Guardian Queen: Epic Fantasy Romance (Hardstorm Saga Book 3)

by Dana Marton

  Batumar shook off the distemper that had settled on him at the sight of the man earlier. “The healers are most welcome and most appreciated.” And then, he tacked a “Thank you,” to the end.

  There, Tera would be proud of him.

  Koro relaxed in his saddle. “They are working their way up the main column already, plying their skills on the injured. These two came with me as we heard some of the men in the forward force were hurt.”

  The two healers began with Batumar and Tomron right then, working quickly, while Koro’s gaze searched the group.

  “Prince Graho said the Lady Tera has gone ahead to Karamur.”

  “She has,” Batumar told him and left it at that.

  “Is that safe, my lord?”

  “The Lady Tera makes her own decisions.” Batumar let his tone harden.

  “Of course.” Koro tugged on the reins of his horse until it danced back.

  As the healers moved on to see to the rest of the soldiers, Batumar stretched his arm. Good enough to swing a sword. Koro deserved his gratitude. “You may ride at the head of the column with me, if you wish.”

  “Thank you.” The young man inclined his head. “But I will ride back and help.” And off he went, his horse’s hooves raising a cloud of dust behind him.

  Batumar shook his head. Then he shook it again when he caught Tomron’s approving expression.

  Tomron shrugged. “Going against the Elders took courage.”

  Batumar nudged his gelding forward. “I am going to dislike it if I have to change my mind about the pup and start respecting him.”

  The column progressed up the road. He rode more easily with his arm healed. He felt easier too, knowing they had healers with them and they were seeing to the soldiers. Yet, he still very much wished that Tera was with them.

  * * *

  They fought but one small skirmish the following day. Thanks to the Shahala’s help, they lost only six men.

  They made quick work of the burial, with only one common grave and one prayer to the gods. The gods would have to understand. Perhaps they would not be offended by the haste, or by four of the Kerghi being buried without their armor and weapons.

  Three of Batumar’s soldiers put on the borrowed Kerghi armor, the fourth going to the Guardian of the Gate. The Kerghi had no uniform, but their preferred curved swords were distinct, their armor of black boiled leather often decorated with symbols of their nation: three peaks of a mountain with a curved sword over them.

  The number of Kerghi soldiers they had met since returning to Dahru made it clear that the enemy troops were coming through the Gate at a rate that had to be stopped or the liberating army would stand no chance at all of succeeding against the invaders.

  “Are you certain?” Batumar asked the young Guardian of the Gate who volunteered to return to the Gate and attempt to close it. “Infiltrating the Kerghi troops is an endeavor most fraught with danger.”

  “Aye, my lord. I should be able to reach the Gate without being discovered.”

  “At least take more men.”

  The Guardian shook his head. “I do not need more than three guards. In truth, I do not even need the three. I expect to meet no enemy while cutting through the deep woods. The Kerghi have no reason to be that far in the forest. And when I do meet them near our Gate,” he glanced down at his breastplate and curved Kerghi sword, “they will think that I am one of them.”

  “They discovered you the last time.”

  “I came through when they first opened Dahru’s Gate. They were more vigilant then. Now troops are pouring through every day.” He paused to look at the men selected to go with him. “You have greater need for soldiers here, my lord.”

  The three soldiers had additional orders once they arrived at the Gate. They were to look for Batumar’s mother and daughters among the Kerghi’s captives. And if they found the women, they were to protect them with their lives, as well as protecting the Guardian of the Gate. Although, Batumar hoped his daughters and mother were somewhere far inland, somewhere safe.

  “I could not let you go alone,” Batumar told the Guardian. “What would the Lady Tera say when I meet her?”

  This reasoning, at last, the Guardian accepted with a quick smile.

  “To victory, then.” He raised his blade, probably drawing a sword for the first time in his life. After Batumar’s nod, he sheathed it again—on the second try—and the four men walked into the woods, Batumar looking after them.

  The road was bathed in sunlight, but the trees threw a deep shade. Within moments, the four men disappeared, darkness swallowing them.

  The forward force Batumar led did not meet any more enemy that day and only a dozen Kerghi the day next. They were close to reaching Karamur—and ready to stop to wait for the rest of the army to catch up—when they encountered the first large force. The forward scouts rode back to warn them.

  “A hundred soldiers and nearly fifty archers,” the scout leader reported.

  Batumar rolled his shoulders. “Makes me wish for the Landrian archers coming up behind us with their prince.”

  Tomron was riding by his side once again. “The weight of their large bows and quiversful of iron-tipped arrows make them heavier and slower,” he said. “Our forward force needs to be light and fast.”

  Batumar looked ahead and drew a heavy breath. “I hate not the thought of another battle, but only that it will slow us down. This will be no quick clash, no petty skirmish. This will rob us of a day.”

  A hundred and fifty Kerghi, waiting in a large meadow the road bisected, was no small obstacle. The North Road had a steady rise, leading to the mountains. The enemy held higher ground—a distinct advantage.

  Batumar considered everything he knew about this section of the road, the meadow, and the surrounding forest. None of it helped. By the gods, he missed Tera’s quick mind and her counsel.

  “It would have been better if we could have taken them by surprise,” Tomron said, scratching his knee. “But if the Kerghi are lined up for battle, that means they have scouts in the woods too, and they have already seen us coming.”

  “We will make a show of calling a halt to the march for the day to camp here,” Batumar told him, a plan forming. “We wait for darkness, then sneak into the forest in the dead of the night and pick them off one by one as they sleep.”

  “And if they decide to move forward and attack?”

  “They will not give up the advantage of the high meadow. For them, the better position is worth waiting a day. They are unaware that we know that they are there.”

  He raised his arm to stop the column of soldiers, and called out. “We will camp here for the day. Pull off the road and into the woods.”

  Tomron called next, ordering four men to his side to look for a creek. He went off into the forest with them. Batumar did not expect them to return for a while, but they were back by the time the rest of the men unsaddled their horses and fully settled in.

  “Found three scouts,” Tomron reported with a satisfied grin. “They will not be returning to their commander.”

  Still, Batumar did not call his orders out loud. He went from group to group to explain their strategy, the most important point being that no Kerghi could be allowed to leave the battlefield. Khan Verik must not be alerted to how close they were to the fortress city.

  The men ambled off one by one, as if going for water or looking for a place to relieve themselves. They left their horses and their supplies behind, each carrying only a single weapon.

  Another enemy scout was found and killed.

  As darkness fell, Batumar and his men spread out in the woods and filtered through the trees. Even when they were at the enemy’s back, he did not give the order for an open attack. He, and his men, remained silent.

  They did not charge with battle cries, but instead crawled through the meadow’s tall grass. They cut down at least forty Kerghi mercenaries before the enemy even realized they were there. And then Batumar shouted the call to battl
e.

  His men rose and attacked, none coming up the road, but all bursting through the forest. They were all suddenly among the Kerghi—the Kerghi archers useless.

  Batumar lunged for the nearest man, pig faced and bowlegged. The snarling mercenary swung a double-bladed battle axe and swung it well. He had arms thick enough for a blacksmith, his steel missing Batumar’s shoulder only by a tiger’s whisker. Batumar felt the wind of the blow on his face.

  He twisted out of the way, sword up as he completed his turn. The mighty battle axe swung high again by then, both of the man’s arms in the air. Batumar’s sword caught in him in a vulnerable moment. A great wet sound resulted as the blade slid across the mercenary’s stomach, then a sickening splash as his intestines spilled and hit the ground. The man stared at the red pile with a disbelieving expression until his arms sagged at last and he staggered back, then stumbled and fell.

  Batumar cut down enemy after enemy until a man rushed him from the back and knocked him to the ground. He managed to twist, but his blade was no use. He had to let go of his sword to wrestle his attacker. They rolled, then they rolled again, equally matched.

  Batumar reached for the man’s head, meaning to snap his spine, swearing when his hands slipped in the blood dripping from the mercenary’s forehead. The man brought up his knee, hard, and Batumar thought he might have broken a rib. He swung his elbow in response and broke the man’s nose. While the mercenary was temporarily dazed with pain, Batumar wrapped his arm around the man’s neck and yanked hard enough to feel—if not hear in the din of the battle—the spine snap.

  He wasted no time but released the man, then rolled out of the way of a hurtling lance, but was attacked again before he could gain his feet. His sword lay in the mud out of reach. He grabbed for the knife in his left boot and lost it immediately, stuck in the skull of an attacking Kerghi. The man screamed the whole time he collapsed.

  Batumar rose to his feet, his second blade already in hand by the time the next attacker found him. The blade wedged between the foot soldier’s ribs. The way the man twisted was pure bad luck, the knife breaking off between his ribs before the body fell forward, onto Batumar. He shoved the bleeding corpse off to the side, then lurched toward where he had last seen his sword.

  “No enemy leaves the battlefield!” Tomron shouted a reminder somewhere nearby.

  No sooner did the words ring out over the meadow than Batumar spotted two Kerghi breaking away from the battle and darting into the forest.

  He wiped the blood from his eyes and ran after them barehanded.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  (Tera)

  The darkness felt thick and suffocating, complete, as if someone had thrown a blanket over my head. Or as if I had somehow traveled back to the beginning of the world, when all had been black, when the Great Mother had floated in the void, before she created light in the dark.

  My stomach constricted into a tight fist. I packed up what little food I had left, then stumbled forward, holding my hands out in front of me, always thinking that in but a step, I would touch something truly fearful and horrible, but when my fingers did come against something, I felt naught but unyielding rock, a sign that I had to turn.

  It’s the right way, I told myself. It had to be. I had to find my way into the castle, and I had to find help to open the portcullis for Batumar when he reached the city.

  I kept moving forward. I tried, as much as possible, at each new intersection to turn away from the direction where I once again smelled sulfur.

  I went on blindly for an endless time before footsteps sounded behind me. I froze for a moment before swirling to face the danger, my heart pounding. I could see no light. Whoever was coming had no more torches left either. The footsteps neared.

  “Lison?” I whispered. Then, “Fadden?”

  The response came in Prince Graho’s voice. “My lady?”

  My muscles sagged with relief. I braced myself on the stones behind me as I searched the darkness for his face in vain. “How come you to find me? Why are you here?”

  “I came to help,” he said.

  I would have thrown myself into his arms if I knew where his arms might be.

  “And Batumar?”

  “Fine well when last I saw him.”

  “Heading north on the road?”

  “He was.”

  I wished I could see the prince’s face. “Has your torch gone out?”

  “I did not bring enough.”

  “Did you see Hartz and Atter at the foot of the cliff?”

  “Aye.”

  “I lost Lison and Fadden. Have you seen them? I lost them a day back.”

  “I have not, my lady.” He hesitated. “I know them for brave men, but this cave…this dark… Mayhap they turned around to flee.”

  I did not want to think that of the men.

  I had many questions for Prince Graho, but I also feared to talk too much. I felt something sinister there in the darkness with us. Something watching and listening.

  Perhaps Graho felt it too, because when he urged, “Let us hurry.” He spoke the words in a whisper.

  I did hurry, until the path forked and I walked into rock once again. “Stop.”

  I ran my palms along the wall until I felt the two openings.

  I tried both, walking a little way in before returning to the prince. “The left fork is tighter, but it leads up. The right is wider and appears to be straight.”

  “This way.” Prince Graho’s voice came from the left branch.

  He must have passed me while I was examining the passageway on the right.

  “I smell fresh air,” he whispered.

  I followed after him, hope surging through me. Not being alone made all the difference. Having a voice to follow and hearing another draw breath next to me were a comfort in the darkness.

  We passed a side tunnel. The smell of sulfur hit me again. I held my breath as I hurried past.

  The smell was even stronger at the next passageway that bisected ours. I shuddered.

  “I think this way,” Prince Graho called, a few steps ahead of me. “We must turn here.”

  I trusted him. He was a sailor as much as a prince, possessing a keen sense of direction, which he had proved over and over, working with Captain Temro to guide us through the hardstorms. I could only hope that his senses worked as well navigating underground. They must have. We were still going up. We would come out somewhere on the side of the mountain, even if not in Karamur.

  I wanted to find the secret entrance to the fortress city, but more than anything, I wanted to be out in the light and fresh air. I followed Prince Graho, grateful to have him to lead me.

  Yet I did balk at the next turn.

  The tunnel the prince led me into was wider than the one we had just left, but somehow darker, the air thicker, damper, feeling like a touch on my skin. A cold shiver ran up my spine. My lungs constricted, and I had to struggle to draw air into them.

  “This way. Hurry, my lady,” Prince Graho urged.

  Every instinct I had warned me away from the passage. I turned and scrambled back, did not draw an easy breath until I was back in the narrower tunnel. “Let us try another path.”

  Prince Graho did not respond.

  “Graho?” I whispered. Then I shouted. “Prince Graho!”

  No response came, not even an echo, as if the darkness in the wide tunnel ahead was so thick it swallowed my voice.

  I hesitated, my heart trembling. Do I push forward to find him? I moved that way, but instinct pulled me back. “Graho!”

  Nothing but silence. And in that silence, I sensed something unholy and unnatural. So I backed away, praying to the spirits to save Prince Graho, along with Fadden and Lison, to lead them out of here, to lead us all to the surface.

  I stumbled forward on the uneven path in the narrow tunnel, alone once again.

  Moisture ran down my face. I ducked my head. Vooren said his grandfather had gone blind in here because he had passed through a tun
nel where the walls wept poison. But as I rubbed the back of my hand over my face, I realized that no poison was this but tears that my own eyes wept.

  I kept going, always taking the path that led up, until my legs cramped, and I collapsed against the wall at last. I slid to the ground. I could rest here, sit a little. When my stomach growled, I took the bundle from my back to eat the last of my food. I tasted none of it. I drank the last of my water.

  I closed my eyes, and it made no difference; I was so wholly surrounded by darkness. I did not know if it was day or night, or how long I had been in the belly of the mountain. Two days? Three now? The journey was taking much longer than the first time, as if everything was against me, as if I’d been led down the wrong path. How much longer could I walk before I would be too weak to go on? Mayhap another day or two. I had to find the exit before that.

  Sitting in the dark, I said a heartfelt prayer to the spirits, then I pushed to my feet again. I had gone hungry many times in the past. I could walk with a cramping stomach. I would just have to stop to rest more often.

  I walked what seemed like half a day when a dim light appeared ahead, a shuffling sound reaching my ears.

  “Tera?” a familiar voice asked.

  My heart leapt. “Batumar?” I ran toward the large shadow in the middle of the tunnel. “Thank the spirits! How did you find me?”

  “Hurry.” Without waiting for me to reach him, he turned and rushed back the way he had come.

  I had to run to keep up with him.

  When he turned, then turned again, I followed behind. I followed even when my muscles tired, even when my lungs burned, until we reached a widening of the tunnel and came out into a great cavern, the ceiling so high, I could not see it.

  The ancient god’s temple.

  I froze to the spot as my gaze darted around, then darted back to Batumar. I forced my legs to move toward him. “Do not stop here! We must pass through as fast as we can!”

  He did not move but waited for me now. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself into his arms, but as I reached him, his shadow remained just that. A large shadow. The body in front of me had no substance.