War Maid's Choice-ARC (75 page)

Not quickly enough. Leeana Hanathafressa was a war maid, and just as ruthlessly pragmatic as her husband. Honor was undoubtedly all very well, but she saw no reason to let the unarmored Prime Councilor fight it out with a man half his age and armored to boot. As Sir Jerhas gave ground, backing past her, she swiveled and struck with a viper’s speed, driving a short sword home just below the mercenary’s ear.

* * *

Gayrfressa was crimson to the knees, and more blood streaked her throat and blew in a scarlet froth from her nostrils, as she took the mercenaries in the courtyard from the rear. Two tons of chestnut fury rolled over them like a boulder, pounding them into the dirt, crushing anyone who stood between her and her chosen sister, and Dathgar and Gayrhalan fanned out behind her.

One moment, the attackers had known they hovered on the brink of success, despite far heavier losses than they’d ever anticipated. At least half the King’s armsmen were down and they were driving remorselessly forward, fighting in the very doorway of the lodge with the defenders melting like snow before them. And then, with no warning, three bloodsoaked juggernauts slammed into them.

The coursers rampaged through them, killing as they came, and the mercenaries in that courtyard were in no better state to meet them than the ones they’d trapped between the stables and the outer wall. The only difference was that
these
mercenaries had room to run, and they did. The shock of that sudden, unexpected attack broke them, and the survivors fled madly towards the gate, flinging up the bar, spilling through it with Dathgar and Gayrhalan thundering in pursuit.

Less than thirty of them made it.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Cassan Axehammer sat on a fallen tree at the top of a steep bank, trying not to fidget impatiently as his armsmen watered their horses from the chuckling stream at the foot of the slope. He begrudged the halt, and the tension within him was coiling ever tighter as they drew closer to the hunting lodge. Despite that, he could scarcely fault Stoneblade or Horsemaster. They’d made remarkably good time since he’d informed them of his “suspicions,” and they had a Sothōii’s eye for their horses. It would no more occur to them to arrive for a fight on blown, exhausted mounts than it would to leave their swords at home, and they were right, if not simply for the reasons they knew about. If all went well, they’d be riding after the fleeing assassins soon enough, and they’d need horses capable of overhauling them.

Not that recognizing that made it any easier for Cassan to sit, waiting. His normal chessmaster’s patience had deserted him, and he needed to be
doing
something, moving forward now that the moment of decision had arrived. He’d managed not to snap off anyone’s head, but his armsmen knew him well enough to give him space and privacy. They worked steadily and quickly with the horses, and he flipped bits of dead bark moodily into the water while he waited.

“Milord Baron.”

Cassan stiffened and his head whipped up. There was no one to be seen, however, and his eyes widened as they darted around, searching for the speaker. He
knew
that voice, but how—?

“Down here, Milord.”

The voice was tiny, yet sharp, peremptory, and Cassan’s looked down, then paled as he saw the perfectly ordinary looking gray squirrel sitting upright on the leaves, an acorn clasped in its forepaws while it gazed up at him with a fixed, unblinking stare. A chill of sheer terror went through him, and he put his palms on his treetrunk seat and started to shove himself upright.

“
Don’t!
” the voice snapped with a commanding edge, and this time it came unmistakably from the squirrel. The baron froze, and the squirrel dropped the acorn and flirted its tail.

“Better,” it said, and Cassan swallowed hard as he recognized Master Talthar’s voice coming from the small creature. It was suddenly hard to breathe, and perspiration beaded his brow as he stared at the confirmation of the truth about his fellow conspirator he’d so carefully avoided acknowledging to himself for so many years.

“Yes,” the squirrel said with Talthar’s voice, “I’m a wizard. Of course I am! And you’re a traitor. Would you like me to confirm that for your enemies?”

Cassan looked around, eyes darting frantically towards his armsmen, and the squirrel snorted.

“You’re the only one who can hear me...so far,” it told him. “I can always broaden the focus of the spell, if you want, though.”

The baron shook his head almost spastically, and the squirrel cocked its head as it gazed up at him.

“Frankly, I would have preferred to let you remain in blissful ignorance, since we both want the same thing in the end, anyway,” it said. “Unfortunately, we have a problem. The King’s armsmen realized Arthnar’s men were coming. They managed to hold off the initial attack and inflicted heavy losses on them. Half of Swordshank’s men are down, as well, but I’d say the odds are at least even that your ‘allies’ aren’t going to be attacking again anytime soon. I could be wrong about that, but what should matter to you is that a dozen or so of them have been captured, including at least one of their officers. And contrary to what you may have believed,” the wizard’s biting irony came through the squirrel’s voice perfectly, “they think
you’re
the one who hired them. Which is true enough, in a way, isn’t it?”

Cassan turned even paler as he remembered his conversation with Horsemaster and realized the pretext for massacre he’d invented had become a reality after all.

“Understand me, Milord,” the squirrel told him. “I want you to succeed, and if you do, I’ll be delighted to continue to support you as effectively—and

discreetly—as I always have. But for you to do that, you’d better get a move on.”

* * *

“Well, that was almost worth it,” Varnaythus said, sitting back in his hidden chamber with a sour expression. He’d released his link to the squirrel, which had promptly scurried off into the forest once more, but the wizard’s gramerhain showed him Cassan’s expression quite clearly, and it was still nearly as stunned as it had been when the “squirrel” first spoke to him. “I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”

“Are you sure that was a good idea?” Sahrdohr asked in a careful tone, looking up from his own stone, where he’d been monitoring the advance of Tiranal’s army across the Ghoul Moor. Too much was coming together too quickly for either of them to keep an eye on everything, and the fact that they’d planned it that way made things no less hectic. Now he met his superior’s gaze, and Varnaythus shrugged.

“No,” he acknowledged. “I don’t see how it could hurt, though, and it should at least keep him from changing his mind at the last moment.”

Sahrdohr frowned thoughtfully, but then, slowly, he nodded.

“It does rather burn his bridges for him, doesn’t it?”

“More to the point, it makes sure he
knows
his bridges are burned. Now he can’t even pretend he doesn’t know he’s been cooperating with wizards. Any real interogation by one of Markhos’ magi will prove that, and that’s just as much high treason as regicide, as far as the Sothōii are concerned. There’s no way back for him unless he succeeds, and a man like Cassan will figure that if he
does
succeed he’ll be able to find a way to be rid of us eventually. That should stiffen his spine.”

“I noticed that you didn’t mention anything to him about what Tellian and Hathan did to Trâram’s men.”

“No, I didn’t, did I?” Varnaythus smiled nastily, then shrugged. “On the other hand, they ought to be less of a problem for him. The two of them may have ridden Trâram’s mercenaries into the ground, but his armsmen know how to fight wind riders. Especially when they have lances and the wind riders don’t...not to mention outnumbering them a couple of hundred to one! Under
those
circumstances, I’m not that worried about even his ability to deal with them.”

He shrugged again, and Sahrdohr nodded again.

“You didn’t mention Trisu or the war maids, either,” he pointed out.

“Of course not.” Varnaythus snorted. “Why cloud the issue for him? It’s unlikely the threat of them would turn him back at this point, but it might. Besides, it’s not as if we really want him to get away with this. We need at least some of Trisu’s armsmen to escape with word of Cassan’s treachery if we’re going to touch off a proper civil war.”

“And if they get there before he’s had time to kill Markhos?” Sahrdohr asked. The war maids and armsmen from Kalatha and Thalar Keep had faced a far shorter journey than Cassan, and they’d ridden hard enough to cut their arrival time shorter than he’d originally estimated.

“That could be unfortunate,” Varnaythus conceded, “but there aren’t enough of them to stop him. And if it looks as if they might, there’s always the kairsalhain, isn’t there?”

* * *

Erkân Trâram looked at what was left of his company and managed somehow not to curse out loud.

It wasn’t easy.

At least I’m not going to have to worry about having enough horses for the final run to the river
, he thought savagely.
Fiendark take those damned wind riders!

“I make it seventy-three, Sir.” Sergeant Selmar’s voice was flat, and Trâram winced.

That was even worse than he’d been afraid it would be. He’d expected to take significant losses to Markhos’ guardsmen getting over the wall, but his employer hadn’t mentioned any wind riders in full plate! In fact, he thought sulfurically, he’d been specifically told that any wind riders who might be present would be courtiers who would never be so gauche as to bring armor on a hunting trip with their King.

And this is what I get for trusting someone else’s information about something like that. Even assuming the bastard told me the
truth—
as far as he knew it, anyway—I should’ve planned from the perspective that he might just be wrong
.

His teeth grated as he considered Selmar’s numbers. No wonder even the tough-minded noncom sounded half-stunned. If they were down to only seventy-three effectives, then he’d lost over a
hundred
and seventy in that murderous exchange.

And I’ll bet those frigging wind riders took down half of them all by themselves
.

He glowered down at the bloodstained bandage around his left forearm. He was lucky the pileheaded arrow had punched a neat, round hole through the meat and muscle without hitting bone. A broadheaded arrow would have shredded the limb, but his surgeon had cut the shaft of the one which had actually hit him and drawn it the rest of the way through the wound. It hurt like Phrobus, but it was unlikely to cripple him, and at least he was right-handed. He could still fight...unlike entirely too many of the men he’d brought north with him.

“All right, Gûrân,” he growled finally. “Get them organized into two platoons.”

The sergeant looked at him wordlessly for a moment, then drew a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and nodded.

“Aye, Sir,” he said, and Trâram turned to Somar Larark, who was no longer simply his senior lieutenant but the only one he still had.

“Well?”

“The best I can give you is a guess, Sir,” the lieutenant said. He shrugged. “Mûrsam’s estimate is probably the best.”

Trâram nodded. Corporal Fûrkhan Mûrsam was as hard-bitten and experiencedas they came. He’d never been promoted above corporal because he found it difficult to remain sober in garrison, but he never drank in the field. Indeed, he seemed to get steadily more levelheaded and focused as the crap got deeper and deeper.

“He says he personally saw at least twenty and probably twenty-five of Markhos’ armsmen down, and maybe as many as a half-dozen of his damned ‘guests’ and their servants. That matches
fairly
well with what I’m getting from the others, although I’m inclined to think it may be a little overly optimistic, myself. And that doesn’t include the Phrobus-damned wind riders.”

Trâram nodded again. Assuming the corporal’s estimate was correct, there couldn’t be more than a score of armsmen left, and he had fifteen of his surviving crossbowmen bellied down in the woods within fifty yards of the gate. The Sothōii had already lost two more armsmen they were in no position to spare discovering he had no intention of allowing them to
close
that gate. They’d declined to lose any more in the effort, which at least meant he wasn’t going to have to go across the wall if he tried a second attack.

If not for the wind riders, he wouldn’t have hesitated, and he’d have mounted the followup as quickly as possible, while the defenders had to be at least as disorganized as
he
was. Of course, if it hadn’t been for the damned wind riders, he wouldn’t have
needed
to launch a second attack, either. On the other hand, he knew about them now. They wouldn’t have the advantage of surprise the second time around, and he still outnumbered Markhos’ guardsmen by at least three-to-one. And for that matter, the wind riders’ presence made it even more urgent that he get in there and finish them off along with the rest of the hunting lodge’s occupants.

If he gave this operation up as a bad idea now, he rather doubted they’d simply decide to let him go. No, they’d do everything they could to lay him and his men by their heels, and it was distinctly possible they might figure out where he was headed. If they did, and chose not to ride directly after him, it was all too likely that something with a courser’s speed and endurance could reach the Spear at one of the riverside towns downstream from his rendezvous with the barges well before he could sail down the river past them. And if they managed that, it wouldn’t be difficult for the authorities to send boats to Nachfalas, his only way down the Escarpment from here, to wait for his arrival. Assuming, of course, that they didn’t have enough boats on hand to simply come after him in midstream themselves.

As long as those accursed coursers were in a position to do that, he couldn’t count on breaking contact and getting away clean. Even if he could, his employer was unlikely to be pleased. The assassination of a king was a serious matter, and if the mission failed, he might decide it was time to snip off any loose ends that could lead back to him. Trâram had no desire to spend what remained of his life looking over his shoulder waiting for the dog brothers to catch up with him.