Hers to Choose (24 page)

E
ric and Sophi rode side-by-side through the chill desert night. Overhead the velvet black sky held billions of stars with Verdantia’s two golden moons floating low on the horizon. Doral and
Primus
G’hed led with the Blue Daggers and the
Oshtesh
men following. The quiet creak of leather harness and the low cries of night creatures were the only breaks in the silence.

Sophi mov
ed effortlessly in time with her horse. In theory, the plan the men had laid out was straightforward. They all rode for the Narrows on the Plain of Vergaza. Sophi, Adonia and Maeve would continue on to the foothills of Nathar and join Mother Lyre. Doral. Eric and the rest of their company would hold off the merc party tracking them until High Lord DeTano arrived with reinforcements.
So why do I feel this awful foreboding? Our thirty-five are more than a match for their forty.

Eric moved his mount closer to
hers. “
Primus
G’hed has the eyes of a night prowler. We have been riding for hours. I have no idea where we are. Nothing looks familiar.”

“Hmm.” Sophi sighed. “He knows this land
—every crag, every dip. Look up there.” She pointed to large uprises in the landscape. “That is the entrance to the Narrows. Beyond is the road to
Sh’r Un Kree
. Beyond that are the foothills of Nathar.”

“So we part
here, my love.” Eric turned and held her gaze, his eyes telling her of fierce passion held in check. “What you said...about not fighting for you…” He shook his head. “The time wasn’t right. I will always fight to keep you.”

She
studied Eric’s face, imprinting each of his dear features in her memory.
I cannot shake this mounting apprehension of what is to come. Great Mother, protect them.
“Then you had better come back to me, Commander DeStroia. I have lost you once. I don’t want a life without you in it.”

His lips tipped in a lopsided smile.
“Sophi, here, I want you to have this.” He felt around in a deep pocket of his vest. His hand emerged, holding the amber
diamantorre.
Reaching across his horse, he offered it to her. “It will ease me greatly to know that should you be in darkness or cold, you have only to think of us and the light and warmth of our love will shine for you.”

Adonia will have a fi
t, but she’ll just have to deal with it.
Sophi tucked the
diaman crystal
away securely in an inner pocket of her robe. Its heavy weight would constantly remind her of the impossible joy of loving and being loved by Eric.

He dug in his vest again and pulled out a small, familiar parchment folded into a small square. “Here, for safekeeping, take the
cinnagin
, too.”

She took it from him and smiled weakly. “
I don’t like the implications of that.”

Doral and the
Primus
had reined in and waited for them.
Primus
G’hed’s low voice carried in the still night air. “Adonia, Maeve, join us, please.” The two women separated from the column of riders and drew up beside Sophi. “Adonia, you know the rock formation called the ‘Eye of Nathar’? It overlooks the entire Plain of Vergaza.” At her nod, he continued. “At the top of those heights, there is a small shelter. Hang a piece of cloth from the northeastern corner. Mother Lyre will see it and send someone for you. She checks every day.”

He turned to Sophi. “It is an easy ride across open
flats from here to the Eye. You should be there before morning.” He leaned over and gave her hug. “
Her
light go with you, child. Be safe.”

Doral rode up to her. “
Our great Mother guard you, sister. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Emotion closed her throat and Sophi just nodded.
She turned and looked at Eric. He had pulled back when Maeve and Adonia joined them. “Remember your promise,” she croaked.

Their eyes exchanged silent vows of love. He nodded and smiled. “I
’ll remember. Until tomorrow.”

Adonia nodded to
Sophi and Maeve and setting her heels to her horse, struck out. Sophi steeled herself to follow, choking on the thick fear closing her throat.
This extreme trepidation is not rational. Eric, Doral,
stepfather
—superb fighters—all of them.
And yet,
I am terrified I’ll never see them again.

* * *

The three men watched Sophi until she disappeared into the night. Eric turned to Doral and
Primus
G’hed. “So...now we wait for the mercenaries.”

The
Primus
nodded respectfully at Doral and Eric. “If you will follow me, there is an ideal location just ahead. The land formations will hide us from the mercenaries until they are past us.”

Doral smiled coldly. “Lead on.”

The
Primus
led them into a small pocket in the walls of the uprising rock. The group reformed around Doral, all eyes upon him. “Captain Rickard, send someone up into those rocks to watch for our ‘guests’. When the enemy rides through, we will surprise them from the rear. Eric, still as good with your throwing knives as I remember?”

Eric nodded. “
Yes.”
You yellow-haired bastard.
“I’m still better than you.” He laughed to himself at the slow arch of Doral’s eyebrow in response.

“
Can you take out one of those wolves?”

“
With a single blade.”
Damnation, I didn’t need to say that.
He sighed inwardly.

Doral’s challenging smile resembled that of the wolves
—nothing friendly about it. “Good. You and I will take care of the
Fell
wolves. We’ll see who has the cleanest kill.”

Shrugging, Eric smiled back. “You would think you’d get tired of losing.”

Doral choked out a bark of laughter. “We’ll see, Commander.”

Eric listened in as Doral,
Primus
G’hed and Captain Rickard firmed their strategies. After every possible eventuality had been discussed, they settled in to wait.

* * *

When the sun had risen enough to make the plains visible, Eric climbed into the heights of the rocks and strained through his glass to examine the northeastern corner of the Eye. Fierce gladness and relief pierced through him at the sight of a slight flutter of cloth.

“At least we know she is saf
e,” Doral murmured. He stood silently behind Eric, also using a glass to scour the face of the Eye.

Eric had a blade half-pulled from his belt. At seeing Doral, he slid it back home. “Shit,
you arrogant asshole. Give me some warning. I might have cut you.”

Without removing his eye from the
spyglass, Doral murmured, “Unlikely,” and then closed it with a snap. With a sarcastic snort, Eric started to move back down the rock, but Doral stopped with him a hand to his shoulder.

“Do you love my sister?”
Doral’s ice-blue stare speared him.

“More than life,
” he answered without thought.

A brilliant smile flashed across
Doral’s face. He held out his hand in an offer of partnership. “Then let’s get this done.”

Eric gripped
Doral’s hand in an acceptance of brotherhood and they descended the rocks to the waiting troop.

At mid-morning, a low
murmured hail from the lookout high above alerted Eric and his group to imminent battle. “Wolves. Two of them. Followed by horsemen. Haarb and Verdantians. I put their number at forty-two.”
And now it begins. Thank you, great Mother, at least Sophi is safe.

The Fell wolves stalked thro
ugh the narrows well in advance of the mounted humanoids and humans. Eric figured the fiends would pass a mere ten feet from where he and Doral lay in wait. Fortune favored them. The winds that swirled through the narrows carried their scent away from the wolves. The element of surprise would be total. The well-worn hilts of his stilettos pressed loosely into his palm. All he needed was a target to come within range. As the massive creatures prowled within striking distance, Doral whispered, “The wolf on the right is mine.”

Eric and Doral rose from their crouch and threw in one seamless move. Eric’s stiletto penetrated
his beast’s right eye and it sat back with a savage snarl before succumbing to death. It was enough to warn its companion who raised his head and fixed them in a cruel stare. Doral’s blade submerged deep into the second beast’s throat. As the massive wolf gathered itself to leap on them, silver flashed and a second blade sank into the mutant’s eye socket. It, too, collapsed to the ground writhing in its death throes.

Eric stealthily moved to the two creatures to recover the
three blades. He returned to where Doral waited and with a formal flourish, handed him his knife. “Bad luck it moved when it did.” Eric wiped the blood off his two stilettos and returned them to their sheaths.

A hawk’s scream from
Primus
G’hed signaled they were in position. Nodding at Doral, Eric silently gathered the Blue Daggers and rode deeper into the narrows. His group would attack from the front while Doral and
Primus
G’hed’s fighters attacked from the rear.

Unlike the last combat he had been in,
here the element of surprise belonged to his fighters. As the mercenary unit reached the narrows, Eric screamed, “Now!” and with the thunder of horses’ hooves and the
“schwing”
of steel on steel, battle was joined. It was the strangest conflict Eric could remember. As soon as the Blue Daggers hit the front of the mixed Haarb/Verdantian forces, the Verdantian mercs, led by the same captain Eric remembered from Sophi’s abduction, turned on the Haarb elements of their own band. Savagely wielding their swords against the same creatures they had rode in with, Verdantian mercs engaged Krakoll’s lizard men in furious conflict. The lizard men fought ferociously, but caught between Eric’s Blue Daggers and Doral with the
Oshtesh
, they were hopelessly surrounded and outnumbered.

Spurring his mount toward Eric,
Krakoll’s lizard captain charged with a primordial scream. Eric felt his horse stagger and go down on its knees as his enemy’s animal breasted him at full gallop broadside. He raised his sword arm in a futile effort to counter the brutal swipe of the lizard captain’s blade.

The moment
hung suspended in time. Eric’s horse was falling, falling, falling. The warty-skinned, gaping mouth of the Haarb hung open, spewing an eternal obscenity. His snake eyes narrowed forever with vicious satisfaction. His blade descended, descended, descended, in what would be a deadly blow. Eric raised his arm to block, knowing already the futility and whispered a prayer for Sophi.

The lizard captain
never completed his blow. Eric fell clear of his horse and rolled to escape the animal’s descending hindquarters. When he stopped rolling, he pushed up and an object hit solidly against his thigh—the severed head of the lizard captain, his vicious snarl still distorting his face. As Eric’s horse scrambled to its feet, Eric cast wildly around, blade at the ready. The Verdantian mercenary captain sat atop his horse an arm’s reach away and saluted Eric with a bloody sword.

“Ramsey DeKieran
,” Eric choked out. The man had changed greatly since Eric had last seen him—not for the better.

“
You!” DeKieran cocked his head. “Eric DeStroia,” he drawled. “Normally, the men I kill stay dead.” He shrugged, wheeled his horse and set spurs to its flanks. He pulled up sharply, sending the animal rearing skyward. When his horse’s forefeet hit the earth, he cantered back to Eric.

“The DeLorion woman?”
DeKieran demanded. “You have her somewhere safe?”

“She’s safe.” Eric answered.

“Good,” Ramsey grunted. “Krakoll’s forces march from Amboy Crater in the south and
Sh’r Un Kree
in the north. Over six hundred and fifty strong. He has a hard-on to capture that woman and he thinks to trap her here. There will be no quarter given. I’d get your men the hell out.”

DeKieran
spurred forward several hundred yards only to pull up again. He sat atop his fretting horse, staring into the wastelands.

Blue Daggers
swarmed Eric. “Are you all right, Commander? Who was that man? We’ll get him, sir.” Different voices rang out with a flurry of questions. Mounting his horse, Eric started after Ramsey and tossed a curt, “I’ll deal with him—alone,” over his shoulder.

Riding up alongside the mercenary, Eric
shared the sight that transfixed the captain—Haarb. Numbers exceeding three hundred spread out over the flats between the Narrows and the foothills of Nathar—Krakoll’s forces from
Sh’r Un Kree
.
Damnation they got here fast.
One hour of quick march would bring the Haarb forces into the Narrows. There was no retreat for the Verdantians and
Oshtesh
to the north. Eric returned Ram’s enigmatic stare.