The Devil's Concubine (26 page)

marched to the field chosen for battle so much as they had stampeded in the general

direction of it, driven there by their commanders, and there had been no let up since to give the captains the opportunity to bring any real order to the battle.

It was melee in the truest sense of the word, a mad, fear and hate driven rampage

of hacking and slashing and firing wildly, only to have the chance to draw one more

breath.

As terrified as Aliya was, a fierce gladness stole over her as she saw that the army

of the man beasts had surprised the armies of her father and his allies, for even she could see that they were grossly outnumbered.

It took all she could do to keep from searching the sky for a glimpse of Talin.

Fear kept her eyes staring blindly straight ahead. Her father was in a rage such as she had never seen before, cursing steadily beneath his breath when he was not screaming orders at his couriers, who had already plowed a path from the hillside to the battle field

carrying orders back and forth at a frantic pace. He was enraged enough to have his

careful plans routed before he could even implement them. He was already furious to

have his ‘tainted’ daughter beside him as a constant reminder that Talin had humiliated him by snatching his greatest treasure from beneath his nose. She did not want to chance that he might think to use her to taunt Talin, to try to draw him to his death.

She had no idea how effective such a ruse might prove, or if Talin even knew that

she was no longer in the caverns. But she did not want to chance it, regardless.

She could not tell an appreciable difference in the fear clawing at her belly, or the nausea, but after a time she began to be less aware of it and more aware of her

discomfort. Her rump grew numb in the saddle. Her back and shoulders began to ache

from holding herself stiffly erect for so long. Her skin began to feel as if the sun would burn her flesh off as it moved slowly across the sky.

The orb had nearly reached its zenith when the bombardment ceased almost as

abruptly as it had begun. Before anyone could draw a breath of relief, the shrieks, cries and bellows issuing from hundreds of demon throats sent a new rash of fear crawling

over their skin and the ‘unholy’ army of the man beasts appeared on the crest of the

surrounding hills, charging down into the scattered, broken army of the man children.

The allied armies of man regrouped, forming a near solid mass in the center of the

valley.

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116

Aliya was nearly unseated as her reins were jerked and the entire party of which

she was a part, raced from the hill along a downward sloping crest, then up another.

Following the brow of the hills, they came at last upon one higher than the one they had occupied before, slightly more distant and there the kings took up watch again over their chess game.

Aliya flicked a glance at the stone faced warrior that held her reins. His gaze was

as fixated upon the battle below them as everyone else’s, but she could see he had the ends of her horse’s reins wrapped around one fist. As casually as she could, she surveyed the men around her.

She discovered that she was positioned near the center.

Disappointment and frustration washed over her.

Even if she could somehow manage to snatch the reins away from the man who

held them, she was still trapped.

With an effort, she forced herself to relax the tension in her shoulders, watching

the men around her now rather than the battle below, hoping an opening would come.

Slowly, the sun crawled across the sky and the tight little knot of men and horses eased as her father and his allies shifted positions to keep an eye on the fight as it turned in first one direction and then another.

Realizing after a while that the wild idea of snatching her reins free and fleeing

was not going to happen, Aliya finally shifted in her saddle and prepared to dismount.

“Stay put,” the man guarding her growled.

She gave him a cold look. “I have to relieve myself.”

She might as well have shouted it, for every man on the hillside turned to look at

her with varying degrees of suspicion. She glared them balefully. Finally, her father nodded at the man, jerking his chin toward an outcropping of rock.

Frustration rose in her again, but she did her best to contain it, to appear

unconcerned as the guard helped her down from the horse and walked her to the back

edge of the hill. “Stay where I can see you,” he growled when he finally released her arm and allowed her to move beyond the view of the others.

Ignoring him, she moved a little further away, glancing at the outcropping of rock

as if her only interest was in gaining privacy. When she glanced toward the guard again, she saw that he had closed the distance she was trying so hard to gain between them.

“
Must
you watch me piss?” she demanded indignantly.

Instead of looking either startled or shamed, as she had hoped, he leered at her. “I must.”

Grinding her teeth, she turned her back to him, adjusted her clothing and squatted,

raking her eyes along the ground in search of a rock. She spied one of a manageable size not far from where she’d settled. It was still just beyond reaching it without attracting his attention, unfortunately. Fluffing her skirts, she shifted a little closer, hoping she wouldn’t discover when she grasped the thing that it was not loose as she thought, but instead the protruding point of a larger rock.

Relief went through her when she grasped it. Rolling it beneath the edge of her

skirts, she made a great business out of adjusting her clothing once more and gripped the rock as she rose, tucking it beneath a fold in her gown.

She didn’t look at the guard, afraid that he would see her intent in her expression.

Instead, she watched her steps as he grasped her arm and led her back to her palfrey.

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When he released her arm and encircled her waist to lift her onto the horse’s back, she swung the rock at his head, planting it solidly along the side. As he released her and staggered back, she yanked her skirts to her knees and raced for the rocky hillside,

stumbling and nearly falling, righting herself. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her chest and ears it deafened her to pursuit, but the man had let out a curse when she struck him. She knew even if surprise had slowed their reaction, they would be after her in moments.

A dark shadow closed over her, distracting her as she clambered over a rock.

Glancing around, she saw three of the royal guards closing in on her rapidly. Gasping, she tried to run faster. The reckless speed cost her her footing. Stepping on a loose rock, she skidded, pin wheeled her arms trying to regain her balance and lost the battle,

pitching forward. Pain shot through her hands, arms and shoulders as she caught herself.

Before she could push herself upright again, a heavy weight landed on her legs.

Closing her hands around the mixture of loose soil and rocks beneath her palms,

she twisted, pitching the debris at the man’s face. In the sky above, she caught a glimpse of a great Golden Falcon. It was plummeting straight toward them and she knew

instantly that it must be Talin.

Horror filled her as she realized that she had lured him by her own actions into

just the trap she had feared her father would set. Wrestling frantically with the man that had managed to retain his grip on her in spite of the fact that she’d blinded him with the dirt, Aliya beat him on the head with her balled fist and finally began grabbing at rocks and pelting him with them. He lost his grip trying to shield his face from the rocks and she scrambled away.

She could see even as she managed to win free, though, that the other two guards

had stopped the moment they thought their comrade had her. One had no weapon and

had charged back toward the main group, but the other man had already placed a quiver in his cross bow and was cranking the string back frantically.

“No!” she screamed, whirling abruptly and charging back toward the man with

the bow.

The guard she’d just hammered with rocks was halfway up when she raced past

him. He made a grab for her and managed to grasp a handful of her skirts, jerking her to a halt before she could reach the one with bow. To her horror, she saw him taking aim.

Without stopping to consider, she bent down, grabbed a rock and hurled it at the man.

The ‘rock’ wasn’t a rock at all, but rather a hard clump of dirt and smaller rocks.

It exploded as it hit the man’s shoulder, startling him, spattering the side of his face and neck with tiny missiles. She screamed as his finger jerked the trigger and the bolt flew free, lifting her head to watch its path. Above them, she caught a glimpse of the falcon as he swerved abruptly.

Before she could be certain of whether or not he had managed to avoid the bolt,

she found herself surrounded by men and horses. She was jerked up and tossed across

her saddle on her belly, kicking and screaming as the entire party pelted down the

hillside. The first jolt that went through her as her mount leapt into a gallop knocked the wind from her lungs. Before she could think to try to slide off, or fall from her precarious perch, someone leaned down, curled fingers into the back of her gown and jerked her

from the bouncing back of the horse.

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Even as she struggled to catch her breath, she swung wildly at the man who was

trying to drag her onto the front of his saddle. He dragged her up in spite of her best efforts, finally grasping her hair painfully and pulling back on her head until she thought her neck would snap. Something cold and sharp dug into her throat, taking the fight out of her instantly.

Her gaze flew to the man’s face, and then upwards in search of Talin.

He wheeled in a tight circle overhead and abruptly shot away, shrinking in a

matter of moments to no more than a dot far up into the sky.

With an effort, she swallowed against the pressure on her throat, squeezing her

eyes closed at the sting. She thought for several moments that the man would follow

through with his threat and slice her throat. After an endless moment of time, though, the blade was slowly withdrawn.

Releasing his grip on her hair after a few moments, the man settled her more

firmly in his lap, gripped her waist tightly with one hand and the pommel with the other.

One of the other guards had grabbed his reins when he dropped them to ward

Talin off by threatening her.

Weak in the aftermath of her brief, if furious, struggle, shaky with relief that Talin had come so near dying in an attempt to rescue her, she leaned limply, if resentfully, against the man behind her, too weary to hold herself aloof even though it irked her that she could not.

The hostility of the men surrounding her was almost palpable. She didn’t need to

look at them to see how they felt about her attempt to escape and her frantic efforts to keep them from shooting Talin. She could feel it.

Frustration brought stinging tears to her eyes. She had bungled her only chance.

They would not allow her another one.

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When darkness cloaked the land in a heavy black veil, the man of the armies of

both sides began to melt into it, slipping away to lick their wounds, count the living still among them and search for a better position for another assault. There were no tents pitched, no fires lit.

Dawn heralded another endless day of fighting and killing and being killed. As

the sun set on the second day, both armies had whittled upon each other until there were fewer men standing than lying in pools of blood.

Again, as darkness closed over the gory battlefield, both armies withdrew to

regroup. By dawn of the third day, Aliya was so exhausted she hardly knew where she

was any longer. She could not fathom how the men could continue to fight when they

had scarcely had time to eat or close their eyes.

The whole world had changed when the sun rose, washing the death fields with

golden light, glinting off of the blood that coated almost every inch of earth.

The third day did not begin with the screams and shouts of man and beast, with

the clatter of steel against steel. The ragged remnants of the allied army of men simply stared blank faced, dull with fatigue, at their enemies across the field.

Aliya was only vaguely aware of the hushed conversation around her, and not

aware at all of the gist of it. When her father sent her a glance of contempt and snatched a strip of white fabric from his saddle bag, she merely stared at it uncomprehendingly.

Attaching it to the end of one of the staffs of the standard bearers, he nodded at

the man. Nodding in response, the man lifted the standard, walked his horse to the edge of the hillside where they stood and then rose up in his saddle, slowly waving the

standard back and forth.

Curious, but still without real comprehension of what was taking place, Aliya

gazed across the field to see who he was waving at. Across the valley, a white flag

appeared on the other side, waving back. As if they had only been waiting for that signal, her father and his allies turned their tired horses, straightened their backs, and spurred their horses forward. The royal guards fell in behind them, carrying Aliya with them as they rode down the hill to the valley and began to pick their way across the sea of dead and dying.

Already the stench of death was rising from the heat of the morning sun.