Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (82 page)

Rhywder pulled up, circling his horse. Rainus and the others drew up about him. “You are not going to suggest we go in there,” said Rainus.

Rhywder started to shake his head, then paused. A chariot and rider came out of the forest, right out of the flame. The chariot horses were at breakneck gallop, the car was flying, bouncing off the road, and the rider—which looked to be a boy of about ten and six years—continued to crack his whip, gripping the rail with one hand. He glanced behind, over his shoulder. Rhywder then saw why—there were riders in pursuit, assassins, twenty or more, pressing down on the chariot, cloaks whipping like wings.

“Save that boy!” Rhywder screamed, launching his horse and drawing his sword. Rainus and the guards closed quickly at his flank, then fanned out to either side.

A javelin arched over the boy's shoulder and almost broached his horses. He cracked the whip again. One of the assassins was closing, the horse in a low, pressed thunder. The Unchurian leaned sideways, almost out of the saddle, and seized hold of the chariot rail. He leapt, but the boy with a scream had kicked him back, and the Unchurian went flying. His body hit and rolled, swept beneath the hooves of the other assassins.

The distance was closing. The boy had seen them now. “You there!” he screamed. “Daath! Help me!”

Rhywder screamed, drawing his sword, and his horse launched in a pressed gallop.

Rainus and the others were soon at his flank. The distance between them and the chariot was fast closing, but the assassins were also closing their gap.

Another javelin soared, and this one took out one of the chariot's horses, through its back. It twisted, going down. The car was flipped sideways, snapping the harness, and it rolled, spinning. Rhywder's horse had to leap, clearing the chariot.

The Daath slammed into the assassins at full gallop. They met each other with powerful, shattering blows of mace and sword. Armor and shield were split open. Both Unchurians and Daath dropped as the two ripped past each other. Rhywder's blade ripped through an assassin's stomach, then another's neck. He wrenched back on the reins, turning the horse sharply.

“Take them out!” Rhywder shouted to Rainus. “Every damned one of them!” He then spurred his horse toward the chariot. As the others circled for attack, two assassins had split off and were moving for the overturned car. From behind it, the youth who had been the driver was on his feet. He held a killing axe, a well-used killing axe that smelled of blood, and he waited, staring, cold-blooded and calm as the assassins rode him down. He whipped the axe in spinning arcs—he knew how to use it. With one stroke he killed a horse; with another he sheared off a leg at the hip. As the horse went down and the second assassin turned with his sword for a strike, his head was severed with a scream. The boy fought as a born slayer, like nothing Rhywder had seen.

At full gallop, Rhywder lifted a crossbow from his shoulder scabbard. He heard Rainus and the city guard locked in battle, weapons ringing. The youth now drew his sword and angled it, crouched and ready—yet another coming, but Rhywder took out the assassin from behind with the crossbow bolt. As the riderless horse passed the chariot, the boy sheathed his axe, then leapt, catching the saddle of an Unchurian mount with one hand to pull himself up. Mounted, he twisted the reins and waited for Rhywder.

“There is a child beneath this chariot!” the boy shouted. “He is still unharmed.”

“This is the child of Marcian's woman?” Rhywder asked. “You are the one sent to protect him; you should know!” “How would you know that?”

“I knew someone would be sent. I did not know who, but someone would come. Stay with him; I must find Adrea!”

He whipped the reins, setting his horse at a gallop straight for the burning forest.

“Boy!” Rhywder shouted, but the Galaglean didn't look back. Galagleans were blood-bred with head of solid bone.

Rhywder dropped out of the saddle and crouched, looking beneath the overturned car.

He was startled. A child wrapped in a blue blanket was watching back calmly—watching as though it knew his name, and the eyes were so alive, so quick, they sent a shiver across Rhywder's back.

Rainus and three of the Daath were riding slowly toward him. The battle had ended, and these were the survivors. Of the twenty city cohorts he had set out with, there were now only four left alive, and it was going to be a long road back.

Rhywder stood. Rainus was cut fairly bad, his cuirass was dented in at the stomach, and blood had washed over his thigh.

Rhywder looked to the forest. The boy had gone in, at full gallop, without hesitation.

“Ah, for the love of frogs,” Rhywder muttered. He pulled himself into the saddle. “Rainus, with your life and more, protect that child!”

“My lord! What child?”

“The one beneath that chariot.” Rhywder turned the reins. “And if this damn Galaglean gets me killed, head back for Ishmia and get that child to Eryian. The warlord will know who he is.”

Rhywder could not believe he was riding into death once more, but he was; the forest was melting all about him. To the left a huge limb crashed down, long streamers of white fire trailing. The heat was searing, and everywhere flame licked. The roadway was the only clear path, and he kept the horse in tight rein—it was going to bolt any second, eyes wide and terrified. He had not gone far in when he saw them. It looked like something out of madness; the boy was going face to face with a minion. The boy fought savagely, screaming, and it was only his fury keeping him alive, for the minion was far too powerful. Each blow of the minion's hand staggered the young Galaglean, but he had refused to drop.

Rhywder leveled the crossbow, coming at them full gallop. The minion looked up just as the bolt slammed into its head, between the eyes, cracking the bone armor. At this, the minion screamed, furious, hand in fists. The boy hurtled forward like a mad dog. The minion reached a hand to tear the bolt free only to have the boy's axe open its chest like a crab's, with a crack, vitals spilled. And the boy did not stop there; he took off a leg, as well, the axe was sharp; it sliced quick and sure of its path. The minion reeled, wings arched to keep from falling.

Rhywder leapt from the saddle as he passed, taking the beast's head in his arms to bring it down. Rhywder hit the ground, wrenching the head to the side, cracking the neck. He also heard a wing-bone snap. But the minion was still alive, still able to reach back and grope clawed fingers for Rhywder's throat. Rhywder's short sword was already clear, and now he hacked out the creature's neck. As the head lobbed to the side, the body started to thrash in spasms, and this close, kneeling over the beast, Rhywder saw a pale semblance of a man soar out of the chest cavity like smoke, to be sucked upward in the ascending heat.

A huge oak fell with a crash, and its limbs exploded with a roar, scattering debris in a fiery rain about Rhywder like bolts from heaven. He turned. The boy was standing near the two bodies. One was a girl, and beside her another boy who lay on his stomach with his head twisted about to stare skyward. The Galaglean knelt to close the boy's eyelids—ignoring the fury of the fires about them.

As Rhywder approached, the youth pulled off his cloak and used it to cover the girl. Rhywder saw her tunic had been cast aside, shredded. The boy's face was streaked with tears that left tracks through the soot.

“She's alive,” said the boy. “She is still alive. Help me, whoever you are; help me get her to safety!”

Rhywder glanced down. He wanted to tell the boy she was too close to death, she could not possibly survive, but he did not. The horses had fled—Rhywder couldn't blame them.

Rhywder moved the boy aside and knelt to take the girl by an arm and a leg. He hoisted her onto his shoulders. He had seen her face briefly, and it had struck him—she was the very image of Asteria. This was a Lochlain, a Lake Woman, most probably a Water Bearer. Marcian had told him truth; this was the last queen of the Daath. And the child … the child was the Angelslayer of Enoch's prophecy.

A limb crashed down, burying the hard-bone body of the minion.

“We will have to run for it!” Rhywder screamed, shifting the weight of the girl over his shoulders. He turned. “Boy!”

The boy paid Rhywder no mind as he risked his life to retrieve his axe, which was lodged in the hard-wood armor of the minion. The boy reaching right through the flame of the tree limb to seize the hilt and wrench it out of the minion's carcass.

Rhywder ran, with the girl over his shoulder. Rivers of fire were spilling through the trees. Living tendrils swept out of the sky to lick him, white-hot, but Rhywder kept running, dodging waves of heat just before they burst into roaring billows. He could hardly breathe; the smoke was not overwhelming—the flames were too alive here—but the air was choked in heat. Beside him, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy run through a rolling wall of fire that left the edges of his tunic and his hair trailing smoke.

S
atrina turned as a figure appeared in the doorway. She recognized him as the same that had bound her to the pillar, though his cloak and tunic were matted in dust and he wore no helm. His cuirass was gone, also, and his stomach and chest were wrapped in bandages. It was the captain of the city guard, Rainus.

Satrina had been taken to a house in the city, and she had been waiting the entire day for Rhywder. The waiting had been so long, had so eaten into her, that she could hardly react to Rainus, or to what he held in his arms. “My lady,” Rainus said quietly. “What do you want? Did you bring your rope?” “Your husband has sent me.” “Husband! Hah!” “Your master?” “In a pig's eye.”

“Whatever he be to you, my lady, he has asked me to bring you something.” Rainus strode in. Without his bronze helmet, silvered hair fell to his shoulders in thick curls. His face was blunt and ugly with thick lips. He extended the bundle toward her carefully. Satrina stared for a moment, then looked over the edge of the blanket. It was a child! With one finger she carefully lifted the blanket aside for a view. Smooth, unblemished skin—a faint tint of blue. This was a Daath, his hair black as night; a perfect, sleeping child, as beautiful as anything she had ever seen.

“He was nearly Unchurian plunder,” Rainus said. “I lost sixteen men for this child. I hope there was good reason.”

Rainus waited a moment, then urged Satrina to take the bundle. She tried to lift it one way, then decided on another, settled for a third—she had never held a baby. She stepped back, cradled it against her.

Rainus stepped to a round, oak table and laid a wineskin on it. “Milk,” he said. “I was told by a merchant on the docks that this was drawn from a mother's breast. Possibly a mother goat, but it will have to do until we can find a wet female.” He lowered his head slightly. “My lady.” He started to turn.

“But—what am I to do with a baby?”

“You are a woman; you had ought to know,” the captain said, stepping out the door.

Satrina hurried to the doorway. “What about Rhywder? Where is he?”

“In the service of his king, I would guess,” Rainus said, now striding down the cobblestone roadway. They were in a housing district of Ishmia, and the sea was close.

“But I want to see him!”

Rainus was too far away to answer. He rounded a corner out of sight. Satrina was not alone, however; a tall Daathan guard was left near the side of the villa. He kept his eyes outward even though Satrina stared at him a moment.

The streets were quiet, hushed. Word had reached them that Galaglea had fallen, burned. It was expected the enemy would reach the ford of the Ithen by morning, and lay siege to Ishmia soon thereafter. The Ishmians had relied for thirty years on the Daath; most of them were Daath, traders, tavern owners. But Ishmia was an unwalled, sprawling port city, and it had never drawn standing armies.

The whole day people had been steadily leaving, north, for Terith-Aire, and Ishmia had begun to look deserted.

Satrina stepped inside and closed the door. The cottage had a small room with simple furniture, a bed, a table. It was the cottage of a warrior, for the only personal items were two swords leaning against the wall in a corner and an old buckler that hung from the bedpost. Satrina sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at the child. A tiny fist was curled against one cheek. She carefully unwrapped the cloak. He wore a chitin of white cloth. “I suppose this is the best Rhywder can do, considering.”

She noticed a glimmer from one ankle. She lifted and turned the leg to read the etchings in the bronze torque. “Seraphon,” she whispered. But that name had resonance; it meant something—Burning One. She tingled. No ordinary child, this. She reached down and let a small fist curl about her finger. “Whose child are you, Seraphon?” When the child suddenly opened his eyes, Satrina gasped. She had never seen eyes like this. They took her breath and for a moment she swore she could see stars through them.