor drawled, then trotted past Lara and Aren. “I’d walk faster. She’s not a woman used to being denied.”
Aren snorted, but kept to his measured pace. “I should’ve guessed this is what she wanted. Controlling old bat.”
Controlling, yes, but also far too canny for her own good. Lara might be walking away with Aren, but he’d heard Nana’s warnings. If Lara wasn’t careful, he might begin to take those warnings to heart.
“You can’t fault her for trying to protect her grandson. She’s fond of you.” Lara shied away from a tree hosting an enormous spider.
“Most people are. I’m quite charming, or so I’m told.”
Lara shot him a pitying look. “A king should rarely take a compliment at face value. Sycophants, and all that.”
“How fortunate that I now have you to give me the unvarnished truth.”
“Would you prefer varnished lies?”
“Possibly. I’m not certain my untested ego is ready for so much abuse. My soldiers might not follow me if they’re subjected to night after night of me crying in my cup.”
“Try sobbing into your pillow—it muffles the noise.”
Aren laughed, then glanced backward at the house. “What did she say to you?”
Holding up the root she’d been given, Lara paused, realizing that Nana had suspected Aren would refuse. Which begged the question: Why had he? The reason, she guessed, was more complicated than a desire to get her between the sheets. “Apparently she takes offense to the idea of me puking on your boots.”
He rewarded her with a low chuckle that sent an unexpected thrill racing through her. Then he extracted the blindfold from where it had been tucked into his belt, her shoulders tightening reflexively as he wrapped it around her face, his fingers smelling like soap. “Do you want to walk or be carried?”
“Walk.” Though she came to regret the decision when she’d tripped for about the dozenth time, relief filling her when they stepped into the cool darkness of the pier, Aren holding her elbows to steady her as she climbed the steps. She counted them, calculating the distance.
Back inside the bridge, the group moved at speed, no one speaking. So it was unmistakable when the faint sound of a horn, long and mournful, pierced the thickness of the stone encasing them. Aren and the rest stopped in their tracks, listening. It sounded again, the same long note, followed by a pattern of short peals that repeated three times in rapid succession before cutting off in the middle of the fourth, as though the horn had been ripped from the blower’s lips.
“That’s Serrith’s call for aid,” Jor said.
“Have its civilians departed for War Tides yet?” Aren demanded.
War Tides?
“No.” Even with the blindfold on, Lara felt the tension running through the group crackling like an electric storm.
“Who’s closest?” There was a shake to Aren’s voice. A hint of something Lara had yet to see in him: fear.
Jor cleared his throat. “We are.”
Silence.
“We can’t leave her alone in the bridge,” Aren said.
“We can’t spare anyone to stay with her, and we don’t have time to bring her back to Nana.”
Lara bit her tongue, wanting to weigh in but knowing she was best served in saying nothing.
“No helping it. We’ll have to bring her with us.” Aren’s hands brushed against the side of her face as he pulled off the blindfold. “Keep up. Keep silent. And when the fighting starts, stay out of the way.”
Praying he’d mistake her excitement for fear, she nodded once. “I will.”
The group broke into a run.
16
Lara
Lara struggled to keep pace with the Ithicanians, the stale air burning in her chest as the group sprinted through the bridge. Only luck allowed her to notice when Lia planted a foot square on a mile marker, her mouth moving silently as she began counting her strides.
Lara picked up Lia’s count, storing away the number when the other woman held up a hand and skidded to stop. Jor boosted her on his shoulders while the rest prepared their gear. None of them spoke, and Lara kept to the shadows as she watched Lia reach up to press her palm against what appeared to be smooth stone. There was a heavy click, then, with a heave of effort, she lifted up a hinged hatch in the ceiling of the bridge.
Another way in.
Triumph rushed through Lara even as cool air gusted inside, catching at the loose strands of her hair as Jor and Aren lifted the other soldiers into the opening. Then Jor was up, and only she and Aren remained.
“You ever reveal any of this to anyone, I’ll kill you myself.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed Lara by the waist and raised her up into the opening.
Jor caught hold of her arms, lifting her onto the top of the bridge before leaning down to haul Aren up as well, the two of them flipping the hatch shut. But it was hard for Lara to focus on what the men were doing, because she stood on a bridge through the clouds.
Wet mist had settled back on Ithicana while they’d been inside, and it whirled and gusted, pulling at her clothes before spinning away in violent little eddies. Below, the sea crashed against a pier or an island or maybe both—she couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see more than a dozen paces in either direction, and
it was like being in a totally different world. Like being in a dream that stood on the brink of a nightmare.
“Be careful,” Aren warned, taking her hand. “It’s slippery, and we’re at a high point. You wouldn’t survive the fall.”
She followed him at a slow run, everyone struggling to keep their balance on the slick surface as the bridge sloped down toward the next pier, which Lara could only faintly see through the mist. But before they reached it, the guards all dropped as though given an invisible cue, Aren hauling her down with him.
As Lara’s hands pressed against the wet stone, her eyes landed on a mile marker, the wheels in her mind turning as a strategy for invasion began to form.
Jor had a spyglass out, which panned this way and that before freezing in place. “Amarid naval vessel.” He passed the glass to Aren, who looked once, then swore.
“We should wait for reinforcements,” Jor continued, taking the glass back and crawling to the opposite side of the bridge, staring out in the same direction as the rest of the soldiers. The mist swirled, revealing an island for a heartbeat before obscuring it again. “Once they get their whole crew on land, we’ll be badly outnumbered.”
No one spoke, and it was then that the winds shifted direction. With them came the screams.
“We go now,” Aren ordered.
None of the guards argued. One of them attached a cable to a thick metal ring embedded in the bridge, the other end fixed to a heavy bolt that was fitted into a weapon designed like a crossbow. Then he handed it to Aren. “You do the honors, Your Grace?”
Aren took the weapon, kneeling on the stone. “Come on,” he muttered. “Let me see.”
The winds stalled, and no one seemed to breathe. Lara dug her fingers into the stone, watching and waiting, the anticipation making her heart race. Then the air roared against them, sweeping away the clouds, and Aren smiled once.
He released the bolt with a loud twang, grunting against the force of the recoil. The bolt soared toward the island, trailing the slender cable after it, and with a loud crack audible even from the distance, it spiked through one of the trees.
The soldier who’d given him the weapon tightened up the slack on the cable and knotted it off. Then, with seemingly no fear, he pulled on a heavy glove, attached a hook over the cable, and swung out into the open air. Lara watched in amazement as the man shot along the wire over the open sea, going faster and faster until he was over land, and then reached up with the glove and slowed himself, dropping like a cat into the brush beneath the tree.
The rest of the soldiers followed swiftly, but as Lara glanced over her shoulder, she determined Aren wasn’t paying them the slightest bit of attention. Instead, he was mixing powders into a small bladder. As she watched, he added water to the mixture, then, very carefully, attached the device to an arrow with a bit of twine. He lifted it to his bow and shot it at the ship anchored below.
Seconds later, an explosion shook the air, the ship visible through the mist as flames climbed the rigging. “That ought to keep them busy.”
Slinging his bow over his shoulder, he removed a hook and glove like the others had used. “I’m going to need you to hold onto me.”
Wordlessly, Lara wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Heat rushed through her as he pulled her tight against him with his free hand.
“Don’t scream.” He flipped the hook over the line and jumped.
Lara barely contained her shriek, clinging to him as they dropped, soaring downward at incredible speed. Below, the surf broke against the island cliffs, and she could make out the longboats retreating from a small cove to the burning ship to assist their comrades. Wind roared in her ears, and then they were above green jungle.
“Hold on tight,” he said into her ear, then he let go of her, reaching up with a gloved hand to grip the cable, checking their speed until they hung safely above the others.
Lara let go, landing among them, and she purposely wobbled and fell on her ass even as Aren landed with predatory grace next to her. In a practiced move, he extracted a leather mask identical to those all the guards were now wearing and pulled it over his face.
“Stay here,” he whispered. “Keep out of sight and watch out for snakes.”
Then they were gone.
Lara waited until the count of fifty, then went after them, knives in hand. She moved carefully, trusting that their passage would have sent any snakes racing away. It wasn’t difficult to determine the direction they’d gone; she only had to follow the screams.
A battle waged in a village, the interiors of the stone houses ablaze, countless dead and dying lying on the paths running between them. Some had been armed, most had not. Families. Children. All cut down by the Amaridian soldiers fighting Aren and his guards. Keeping behind a tree, Lara watched the King of Ithicana hurl himself against the other men, machete in one hand, dagger in the other, leaving only corpses in his wake. He fought like he’d been born to it, fearless, but clever, and she found herself unable to look away.
Until shouts from the beach caught her attention. Abandoning her position, Lara retreated in that direction, her stomach tightening as she caught sight of the Amaridian soldiers moving up the trail toward the village. The ship was fully engulfed with fire, which meant these were desperate men with no avenue for escape. And Aren and his bodyguard were outnumbered three to one. Unless she wanted Amarid to be the kingdom taking control of the bridge, she needed to even the odds.
Lara picked a point just around the corner from a gap in a towering pair of rocks through which the soldiers would have to pass.
Two soldiers rounded the bend, starting in surprise at the sight of her standing in their path. “It’s her. The Maridrinian girl.”
She waited for them to rush her, these men as much Maridrina’s enemy as they were Ithicana’s, but they stood their ground, gaping at her as if uncertain what to do next. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Lara shrugged. “Your bad luck, I suppose.” Then she threw her knives in rapid succession. The soldiers dropped, blades in their throats. Three more came, and Lara snatched up one of the dead men’s swords and launched herself forward, slashing one man’s gut even as she dove under the blade of another, hamstringing him as she rolled. His comrade swung at her and she parried, then kicked him in the knee, burying her blade in his chest as he fell.
Taking up his weapon as she rose, Lara attacked the third, driving him back before slicing off his hand at the wrist. The soldier screamed, his blood splattering her in the face even as he collided with the soldiers who’d come up from behind.
It was screaming and chaos. Men tripping over the bodies of their companions as they tried to squeeze through the narrow pass, Lara killing them when convenient, maiming them when it wasn’t, her goal to keep them from joining the battle and from overwhelming Aren and his soldiers.
But when a pair of arrows whistled over her head, she threw herself into the jungle, hiding in the underbrush as the rest of the Amaridian soldiers rushed past. Once they were gone, she retrieved her throwing knives and sheathed them in favor of using one of the Amaridians’ heavier weapons. Slicing throats as she went, Lara ran up the trail to the village.
There was blood everywhere. Bodies everywhere. Several of the honor guard had fallen, and Lara’s stomach plunged as she searched those remaining for Aren.
She found him fighting an enormous man wielding a chain. Aren’s clothes were bloody, his once sharp movements now sluggish and sloppy. The Amaridian warrior swung his chain hard, and Lara hissed as it caught Aren in the ribs, doubling him over. She instinctively took several steps in their direction, knife in hand, ready to intervene, but Aren came up swinging, catching the big man in the face with his fist, then plunging a knife into his gut. They both went down in a heap.
Before Aren could get back to his feet, another Amaridian soldier charged toward his exposed back.
Without thinking, Lara threw herself between them, her knife sinking in benea
th the sternum, angling up to pierce the soldier’s heart.
His momentum knocked her over, the wind rushing out of her lungs as her shoulders hit the ground, the dying soldier falling on top of her. He was flailing and thrashing, the hilt of the knife digging into her stomach, and she couldn’t get out from under him.
Couldn’t breathe as the meaty bulk of his chest pressed down against her face.
The weight abruptly lifted.
Lara gasped, sucking in air, before rolling onto her hands and knees, watching as Aren unnecessarily slid a knife across the dead soldier’s throat. Hands slick with the other man’s blood, Aren grabbed hold of her arms, pulling her close. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?” He was pulling at her clothes, the blood of the dead sailor mercifully concealing that from her victims on the pathway.
“I’m fine,” she gasped, finally able to breathe. “You’re not.” He was bleeding heavily from a gash on his forearm, but she suspected that wasn’t the worst of it.
“It’s nothing. Stay back. Stay out of sight.” He tried to push her behind one of the village homes, but she clung to his shoulders, desperate to keep him out of the fray. If he died, everything was for naught.
He hesitated, and she buried her face in his shoulder, certain he’d set her aside and reenter the battle. But he was injured and spent, and it would not end well. Panic rose in her throat, and she whispered the only thing she could think of that would get him to stay: “Please. Don’t leave me.”
His hands were hot against her back, both of them soaked with the blood of their enemies. “Lara . . .” His voice was pained, and she knew he was seeing the bodies of his people. That he was seeing his bodyguards, fighting and faltering against the enemy.
You could fight.
You could fight for him and save these people.
The thought danced across her mind, but she was saved from having to make a decision by the arrival of reinforcements.
Ithicanian soldiers poured into the village, Aren’s bodyguards falling back, encircling him and Lara as the others cut down the Amaridian soldiers, ruthlessly dispatching the injured until the only sound was the moans and cries of the villagers.
The Bridge Kingdom Page 13