Chapter 47 #2
Elmorian forests were different. More oak than pine, with no fog from Kuni spilling through the trunks. A creek burbled nearby. Fallen leaves crunched beneath Mourn’s hooves, smelling of wet earth. Decay.
Calix released his breath on a hiss and readied another arrow. “We don’t exactly have time to stop and pen a letter, Your Majesty.”
He shot his second-in-command a sharp look—a warning. “Then make time.” Sera had to know what was happening out here. There was no way he could ride back to Goldreach in time to warn her, but Soot? Soot was fast.
And he might as well do his job for once.
“Kyn,” Aldric barked, locating his medic amongst the shuffle. “Find Soot’s harness. Get a message back to Goldreach.”
Reyla. Sera. His chest constricted at the thought of them both—a taste of panic he couldn’t afford right now.
He shoved the feeling away.
They were elsewhere. There was nothing he could do for them now except survive. Dame Florence could take care of Reyla. And Sera?
At least she still had her attack rat with her.
Cautiously, Aldric forged deeper into the still woods. Until the sounds of fighting began to fall away. Until there was only silence.
He whistled twice. Once for: Scout. Another for: Stay close.
A trill of warbling birdsong almost immediately cut through the trees in reply. A signal from a Son: Encroaching danger. Another Son soon answered. The same signal. Danger.
He glanced back the way they had just come, but there were no soldiers approaching from the field. The Elmorians were still fighting each other. None had yet pursued.
His hand tightened around his glaive as he turned his attention back to the forest.
To the ambush they had known would be waiting.
Sir Easome unsheathed his sword, his shoulders tense. “What’s happening?”
Before Aldric could answer, a woman staggered out from behind a tree further up ahead, her frightened sobs shivering through the air. She was dressed like a commoner: a rough, drab gown and a thin cloak. Her head was bowed, and her black hair streamed free, hiding her face.
“Please, have mercy!” she cried in the common tongue, though a hint of an accent clung to each syllable—an accent Aldric couldn’t quite place. “Help me! They burned my farm.” Her voice broke around the words. “They…they took me prisoner…”
Sir Easome frowned, lowering his blade. “Who took you prisoner, madame?”
The woman staggered closer. Closer than he liked.
Aldric gritted his teeth and shouted, “Stay where you are!”
Easome slanted him a bewildered look. “She is just a woman.”
Just a woman. He bit back a laugh. Oh, he’d seen what just women could do plenty of times in his skirmishes with the Kunishi. Their shieldmaidens were often deadlier than their warlords. Because men were inclined to show them mercy. To let them draw too near.
To underestimate them until it was too late.
Beside him, Calix drew his bowstring taut. Rakon unshouldered his warhammer and made ready.
“I said stay where you are!” Aldric called out again. “Drop your weapons on the ground and raise your hands where I can see them!”
The woman stopped immediately. “My weapons?” she echoed, a strange tremor rippling through those two words. She stood close enough now that he could see the way her lips curved into a little smile when she finally raised her head and looked his way.
Gold. Her eyes glowed gold within her tawny face—the eyes of a predator.
Of a witch.
Behind him, Leif cursed.
“I fear, in this case,” the witch purred, her Arathian accent thickening with each word, “I am the weapon.”
The air between them shifted, warming. Her eyes glowed bright-hot. The acrid tang of the other greeted his nose—a smell he knew well enough.
Magic.
“Run!” It was all he had time to shout before a column of flame erupted from the witch’s mouth, blazing a path straight for him.
Aldric jerked his reins and flung his weight to the side, forcing Mourn into a violent swerve. Heat slammed against his side and back, consuming the space he had just occupied.
Dry leaves caught flame—too fast to be natural.
Smoke billowed into the air, stinging his eyes and blinding him.
Bending low over Mourn’s neck, he plunged through the trees, heedless of direction. They just needed to get away—to regroup. But where were his Sons?
Behind him, men screamed; horses shrieked.
They must have been separated in the chaos.
His throat constricted. No. He drew his stallion up short. He had to go back.
He couldn’t leave them.
A shadow flickered at the edge of his vision—something barreling toward him through the smoke. No, not something; someone.
An Arathian man, impossibly tall and broad, unarmed and coming in fast on foot.
Clenching his jaw, Aldric couched his glaive in the crook of his arm as if it were a lance and spurred Mourn into a canter, riding straight for the Arathian.
But still the man came.
Not slowing, making no attempts to avoid the sharp blade about to slam home.
Crash.
The impact jarred him to the bone, teeth rattling, nearly unseating him as his weapon was wrenched from his grip. But the glaive struck true, sinking deep in the gap where gorget met breastplate, skewering the Arathian through the upper chest.
A triumphant huff rattled from his throat as he circled back around to retrieve the glaive. An easy enough kill. Now all he had to do was wrench the polearm free from a corpse.
Except there was no corpse.
There was merely the Arathian, still standing, staring straight at him through the slit in his helm. Unmoving. Unflinching.
The man should be dead.
Instead, he stood there—impaled and indifferent—as if steel through the chest were nothing more than a passing inconvenience.
Cold dread knifed down Aldric’s spine as he watched the Arathian slowly reach upward, wrap his hand around the glaive’s grip, and begin to pull it free.
Mourn snorted and backed away, but too late.
A crushing blow slammed into Aldric’s right shoulder. Pain exploded down his arm. The world tilted. He didn’t even see what had hit him; all he saw was the ground coming up fast—too fast.
His left shoulder hit first, sending white-hot pain lancing through the joint, sharp enough to blind him all over again. He grunted and rolled to his back, spitting dirt from his mouth.
Another Arathian loomed over him, as inexpressive as the first.
Aldric clawed at his boot, fingers numb, shoulder screaming as he ripped free the dagger hidden there. He didn’t think—just slashed the blade straight across the enemy soldier’s ankle.
Nothing. No reaction. No scream.
Silent, the man advanced. Unyielding, he lunged straight for him.
A black-scaled blur dropped from above with a shriek. Soot. The usuru flapped its wings and struck the Arathian’s face, trying to bite him through his helm.
Aldric took his chance. He scrambled backward, hunting for his glaive, for all the good it seemed to do.
He found it when the first Arathian slammed it through his left hand, pinning him to the ground. More pain exploded up his arm like tongues of flame. Devouring all thought. All strategy.
From far away, he heard someone scream.
Was it him?
“Fool!” a woman’s voice floated through the air toward him. The witch again. “I need the dwarf alive.”
The dwarf. He spat.
“Yes, Mistress,” one of the men rumbled. It was the last thing he heard before a boot slammed into his face. Unbidden, Sera’s face flashed through his mind.
Then, darkness.