The Sentinel Mage (19 page)

“I hate it here,” she said fiercely, bowing her head against his breastplate again.

Karel looked out the window at the white marble of the palace, the glittering gilded roofs, the clipped hedges and flowering rosebushes and lush green curve of a lawn. A facade of beauty, with ugliness beneath. “Yes,” he said. “So do I.” He gently stroked her soft black hair. His mother had been this young once, this helpless, trapped in a nightmare, earning her family’s freedom through her own slavery.

An idea crystalized in his mind. “Yasma...do you know of a way to stop her becoming pregnant?”

“What?”

“If the princess proves barren, Duke Rikard might annul the marriage.”

Yasma lifted her head and stared at him for a moment, her lips slightly parted, then she closed her mouth. Determination firmed her face. “Dung-root juice. If she drinks it, she won’t conceive.”

“Do you think she’ll agree?”

Yasma gave a single, emphatic nod. “I’m certain of it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T
HEY RODE NORTH,
keeping to the forested foothills of the Graytooth Mountains, avoiding the patrols. Harkeld didn’t argue with the decision; the roads may have been faster, but the forest felt safer.

They maintained a hard pace, not stopping until dark, rousing before dawn. The forest looked no different on this side of the range: a mix of oak and ash, the odd yew tree or rowan. They ran out of cider, and then dried meat and vegetables for the stew. The men pursuing them neither gained nor lost ground; they stayed half a day behind.

On the fourth evening they halted beside a creek. Gerit waited for them. At his feet lay a doe. Its throat had been ripped out.

Gerit butchered the doe while they set up camp. Cora roasted the flesh in the fire. The smell rose in the air, making Harkeld’s mouth water. He turned his back and walked down to the creek, crouching and cupping his hands, washing his face. Above, the sky was clear, scattered with stars.

“Ach, that meat smells good,” Justen commented, joining him.

“I won’t eat it.”

Justen turned to look at him. “Why not?”

“Gerit killed it.”

“So?”

“He killed it with his
teeth.
Not a knife. Not a bow and arrow. He killed it
with his teeth.
”

Justen shrugged. “However it died, I plan on eating it.”

Harkeld shook his head, unable to understand the armsman’s pragmatism. He dried his face on his shirt and walked back to the fire. The girl, Innis, was talking to Cora, her hair ink-black in the firelight. “A mug?” he asked.

Cora handed him one.

He filled it at the creek and sat on the bank. The smell of roasting meat hung over the small clearing. His mind was sickened, but his stomach growled hungrily. Harkeld sipped his water.

“Here.” Justen handed him a wooden bowl filled with chunks of meat.

Harkeld put the bowl down. “No, thank you.”

“It’s haunch.”

Haunch. Nowhere near where Gerit’s wolf teeth had been. Harkeld looked at the meat. The smell wafted up. His mouth watered and his stomach growled again.

Justen sat beside him and began to eat hungrily.

Harkeld’s stomach tightened in a painful cramp. He swallowed a mouthful of water. After a minute, he put down the mug and picked up the bowl. The smell was mouthwatering.

Just one piece.

The flavor invaded his mouth. His mind told him to spit it out; his stomach told him to hurry up and swallow.

“Good, isn’t it?” Justen said with his mouth full.

It was better than good; it was delicious. Harkeld ate as hungrily as his armsman, and licked his fingers once he’d finished.

They turned in early. Harkeld wrapped himself in his blanket and stared at the sky, at the stars. The meat sat queasily in his belly.

They’d been running for ten days, pushing the horses, pushing themselves, and yet the first anchor stone still seemed impossibly distant, three hundred leagues away on the Masse plateau.

We’ll never get there.

A full moon rose above the tree tops, almost as bright on his face as the sun. Harkeld pulled the blanket over his head.

E
BRIL ROUSED THEM
several hours after midnight. “They’ve been riding by moonlight! They’re less than an hour away!”

Harkeld thrust aside his blanket. He flung on his shirt and crammed his feet into his boots.

“They must’ve broken camp not long after nightfall,” Ebril said. “It’s my fault! I didn’t think—”

Harkeld buckled the sword belt, his fingers clumsy with haste.

“They’ve never done it before!” Ebril’s voice rose at the end, almost in a wail.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of shadows and moonlight. The darkness seemed to magnify every noise they made, until Harkeld thought they sounded like an army crashing through the forest. When dawn broke, Gerit flew down and joined them.

“Where are they?” Dareus asked.

“About a league behind.”

A league. Three miles. Close.

They didn’t stop for breakfast. They plunged onwards through the forest, while the sun climbed in the sky. Mid-morning, they came to a break in the trees, where the rubble of a landslide had carved a path down the hillside.

They were low in the foothills. Lundegaard lay spread at their feet: the undulations of hill and valley, the neat patchwork of crops and orchards, the lines of dusty roads, the clusters of farmhouses and villages. In the distance was a hump-backed shape that Harkeld recognized: King Magnas’s castle atop its mount.

It was so familiar that for a moment something hurt in his chest. He’d lived in that castle, had hunted in these foothills with King Magnas’s sons. The curse had been a fable, his blood had been pure.

Harkeld’s hand clenched on the reins. He looked away from the peaceful farmland and distant hump of the castle. To the north, bluffs split the forest. Trees hugged the base of the cliffs for several miles, and then tapered away. “We need to be lower. If we stay up here, we’ll end up on top of the cliffs. We won’t be able to get down for days.”

Dareus glanced at him sharply. “Days? Are you certain?”

“The bluffs run unbroken for more than a hundred leagues.”

“But if we go down, we’ll lose the forest,” Justen protested.

Dareus waved down the hawk that circled above them. It landed and became the witch Petrus. Naked, the scar on the witch’s side was clearly visible. It snaked its way down his ribs, pink against the tan of his skin. “Can you see any patrols?”

“On every road. They’re stopping everyone.”

“Looking for us?”

“I’d say so.”

Dareus looked at the bluffs, at the farmland. “If we stay above the cliffs we’ll have cover, but no escape should they catch us. If we go down—”

“We should go down,” Cora said.

Everyone looked at her.

“We don’t know Lundegaard’s soldiers want to kill us.” Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact. “We
know
Osgaard’s do.”

Dareus thought for a moment and then nodded. “Very well. We go down.”

T
HEY ZIGZAGGED SWIFTLY
down through the forest, crossing the face of the landslip once, and then a second time, a third. On their fourth time across, Harkeld heard a faint shout. He looked up. High above them were men on horseback.

As he watched, a tiny object launched into the sky, an arrow, looking no larger than a seamstress’s needle. It arced downwards, striking the ground halfway between their two parties, disappearing into the rubble of boulders and shattered trees.

They plunged into the forest again. The next time they crossed the landslide he saw how close they were to the bottom. One more traverse and they’d be on level ground.

A hawk swooped low, screeching a warning. Harkeld looked uphill. He saw their pursuers, high above them. He squinted. What were they doing? Laboring at something—

Above them, a boulder broke loose. A second boulder followed it. A third. He heard Justen curse. “Ride, sire!”

It was impossible to turn the horses, impossible to go back. There was only forwards, urging the horses faster than was safe, scrambling over boulders, over tree trunks, following Dareus and Cora, aware of the hillside in motion above them; boulders leaping and bounding, gathering speed as they tumbled.

His horse stumbled and went down. “Sire!” Justen shouted behind him.

The horse struggled to rise. Harkeld heaved himself out of the saddle and began to run.

Fifty yards. Twenty. Dareus and Cora reached the forest. There was a roar like thunder in his ears. Behind him he heard a horse scream.

Harkeld hauled himself over the last boulder, the last splintered tree trunk, and burst into the safety of the forest. His horse charged past him, followed by Justen’s, riderless, staggering drunkenly.

Harkeld swung around. “Justen!” Relief lurched in his chest. His armsman was behind him.

He reached out and gripped Justen’s arm. He saw the armsman’s mouth move, but couldn’t hear the words beneath the roar of the landslide. Dust billowed like smoke around them.

None of the packhorses made it. Justen’s horse had a broken fetlock. “We’ll have to kill it,” Dareus said.

“Innis can heal it,” Justen said.

“There’s no time.” The rumble of the landslide had died apart from the occasional clatter of falling rock. Shouts came from above them on the hillside.

“But that leaves us with only three horses,” Justen protested.

“I’ll be a horse.”

Harkeld jerked his head around. Gerit stood beside Cora. His figure blurred, expanded...a brown horse stood where he’d been. It tossed its head and snorted.

Harkeld took an involuntary step backwards. “I’m not riding that.”

“I will,” Cora said. “I’m the lightest.”

He helped remove the saddle from Justen’s horse, then held the animal’s head and spoke soothingly to it as Dareus drew his sword. The horse’s death was neither quick nor easy. Dareus was grim-faced when it was over. Blood soaked the ground.

They mounted. The last stretch of forest sped past—branches whipping at Harkeld’s face, roots snagging at the horses’ hooves. Finally they burst from the trees.

The horses slowed, their flanks heaving.

Ahead were fields bounded by drystone walls.

Harkeld glanced back at the forest, at the gash of the landslide. He saw movement through the settling dust: men scrambling down the rubble only a hundred yard above them.

“Archers,” he said, urging his horse forward. “Behind us.”

The first field was planted with corn. They pushed through the plants, snapping stems, leaving a wide path in their wake. Harkeld snatched another glance behind them. The men were nearly at the bottom of the hill.
They’ll never catch us, not on foot.

A hawk swooped down, changing into a man as it landed. Petrus. The corn came up nearly to his shoulder. “There are a couple of patrols headed for you. They saw the landslide.”

“How many men?” Dareus asked.

“A dozen in each,”

“Stay close,” Dareus said. “We may need you.”

The blond witch nodded. He became a hawk again and swept up into the sky.

Beside him, Justen said, “I hope you’re right about King Magnas.”

“So do I.” Magic suddenly seemed a puny weapon. What good was a burning field if they were surrounded by patrols? What good were a couple of lions against dozens of men?

The first patrol came into sight a minute later, cantering through the cornfield, armed and wearing the forest green of Lundegaard’s army.

Dareus halted. “Cora, get down. Gerit may need to change.”

Cora dismounted. The corn tips rustled in the breeze above her head. She flicked her plait back over her shoulder and stood squarely, her feet apart, her hands at her sides, ready. Above, two hawks hovered.