“No. No. Don’t you see? They must know you’ve come . . . we’ve come. There’ll be another party of them in the side valley. I’m sure of it. And another atop the cliffs. Someone has betrayed you. They’re going to wipe you out.”
Blaise’s hard look made me feel unclothed. “You’re sure of this?”
“He is the Prince’s cousin. He will not be unprotected. We’ve got to warn your riders and get them away before the Derzhi close the trap. All of you are in terrible danger.”
“And you?” His voice penetrated my fear like a cold knife.
I had no need to lie. “Worse.” If Kiril saw me stealing Aleksander’s horses, I was a dead man.
With no more discussion we set off running, but were brought up short by an arrow narrowly missing Blaise’s back. I glimpsed another movement on the cliff top and threw myself atop the young man, slamming him to the stone underfoot. The shaft thwacked against the rock wall and fell on top of us. We rolled into the deepest shadows. “We need a bit of enchantment here,” I said, getting back to my feet and calling up a wind to swirl the rain and cloud. “Anything you can provide might be helpful.”
He pulled himself to sitting and gazed up at the cliff tops, sighing. “As you’ve seen, I have a somewhat limited set of skills.”
“Well you’d best figure out how to warn your riders, or they’re going to be dead. Weather spells are very difficult, and I can’t deflect arrows from fifty places at once. There’s nothing to burn, and I’ve never been good at large-scale illusions. My skills are somewhat specialized, too.”
He laughed and stood up, patting me on the shoulder. “Then, I suppose I’ve no choice but to answer one of your questions. Get down the rift as fast as you can. I’ll warn the others and take care of the archers.” And with a massive pulse of enchantment that sucked the warmth from the damp morning, Blaise folded his arms in upon himself and was instantly transformed. A large bird of golden brown streaked with white flew up from the stone floor of the passage and into the wind and cloud. I flattened my back to the stone and sank to sitting, gaping so hugely with astonishment, it’s a wonder I didn’t drown in the rain.
CHAPTER 14
Shapeshifting. As far as any Ezzarian knew, I was the only one of us ever to experience such a marvel—the mystery of my wings beyond the portal—and I had thought myself blessed, skilled, powerful, supremely fortunate to have stumbled across an enchantment of such magnificence. Yet in the moment of Blaise’s transformation, when I saw the exquisite harmony written on his face, I knew myself for a cripple. The revelation put my gift in true perspective for the first time, and the craving I had forced aside for so many years was now given such poignant substance that I believed I could never again suppress it.
My body felt like lead as I started down the gorge. I hugged the wall, moving steadily, but slowly, giving Blaise time to clear the way. No need to wonder anymore at how Blaise had opened a locked fortress or how he would dispose of the Derzhi archers atop the cliffs . . . landing so lightly behind the unsuspecting enemy, slamming a hand into the neck to lay him out. All I had to do was put another man’s face in place of my own. Oh, gods, I wanted it to be me . . .
From ahead of me came shouts and the squealing of horses.
Focus, fool. You’re caught in a trap between Aleksander and your child, and you’d best figure out how to get out of it. Since you can’t fly, you’d better run.
I raced down the gorge, heedless of any threat from above. Blaise’s brave farm boys and serving women would be no match for a planned assault of Derzhi warriors.
At the point where Farrol had set his ambush, the Makai Narrows opened into a wide, round grotto called the Makai Mouth. Very likely the place had once been a cave, for huge slabs of rock littered the ground, fallen from the erstwhile roof, and in the center of the grotto lay a wide and impossibly deep pool. Beyond the fallen stones and the pool, directly across the circular Mouth from the opening to the Narrows, was the way to the open world. Pillared stacks of stone made a gateway to the sloping treeless plain that stretched east along the foothills of the mountains toward the city of Parnifour, south and southwest over boundless leagues to Avenkhar and onward to the Azhaki desert and the Derzhi capital of Zhagad. To the left of the Narrows opening were the shadowed rock outcroppings where Blaise’s people lay in wait for the horse train, and it was in the small, dark side valley on the right that the Derzhi lay in wait for the outlaws.
As I reached the lower end of the Narrows, the outlaws, warned by Blaise, were scrambling madly for their horses. The Derzhi, well armed and well disciplined, had begun moving out of their hiding place through its narrow slot-like opening. They were not attacking. If so they would have taken the shorter way left around the pool, past the Narrows toward the black-clad young men and women. Instead, they were moving to their right around the pool, picking their way through the fallen stones, and heading straight for the gateway to the plains. Childishly simple. Cut off the escape route, then drive the outlaws back into the Narrows, right into Kiril’s arms.
But Blaise’s warning had given his people their chance—along with the rain and the constraints of the awkward geography. Because of the tight entry to the side valley, the Derzhi could bring their horses into the Makai Mouth only one at a time. And because of the fallen slabs and the wide pool, they could not take a direct line anywhere or form up ranks. And because the rain had put out their torches, they could not yet see Blaise standing in the gloom beyond the pool, sword drawn, the tall Suzaini woman and the two quiet Ezzarian youths at his side, ready to block the Derzhi passage while his people bolted for the open skies. There wasn’t much time. Kiril’s party would already be in the Narrows behind me. And once they saw him, it would take only moments for the Derzhi to ride over Blaise and shut off the escape.
I could wield no enchantment to hold Kiril back. Though my adversaries were not demons, my power was limited in the human realm. Anything I might do in the Narrows—pulling down rocks, crippling horses, flooding the gorge—would risk Kiril’s life and others. And there were too many combatants to distract with smaller things like blistering skin or the sensation of snakes in the boots. Even as I tore at my brain to decide what to do, the lead Derzhi caught sight of Blaise, yelled out a warning, and charged the young outlaw. I heard the clash of steel and the grunts of the men and the screaming fury of a wounded horse. No more thinking. Only one thing could I do better than any of them. I drew my sword and ran.
I smelled the sudden sweat and blood-roused horse even before I joined the combatants. The woman Jalleen was desperately trying to dodge a rearing warhorse while striking at its rider. She got in only one blow before her neck was severed. Her lovely, lithe body fell lifeless to the stone, soon trampled by the maddened horse.
“Get them out!” I screamed at Blaise, who was ducking underneath a slashing blade and cutting upward at a warrior’s leg. His sword sliced through empty air. “I’ll hold here.” I grabbed at a passing leg and hauled the attached body from its mount. Half a minute later, the Derzhi lay writhing and cursing, clutching a slashed thigh muscle that would no longer hold him upright.
The two Ezzarian boys were to my left, trying to protect Blaise’s back, but I was too busy chasing another Derzhi to see how they fared. I let loose a burst of billowing fire, an enchantment I had worked as I ran down the Narrows. It was only an illusion and so wouldn’t hold back the Derzhi for very long, but it distracted them enough that I could take care of another warrior. He was very determined and quite skilled. To get free, I had to kill him.
Stupid, stupid fool. What are you doing?
Blaise had pulled a Derzhi off of his horse and was holding his own, but he was too slow. The warrior would have him in moments. “Go,” I yelled again. “I’ll be right behind you.” I ducked and spun around, leaving a bloody streak on the warrior’s back. A bubbling scream from my left was one of the Ezzarian youths, watching his entrails spill from his slashed belly. I grabbed onto a gauntleted arm as it stretched a blade downward to finish the boy, and I dug in my boots to keep from being dragged, twisting the rider’s hand until he bellowed and bone snapped. His terrified mount pulled him out of my grasp, but I gave chase and hauled myself up behind him, hanging on for my life as the beast reared.
Growling in pain and fury, the warrior did his best to stick a long, curved dagger between my ribs and throw me off his mount. He seemed to have seven hands besides the one I had broken, and he didn’t seem to need any of them to control his horse. I would like to have ended it quickly, but somewhere in the sweaty, heart-pounding madness, it came to me that we were blocking the passage from the side valley. So I resisted the temptation to break the Derzhi’s neck, and instead I clung to his back and managed to force his dagger point into his horse’s flank, driving the poor beast into worse frenzy. I threw up another curtain of flame between us and the escaping outlaws, counting the time in my head—the brief eternity until I knew I’d better get off that horse or I was going to lose an eye or a hand or worse. Two more warriors had come in close and were waving swords at me. So I gave one last gouge to the rider’s belly, enough to loosen his grip, then I dropped to the ground, rolled away from the flailing hooves, and scrambled to my feet. Breathless, battered, and limping from an annoying slash in one thigh, I took off running, right through my fading wall of flame toward the gateway.
From the corner of my eye I saw the dark shapes of Kiril and his riders streaming from the Narrows. If only I could shape wings . . . There was no possibility I could outrun them. The stacked pillars were too far.
A spear glanced off a rock by my right shoulder, and I ducked and dodged lest the thrower have a friend with better aim. While I was dancing in circles, a rider from the Narrows’ party came up on my left. With a practiced move he slipped from the saddle, and while he landed lightly on his feet, his mount cut across my path and forced me into his arms. No one knew how to use horses in a fight like the Derzhi. I cast another fire burst to delay the rest of the party—it was difficult to be inventive in the midst of such a fight—and in a furious flurry of sword blows, I took the man down. He was a ferocious fighter, and only after I was standing over him, sword point at his throat, did a fading tendril of my enchanted fire drift over us to give me a good look at his face . . . and him a good look at mine. Kiril. I stepped back, withdrew my sword, and raised my arms in truce.
“Druya’s horns! Seyonne?”
So much for painted faces. His soldiers burst through the wall of fire, and I took off running with no hope at all of escape. But at the same moment a dark shape shot from the direction of the escape route. A mounted rider, arm outstretched . . . Blaise. I reached and jumped, and somehow he managed to haul me up without slowing, then we reversed course, racing outward through the opening . . . and into a nauseating blur of gray nothing.
When my eyes were next able to focus on any single object beyond the black-clad back of my rescuer, it was a dead tree—actually quite a number of them, the blighted remnants of a burned forest that spanned a rocky hollow. A few charred logs and skeletal chimneys told me that a village had burned with the trees . . . a hot fire and not too many months past, as there were only a few spiky weeds poking out of the blackened earth and rocks as yet. The mountain-scape around us held no similarity to the valley above the Narrows, and, in fact, the sun was shining, though I was still wet from the morning’s soaking.
Blaise threw his leg over the horse’s head and slid to the ground, while I sat gaping tiredly at the bleak little valley. “We’ll rest here for a little, then go home,” he said. “Is the leg bad?”
My ripped breeches were soaked with more than rain, and as soon as the pulse of battle faded, my leg was going to hurt like the devil. “It will heal,” I said, gulping the clean, dry air. “I just need to tie it up with something.” He offered me a hand down, but I waved it off and got myself off the horse. I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly. The plan had been stupid and ill conceived. Common thievery. Two of the outlaws—the laughing Jalleen and one of the shy Ezzarian boys—were dead. And I had killed at least one Derzhi . . . betrayed Aleksander’s trust . . . made myself an outlaw, with Kiril, of all the bloody damned honorable people in the world to witness it. All of it for nothing.
“You saved our lives. My own twice.” Blaise stood beside his horse. His companions were sitting silently on the charred earth, waiting. Several of the men and one of the women were clustered around the remaining Ezzarian boy, consoling him. The other youth, the one we’d left behind with his bowels spread all over the ground, had been this one’s brother.
I sat on a rock and cut away my breeches. One of the women offered me a roll of dry cloth as I was attempting to tie the wet rags into something long enough to bind the wound. I nodded to her in thanks and kept my eyes on my business, though I could feel Blaise watching.
“We could have done a great deal of good with the price of the horses,” he said.
“Enough to pay for the two you lost?” I knotted the bandage tightly around my thigh.
“They believed so.”
“They believed in you. You might give a little more thought as to how you spend such wealth.”
Only half of our exchange was expressed in words. I sensed how deeply he grieved for his lost companions. And he was trying his best to soothe my anger, though he could not have known the roots of it. I could not have explained the entirety of the tangled mess myself—only that I believed I had squandered something precious and irretrievable. But I didn’t think he would have much sympathy with the price I had paid, unless I found myself a slave again, which was the most pleasant of all the likely outcomes.