Dragon Lord (34 page)

He studied her with a mixture of anger, reluctance, amusement, and grudging respect. “Do you know how to use it?”

Raina frowned at him. “Point and shoot, right?”

“You would not be able to bring yourself to kill, Raina. You are a woman. Women do not do these things.”

“I shoved a man off the damned cliff! Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, damn it! If anybody threatens my baby, I’ll blow his fucking head off and I can assure you I’ll sleep just fine!”

A slow grin curled his lips. “You are so ferocious, dearling!”

He chuckled when she glared at him, but finally pulled the weapon from his shoulder holster and instructed her on how to use it. “Just do not shoot me in the back. I do not like to have holes in my hide.”

Raina gave him an irritated look, but finally relented. “I’m fond of your hide, too.”

They were distracted by a sudden roar in the distance. Both of them stiffened and strained to hear what that roar of sound might mean.

“Pater-Draken!”

“The Emperor has fallen!”

“Long live Emperor Pater-Draken!”

Raina and Audric exchanged a look. “What are they saying?” Raina asked breathlessly.

Audric grinned suddenly. “We have defeated Emperor Jaelen! They are cheering Simon--our new Emperor!”

Raina smiled back at him, feeling her chest swell with pride, and at the same time a sickening sense of loss. He was Emperor. He’d won. And she’d lost. She swallowed against the nauseating pang. She’d never
had
. There had never been a chance of any other outcome. Even before she’d known exactly who and what Simon was, she’d known that he was a great man, not a man who could or would seriously consider having a woman like her as anything more than a mistress or temporary plaything. “That’s good, then. That’s what he wanted. I’m … so happy for him.”

Audric frowned, looked as if he meant to say something. Before he could, however, he heard a sound that diverted him. It was a moment more before it penetrated Raina’s misery and she realized it was the sound of pounding feet, heavy, as if it was many feet. Four men mounted on
naybsts
burst into view, bent low over their beasts’ heads and riding hell for leather.

Audric recognized the man in the lead before she did, calling out to him before she could gather her wits and stop him. In truth, he’d already called out before it dawned on her that he didn’t know, that she hadn’t told
him
.

“Haig! We are here!”

“No! Audric! Oh god! He’s the one that took me, that brought me here. He’s with that asshole, Jaelen.”

It was too much to hope they hadn’t heard, but then Haig might have spotted them anyway. He veered toward them without slowing the beast by much. Raina froze in abject terror, certain for several moments that the riders were bent on running them down. Before it had clicked in her mind that they couldn’t very well do that unless they were willing to flatten themselves on the rock face behind them, all four men pulled their beasts to a rearing, skidding halt and leapt from their saddles, pulling long, lethal looking swords from the sheathes strapped to their backs. Audric pulled his own, taking up a fighter’s stance.

Raina came out of her stupor, stared at Audric a moment, looked at the advancing men and then down at the weapon in her hand. Without giving it any actual thought, she pointed the thing at the first man that caught her eye and depressed the lever Audric had told her would make it fire. A beam of light shot from it, stunning Raina, who’d expected a deafening explosion of sound. It stunned the man it hit, too, knocking him into the air and backwards.

It stunned everyone, actually. Audric went rigid with shock. The three men still standing froze. Raina recovered first, firing at wild random as the men surged forward again at a hard, ground eating run.

“Raina!” Audric bellowed, grabbing blindly at her to either push her back, or stop her. “They have only swords!”

“Good thing, too!”

“It is dishonorable!”

“And I give a shit!”

Either her first shot was just blind luck, or her panic ruined her marksmanship, or the speed they were racing toward them combined with her poor hand/eye coordination made hitting any of them in a vital spot impossible. She managed to hit all three, but they kept coming--and the weapon stopped firing. Audric grabbed her blindly by the shoulder, and began dragging her toward his beast. She stumbled to follow him, wondering if he thought they could get on the thing and get away before the men reached them.

“Stay behind the
naybst
,” he ordered grimly.

Raina looked at his back in dismay, realizing he was trying to form a shield around her with his body and the beast’s--which might be a good plan if the beast didn’t decide to stomp her to death.

She screamed as Haig, teeth gritted, his eyes wild with fury, leapt at Audric and swung his blade. Audric caught the blow with the edge of his own blade. The loud clang of metal against metal nearly deafened her. The high pitched screech of the blades sawing against each other as Haig’s blade continued its downward arc made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

Clamping her hand over her mouth to keep from distracting Audric by screaming again, Raina danced behind him, trying to stay out of his way as he and Haig hammered at each other with the deadly things as if they were swinging clubs, not four foot long blades. The men with Haig didn’t seem to be worried about ‘honor’ or being dishonorable about ganging up on one man. They hobbled up behind Haig, watching for an opportunity to thrust at him. One of the men, spying her, tried to get between Audric and the beast. “
Hasar
!” Audric bellowed.

Clicking and snorting furiously, the beast promptly began to nod its head and bounce on its two hind legs, kicking out at the man with its two front legs and striking him on the knee with one cloven hoof. The man’s leg buckled. He staggered, caught his balance and swung and jabbed at the beast with his sword. The beast screamed as the blade sank into his chest and began to flail more frantically, rearing high enough to catch the man on the forehead with one hoof. The blow split his scalp and blood flowed from the man’s head, running like a river over his face. He staggered again, struck out blindly, missing the beast and nearly impaling Raina on the blade. Then he wobbled and both knees gave out.

In horror, Raina stared at the man as the beast stomped him over and over beneath his hooves until he was nothing but a ragged, bloody heap. Quivering all over, the beast finally stopped, wobbled unsteadily and went down on its knees. It struggled for several moments to rise again and finally dropped to the ground on top of the man.

Raina slammed back against the stone wall behind her as she tried to leap out of harm’s way when the beast collapsed. There was little room for maneuvering, though, with the two men pressing Audric back. She managed to avoid the bulk of the beast’s weight, but its body pinned her legs against the stone.

Audric was breathing as if he’d run ten miles, his breath hoarse, grating. Raina could hear his laboring breaths even above the almost constant ringing of three blades as he beat back first one and then another. Realizing any minute Audric was going to be backed against her and the beast, with no room to maneuver at all, that they would have him pinned, Raina looked around frantically for something, anything. She had the pistol in her hand still, she saw. Even if it hadn’t run out of ‘juice’, though, she was too close to all of the men to try to hit one without risking hitting Audric.

Anything
she did was liable to distract him. They didn’t have any options, though. Audric was going to trip over the beast. His legs were against it, she saw, and the two men were trying to press their advantage, trying to overbalance him.

She hurled the pistol at Haig’s head as he jerked sideways to dodge a blow Audric swung at him. The pistol caught him across the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t heavy, but he jerked instinctively and when he did, Audric’s blade caught him across the neck. His head tipped drunkenly to one side. Blood spurted from his jugular vein like a fountain.

Audric jerked his blade back in a backhanded swing toward the other man. The man leapt back, but the blade still sliced a gash across his sword arm and all the way across his chest. He staggered back and whirled to run.

Audric lunged at him, shoving his sword straight through the man’s back. The man screamed, flung an arm over his shoulder to claw at the sword between his shoulder blades and then dropped to his knees and fell forward.

Gasping hoarsely, Audric wrenched his blade free as the man fell, driving the tip of his sword against the stone and leaning on it. Shaking all over, hardly daring to believe they’d managed to fight off all of their attackers, Raina strained to free herself from the weight of the dead animal. “Audric?” she gasped shakily as she saw his knees wobble. She screamed as his knees gave way and he dropped to the ground, wavered a moment as the beast had and then pitched sideways.

Her fear for Audric gave her the strength to wrench free of the beast at last and she scrambled over to him, searching him frantically for wounds. Her hands came away from him sticky with blood, but she had no idea how much of it was his. “Audric?”

“Make … certain … they are … dead,” he gasped out in a weak, pained voice.

Sobbing uncontrollably, Raina grabbed his sword, dragging it behind her as she stumbled toward the man he’d just defeated. She didn’t know if he was still breathing or not. She didn’t care. He’d hurt Audric. He wasn’t going to be breathing when she was done with him! Screaming every foul thing she could think of to call the man, she lifted the sword as high as she could and hacked at him over and over until someone grabbed her and grabbed the sword, wrenching it from her hands.

Her chest heaving as much with her emotional outburst as with the effort of moving the heavy sword that was almost as long as she was tall, Raina looked up into Simon’s face without recognition for several moments.

“I believe this one is dead,” Simon said wryly.

Raina’s chin wobbled. “I think he killed Audric.”

The faint glint of amusement in Simon’s eyes died. Handing the sword blindly to the man who stood just beside and behind him, he released Raina and moved quickly toward Audric. Mopping at the tears streaming from her eyes, Raina followed him in a rush, dropping down and struggling to lift Audric’s head into her lap as Simon examined him quickly and turned his head to bellow for a medic.

Sensing Simon’s gaze, Raina lifted her head to look at him hopefully. “Is he …?”

Simon shook his head. “I do not know. He is alive.”

Raina uttered a choked sob and went back to stroking Audric’s face lovingly. “Stay with us, Audric. Someone’s coming. Just hold on for me, ok? Don’t you dare die on me Audric! I’ll never forgive you!”

In a daze of shock, Raina sat holding Audric’s head while two men came and worked over him. Finally, they brought a stretcher to move him. Raina followed as they lifted him and carried him away, hardly aware of what was going on around her, her entire focus on Audric, as if she could keep him breathing by staring at the slight rise and fall of his chest.

No one tried to stop her as she followed the men onto some kind of vehicle and settled beside the stretcher, taking Audric’s limp hand in hers and stroking it soothingly although he didn’t seem to be aware of her at all. The thing they were in moved. She felt the sense of floating, but only peripherally, and then it dropped and the door opened. A shiver skated down her spine when she saw they’d landed in the courtyard where she’d nearly died, but she shut her mind to that and followed the men as they went inside.

Someone took her arms and sat her firmly in a chair as Audric was carried into a room. When she looked up, she saw it was Simon. “You must rest,” he said firmly.

Raina swallowed with an effort. “Later … when I know Audric’s alright.”

His lips tightened. “You must think of the child. You are thin. You have not eaten. You have not rested.”

Raina looked down at her belly, stroking her hand over it as if to soothe the baby. “Alright.”

He stayed with her until she’d bathed and dressed in clothes someone had brought for her--a high-waisted gown sort of thing that buttoned up the front and was intended to be to be worn over loose, flowing trousers--made her eat some of the food that was brought, watched her until she had lain down on the bed and closed her eyes. He was gone when she woke. She had no idea how long she’d slept, a few minutes, or hours, but she got up and found her way back to the room where they’d taken Audric. He was still unconscious, or maybe, she thought hopefully, sleeping. He didn’t rouse when she dragged a chair close to the side of the bed and took his hand in hers, but his hand was warm in hers. His fingers squeezed hers ever so lightly. Comforted, Raina lay her cheek on the back of his hand and dozed off again.

A hand settling heavily on the back of her head roused her. Dopey with fatigue, Raina lifted her head with an effort and found Audric staring down her.

Relief so profound it made her tearful washed over her. “Hey, you,” she murmured shakily. Gathering his hand in both of hers as he dropped it weakly to the bed, she brushed her cheek along the back and kissed it. “How are you feeling?”

He sucked in a pained breath. “Alright.”

“Liar,” she accused without heat.

He managed a faint smile. “Surprised.”

“About what?” she asked curiously.

“That I am still alive.”

Raina’s chin trembled. She swallowed with an effort. “It was close. Don’t do that to me again!”

He smiled a little more easily that time. “You are a bossy wench,” he murmured.

“People keep telling me that.”

She hugged his hand and arm to her, studying him worriedly. He looked pale and weak. It was scary when he’d always been so strong and capable. She felt hopeful now that he’d wakened, but she knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. “You remember what you asked me just before you left?” she said after a moment, feeling her heart thunder erratically in her chest as she heard movement behind her and glanced around to see that Simon was hovering in the doorway.