Not by half, Derkh thought. He pictured the moment in the first battle when he had realized his side was losing men—conscripts melting away through the edges of the enemy ranks like an outgoing tide. Later he had been stunned to learn that, far from being hunted down and put to death, those men were never even pursued. What had happened to them all, he wondered?
Careful, Derkh.
He heard the words like a warning bell in his head, and he heard them, oddly enough, in Féolan’s voice. Yes, he thought. Let them think the Basin armies are formidable and bloodthirsty. Make them think twice about returning.
“They may be fewer,” he whispered. Such an effort it was, to talk against his swelling mouth and the blinding ache in his head. “But they are well equipped and well trained, to a man. They do not send peasants with cast-off swords to fight, but only true soldiers. And it seems,” he added, spinning off into fantasy, “that they have no fear, but love battle and take joy in their killing. None were spared.”
Too late he realized his mistake.
“Right. None were spared,” repeated Tarkhet, each word bitten off and spat out. “So then, my young
injured
son of the man who botched the invasion—how is it that you stand before me? Why is it
you
were spared?”
Tarkhet turned on his heel and strode over to the campfire. “He sold us out to save his skin,” he announced flatly. “It’s the only explanation.
“Roust, Sturgus.” Two men scrambled to their feet and stood to attention. Tarkhet jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward Derkh.
“Kill him.”
D
ARK GODS TAKE
the brute! Gabrielle’s stomach lurched as the heavy fist connected with Derkh’s slight body. She heard Féolan’s breath expelled in a curse behind her, felt his warning hand on her back. Steady. They were close enough to hear Derkh’s anguished groan—like when she first met him, she remembered, so determined not to cry aloud with the pain—but how were two to overpower ten?
They had picked up the trail in the early afternoon, not much more than an hour after taking leave of the
seskeesh.
There were three by then, for the female had left them while Gabrielle slept, and returned with berries, mushrooms and some sort of tuber piled onto a curl of birch bark for her mate. She had been followed by a gangly, nearly full-grown young male who kept a cautious distance between himself and the humans. Their parting had moved Gabrielle beyond words: the way the female had led her to the injured male, awake now and resting comfortably. They had each placed an open palm alongside Gabrielle’s face, the dark leathery
skin stretching from her chin to the part of her hair. Gazing at her with their strange deep eyes—two as amber as a cat’s, two the golden brown of brandy—they had spoken their thanks in guttural sounds she didn’t know but seemed to understand all the same. She had laid her own hands, in the same gesture, against their cheeks—downy soft, they were—and then returned to where Féolan waited. But the female had followed them, reached out to stroke Féolan’s shoulder, and when he turned in response, touched his face as well. The wonder in his eyes would be one of Gabrielle’s favorite memories, she knew.
Those eyes now were dark with anger, the flat gray of storm clouds, as they witnessed Derkh’s interrogation.
They had thought the trail they found must have been made by an outpost patrol, who just might have news of Derkh. “They weren’t Elves,” Féolan had said. “Our scouts don’t travel so many together, and in any case would not have torn up the earth so in their passing. I would not have thought it possible to leave such a clear path on this rocky ground.”
“Féolan,” Gabrielle interrupted. “If our soldiers found him, would they not take him for questioning?”
“Yes, quite possibly,” he had replied. “If so, he will at least have shelter and food.”
Gabrielle gasped as the next blow connected with Derkh’s temple. His head lolled; his face, already purple and swollen with contusions, bled freely from the nose and lip. “Féolan, we have to stop this!”
“We’d have a better chance of escaping with him if he can hold on till dusk,” Féolan whispered. “The man is vicious, but he has done no lasting harm yet.”
Gabrielle buried her head in her arms where she lay, forcing
back the whimpering protest in her throat. She could not bear to watch this until nightfall.
Suddenly Féolan grabbed the bow that lay beside him and leapt to his feet. “Gabrielle, take this knife.”
“What—?”
“We just ran out of time. Draw your sword as you go. Use it if you need to. Cut Derkh free and give him the knife. Then get out of here, however you can. If you linger, I swear I’ll kill you myself!” He was nocking in an arrow and sighting as he spoke.
S
O THAT’S IT
then, Derkh thought. Gabrielle might have saved herself the bother for all my life has been worth. The slow stride of the approaching soldiers measured out the distance between himself and his death. He tried to summon up the pride to meet it like a man.
A red star sprouted on Roust’s chest, and he staggered and fell. Scurgus turned to look and pitched to his knees, his sword clattering onto the rock, clutching at his throat. His hands flowed red, and Derkh made out the arrow bristling from below his jaw.
A voice spoke to him from behind the tree. It can’t be her, he thought wildly. But it was.
“I hope you can walk, Derkh, because I’m cutting these ropes. We have to move fast.”
He braced himself against the tree, pressing against it as his legs gave way, and managed to stagger to the far side before they buckled completely. Shouts sounded out now, and Féolan’s bow whistled. It must be Féolan, Derkh thought. Gabrielle was rubbing his legs furiously, working out the numbness.
“Take this,” she gasped, thrusting the knife handle toward him.
She stooped to sweep up her own sword, then clasped her free arm around his back, supporting his weight.
“Go!” Féolan shouted, and Derkh heard the unmistakable ring of a sword drawn against its sheath. Staggering like a couple of tavern drunks, he and Gabrielle lurched away.
F
ÉOLAN HAD MANAGED
to down just one more pursuer with his bow before their leader called his men back to take cover. Their opponents’ new strategy left him with little hope: they had divided into two groups and headed in opposite directions, obviously intending to circle wide and under cover and overtake their quarry from two sides at once.
Sprinting to Derkh’s unsupported side, Féolan grabbed the boy’s arm and urged him forward. Impossible to outrun men in prime condition, not with Derkh in the state he was. If it was dark they might lose them, but as it was...they would have to fight. But at all costs, they must avoid a two-pronged attack: Derkh and Gabrielle were no match for trained warriors.
Féolan’s bright eyes scanned the landscape as they struggled through the rough country. He heard the shouts of the men on each side of them, evenly flanking them now. Once they got a little ahead, they would move in. There had to be a place...
He had it. A narrow approach to a tall cliff face: a rockfall of boulders and rubble piled up on one side, a steep scramble of scree pitching down from the other. They would be trapped there, but at least the enemy would be forced to attack head-on. There was no time for anything better.
D
ERKH SHOOK FREE
of Gabrielle. “It’s okay, I’m better now. I can fight.” It was fight or die, as his father used to say, and now he
discovered the truth of another of Col’s sayings: need did, indeed, bring strength. He set his legs and found them surprisingly firm.
“Then you’d better take this,” Gabrielle said, handing over her sword. “You’re better trained in it than I.” She looked over at Féolan. “Should I take your bow?”
“Can you shoot it?”
The Greffaires were approaching openly now, Derkh noticed. Cautious, but confident. Who wouldn’t be, he thought dryly, with odds like these? He hefted the sword, getting to know its weight. Lighter than his own had been but beautifully balanced. Wrapping the hilt with the two-handed grip he had been taught, he felt his own confidence take hold. Gabrielle had saved him—again. He would die, and happily, to protect her now.
“I’m better with a bow than a sword. Rosalie gave me some pointers once,” Gabrielle replied. Back when archery was about targets, not lives, and I believed I would never deliberately harm another soul, she thought, and clambered onto a low shelf of rock behind them that would give her clear sight-lines.
“Keep it down until I say. Once you are aiming at them, they will have no choice but to charge.” Féolan’s hand was on his shoulder now. “Ready, Derkh?”
Derkh swallowed. “I’m ready. Féolan, Gabrielle—I have put you in danger. I am sorry.”
“We came of our own free will, Derkh—no blame to you. Now we must save each other.”
No time for more. The men were pounding toward them. The bow sang in Derkh’s ears, and one man checked mid-stride, clutching his shoulder. Then the rest were upon them, and Derkh was fighting for his life against his own people—for his life, and the lives of his friends.
O
NE
, even two or three, would have posed little problem. Powerful men though they were, the Greffaires could not match Féolan’s Elvish speed and agility in hand-to-hand combat. But seven...they were simply too many. Féolan could fend off several at a time, but it was devilish hard to strike a blow against one while defending against others. Gabrielle’s one bowshot must have struck the studded leather strapping across the man’s chest, for he had fallen back only briefly. Féolan had managed to put one attacker out of action with a slash through the middle and had ruined another’s sword-hand. It was not enough, and he knew it.
He stole another glance at Derkh and Gabrielle. They were holding their own, but he could feel Derkh’s fatigue. After what the boy had been through, his strength could not last long. Once the Greffaires had closed in, Gabrielle had given up the bow and was now doing what she could to aid Derkh with Féolan’s long-bladed knife.
They would die here, all three of them. Regret, as bitter as bile, filled him: to have brought Gabrielle on this fruitless journey. He parried, parried, the endless rain of blows. A clash of steel rang out beside him; he flashed a look to see Gabrielle’s knife blade raised high, braced against a sword-stroke destined for Derkh’s skull, saw Derkh take the opening and thrust. Good, lad! Féolan kicked at another Greffaire moving in on Derkh. It accomplished
only a momentary stagger, but it bought the time the boy needed. Gods, he deserved a better end than this. They all did.
The knife as it flew was no more than a flicker in his peripheral vision. Only Gabrielle’s cry told him what he had seen.
N
ONE OF THEM
noticed when Tarkhet fell back from the fray and pulled his knife. To Gabrielle it seemed rather that the blade burst from beneath her skin, some disastrous, inexplicable rupture of her own body. She had fallen back against the cliff face before she knew what was wrong with her. It was her hands, instinctively clutching at the hurt place, that discovered a knife hilt jutting from under her sternum. Tarkhet had thrown it at the exposed sweep of her body while she stretched up to block that last blow.
“I’m all right!” she yelled. Tried to yell. She wasn’t all right, she knew that already, but they mustn’t know it. All would be lost if they came to her now.
Appalling, how her fingers fluttered so uselessly at the blade, how deep and agonizing its bite. How the blood welled into her hands until they lay hidden in a slick pool.
Healer, see to thy own wounds
. Her old teacher Marcus’s words were commanding, but Gabrielle’s mind was too frightened and confused to obey. The noise of the fighting boomed and receded in her head. Pain clawed away her thoughts. Focus eluded her.
Gabrielle took a slow, painful breath and another, trying to clear the mist that was creeping into the corners of her vision. She groped for the healing light that had served her so often on behalf of others. She could not tell if she slipped into trance or oblivion, but she was beyond stopping it. Her eyes closed, and the roars and screams of battle faded away.
S
O IT WAS
that Gabrielle never witnessed the event that Derkh and Féolan could only speak of afterward in halting awestruck words.
Derkh and Féolan stood shoulder-to-shoulder against four men, black-hearted, thinking now only to exact a high price for their lives.
And then it was as if some raging storm flew in among them, a deafening wind that scattered men before it like so many leaves. Their assailants flew like rag dolls into the air, crashing down against boulder and scree. Only one was able to rise again to make his terrified escape.
Féolan’s firm hand restraining his sword-arm was all that stood between Derkh and panic. He did not know, afterward, if he would have tried to flee or attack. As it was, he stood paralyzed, beyond speech or rational thought.
“They are
seskeesh
, rare creatures of the high mountains,” muttered Féolan. “I do not know why they have come down so far, but they are friends.” The amber eyes that appraised him now did not strike Derkh as especially friendly, and alarm clamored in him as the larger of the huge beasts shouldered past and hunkered down beside Gabrielle. Féolan made no move to stop it (as if anyone could!) but followed to Gabrielle’s side. I forgot about her, Derkh thought, sick now with grief at the sight of her still form.
He watched Féolan feel the pulse in Gabrielle’s neck, smooth back her hair, kiss her white brow. Only when the giant creature laid a hairy finger on Féolan’s cheek did Derkh see that he was weeping. Féolan reached up, laid his hand on the shaggy wrist and spoke quietly in Elvish.
Making the strangest noise, a noise Derkh could only call
crooning
though deeper than any man’s voice, the
seskeesh
scooped up Gabrielle’s limp body as easily as Derkh would a baby and strode off.
“Let’s go,” said Féolan. “We’ll get her to shelter first, and then see if there’s anything I can do for her.” His voice was so tight that Derkh didn’t dare ask more. He did his best to master his shaking legs and followed.