23. Basten
Chapter 23
Basten
I t takes the horses and me two days to reach the border wall, then one more to find the subterranean tunnel that breaks through the ward spells.
When we emerge into Volkany, I feel a shift in the air. It’s colder here by at least ten degrees, plunged into perpetual twilight by towering pines. All I can think about is the last time I was here.
With Rian.
On that trip, I’d felt a whisper of distrust. A premonition that he would turn on me.
Why the hell didn’t I listen to my instincts?
I dismount Myst to scan the forest, looking for tracks that might indicate an army encampment nearby that we should steer clear of.
A moth with iridescent wings flies by, leaving a trail of glowing dust in its wake. It’s unnerving, sure. But no matter how many times I see the strange fauna of Volkany, I will always feel a little bit awed, too .
The horses, however, merely flick their tails at the magical moth.
Tòrr writes in the dirt:
N-O S-T-O-P
“Some of us are mortal,” I tell him as I unbutton my trousers. “So, forgive my moment of awe while I take a piss.”
For the rest of the day, we ride further into Volkany’s interior. My senses are on edge here in a way they weren’t on the Astagnonian side. The shadows are ice cold. The smells are stronger. The pines emit a sap that smells like sun-warmed bark and a moonlit stream, two things that shouldn’t belong together but, here, do.
We make camp at the bottom of a cliff. I don’t light a fire, not wanting to announce our presence, so I spend the night hungry and shivering with a saddle pad as a blanket.
But then, I dream of her .
And in my dreams, there’s nothing but the warmth of her light. It pours into me, chasing away the cold that grips my bones. When her hand touches my chest, I feel a spark. Stirring coals. Some part of me remembers her, even if my mind won’t.
I’m coming, Sabine.
I’m awakened by a thud.
Disoriented, I jolt upright. It takes my night vision a moment to focus. The forest is dark. It’s still before dawn. Crickets play their midnight song from the trees.
Tòrr’s front left foot is slammed to the dirt an inch from my boot .
I rake my hair back, blinking. “Tòrr?” I look from his iron hoof to his flaring nostrils and back down. “Hey—you didn’t break one of my toes this time! That’s progress!”
This modicum of improvement in our relationship fills me with a strange amount of joy—but it’s short-lived.
Tòrr shoves his nose in my face to blast me with a snort, his eyes flashing white.
“Okay.” My hand falls to the hunting knife at my side. “Okay. What has you bothered?”
Myst stands near the rocks, her tail flicking in agitation. My ears tune in to the forest.
Crickets. Shifting wind. An owl.
A mile away, someone sneezes.
“ Fuck .” I dive for my knapsack, quickly readying my bow and arrow. “Myst. Tòrr. Time to go.” As I quietly move around the camp, I train my ears on the distance, calculating.
“It’s at least thirty soldiers,” I whisper to them. “Coming from the west. They’re moving quickly. They must have tracked us somehow.”
Tòrr cocks his head questioningly.
“I don’t know,” I answer as I saddle Myst. “My guess is that they heard about your little performance at the sheep barn back in Astagnon. I bet the shepherd family went straight to the nearest army outpost, and spies got word about it over the border. Volkish soldiers have probably been following our tracks all day, though until now, they’ve stayed far enough back that I haven’t heard them.” I pause. “They’re smart. They know night is the safest time to attack a monoceros.”
I look up at the slivered moon, cursing .
Myst paws the ground anxiously. I swing up into her saddle and rest a hand on her neck. “I know, girl. Let’s go.”
We move at a quick walk into the river valley. I don’t dare go any faster—the horses don’t have my night vision for loose rocks and roots. My heart batters against my ribs as I throw glances over my shoulder at the dark woods.
The further we descend, the colder it gets. A thick mist swirls around the horses’ legs, blanketing the ground so that I can’t tell if we’re headed for a road, rocks, or a cliff face. Within minutes, the mist has risen to mid-chest. Only the horses’ heads are visible above it, giving the eerie sense that they’re swimming through storm clouds.
Worst of all, the mist muffles my senses. It’s strange—smoke can obscure my senses, but not mist.
Until now.
An uneasy prickle runs down my spine. I’m unfamiliar with Volkany, sure, but this mist? It doesn’t feel natural for any forest.
I’m about to tell the horses to turn back when an arrow shoots out of the mist.
It strikes Tòrr’s left haunch—but glances off. A spark flashes like when iron is struck.
“Stand together, facing opposite directions!” I hiss as I guide Myst to fall back next to Tòrr.
We face west. Tòrr takes the east.
The hair on the back of my neck raises. My heartbeat quickens. Though the woods are almost eerily silent, my ears pick up on tiny falling pebbles and the occasional squeak of leather gloves alerts me to our company.
An arrow shoots within an inch of my left ear.
“ Fuck !” I curse .
Another arrow flies at my head from the north, but this one I see coming and duck.
Snapping into military mode, I aim my bow at the thick mist, waiting for a flicker of movement to give me a target.
As I wait, sweating, I pick up on the sounds of soldiers quietly drawing swords.
Infantry . Archers. But that doesn’t explain the mist unless…
I groan as I mutter aloud, “They have a godkissed soldier with them.”
Tòrr steps forward, putting himself in front of Myst and me like a shield.
In the next second, soldiers rush out from all sides. Tòrr squares himself against them, lowering his massive head, as I let loose an arrow.
It brings down the closest soldier, but the one behind him comes at me with a horizontal sword strike. I deflect it with a sharp kick that sends him flying backward into another soldier.
I nock a fresh arrow, take down another man.
Opposite us, Tòrr kicks a pair of swordsmen in the chest, sending them crashing into one another.
Archers positioned somewhere high release a volley of arrows. I guide Myst backward with my heels, anticipating the arrows’ trajectories, and we take shelter behind Tòrr’s flank just in time.
The arrows plink off his side as though hurtling against a castle wall.
I lean over to pat him. “Good boy. Good murder horse.”
More soldiers close in, and Myst rears up to smack one in the jaw, sending him reeling backward. When she touches down again, I plant a kick into a soldier’s chest, then deliver a sharp elbow strike to the top of his helmet .
A group of three soldiers rushes Tòrr at once, and I quickly assess their position until they line up right, then signal to Myst. She swings her rear end into the closest one so they crash into one another. The last one manages to sidestep, but Tòrr slams his head into the man’s chest, knocking him on top of the pile.
Myst and I fall back into position opposite Tòrr as we face the next wave of soldiers.
“Not bad for some equines.” My smug smile evaporates when a vibration travels up my legs. The wind shifts, and among the expected sweat and leather scents, there’s something metallic and musty. Animal-like.
“Oh, fuck.”
A goldenclaw wearing battle armor gallops through the mist with a roar that sends warm spittle flying onto my face.
Wipe my face or save my life? Tough choice.
I steer Myst to the right as the goldenclaw swipes his giant paw at us. We dodge his strike, but in the jostling, my remaining arrows fall out of my quiver.
The bear rider taps a bullhook on the creature’s rear haunch, and the bear stomps back around to face me.
I draw my hunting knife, centering my focus.
Suddenly, Tòrr rams the bear from the side. Ferra’s glamour may mask his horn, but it’s still there . As the invisible horn grates against the goldenclaw’s metallic fur, sparks fly.
The bear lurches, off-balanced. The rider tumbles off his back.
“Monoceros!” a soldier shouts.
It’s followed by more shouting in a language I don’t speak, but their meaning is clear: Tòrr’s disguise no longer fools anyone .
Roaring, the goldenclaw circles back around at Tòrr and delivers a powerful kick that sends him scuttling backward, hooves skidding over wet earth in a struggle for balance.
The goldenclaw prepares itself for another kick.
I slide off Myst’s back, landing in the mud, and wave my hands over my head.
“Leave the horses alone, you gilded bastard!” I shout. “It’s me you want!”
The bear lumbers around to face me. At the same time, his rider rushes me on foot with a drawn sword. I dodge the sword’s downward strike, then snatch up a fallen arrow from the ground and throw it point-first at the bear.
It strikes squarely on the bear’s nose—the only place its armor-like fur doesn’t protect it.
The bear cries out, knocking away the arrow with its paw. As silver blood flows from the wound, the bear raises itself to its hind legs, towering over me.
More soldiers attack from the west, but I throw myself into a roll in the opposite direction and manage to grab a fallen soldier’s sword as I come back up.
I swing it around, settling into a defensive stance.
Behind me, Tòrr scrambles to his feet. He moves close so that my back is against his rear end, covering one another.
The goldenclaw towers high above us, claws bared, poised to crash down.
I lift the sword in a defensive strike.
There’s a terrible moment of seeing the bear hanging above me, knowing it’ll be his claws through my chest, or my sword through his, when?—
Everything…stops.
The bear hovers above me mid-fall .
The mist in the clearing freezes.
A tuft of goldenclaw fur hangs immobile on the wind.
The soldiers go completely still, too, with swords lifted to slash down on Tòrr. Tòrr is also frozen, his back foot lifted, ready to kick one of them into the next life.
I strain to move—even to breathe—but it’s like I’ve turned to stone.
Movement from the corner of my eye directs me to the only people not frozen.
Two female soldiers in indigo cloaks step around the soldiers’ motionless bodies. Their cloaks are emblazed with a star-shaped pin fastened above their godkissed birthmarks.
The first one, thickset with a long blonde braid, sweeps her hands through the mist, dispersing it in a single fluid motion until only a faint wisp lingers.
The other, a captain, raises her hands as if holding back an invisible tide. She lowers her fingers one by one, counting down from ten. She’s a petite, light brown woman, and her uniform swallows her frame, but her size doesn’t hinder her from wrenching the heavy sword out of my left hand.
I try to shout an objection but can’t.
Moving swiftly, the other godkissed soldier unfastens the goldenclaw’s heavy metal collar and bolts it around Tòrr’s neck instead.
While she’s trapping Tòrr, the captain strains to haul me out of the goldenclaw’s trajectory. She stops to catch her breath, lips still silently counting down from ten.
She angles her sword against my neck. Her eyebrow arches in a challenge as she warns, “Don’t move.”
Like a wound clock, my heart suddenly lurches back to a start. Breath rushes down my throat. Time hurtles back into motion.
I jolt forward, but the sword blade presses against my neck. Holding out my hands in surrender, I bark, “I want to see King Rachillon.”
The captain presses her sword harder against my throat. “Oh, you’ll see the king. It’s straight to the gallows for any normal bandit, but one who travels with a monoceros? Who kills royal soldiers? Who bears King Rian’s crest? You’ll get a royal audience, I assure you. I’d wager that His Majesty will even do the honor of personally slitting your throat.”
Nearby, the revived soldiers loop a rope around Myst’s neck. Tòrr strains against the iron collar, but six heavyset soldiers hold him back with attached chains.
The moon hangs high overhead—his solarium horn is powerless until dawn.
I glance back at the captain. “You’re godkissed. So is she.” My eyes shift to the woman in the indigo cloak.
“And?” The captain’s tone is sharp.
“I’m godkissed too,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Yet your time-stopping spell worked on me.”
“It works on who I want it to work on.” She removes the sword from against my neck but shoves the hilt into my solar plexus instead. “Even a monoceros.”
Pain rips through my middle. As I double over, I pat the outside of my pocket to make sure I haven’t lost Rian’s locket with the portrait of Sabine.
“King Rachillon.” I dig the heel of my palm against my aching chest. “Does he…have…a daughter?”
True surprise crosses the army captain’s face. Genuinely curious, she wrinkles her brow. “What do you know of the king’s daughter? ”
I thrust out my wrists to be bound. “Chain me. Tie me up. String me along on the back of that goldenclaw. I won’t fight. Hell, I’ll even hunt rabbits for your dinner. If you take me to Sabine Darrow, then I will bow before any god, man, or woman you like.”