The Queen of Death

32

The wagon tipped hard to the left as Kandler wrenched the reins, forcing the horses to weave back and forth harder than even the twisting the path ahead demanded. If those three bandits were going to keep taking cheap shots at them, he refused to sit still and make it easy for them.

Burch’s crossbow twanged just as they came out of the turn, and the shifter cursed. “Wide and high,” he said back to Kandler. “You’re not making this easy on me.”

“You’re the better aim,” the justicar said. “You can handle it.”

“Your faith is inspiring.”

Burch ratcheted his crossbow back and slammed another bolt home. “When we’re about to hit a smooth patch, let me know.”

“How about a smooth-er patch?” Kandler didn’t see anything like level ground ahead, much less smooth.

“It’ll have to do.”

“I feel so useless,” Sallah said. The lady knight pulled her sword half out of its sheath.

“Put it away!” Kandler said. “It only gives them something to aim at.”

With a determined set to her chin, Sallah brought the blade free, and it burst into flames. “That doesn’t sound so useless to me,” she said.

She turned in her seat and stood on her knees, then she waved the burning sword at the soarwings as they dove nearer. The lizardmen atop the beasts had decided that they needed to get closer for a good throw. They couldn’t have too many more of those spears up there with them, Kandler told himself. From now on, they’d have to make each attack count.

“Get down!” Kandler said to Sallah.

He tried to reach out and grab her with his free hand, but she just shoved his attempt aside. Then the wagon reached another turn in the road, and he needed both hands on the reins again.

“That’s great,” Burch said. “Nothing like bait to bring them closer.”

“Who’s hunting whom here?” Kandler asked.

“I’ll let you know when this is over.”

The crossbow twanged again, and a horrible cry pierced the sky. Kandler glanced up and spotted a lizardman tumbling through the air, the soarwing above him now riderless.

“One down, two to go,” Burch said.

“Where’s Te’oma?” Kandler said.

“Run off again,” said Sallah. “As always. She’s not much for a fight.”

“She did save Monja,” Burch pointed out.

“How convenient that it took her away from the battle with the Stillborn.”

“Did you see the crest on that creature’s sash?” Burch said, pointing a clawed finger at the falling lizardman as he smashed into the swamp with a horrible smack. “It showed a boar’s head on a blue field.”

“Just like the one over Sliford’s door,” Kandler said. “Should have guessed.”

“We paid handsomely for our goods,” Sallah said, aghast. “How dare he?”

“If it works, he gets his stuff back, plus he gets to keep our gold,” Burch said. “Plus anything else we might have, like that pretty sword of yours. Even if he just sold the news about us to those lizardmen, it’s a good deal for him.”

“Damn,” Kandler said. “You just can’t trust a slimy merchant in a hotbed of iniquity anymore.”

“Are you mocking me?” Sallah asked.

“Never mock a lady with a burning sword.”

A spear thumped into the wagon behind Kandler, and Burch yelped. The justicar heard the sound of dripping fluids, but he couldn’t turn to look at that moment. “Burch!” he shouted. “You all right?”

“Those thin-tailed bastards busted open that cask of Brelish brandy!” the shifter said with a growl. “For that, they’re going to pay!”

Trapped in the wagon, Te’oma had felt like a bound chicken waiting for the axe to fall. Here, up in the air, she was safe and free—or so it seemed. So far, the lizardmen had ignored her for the laden wagon bouncing along the swamp road at top speed.

It only made sense. They were after the goods and the gold. If one of the travelers got away, they cared little. They could always track her down and kill her later at their leisure. The swamps, after all, were their home.

Te’oma considered soaring straight up at the flying lizards, but she knew that the great creatures would tear her apart. Even from this distance she could see that their long, sharp claws could shred her wings with a single swipe, leaving her to fall to her doom.

Instead, she let a thermal updraft from the swamp push her higher in the air. She flew in a long spiral of tight circles that brought her up, up, up, toward the sun as it poked out through a break in the clouds.

Should she do something to help the others? Perhaps just getting herself out of harm’s way was enough for now. Maybe she could go to the airship and rally the others to the wagon’s defense.

Then she saw the Phoenix moving toward her—toward the two remaining soarwings and their riders. The airship’s ring of fire blazed bright and strong, even in the direct sunlight. Te’oma wondered what the lizardmen would make of that sight.

She kept climbing higher and higher into the sheltering sky.

“What do I do?” Esprë said as she brought the ship to bear on the two soarwings. She, Xalt, and Monja had cheered when Burch’s bolt had knocked one of the lizardmen from the sky, but that joy had not lasted long.

“Ram them!” Monja said.

“That’s insane!” Esprë glanced around for Xalt to give her some moral support on this issue, but he had disappeared.

“Do you have a better idea?” the halfling asked. “I don’t think your dragonmark will work on them from here.”

Esprë stared at Monja for a moment, then set her jaw and reached out with her mind to push the airship forward at top speed. “All right,” she said. “They’ll never know what hit them.”

“You missed!” Sallah said to Burch after the shifter’s crossbow twanged again.

Kandler gritted his teeth as they charged over a low hill and down the other side. The horses were getting winded. He didn’t know how much more they could take of this.

The more tired the horses got, the more likely they would make a mistake. At this speed, if one of them stumbled and fell, it might take the whole wagon with it. While the supplies were replaceable, Kandler didn’t relish the thought of having to go back into Pitchwall and go through this all over again.

Also, they’d been relying on the gold that Sallah and other Knights of the Silver Flame had brought with them on their quest. Kandler didn’t know just how much of it was left, but he knew it couldn’t last forever.

“Think what you want,” Burch said. “Not every attack is meant to kill—not directly.”

“You’re hoping to knock them from the air with the whizzing sound the bolts make as they pass right by?”

“Something like that.”

Kandler spotted a clearing up ahead. It seemed like as good a place as any to make a stand. He couldn’t just drive the wagon straight up on to the airship. They’d have to put an end to the race sooner or later, and he preferred to do so on his own terms.

“I’m pulling in,” Kandler shouted. “Dive under the wagon to take cover. Make them come to us!”

“I’d like that,” Sallah said, still brandishing her sword at the two soarwings circling in the sky. “I’m tired of playing this game on their terms.”

Then a spear appeared in the back of one of the horses, stabbing straight through, and the beast went down.