CHAPTER 36 #3
We took off at a full run. I angled us north away from the fighting and straight for the trees.
The Riht warriors parted for us easily. They were focused eastward, readying to block the army advancing from straight ahead.
We didn’t dare slow in case Eldreth was on our tail.
I could just make out his voice above the rest, barking orders. He would understand when all was done.
We weaved between warriors until we hit the trees, where we slowed our pace to navigate the rustling woods.
I directed us straight for Naton, praying to all Dragons that we wouldn’t be shot down before we had a chance to speak.
It was already a miracle that I was still on two feet with my useless arm bouncing painfully at each step.
Luck was on our side, or maybe it was Vaya’la’s influence. Halfway there, I saw a small party with white flags making a slow path toward the Riht warriors. I redirected our course. Bale, seeing the group, began waving and shouting as we ran.
“Help us—we’re Cavendaffes!”
The name grated me. I wasn’t a Cavendaffe anymore.
The three men paused their course and turned to us. One reached for his sword, but the other two gaped.
“Lord Bale!” one shouted. “Is it you?”
We reached their group panting.
“Lorrick,” Bale gasped between heavy breaths. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“What are you doing here?” The soldier had stripes of honor on one shoulder and the Cavendaffe crest on the other. He was as tall as Bale but broader, with brown hair tied back in a low tail. I knew many of the guards and soldiers from living at the manor, but I didn’t recognize this one.
Bale attempted to explain, but I interrupted. “Call off the attack.”
“Serae?” Large hands gripped my arms, and I screamed when he pressed on my wound. The man ignored my protests and crushed me to his chest. “Thank the Creator. How did you escape?”
“Escape?” I asked, shoving him away. I looked up into his face. “Tam?”
He rested a gloved palm on my cheek in a way that might have been tender if it didn’t make my skin crawl. I pulled back.
How was Tam here?
“This changes everything. We need to regroup.” Tam gripped my forearm and marched us farther east into the forest.
“I can walk on my own,” I said, twisting my arm free of his grasp.
Shock flashed over Tam’s face, but he nodded. “Of course, of course, I’m sorry.”
Lorrick, Bale, and the third soldier were on our heels. I hated moving farther from Drakh, but I needed them to agree to take Bale and leave as quickly as possible, before more people were hurt.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To Lord Naton. We have what we came for. He’s the one who has to signal the retreat.”
It was a shorter walk than I expected. Directly between the two disabled catapults stood a mobile tent.
From dozens of yards away, I could already make out Naton’s figure.
He was a harsh shadow with blood-red lifelight oozing around him.
The sight of it had never been more revolting. Vaya’la’s unease poured into me.
“Do not approach, Small One.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not staying.”
“It would be better if you turned and ran now. Flee back to the walls.”
Dragons, I wanted to, but I had to make sure Drakh was safe first. After the part I played in betraying the Riht, the least I could do was help end this conflict. If that meant convincing Naton face-to-face to initiate their retreat, so be it.
Bale slipped his hand into mine. His half-smile at my side was reassuring, though faint. My pace slowed, and Bale slowed with me.
“What’s up?” he whispered.
There was an acrid scent in the air. It was more than swords and catapults and arrows. Something rank was at work here.
“What is that?” I called to Tam.
He gave me a dark look. “We need to hurry.”
“I have to go back.”
Tam shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.”
Bale came to a halt, yanking me behind him. “Like hell, you can’t. Explain yourself.”
Lorrick and the other soldier closed in behind me, each placing a hand on my shoulder.
I dropped and twisted out of their grip, but another pair of soldiers had closed in on our group.
I struck, following my instincts and allowing Eldreth’s training to flow through me.
When one soldier tried to grapple me, I used cat dowsa to slip away.
When another swung at me, I used bear dowsa to knock him to the ground.
Air dowsa kept me light on my feet, but I couldn’t last. Adrenaline alone let me move my injured arm, but I was fading.
Tam called out, and more soldiers came. I was forced back and surrounded. Fighting my way out was the only option, but I didn’t have a blade.
“You are never unarmed, Small One.”
I called for my roots, my vines, anything from my magic within.
That’s when I heard his voice. “Get your hands off of my betrothed.”
My heart swelled even as panic gripped me.
Turning to my left, my second sight opened as Eldreth came striding out of the trees—a beacon of pure white brilliance—with two warriors at his side.
A man and a woman I had seen before, but didn’t know their names.
The three of them radiated power and control.
“Kill them,” a chilling voice spoke in Inraen.
I turned, expecting to see Naton, but it was Tam, lifelight pulsing puce with jealousy. Tam—who hated hunting, cried when his favorite hound died, and always treated me with so much care—had just ordered the death of three people like it was nothing.
Eldreth only grinned and continued his approach, flanked by his two shadows. Soldiers broke away and charged their group. They fell like wheat. It happened so fast, I couldn’t even register whose kill was whose.
“Stop this!” I shouted at Tam, using my native tongue. “Take Bale and go. You have what you wanted.”
He turned back to me, a flicker of dull aqua surrounded him. Confusion. “We came for you.”
“Me?” It struck me like a blow. My balance wavered, though that may have been from blood loss at this point. My wound was freshly bleeding again. “Why me?”
“Enough games, Serae. You’ve had your fun. It’s time to come home.”
Steel cut through the air, and I turned to see Eldreth cleave a soldier from shoulder to hip. He kicked the body aside and moved like water to the next. He was no eddy nor curving river. He was a tidal wave, crashing into each soldier he met and leaving destruction in his wake.
“Call off your dog, and let’s go.”
I punched Tam square in the jaw. His head snapped to the side. I’d had to use my left, but his jaw still cracked. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I think you’ll find you are.” Tam gripped my injured arm, squeezing hard.
I screamed. Before I could react, he flung me into the arms of a waiting soldier. A moment later, cold steel pressed against my throat. Panic blinded me. I kicked, trying to gain leverage to do something, anything, but the arm around me lifted me to my toes. The blade at my neck bit in. I stilled.
“Stop—oof!” Bale shouted before doubling over from a punch to the gut. Lorrick pinned his arms behind his back while the third soldier, who had accompanied him and Tam, doled out the punches.
“Stop, or she dies!” bellowed a voice beside me in Mayoran. Naton of Ingleton had finally joined us, and it was his blade at my throat.
My eyes flew to Eldreth and his warriors. They, too, had stilled, but they held their fighting stances. Eldreth did not speak. He didn’t even glance my way. He stood at the ready and waited as soldiers encircled us.
“Good,” Naton crooned. His voice was as cocky and arrogant as ever. He wore the colors of his house—black and gold—with not a dot of Inraen red on him. His hair was slicked back and as oily as the man himself.
“Release me, Nate,” Bale warned. “Or, is your plan to turn traitor as well?”
Naton gave a dramatic startle, as if he had just seen Bale for the first time. His grin was wicked. “Why, Bale, my old classmate. As soon as you prove yourself an ally, you’ll be released. The same goes for Tam’s little pet.”
Bale growled as the soldier behind me tightened his grip, making me whimper in pain. My useless arm was crushed to my side, and he twisted my good arm behind my back.
“Or, can you not control her, Tam?”
Tam walked forward, keeping a considerable distance from Eldreth but speaking loudly enough in Mayoran for him to hear. “Stop this madness. Tell your Rihtlonder attack dog that the game is up. We’re headed home.”
“She is home.” Eldreth spoke as if it were the most normal conversation. Every ounce of him radiated calm.
“Let’s get one thing straight. Serae is my betrothed. She always has been, and she will be until the day I marry her.”
“Call upon your roots and vines,” Vaya’la spoke into my mind. “Do not hesitate.”
My feet weren’t touching the soil. I hadn’t removed my sollars, not expecting to need my power so soon, and I was still suspended by the brute holding me.
“I can’t.”
“You can. Your only limitation is your mind. Connect.”
I had to try. I’d conjured plants from my bedroom more than once.
I’d first summoned my thorn armor while at sea.
And today, I called up roots through the stone floor of the keep and reshaped a tree into a staircase.
If I could do all that, I could damn well do this.
Tam was talking—snide remarks Eldreth would never fall for—and I ignored him.
I searched for that heat, that connection, that power.
I closed my eyes and relaxed all my muscles.
The soldier’s grip on my arms loosened just a fraction, but it was enough to allow me to breathe without agony.
My feet grazed the grass, and the tiniest spark traveled from my chest down to my toes.
Grow, I told it.
Nothing happened. Fear clawed at me. What if I couldn’t do it?
A hawk screeched overhead, but no one else moved.
Either they were waiting, or time had expanded around me.
I redoubled my focus, pushing aside my panic and searching for the roots.
I called them forth, willing them to grow and expand.
I imagined the roots twisting around the boots of the Inraens and forcing them to the ground.
I imagined them jutting up like spikes, surrounding Eldreth and his warriors in a ring of protection.
I imagined them engulfing Lorrick and allowing Bale to run free.
Screams sounded. Pounding drums rumbled underfoot.
My eyes popped open. Hundreds of Riht warriors advanced toward us, having finally caught up with Eldreth and the other two.
I could see the archers in the back, the line of shields up front, and warriors with every imaginable weapon in between.
Some were on horseback, and in the very back, though I couldn’t see them, I knew there would be carts to rush the wounded back to safety.
But there were no roots—not even a lengthened blade of grass.
I had failed. I couldn’t sound the Inraen retreat.
The Drakhi warriors had closed in. And Eldreth and Bale, the two men I cherished most in this world, were at the epicenter of it all.
I choked back a sob, and Naton’s blade grazed my throat.
Eldreth inched toward me, swords still at the ready.
Naton laughed. It was a bone-chilling, throaty laugh of a man unhinged.
“Very good delay tactic.” Trumpets blew behind him, their metallic ring so incongruous with the natural horns of the Riht that it set my teeth on edge.
“We’ve got what we came for. She’s more than just a pretty trophy, wouldn’t you say?
Please, feel free to kill more of my men. ”
He nodded to the man restraining me, who turned and hauled me up like a sack of grain.
His spaulder slammed into my diaphragm, driving the wind from my lungs as I tried to scream.
Spikes exploded out of me, but between his spaulders and bracers, they did little harm.
I spluttered and coughed as he ran, armor jabbing me every few steps while his arms wrapped around my thighs in a death grip.
I beat at him with my one good arm, unable to kick my legs against his grip, but he didn’t even flinch.
All I could see was grass and leaves under his feet.
“Over here!” someone shouted, and we changed directions. “We’ve got a crate!”
Even through the jarring pain, that phrase sent a shiver down my spine. “No,” I rasped without any chance of being heard.
“I see it,” said the man holding me.
A moment later, I was dropped ass-first into a sort of litter.
“Get your hands off me!” Bale’s shout rang out from somewhere nearby.
I had barely gotten myself upright—a harder task with only one good arm—when the ground beneath me shook. It reverberated with so much force that I was thrown forward and then flung back. The base of my head connected with something hard, and I fell into blackness.