Radiance Page 20

  Brishen caught Anhuset’s horse, looped the reins over the saddle horn and slapped the animal on the flank. It shot out of the mayhem towards its mistress. Riderless and seemingly out of control, it darted toward Anhuset unscathed by arrow fire. His cousin altered her path to run parallel, and he lost sight of her for just a moment. Silver hair and muted red mingled in the shadows as Anhuset leapt atop her mount’s back, dropped Ildiko before her into the saddle and kicked the horse into a dead run.

  They were past the first hurdle, but the bridge ran long and arrows flew fast. More cries echoed from the forest, this time led by the trumpet of a horn. Brishen drew hard on the sleeping magic bequeathed to him by his sire and all those who came before him. It rolled through him, pooling into his hands. Somewhere a battle mage lurked among the trees, casting light spells to render the Kai blind.

  He uttered an ancient word, one spoken by Kai sorcerers who built its spell from the power of shadow and Kai reverence for all things born of the night. A blast of darkness shot from Brishen’s fingers and snuffed out the light flares. Cries of dismay and surprise mingled with shouts of triumph.

  Brishen forced down the wave of weakness that threatened to buckle his knees. He could finally see well enough to fight. He shouted to his men. “To the trees! Kill their mage! Kill their dogs!”

  A Beladine attacker burst out of the underbrush toward him, swinging a short-handled scythe. Trained for war as all his kin were, Brishen met the attack with knife and axe. The two men slammed into each other, Brishen’s heavier weight forcing his opponent backwards. Brishen slashed his throat and was sprinting through the trees before the spray of blood even touched him.

  All around him Kai battled Beladine in bloody skirmishes. He cleaved the skull of an archer and hobbled a swordsman before decapitating him with one swing of the axe. He leapt over the head as it rolled under his feet.

  Battle rage coursed through his veins in a hot river, even as he methodically cut a bloody swath through the ranks of enemies swarming out of the forest’s understory and dropping from the trees.

  Someone shouted, and their message sent Brishen’s heart jumping to his throat. “The Gauri bitch! She’s crossing the bridge!”

  Brishen tore through the forest, bolting out of the tree line in time to see an archer take aim at the fleeing horse and its two riders as they raced toward the other side of the ravine. Every sound around him faded to silence, every movement narrowed to the archer’s flexing shoulder as he drew the bowstring.

  The prince of Saggara didn’t pray to gods but to the bloodied axe he held. “Be true,” he whispered and flung the weapon as hard he could.

  The archer slammed forward—the axe blade buried between his shoulders—and teetered on the ravine’s edge before pitching into the abyss.

  Brishen sprinted for the bridge just as a dozen Beladine riders galloped onto its span. Oh gods, no! He was fast, but he’d never catch them. He could outrun a human but not a horse.

  “Commander, what do you need?” Two of his Kai, splattered in blood, raced to his side. A pack of Beladine attackers pursued them.

  “Hold them off as long as you can,” he ordered. The magic would get him killed, but he had no choice. If he didn’t use it, Anhuset’s pursuers would catch her. She’d kill half before they took her down, but she’d still die and so would Ildiko.

  He set his hands on the bridge’s first plank. More words of power, these a sizzling wash of pain that threatened to peel his skin back from his bones. He waited precious seconds until Anhuset’s horse touched the ground on the other side of the ravine. He closed his eyes, dizzy from relief and the blazing agony that poured down his arms. He unleashed the last part of the spell.

  A rolling tide of flame roared across the bridge, consuming it with a ravenous hunger and engulfing screaming horses and their horrified riders.

  Brishen staggered to his feet only to be thrown sideways. He and his attacker wrestled across the ground. Weakened and slowed by the ravages of spellwork, Brishen struggled to free himself from the grip of a Beladine sell-sword twice his size. The man slammed Brishen’s hand against a protruding rock. His fingers went numb, and he lost the grip on his knife. His enemy snarled in triumph.

  Brishen snarled back before lunging up to sink his fangs into the man’s neck. A gurgling scream set his ear to ringing, and the sour tastes of unwashed human sweat and blood filled his mouth. He jerked his head, tore out flesh with his teeth and half drowned as gouts of hot gore splashed his face and neck.

  He spat out the hunk of meat and shoved the dead mercenary off him. Half blinded once more, this time by blood instead of light, he stood. The Kai who’d come to help him fought hard but were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Brishen took up his opponent’s sword and ran toward them, no longer fleet and sure-footed. A menacing growl was his only warning before a whirlwind of dusty brown fur shot toward him.

  He spun at the last moment, sword blade slicing upward. A canine yelp told him he’d hit his target just as a dead magefinder landed nearby in the dirt.

  The same voice that alerted others of Ildiko’s and Anhuset’s escape shouted again. Enraged. Desperate.

  “Bring him down! Bring that Kai bastard down!”

  He heard the warning hisses of air, but his body refused to obey his mind’s screaming commands to get out of the way. The first arrow took him in the right shoulder, the second in the upper left thigh, the third in the right. Brishen crashed to his knees. His vision blurred, and he swayed under the sudden heavy weight of a net. It tangled around his limbs, a living thing as sinuous and gripping as the tentacled sea creatures he’d heard of in stories.

  The side of a club was the last thing he saw before the inside of his skull exploded in a shower of hot agony. Darkness followed, and in this blackness he could not see.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The trees did their best to claw Ildiko and Anhuset from the saddle, their outstretched limbs whipping and scratching as Anhuset’s gelding galloped hard into the dark forest. Ildiko, wedged between Anhuset and the saddle pommel stared blindly into the blackness, its edges feathered away by a distant glow that teased the corner of her eye.

  Brishen.

  Her last glimpse of him had been a wavering view of his back as he plunged into the chaos of horses, blind Kai and a hail of arrows. She’d struggled in Anhuset’s hold to break free, to run back to her husband, to do something other than flee. The Kai woman’s unyielding grip proved unbreakable. Ildiko had been a breath away from vomiting after the violent pitching she suffered while thrown across her captor’s shoulder. Her vision spun when she was upended and slung into the saddle of the still galloping horse.

  A metallic glimmer caught her eye—moonlight on steel. Anhuset thrust the handle of a dagger into her hand.

  “Take this,” she ordered in a grim voice that warned against argument. “Stab anything that moves.”

  Ildiko barely had her fingers around the handle when a rippling shadow shot out of the dark from her left side and rushed the horse. Their attacker emitted a screeching cry, one echoed by Ildiko. Grasping hands tore at her skirts and leg while the horse neighed and danced sideways.

  She did exactly as Anhuset instructed, plunging the dagger toward the figure hanging off the saddle. An agonized scream, the give of flesh as the dagger sank deep and the warm wash of blood coating her hand were her rewards.

  Their attacker fell away only to be replaced by another and another who swarmed out of the underbrush like insects from a disturbed mound. Anhuset’s mount joined in the fight, kicking and rearing. One attacker slammed into a nearby tree and curled into the fetal position, clutching his belly.

  Anhuset shoved the reins into Ildiko’s hands. “Guide the horse!”

  Ildiko grabbed the reins, lost the dagger and kicked the gelding hard in the sides. He leapt into a gallop, dragging someone beside him. Behind Ildiko, Anhuset twisted one way and then the other, her arms stretched out on either side, swords in hand as she swung at th
eir attackers. She slammed hard into Ildiko’s back twice with a grunt but held her seat to slash their way free.

  They plunged through the wood, Ildiko as blind as a Kai at noon and praying she hadn’t turned them around and ridden straight for the ravine and a fast descent to their death. Escaping the last raider, they rounded a copse of trees and raced into a clearing.

  Wide open and ablaze in moonlight, the clearing left them more exposed. Ildiko turned the gelding back toward the tree line. They couldn’t go back the way they came, but if they hugged the border that traveled an eastern path, the low-hanging branches of some of the trees would shield them. She had, at least, led them away from the ravine instead of toward it.

  Her companion was ominously silent behind her. Ildiko glanced over her shoulder. “Anhuset?”

  The other woman answered with a slow exhalation and promptly slid out of the saddle, taking a startled Ildiko with her. They both hit the ground, Ildiko’s fall partially cushioned by Anhuset’s arm. The horse tossed his head and pranced to the side before trotting a small distance away, reins dragging behind him.

  Ildiko stumbled to her feet and gasped.

  Anhuset lay on her side, facing Ildiko. An arrow shaft protruded from her left shoulder, another just above her left hip. She inhaled and exhaled slow breaths, and her gold-coin eyes were dull.

  Ildiko crouched before her, bloodied hands drifting over, but not touching the places where the arrows had embedded themselves in armor and flesh. “Anhuset! Why didn’t you say something?”

  The woman tried to shrug but only managed a twitch of one shoulder. “Because there was nothing to say. I think the arrows are dipped in marseret sap.” Her voice was as dull as her eyes, the words oozing off a thickened tongue.

  Ildiko closed her eyes. If the arrowheads were dipped in marseret as Anhuset predicted, she’d be numb from her shoulders to her feet in moments, unable to move. Even if she weren’t dead weight from the poison, she was far too heavy for Ildiko to lift and hoist onto the horse. They were doomed, stranded here while whatever surviving raiders lurked in the woods caught up to them.

  A gust of hot air, thick with the green scent of grass, flooded her neck and the side of her face. She opened her eyes to find Anhuset’s horse had ambled back to them, one liquid-dark eye trained on her as if to ask how long they planned to sit there. Ildiko might have laughed if she didn’t so badly want to scream.

  Anhuset’s head lolled. “I can’t feel my arms or legs.”

  A dog’s triumphant howl followed her declaration and sent Ildiko’s heart drumming in her chest. “Oh gods, more magefinders.”

  “Run.” Anhuset’s eyes gave a slow owl’s blink. “They’re scenting me, not you. Take the horse. Run,” she repeated.

  Ildiko sprang to her feet. “I’m not leaving you here.” The glimmer of moonlit steel caught her eye, and she found the two sabers Anhuset had wielded against their attackers during the wild ride through the woods. They lay in the grass, one behind Anhuset, the other near her outstretched fingers. Blood, made black in silver light, streaked the blades.

  Ildiko retrieved the one closest to her, surprised by its overall lightness in her hand and the weighted tilt toward the tip of the blade.

  “Stupid human woman.” Anhuset’s words slurred together. “You’ll die if you stay.”

  “Silence.” Ildiko scowled but kept her eyes trained on the stretch of tree line from where the canine sounds originated. “Obviously the sap doesn’t work on your disrespectful tongue.”

  Stupid or not, she had no intention of abandoning a helpless Anhuset on the cold ground to be torn apart by a pack of magefinders. The sword no longer felt light in her grasp, and she gripped it with both hands.

  Her stomach plummeted to her feet when the first magefinder shot out of the tree line, a fur-clad lightning bolt built of long legs, glistening fangs, and eyes as yellow and fierce as any Kai’s, but far more bestial. It was followed by another and then a third, and they loped across the clearing, their bays muted to snarls as they closed the distance between them and Ildiko.

  “Bend your knees and swing as hard as you can.” Anhuset’s voice sounded far away in Ildiko’s ears, but she did as the other bid and braced herself. Her lungs felt starved for air though she breathed harder than an exhausted horse. Rivulets of sweat streamed down her sides under her clothes and made her gore-sticky hands slippery on the sword grip. She forced herself not to flinch and close her eyes when the first dog leapt at her.

  She screamed and swung just as a blurred dark line flew past her vision, followed by a meaty thunk. The dog’s legs snapped together in midstride before it hit the ground and skidded to a stop, an arrow sunk deep in its neck. Another whine of air teased her ear before the second dog met a similar fate.

  Ildiko pivoted in time to see a horse and armored rider gallop past her to take down the third hound with a sword.

  “Highness, are you all right?”

  Still clutching the sword, Ildiko turned toward the familiar voice. “Serovek?”

  He strode toward her, lightly armored and carrying a bow. He’d been the one to kill two of the dogs, his soldier the third. His gaze assessed her for injuries, and he gave an approving nod at the sight of her clutching one of Anhuset’s swords.

  A half dozen more mounted Beladine warriors emerged from the trees across the clearing, one leading a riderless horse. Anhuset’s own mount whickered a greeting as they surrounded Ildiko and the fallen Kai woman.

  Ildiko held onto the sword and refused to budge from Anhuset’s side. The part of her brain that still functioned on reason assured her that if Serovek had ordered this attack, it wouldn’t have failed. Still, her muscles quivered and her heart thundered as the Beladine lord drew closer.

  He knelt before Anhuset who watched him with narrowed eyes gone from glowing gold to muddy yellow. He glanced at Ildiko. “We tried to reach you at the bridge. Too late. We killed the two handlers following the dogs, but expect more dogs, more raiders. You’ve crossed into my territory. They’ll think themselves safe here. More fool them.” He motioned to one of his men who dismounted and handed him an axe similar in size to the one she’d seen Brishen carry.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He removed the blade guard. “We’ll travel easier if I can cut down the arrow shafts sticking out of her ladyship here.”

  Poisoned and immobilized, Anhuset still managed enough movement to curl her fingers and take a weak swipe at Serovek. One claw caught a fold in his breeches near the knee and neatly split it open. “Don’t touch me, Beladine pig,” she mumbled.

  Serovek sighed, and quicker than Ildiko could blink, snapped his knuckles against Anhuset’s chin. Her head jerked before her eyes closed, and she went completely limp.

  Ildiko gasped. “She’ll kill you for that when she wakes up.”

  Serovek winked and took a flat rock one of his soldiers handed to him, along with a folded blanket. “No she won’t. I’ll tell her you did it.”

  He braced the blanket, with the stone on top, against her back. The arrow in her shoulder was lodged between two of the armor plates sewn to the gambeson. Ildiko flinched when Serovek brought the ax down on the shaft, shortening it to the length of a small spoon handle. Quick, efficient, and steady, he did the same with the arrow at her hip. The unconscious Anhuset jerked but didn’t waken.

  Serovek stroked her silver hair with a big hand. “Easy, my beauty. I’m done.” He looked to Ildiko. “Can you control her mount?”

  “Yes.” The shock of facing certain, brutal death only to be rescued by the sudden appearance of Serovek and his men, left her lightheaded and unable to utter more than monosyllabic responses.

  If the Beladine lord noticed, he didn’t remark on it. “Good. Anhuset will ride with me.” He scooped the Kai woman into his arms, his features darkening as he slowly lifted her. He staggered and exhaled a harsh breath. “Damn Kai,” he said in a strained voice. “Heavier than a sack of wet bricks.”

&nbs
p; His reaction to lifting Anhuset confirmed what Ildiko had guessed. There was no possible way she could have moved her wounded companion or gotten her back on her horse.

  Serovek made his way to the one horse with no rider. Bigger than the others, it snorted in protest and laid back its ears as its master mounted with his burden. Their party gathered supplies. One of the Beladine soldiers retrieved Anhuset’s second sword where it lay in the grass and gently pried the other from Ildiko’s stiff fingers. “Do you need help onto the gelding, Your Highness?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t much good with blades, but she could at least swing into a saddle by herself.

  Serovek eyed her as she rode up next to him. “Whose blood stains your hands? It isn’t Anhuset’s, and I see no wound on you.”

  “We were attacked in the woods. I stabbed one of them when he tried to pull me off the horse.”

  A flicker of amusement softened Serovek’s somber face. “Soft Gauri noblewomen with hidden savagery.” He kneed his horse forward. “I should visit Pricid one day.”

  Free from the forest’s labyrinthine darkness, Ildiko had regained her sense of direction and a choking panic that blackened the edges of her vision. They were riding away from Saggara and help!

  She trotted next up to Serovek and wheeled Anhuset’s horse in front of his mount’s to block their path. Serovek’s horse snorted when his rider hauled back on the reins to keep from plowing into the other horse.

  She ignored Serovek’s scowl. “We have to go back to the bridge. Now. Help Brishen and the others! We can’t just leave them there.”

  Serovek’s expression softened. “That battle is long over by now, Highness. You need to trust me that what I’m doing will help Brishen.” He pointed to an unseen path somewhere within the trees. “There’s a hidden sanctuary not far from here, an old temple bound by magic to confuse the dogs. We’ll stay there for now. I sent messengers to Saggara. If my guess is right, we’ll have my men and more of the Kai here by morning.” He gently adjusted the unconscious Anhuset in his arms. “Did you see what happened to the herceges?”