War Maid's choice

Chapter Thirty-Six

Cassan Axehammer sat on a fallen tree at the top of a steep bank, trying not to fidget impatiently as his armsmen watered their horses from the chuckling stream at the foot of the slope. He begrudged the halt, and the tension within him was coiling ever tighter as they drew closer to the hunting lodge. Despite that, he could scarcely fault Stoneblade or Horsemaster. They’d made remarkably good time since he’d informed them of his “suspicions,” and they had a Sothoii’s eye for their horses. It would no more occur to them to arrive for a fight on blown, exhausted mounts than it would to leave their swords at home, and they were right, if not simply for the reasons they knew about. If all went well, they’d be riding after the fleeing assassins soon enough, and they’d need horses capable of overhauling them.

Not that recognizing that made it any easier for Cassan to sit, waiting. His normal chessmaster’s patience had deserted him, and he needed to be doing something, moving forward now that the moment of decision had arrived. He’d managed not to snap off anyone’s head, but his armsmen knew him well enough to give him space and privacy. They worked steadily and quickly with the horses, and he flipped bits of dead bark moodily into the water while he waited.

“Milord Baron.”

Cassan stiffened and his head whipped up. There was no one to be seen, however, and his eyes widened as they darted around, searching for the speaker. He knew that voice, but how-?

“Down here, Milord.”

The voice was tiny, yet sharp, peremptory, and Cassan’s looked down, then paled as he saw the perfectly ordinary looking gray squirrel sitting upright on the leaves, an acorn clasped in its forepaws while it gazed up at him with a fixed, unblinking stare. A chill of sheer terror went through him, and he put his palms on his treetrunk seat and started to shove himself upright.

“ Don’t! ” the voice snapped with a commanding edge, and this time it came unmistakably from the squirrel. The baron froze, and the squirrel dropped the acorn and flirted its tail.

“Better,” it said, and Cassan swallowed hard as he recognized Master Talthar’s voice coming from the small creature. It was suddenly hard to breathe, and perspiration beaded his brow as he stared at the confirmation of the truth about his fellow conspirator he’d so carefully avoided acknowledging to himself for so many years.

“Yes,” the squirrel said with Talthar’s voice, “I’m a wizard. Of course I am! And you’re a traitor. Would you like me to confirm that for your enemies?”

Cassan looked around, eyes darting frantically towards his armsmen, and the squirrel snorted.

“You’re the only one who can hear me…so far,” it told him. “I can always broaden the focus of the spell, if you want, though.”

The baron shook his head almost spastically, and the squirrel cocked its head as it gazed up at him.

“Frankly, I would have preferred to let you remain in blissful ignorance, since we both want the same thing in the end, anyway,” it said. “Unfortunately, we have a problem. The King’s armsmen realized Arthnar’s men were coming. They managed to hold off the initial attack and inflicted heavy losses on them. Half of Swordshank’s men are down, as well, but I’d say the odds are at least even that your ‘allies’ aren’t going to be attacking again anytime soon. I could be wrong about that, but what should matter to you is that a dozen or so of them have been captured, including at least one of their officers. And contrary to what you may have believed,” the wizard’s biting irony came through the squirrel’s voice perfectly, “they think you’re the one who hired them. Which is true enough, in a way, isn’t it?”

Cassan turned even paler as he remembered his conversation with Horsemaster and realized the pretext for massacre he’d invented had become a reality after all.

“Understand me, Milord,” the squirrel told him. “I want you to succeed, and if you do, I’ll be delighted to continue to support you as effectively-and discreetly-as I always have. But for you to do that, you’d better get a move on.”

“Well, that was almost worth it,” Varnaythus said, sitting back in his hidden chamber with a sour expression. He’d released his link to the squirrel, which had promptly scurried off into the forest once more, but the wizard’s gramerhain showed him Cassan’s expression quite clearly, and it was still nearly as stunned as it had been when the “squirrel” first spoke to him. “I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”

“Are you sure that was a good idea?” Sahrdohr asked in a careful tone, looking up from his own stone, where he’d been monitoring the advance of Tiranal’s army across the Ghoul Moor. Too much was coming together too quickly for either of them to keep an eye on everything, and the fact that they’d planned it that way made things no less hectic. Now he met his superior’s gaze, and Varnaythus shrugged.

“No,” he acknowledged. “I don’t see how it could hurt, though, and it should at least keep him from changing his mind at the last moment.”

Sahrdohr frowned thoughtfully, but then, slowly, he nodded.

“It does rather burn his bridges for him, doesn’t it?”

“More to the point, it makes sure he knows his bridges are burned. Now he can’t even pretend he doesn’t know he’s been cooperating with wizards. Any real interogation by one of Markhos’ magi will prove that, and that’s just as much high treason as regicide, as far as the Sothoii are concerned. There’s no way back for him unless he succeeds, and a man like Cassan will figure that if he does succeed he’ll be able to find a way to be rid of us eventually. That should stiffen his spine.”

“I noticed that you didn’t mention anything to him about what Tellian and Hathan did to Traram’s men.”

“No, I didn’t, did I?” Varnaythus smiled nastily, then shrugged. “On the other hand, they ought to be less of a problem for him. The two of them may have ridden Traram’s mercenaries into the ground, but his armsmen know how to fight wind riders. Especially when they have lances and the wind riders don’t…not to mention outnumbering them a couple of hundred to one! Under those circumstances, I’m not that worried about even his ability to deal with them.”

He shrugged again, and Sahrdohr nodded again.

“You didn’t mention Trisu or the war maids, either,” he pointed out.

“Of course not.” Varnaythus snorted. “Why cloud the issue for him? It’s unlikely the threat of them would turn him back at this point, but it might. Besides, it’s not as if we really want him to get away with this. We need at least some of Trisu’s armsmen to escape with word of Cassan’s treachery if we’re going to touch off a proper civil war.”

“And if they get there before he’s had time to kill Markhos?” Sahrdohr asked. The war maids and armsmen from Kalatha and Thalar Keep had faced a far shorter journey than Cassan, and they’d ridden hard enough to cut their arrival time shorter than he’d originally estimated.

“That could be unfortunate,” Varnaythus conceded, “but there aren’t enough of them to stop him. And if it looks as if they might, there’s always the kairsalhain, isn’t there?”

Erkan Traram looked at what was left of his company and managed somehow not to curse out loud.

It wasn’t easy.

At least I’m not going to have to worry about having enough horses for the final run to the river, he thought savagely. Fiendark take those damned wind riders!

“I make it seventy-three, Sir.” Sergeant Selmar’s voice was flat, and Traram winced.

That was even worse than he’d been afraid it would be. He’d expected to take significant losses to Markhos’ guardsmen getting over the wall, but his employer hadn’t mentioned any wind riders in full plate! In fact, he thought sulfurically, he’d been specifically told that any wind riders who might be present would be courtiers who would never be so gauche as to bring armor on a hunting trip with their King.

And this is what I get for trusting someone else’s information about something like that. Even assuming the bastard told me the truth- as far as he knew it, anyway-I should’ve planned from the perspective that he might just be wrong.

His teeth grated as he considered Selmar’s numbers. No wonder even the tough-minded noncom sounded half-stunned. If they were down to only seventy-three effectives, then he’d lost over a hundred and seventy in that murderous exchange.

And I’ll bet those frigging wind riders took down half of them all by themselves.

He glowered down at the bloodstained bandage around his left forearm. He was lucky the pileheaded arrow had punched a neat, round hole through the meat and muscle without hitting bone. A broadheaded arrow would have shredded the limb, but his surgeon had cut the shaft of the one which had actually hit him and drawn it the rest of the way through the wound. It hurt like Phrobus, but it was unlikely to cripple him, and at least he was right-handed. He could still fight…unlike entirely too many of the men he’d brought north with him.

“All right, Guran,” he growled finally. “Get them organized into two platoons.”

The sergeant looked at him wordlessly for a moment, then drew a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and nodded.

“Aye, Sir,” he said, and Traram turned to Somar Larark, who was no longer simply his senior lieutenant but the only one he still had.

“Well?”

“The best I can give you is a guess, Sir,” the lieutenant said. He shrugged. “Mursam’s estimate is probably the best.”

Traram nodded. Corporal Furkhan Mursam was as hard-bitten and experiencedas they came. He’d never been promoted above corporal because he found it difficult to remain sober in garrison, but he never drank in the field. Indeed, he seemed to get steadily more levelheaded and focused as the crap got deeper and deeper.

“He says he personally saw at least twenty and probably twenty-five of Markhos’ armsmen down, and maybe as many as a half-dozen of his damned ‘guests’ and their servants. That matches fairly well with what I’m getting from the others, although I’m inclined to think it may be a little overly optimistic, myself. And that doesn’t include the Phrobus-damned wind riders.”

Traram nodded again. Assuming the corporal’s estimate was correct, there couldn’t be more than a score of armsmen left, and he had fifteen of his surviving crossbowmen bellied down in the woods within fifty yards of the gate. The Sothoii had already lost two more armsmen they were in no position to spare discovering he had no intention of allowing them to close that gate. They’d declined to lose any more in the effort, which at least meant he wasn’t going to have to go across the wall if he tried a second attack.

If not for the wind riders, he wouldn’t have hesitated, and he’d have mounted the followup as quickly as possible, while the defenders had to be at least as disorganized as he was. Of course, if it hadn’t been for the damned wind riders, he wouldn’t have needed to launch a second attack, either. On the other hand, he knew about them now. They wouldn’t have the advantage of surprise the second time around, and he still outnumbered Markhos’ guardsmen by at least three-to-one. And for that matter, the wind riders’ presence made it even more urgent that he get in there and finish them off along with the rest of the hunting lodge’s occupants.

If he gave this operation up as a bad idea now, he rather doubted they’d simply decide to let him go. No, they’d do everything they could to lay him and his men by their heels, and it was distinctly possible they might figure out where he was headed. If they did, and chose not to ride directly after him, it was all too likely that something with a courser’s speed and endurance could reach the Spear at one of the riverside towns downstream from his rendezvous with the barges well before he could sail down the river past them. And if they managed that, it wouldn’t be difficult for the authorities to send boats to Nachfalas, his only way down the Escarpment from here, to wait for his arrival. Assuming, of course, that they didn’t have enough boats on hand to simply come after him in midstream themselves.

As long as those accursed coursers were in a position to do that, he couldn’t count on breaking contact and getting away clean. Even if he could, his employer was unlikely to be pleased. The assassination of a king was a serious matter, and if the mission failed, he might decide it was time to snip off any loose ends that could lead back to him. Traram had no desire to spend what remained of his life looking over his shoulder waiting for the dog brothers to catch up with him.

There are only two of them, Erkan, he reminded himself. Of course there was that third courser to worry about. But now that he knew it was there, and now that his crossbowmen could bring their own missile weapons to bear through the open gate, the enormous chestnut was simply one more unarmored horse. It was the other two coursers and that heavy barding of theirs. If he could just come up with a way to take them out of action, or at least find a way to get close enough to hamstring them without getting trampled into red mud first…

He paused, eyes narrowing suddenly, then stooped and picked up a handful of the forest’s deep leaf mold. He looked at it for a moment, then closed his fist and listened to the dry leaves crackle as he crushed them, and he smiled.

Leeana looked up as Dathgar and Gayrfressa arrived almost simultaneously at the veranda rail while Sir Jerhas Macebearer tied off the bandage on her gashed ribs.

The cut wasn’t especially deep, although it had bled freely, but she was grateful for the dressing. She was also more than a little surprised the Prime Councilor had insisted on personally assisting her with it.

Not that there weren’t more than enough wounded to keep everyone else with any healing skill busy, she reflected grimly, listening to the moans of the wounded and dying men littered across the courtyard. She gazed at that carpet of writhing bodies-and the ones which would never writhe again-and knew her childhood memories of Chergor would never be the same.

“Leeana?” Her father had raised the visor of his helmet and his voice was sharp with the same concern she felt welling out of Gayrfressa.

Macebearer glanced up over his shoulder.

“Your daughter’s going to be fine, Tellian,” he said, and Leeana’s eyebrows rose as he called her that.

“It’s more than a scratch, but it’s also shallow and clean,” the Prime Councilor continued as she lowered the bloodied shirt she’d raised to let him get at the wound. “We’ve both seen people take far worse in their first fight, at any rate.” His lips twitched in something midway between a smile and a grimace. “And we’re lucky she was here to take it; without her, they would’ve carried the veranda and gotten to the King after all. It hurts my pride to admit it, but she’s not just better with a blade than I am now. I’m afraid she’s better than I ever was. And”-the fleeting almost-smile disappeared and his voice went harder-“the number of these bastards the two of you killed between you should convince just about anyone that you weren’t the one behind the attack.”

“I hope you don’t expect some of them to admit that,” Tellian said, never looking away from Leeana.

“Probably not,” the Prime Councilor replied, standing back and leaning against one of the veranda’s supports while he watched Leeana tuck her shirt back in. “It’s a point I intend to make, however, since your daughter’s warning-not to mention her sword skill-means I’ll be around to make it.”

“That’s the second time you’ve called her my daughter,” Tellian observed, and Macebearer shrugged.

“Did you think I thought you’d stopped loving her just because she become a war maid? I’m sure it would shock any number of our lords warden to hear me say it, but at the moment I don’t really care very much.” He snorted a sudden chuckle. “No doubt I’ll get over it in the fullness of time, but at least for the moment, I think it’s more important for her to be who the two of you think she is than who the law says she is.”

Tellian looked at him for a long, still moment, then nodded and looked back at his daughter. She saw the worry in his eyes, the darkness deep within them as he tried to keep them from clinging to the blood on her shirt and the stain where it had run down over her breeches.

“Are you really all right, love?” he asked in a much gentler tone, and she knew he was asking about far more than a cut.

“As close to it as anyone could be,” she told him honestly.

She looked down at her right hand, wondering why it wasn’t quivering the way it felt it ought to be, thinking about how many of those dead and dying men in the courtyard had been put there by that very hand, and tried to understand her own feelings. She didn’t-not really-and if she didn’t understand them herself, how was she supposed to explain them to him? She thought about that for a moment, then looked back up at him.

“I’ll be all right, anyway,” she said. “That’s probably the best anyone can say after his-or her — first fight, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

She’d never heard her father sound quite like that, and a deep, heart-melting surge of love went through her as their eyes met. She was his daughter, and the daughters of Sothoii nobles were supposed to be protected, cherished-kept safe. He’d never in his worst nightmare expected to see his daughter, the treasure of his heart, whirling through a cauldron of blood, screams, and shearing steel. And yet, despite the terror he must have felt, despite the bone-deep training which insisted in his heart of hearts, whatever his mind might tell him, that women-and especially his daughter — had no business shedding their blood, or anyone else’s, he was fighting so hard to keep that dread, that fear, from showing. He was failing, but that only made her love him even more for trying.

“Sir Jerhas is right,” Tellian continued, looking at the bodies sprawled on and about the veranda. “Without your warning, they would’ve overrun us before we even knew they were here, and that doesn’t even count this.” He gestured briefly at the bodies. “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t think we’ll be discussing this in any great detail with your mother, and at the moment I find myself really wishing you’d never become a war maid, but”-he looked straight into her eyes-“I’m proud of you.”

“I had good teachers,” Leeana said.

“I’m sure you did. But I’ve just decided what to give you and Bahzell for a wedding present.” Leeana cocked her head, and he snorted harshly. “If you’re going to be a wind rider, you need the armor to go with it, and I happen to have friends in Dwarvenhame. I’m sure they can help us out with that.”

‹ And the sooner the better,› Gayrfressa agreed tartly. The bloodsoaked mare glared at her chosen rider. ‹ Two-foots! And you were worried about me?!›

‹ Of course I was,› Leeana replied silently, reaching up to stroke the courser’s neck as Gayrfressa leaned closer, touching her nose to her chest and blowing heavily. ‹ You’re a bigger target than I am.›

‹ Oh, really? And which one of us came through without a scratch? ›

Leeana laughed just a bit shakily and turned back to Macebearer.

“I appreciate the bandage, Sir Jerhas. I only hope you didn’t shock the rest of the King’s gentlemen too severely.”

“I’m sure some of them will be suitably horrified later,” the Prime Councilor said dryly. “For now, I doubt somehow anyone’s likely to make any…inappropriate remarks. And as for the propriety of it,” his blue eyes twinkled suddenly as they cut briefly to Tellian’s face, “my younger daughter is at least ten years your senior, young lady. I believe I can put a bandage on your ribs without being overwhelmed by lust.”

Leeana blinked at him. For a moment, she was certain she’d imagined his last sentence, but those blue eyes gleamed, and she heard something shockingly like a crack of laughter from her father’s direction as the Prime Councilor stroked his luxurious mustache and returned her goggle-eyed look with a bland smile.

“I see you have hidden depths, Milord,” she told him finally, and he chuckled. But then he sobered and shook his head.

“I won’t pretend I suddenly approve of the entire notion of war maids,” he said, “because I don’t. But without you, my King would be dead. Whatever I think of the choices you’ve made, nothing can erase that debt.”

“No, it can’t,” another voice said, and Leeana turned quickly as King Markhos stepped out onto the veranda.

The King looked around the body-littered courtyard, his expression hard, and anger smoked in his eyes. Anger made even worse, Leeana realized, because he’d been denied the right to strike a single blow in his own defense.

She doubted Swordshank could have enforced that edict if Markhos had brought along his own armor. It had been difficult enough as it was, yet the King had been forced to acknowledge the overriding logic of his personal armsman’s argument. If he fell, their attackers won, whatever their losses; if he lived, then his guardsmen won, even if not one of them survived. He owed it to those guardsmen-and especially to the ones who were certain to fall in his defense-to live. To make their sacrifice count. And so while every instinct cried out to join the battle, he’d made himself accept the far harder task of waiting at the center of his defenders’ ring of swords while they died to protect him.

“I can think of very few men, noble or common, who have ever served the Crown as well as you have this day,” he said now, turning back to Leeana. He glanced up at her father, but his eyes came back to meet hers, and his voice was level. “And I can think of none at all who have ever served it better. I stand in your debt, and my house remembers its debts.”

Leeana flushed and shook her head quickly.

“Your Majesty, I’m scarcely the only-”

“Of course you aren’t,” he interrupted her, looking out over the courtyard once more, watching a half dozen of Swordshank’s surviving armsmen dragging wounded assassins out of the pile of dead and dying. His bodyguards’ expressions suggested those prisoners would soon be telling their captors everything they knew, and his eyes hardened with grim satisfaction as he continued speaking to Leeana.

“The Crown owes a debt to a great many people today, and I’m afraid it isn’t the sort anyone can truly pay. But I overheard at least a portion of your conversation, and Sir Jerhas is right. Without you and your wind sister, all of my armsmen would have fallen in my defense…and they would have fallen in vain. Your father”-the King’s expression didn’t even flicker as he called Baron Tellian that-“has always served me and the Kingdom well, yet there have been times, especially of late, when that service has threatened to turn the entire Kingdom topsy-turvy, as well. I suppose there’s no reason I should expect his daughter to be any different in that regard.”

Leeana opened her mouth. Then she closed it again, and Macebearer chuckled.

“I think-” he began, then broke off as Gayrfressa’s head snapped up. The mare wheeled, looking to the east, and her remaining ear went flat.

‹ Smoke! › she told Leeana, and green eyes widened as Leeana smelled the same scent through the courser’s nostrils.