With a bellow of rage, he flung himself straight at Jezzil.
It would have been child’s play to run him through, but Jezzil found he couldn’t do it, though he had no doubt that Barus would have shown no such restraint. Instead he stepped to the side and, as Barus went by, brought the guard of his sword down on Barus’s head, sending him crashing to the ground, stunned.
“I don’t want to kill you!” Jezzil burst out.
Barus struggled up onto his elbow, blinking. “Then you’re a fool as well as a coward,” he spat. Turning his head, he shouted, “Kill him!”
Jezzil flung his sword at the mass of riders, ducking as he did so— —and Cast.
He was so tired, so drained from all that had gone before, that it was hard to maintain the illusion, but, grunting with effort, he forced himself to hold the Cast.
A few steps brought him to Falar, and he swung up. She flung up her head and neighed in surprise.
She couldn’t see
me, either, just like the creature in the moat,
he thought. But his hand on the reins and his weight were familiar, and she obeyed him as usual.
“He’s a Caster!” Barus was screaming. “Aim for the horse! He’s on her! Shoot him!”
Jezzil hung low on Falar’s neck and drove his heels into her sides as he did so, turning her nearly at right angles to the trail. Having caught her breath, she leaped forward immediately, crashing through a thicket of low hanging branches. Jezzil flung up an arm to protect his eyes.
Musket fire filled the air. At any second Jezzil expected to feel Falar collapse beneath him, and he wished with all his being that he could extend the illusion to cover her, too.
But she was still moving, crashing through greenbriers and limbs. Bullets whined all around them, but so far none had struck her.
The moment he’d put a screen of greenery between them, Jezzil wrenched Falar’s head back toward the trail. He couldn’t run through the woods.
The moment Falar burst through the trees onto the trail, the Chonao soldiers began shooting again. They were still within musket range. A bullet slammed into a tree an arm’s length away, and one whined over Jezzil’s head, close enough that he felt its passage.
Quickly, still holding the Casting in his mind, Jezzil slipped off his saddle into a right side hang, leaving only his left knee and leg slung over the cantle, his arm thrown over Falar’s neck. Using the pressure of his arms as he would have used reins, he made the running mare weave back and forth along the trail. Bullets sang around him, but Jezzil knew only too well how difficult it was to hit a fast-running target.
We’re going to make it,
he thought.
We’re—
The bullet plowed into his thigh just above his knee and Jezzil cried out. The pain was searing, and he felt his left leg starting to go numb. Quickly, he pulled himself up and over so he could hang by his good right leg.
Waves of pain made it so difficult to hold the Casting.
Was he visible?
Just a few more seconds and we’ll be out of musket range.
Just a few more seconds
…
Gritting his teeth, Jezzil signaled Falar to keep swerving, clinging to her with all his strength. She responded gamely.
Musket fire slowed to a trickle. They were losing the range, and they knew it.
The shouts from his pursuers grew more distant.
With a grunt of effort, Jezzil pulled himself up onto Falar’s back, struggling to stay there. He couldn’t get his foot back into the stirrup—his leg seemed numb from the knee down.
He realized, with one part of his mind, that he’d lost the Casting.
Falar was slowing, her breath labored. White curds of foam covered her neck and shoulders. “No, keep going,”
Jezzil said. “Keep going!”
He slapped her with his free hand, and she stumbled, then picked up her pace.
Thunder boomed, so close it startled him. A drop of rain splatted against his face.
The only thing saving them was that they were heading mostly downhill. Jezzil held the laboring mare together with his hands, his body, talking to her. “Just a little farther. A few lengths more …”
He could still hear his pursuers as they swung around a curve and started down another long downslope.
Jezzil stared, incredulous for a long second, then raised his hands and sat back, bringing Falar to a staggering halt.
Before him, filling the trail, was a large contingent of Pelanese cavalry. A big white horse led the charge, its rider shouting encouragement, waving a sword as it urged its companions on.
Jezzil peered downhill. There was something very familiar about that yelling lunatic in the lead.
Just as he recognized Talis and Major q’Rindo, the storm
struck, bringing howling winds, booming thunder, and drenching rain.
The rain had slowed to a steady patter by the time Talis, leading Banner reached Ombal Pass again. Wearily, she reflected on the past hours. Jezzil had barely gasped out his warning when the glint of sword blades and the flash of musket fire announced the enemy’s presence.
Company Two had been heavily outnumbered, but the Chonao cavalry in the woods never stood a chance, caught as they were under the trees, unable to spread out into formation. The Pelanese troopers she’d led had kept them bottled up with ferocious sword-to-sword combat until the arrival of the rest of the battalion. At some point infantry reserves joined them, attacking with bayonets against an enemy that was mostly confined to the narrow forest trails, where mounted men could barely maneuver.
And then, suddenly, they were gone, the Chonao falling back in disorderly retreat.
The path she’d followed back from the foothill trails was a shortcut. The major had told her it would bring her out about even with the Pelanese front line. When she stepped out from behind the last screen of trees, Talis stood there for a long moment, staring in disbelief.
Someone had told her that the battle had ended several hours ago, with some Chonao throwing down their guns and surrendering and others simply taking to their heels, but she didn’t believe it until the evidence lay before her.
It was late afternoon, and clouds masked the sun, but Talis guessed it was only a few hours before sunset. Ombal Pass lay stretched out before her, its terrain so altered by what had gone on that day that it bore little resemblance to the grassy upland it had been in the morning. Bodies lay scattered everywhere, both human and equine. Cannon fire had scarred the land, leaving huge gashes in the earth, gashes that had now turned to mud. The grass was nearly gone, trampled by thousands of feet into a brownish-green slurry.
Still leading Banner, Talis began walking, picking her way over the wounded earth.
She saw medical teams running back and forth with stretchers, carrying men who screamed and babbled for their mothers, men who cried out in agony with every jounce.
Banner snorted the first time they stepped around a dead horse, but after five or six more, he no longer reacted, plodding after her, his wet white coat streaked with dirt, mud, and blood that was neither his own nor Talis’s.
When Talis at first stepped over a severed leg, still clad in its boot, she gulped, feeling the urge to retch, but after a few minutes she was numb to them.
For a moment she wondered about Eregard. Had he survived? Or had he been killed, like his father?
When she’d seen him up there on his horse, waving the Royal Standard, rallying his troops, she found it impossible to believe that they’d ever kissed, that his hand had touched her breast.
It never happened,
she reminded herself.
It will
never happen again, either.
The thought brought a dull pain she didn’t want to examine too closely.
As she plodded on, splashing through puddles, wet to the skin, hair unraveled from its neat braid and hanging in strings around her shoulders, she passed a contingent of Pelanese soldiers helping wounded comrades who could still walk off the field. She gave them a halfhearted wave, though the effort seemed too much to make.
Two of the officers stared, and then one did something odd. He saluted her. The other officer stared at him as they helped their wounded comrade along. “She’s not an officer,”
Talis heard him protest.
“Don’t you know who that is?” the captain who’d saluted said. “That’s her. The one called Talis, who led the charge up in the foothills. See, that’s old King Agivir’s horse she’s leading.”
How strange,
Talis thought as she plodded on.
They know
who I am?
She spent a moment wondering where Jezzil had gone.
He’d been wounded; she remembered that. But she didn’t
think it had been serious. By the time the fight with the Chonao cavalry was over, he’d disappeared.
By now she’d almost reached the infirmary tents. Soldiers sat huddled on the ground, some eating or drinking, others simply sitting, too exhausted to move. Under an overhang-ing boulder, a few were trying to kindle a fire, without much success.
I must see to Banner,
Talis thought.
A good rubdown and a
hot mash, then I can …
She shook her head, realizing she was too tired to even imagine what to do next. Wearily, she staggered on.
“Ouch,” Jezzil said. “That hurts.”
“Of course it does,” Khith said calmly. “I used up the last of my pain-numbing tisane to get the bullet out. It’s wearing off now, and I am still stitching.”
The former Chonao lay on a table in the infirmary tent, trying to ignore the screams, the stench, and the pain as his teacher tended to his wounded leg. He jerked involuntarily when Khith set another suture, and when Khith gazed at him reproachfully, he nodded. “Sorry. I promise I’ll be still.”
“You should not have walked on it,” Khith said. “That caused the surrounding flesh to tear.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” Jezzil said, then gritted his teeth, feeling the needle go in. He forced himself not to move. “Falar was almost dead on her feet. I knew I couldn’t help them in the fight, so once I was sure they were going to win, I started walking back to the pass. I had to take care of Falar.”
Khith made a small sound of exasperation as it tugged, then knotted. “There, that’s the last,” it said. “Now I’ll bandage it and check your arm.”
“The arm is nothing,” Jezzil said. “Barely a nick. I got one of the soldiers to bandage it.”
A nurse hurried up to the little Hthras. “Healer, we need you. There’s a case been brought in, a belly wound, a young lieutenant. None of the other doctors can treat it.”
Khith nodded wearily as it finished the bandaging. “I know. I will be there.” The Hthras looked at its apprentice.
“As soon as you have had time to rest, I will need you here. I am the only one who can use avundi to help the wounded, and I cannot be everywhere.”
Jezzil sighed. “I understand,” he said. “I just need some food.”
“And sleep,” Khith admonished. “You may put your breeches back on. I will see you at first light, Jezzil, and I will teach you so that you may help.”
“I’ll be here,” Jezzil said. “But, Master, where is Thia?
Back at the palace?”
“No, she is here, along with the Princess—or rather, the Queen, I suppose—helping in the infirmary.”
“Which tent?”
“I do not know, Jezzil.” Without further ado, Khith turned and followed the Pelanese nurse into the back of the tent.
Jezzil fastened his breeches and stood up, a little wobbly, but Khith had wrapped his leg well and it bore his weight.
He limped out of the infirmary tent, glad to be away from the stench.
Outside, he stepped over the guy lines holding up the tent and walked around a huge barrel crammed full of severed limbs. Flies buzzed so loudly they nearly drowned out the screaming.
Jezzil walked over to where several soldiers sat, passing a flask back and forth. A broken lance lay beside one of them.
“Mind if I borrow this?” Jezzil asked, picking it up.
The soldiers looked up at him. “They took it out of Garando’s chest,” the closest said. “That funny little doc, he saved him, they say.”
“Yes, Khith is very good,” Jezzil agreed absently. “I need to find a friend of mine. I could use something to lean on.”
“Sure, take it,” said the soldier.
Having the lance to lean on helped. Jezzil began limping from one infirmary tent to another. He would duck inside, scan the people there, and then, when he didn’t see Thia, leave. He did see Ulandra, wearing a plain black dress and a blood-splashed apron, but there was no sign of Thia.
His urgency grew. Jezzil’s rational mind told him that she was all right, she was fine, that he would see her soon, but he found himself unable to sit down, unable to stop searching.
He had to find her. He had to find her
now
.
And find her he did, in the sixth infirmary tent he tried. She was standing beside one of the doctors, helping to hold down a patient for an amputation. For a moment he just watched her, thinking that many men wouldn’t have had the courage to do what she was doing. The soldier, a woman, was screaming, high, piercing screams that made his own throat ache. It was a relief to all present when she finally passed out and lay silent.
The doctor continued sawing in relative peace.
Jezzil stood there quietly as Thia and the Pelanese surgeon finished their work, bound up the stump, then transferred the soldier to a cot.
Carrying the severed limb and a basin of bloody water, Thia ducked through the back entrance to the tent. Jezzil hastily backed up and made his way around it, avoiding the guy ropes, pushing himself faster. He had to see her.
By the time he reached the rear of the tent, she’d almost completed her gruesome task. The limb had been deposited into a barrel, and Thia had just finished dumping the bloody water into a stained hollow in the ground that had obviously served that purpose many times. She had her back to Jezzil, and as he moved toward her, she straightened, put a hand to the small of her back and stretched, making a weary little sound that tore at his heart.
“Thia?” Even though he hadn’t spoken loudly, his voice seemed to ring through the noisy camp.