Shadows Return

CHAPTER 7 An Unexpected Shooting Party

ALEC WOKE SMILING the next morning, bathed in early sunlight and trapped under Seregil’s arm.

Seregil opened one eye. “Good morning.”

“Good morning yourself. Move off. You’re heavy.”

Seregil rolled onto his back and yawned. “We stink. Bath.”

Riagil found them there as they soaked, and introduced his young kinsman, Aryn. Alec covered himself as best he could with the sponge, blushing furiously. Both Gedre smiled and obligingly turned away a bit.

Seregil lounged at ease, uncaring as always, damn him.

“I mean to take the coastal route to Smuggler’s Pass,” Aryn told Seregil. “That’s the fastest route to Bôkthersa, though we may encounter some early snow in the pass.”

Seregil nodded. “Good. Give us time to dress and we’ll meet you in the courtyard.”

“Breakfast first,” Riagil insisted. “Yhali won’t forgive me if you don’t have a proper send-off. My apologies, Alec í Amasa, for disturbing you.”

Seregil held off until they were alone again, then threw a towel at Alec, laughing. “Tsk, such blushing! People will talk. Especially about that rather unfortunate mark I left there, under your left ear.”

Scowling darkly, Alec climbed from the tub, found a small mirror among the bath supplies, and examined the purpling love bite. “I hate it when you do that!”

“I don’t recall you-”

“Shut up!” Alec growled, fighting back a grin of his own as he wrapped himself in a towel.

“Well, at least we remembered to close the windows.” Seregil stood up from the tub, water streaming down his lean belly and thighs and dripping from the beginning of fresh arousal between his legs. He gave it an amused look, then glanced up at Alec. “It’s going to be a long ride to Bôkthersa.”

Laughing, Alec threw the dripping bath sponge at his head.

Aryn í Arisei and a small escort of Gedre horse traders joined them for the morning meal, and their hosts sent them on with a string of provision horses, letters of passage, and a packet for Adzriel.

They set out north along the arid, rocky coastline, heading for what the Gedre and Bôkthersans called Smuggler’s Pass. There were no farms here, just scattered fishing villages, and some goatherds. To the west, the jagged peaks of the Ashek range stretched into the distance like a great row of fangs for as far as the eye could see.

The Skalan soldiers were quiet at first, not knowing what to make of their unexpected companions, but the ’faie traders quickly won them over, practicing their Skalan on them, and acting as interpreters.

Traneus rode with Alec and the others at the front of the little column, and even he warmed up a bit, laughing at some long story Aryn was trying to tell him in broken Skalan.

Autumn had not yet taken hold along the coast. The trees still held their dusty leaves, and a few wildflowers still lingered on the wayside. Oxcarts laden with fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and cured meats rumbled past on their way to distant markets, interspersed with flocks of geese and sheep driven by children who smiled and waved to them.

“Smuggler’s Pass, eh?” asked Alec as they rode along. “I seem to recall you saying something about you and your uncle using that route.”

“On Traitor’s Moon nights.” Seregil smiled at the memory, and his hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. It had been a gift from that same uncle during their last visit, and the first Seregil had carried since Nysander’s death.

“I remember you from those days,” one of the older traders said, a man named Rien. “Your kinsman brought you out on the lantern boat to meet the Skalan traders.” He grinned at Alec. “He spoke better Skalan than any of us, even back then. It’s good to see you back here, Haba.”

Seregil winced a little at the old nickname, which meant “little black squirrel.”

Alec chuckled. “I thought only your sisters called you that.”

“My friends, as well,” Seregil admitted. “Don’t you go getting any ideas, though.”

“As you wish-Haba.”

They spent the first night in a fishing village, sleeping four to a bed in the crowded inn, and headed off again before the sun rose. Yawning, Alec ate his cold breakfast in the saddle.

Aryn led them west today, following a winding road up into the foothills. By midafternoon they reached the tree line, following a river that flowed down from the pass. From here, it was five days’ ride to Bôkthersa, in good weather.

The forest closed in around them, and the air grew noticeably cooler as the afternoon shadows slowly lengthened across the road. The riding was easy, the inn they were making for well within reach. The ’faie and Skalans talked and laughed, fast friends now.

“Your khirnari has lent us some fine horses, Aryn,” Traneus remarked, admiring the sprightly bay he’d been given. “Do you think he’d sell her to me when we get back?”

“Perhaps. You won’t find any better,” the young ’faie replied proudly. “They’re small, but they have spirit and-” He paused and consulted Seregil for the right word. “Aluia?”

“Endurance.”

“Yes, much endurance. Why would one ride any other?”

“In Skala, only the rich can afford them,” Alec explained, stroking the long silky white mane of his Silmai horse, admiring the way the mane and tail contrasted with her glossy black coat. Even here in Aurënen, they weren’t common, bred by only one clan. “This one is just like the one Princess Klia was buying, the first time I met her.” He noted the quick, sharp look Traneus shot him and feigned a mild look of surprise, thinking, I’m not ashamed to say her name in front of you, you bastard!

“I’m thinking of bringing a few horses back with me, too,” said Seregil, perhaps sensing the sudden tension between the two.

“Do you keep a large stable in the city?” asked Traneus.

“No, a friend and I have a breeding herd at his estate.”

“The war’s driven the price up. A few years’ worth of foaling will be worth-” Traneus broke off suddenly with a harsh gurgle, a black-fletched shaft protruding from his throat.

Shocked, it took Alec a few seconds to comprehend what had happened. Then the air was thick with the buzz and whine of flying arrows. Un-shouldering his bow even as he kicked free of the stirrups, he slid off his horse, looking for cover as he nocked a shaft on the linen bowstring. This stretch of road was wide and lonely, and the thick trees that lined it were good cover for their unseen attackers. Arrows seemed to be coming from all directions.

“Get down, all of you!” Seregil shouted. He jumped to the ground and dragged Aryn from the saddle. All around them, riders cried out in pain or alarm.

Alec knelt at Seregil’s side, using the enemy’s arrow flights to target the unseen archers.

“Where are they?” gasped Aryn.

“Everywhere!” Alec sent another shaft into the moving shadows between two trees. More of their escort were falling. Alec’s fine horse was bucking wildly, with an arrow in its glossy flank.

“But this is our fai’thast. Who would do this?” Aryn gasped.

“Doesn’t matter now,” Seregil told him, looking around sharply. “We’ve got to find cover.”

But there was nowhere to go. The enemy had somehow managed to surround them. As Alec watched helplessly, the rest of their small escort was cut down, Aurënfaie and Skalan alike.

“This way, and keep your head down,” Seregil hissed, grasping Alec and Aryn by the shoulders and propelling them toward the underbrush on their left.

They hadn’t gotten ten feet when Aryn staggered, clawing at an arrow that had pierced his upper thigh.

Seregil dragged him to the ground and covered the Gedre with his own body. “Alec, check the wound. Did it cut the artery?”

“Yes.” There was nothing they could do to save the man, and they both knew it. “We can’t stay here!”

“What would you suggest?” Seregil snapped as an arrow sang over his head and another narrowly missed Alec’s outstretched hand.

Then, unaccountably, the attack ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

Alec listened, but all he could hear were the cries of the wounded. Every member of their escort lay dead or dying. Aryn was dead. Seregil’s friend Rien lay faceup with three shafts protruding from his chest.

“It’s us they want,” Alec whispered, standing slowly, an arrow nocked ready. “The only way they could have missed hitting us was if they meant to.”

Seregil put his back to Alec’s, braced for the next attack. “Who are you? What do you want?”

There was no answer. Sweat trickled down between Alec’s shoulder blades as he waited for an arrow to find him.

“Show yourselves!” Seregil demanded, and was again answered with silence.

One of the Gedre riders pulled himself slowly to his feet, bleeding from a gut wound, and tried to reach them. An unseen archer put a shaft between his shoulders and he fell without a cry. Another man tried to drag himself to cover, only to be hit by two shafts that came from the opposite side of the road.

And still, not one shaft had hit either of them.

“They want us alive. If we can get into the woods, we might have a chance.”

“Left or right?” Alec whispered.

Seregil looked around. The forest was thick here, and there was no telling what lay beyond the road. He signed “left” and they broke into a run as they made for the trees.

They were within a few yards of cover when he heard a sharp clicking noise, like someone trying to strike a fire. Then the air in front of them thickened and turned black. Out of that blackness rushed two huge, hideously misshapen forms, each a misbegotten, misjointed parody of a man.

“Dra’gorgos!” Seregil cried, half in warning to Alec, half in shocked recognition. He’d run afoul of one before and hoped never to again.

He barely had time for the realization before the things were on them and the sun went out like a snuffed candle. Blind and disoriented, he seemed to feel a hundred hard, fetid hands clutching at him.

“Alec!” he yelled, striking out with his sword.

His blade hit something and exploded. There was no other word for it. For an instant he saw a flash like lightning. And perhaps it was, because the jolt of it sent a searing pain up his arm to the shoulder and slammed his teeth together so hard he bit the inside of his cheek.

“Alec!” Unseen arms were tightening around him like bands of iron, crushing the air from his lungs and reducing his voice to a hollow wheeze. “Alec, where are you?”

Lost in blackness and choking on the charnel stench, Seregil heard a distant scream.

Blind, chilled, and rapidly losing consciousness, Seregil tried to get to Korathan’s wands inside his coat, hoping that breaking them all at once would alert the prince that something had gone terribly wrong. But the monster’s grip was too tight. Desperate to leave some sign that would be recognized, he slipped Klia’s ring from his finger and let it fall, and with it a prayer that it be found by a friend.

Alec had just had time to drop his bow and draw his sword before the blackness bore down on him.

“Seregil!” he yelled, caught in darkness and the grip of the black nightmare. A dra’gorgos-or at least that’s what he thought he’d heard Seregil shout before the world went black. He tried to fight, but something hit his arm, numbing it except for a burning pain in his hand.

The hilt slipped from his fingers and his consciousness with it.