over the years poured into a single certainty.
She caught fragments of thought as if from a great distance, but the terror
within them barely reached her. It was just a jumble of energy, and Marguerida
saw it as a whirl of colors, sickly yellows and greens.
The thick sticks fell to the ground, and swords were cast down. The Guardsmen
seized the moment and charged the momentarily paralyzed men, and slew a few
before stubby metal objects appeared from beneath the muffling garments. There
was a bright flash from one then, and a Guardsman fell back with a large hole in
his chest. His horse reared and kicked at the attacker, and there was another
blast, catching the mount in the muzzle. It fell on the enemy as it died, its
weight pinning the man to the earth, while he screamed with fury.
Mikhail drove his thoughts through his matrix, drawing on Marguerida's
supportive energy. A broad beam of light snapped from the blinding facets, wove
out from the protective bubble, and fanned across the oncoming fighters.
Guardsmen yanked their horses aside, for Mikhail's weapon could not distinguish
friend from foe, and they had been forewarned. It flickered into the cluster of
now firing troopers like lightning, searing the men so quickly they could not
think to escape its scorching touch.
Everything seemed to slow to a crawl, and all Marguerida could do was endure the
hideous vision that opened before her eyes. The dull metal weapons
disintegrated, and then the men who held them seemed to . . . fall to pieces.
Mikhail had reversed his healing ability, and now he was undoing the very sinews
of the enemy. Blood flowed from every bodily orifice, as torsos collapsed in on
themselves, the ground was a river of blood as men turned to ghouls then to
corpses in a matter of moments.
There was confusion everywhere now, with the Guardsmen desperately scrambling to
get out of the reach of Mikhail's deadly energy, and those who remained of the
first attackers running blindly in every direction. The men who had only started
to emerge from the cover of the trees were caught unprepared, and had no time to
save themselves. The baleful light from Mikhail's hand spread across the
thicket, blasting everything it touched. The conifers went up like torches, and
the smell of burned flesh mingled with the hot tree resin, as the ground turned
from red to black with bloody ash. Those few more fortunate foes who were beyond
the range of this destruction were being ridden down by the Guardsmen.
Fire began to leap from tree to tree now, the rich sap of the evergreens feeding
its hunger, adding to the confusion. Now Marguerida could clearly hear screams
of pain and fear, and they made her sick. But she did not waver, and neither did
Mikhail. Instead, she sensed him guide his horse to one side, and she turned
with him, so that his destruction began to work its way down the side of the
road toward the back of the train. She tried not to think of the rear of the
caravan, where there was no protection for the fighters and the Renunciates. She
knew that there were people back there who were dying in the service of the
Hasturs. Swords were little use against blasters, but she felt them bravely
fighting on regardless.
The sound of the battle began to change, and, as if from a great distance,
Marguerida realized that what remained of the enemy had only one thought in its
communal awareness-get away! Neither she nor Mikhail had imagined how terrifying
the manifestation of their power would be to the Federation troops. She heard
the occasional sizzle of blaster fire, here and there, between the burning
trees, but even as she listened, it became less frequent.
The battle at the front of the train was over almost before it began. A few more
were caught in the continuing energy of Mikhail's matrix. Those who escaped it
were hacked down by the guardsmen, or were trapped by the fire. She could hear
their mental chorus of despair and disbelief as they perished. These men were
stunned by the turn of events, humbled even as they died.
From within the smoke and flames Marguerida saw a mounted man, riding toward the
fight, his face still concealed. She sensed his mind, his purpose, and worse,
his fatality. It was only for a moment, and she wondered if he would turn away.
Instead, he rode directly into the glare of Mikhail's destruction, raising a
gloved hand in a kind of salute as he turned to ash. There was a last thought,
strong enough to penetrate her senses even in the chaos. At least an honorable
death.
Mikhail moved his hand slightly, and the protective shield around them started
to diminish. Marguerida felt the withdrawal of energy, the painful loss of the
tremendous intimacy that they had shared during the brief battle, and then only
her own weariness. She closed her eyes, focused on clearing her channels, and
slowly felt the exhaustion drop away, to be replaced by ravenous hunger of a
sort she had not experienced in years. Then, before she was prepared for it, the
shock and grief struck her. So many good men had died in the short minutes of
the battle, and more were going to.
Without a word, she pushed aside the emotion, and saw that Mikhail was
dismounting, followed by Donal, who was ghastly pale. Two Guardsmen protested
this action, but Mikhail was already walking toward the slumped bodies of those
who had been outside the circle of his protection. He bent over a fallen Guard,
then knelt on the ground beside him, while Donal hovered at his back, vigilant
even in his slowly diminishing terror.
The movement of a horse alongside her as she began to swing out of the saddle to
join Mikhail seemed perfectly normal, and Marguerida barely noticed it. Then she
realized that Francisco Ridenow was riding toward Mikhail, lifting his sword, a
look of hatred on his pale face. Donal started to turn at the sound of hooves
behind him, but not quickly enough. In a second he was down on the ground,
trying to avoid being trampled.
Before she could move, or even try to use the Command Voice to stop Francisco's
attack, Marguerida saw another movement from the corner of her eye. Rafael
Hastur's horse thundered forward and he brought the hilt of his sword down on
the head of the Ridenow lord so hard there was an audible crack. The man swayed
in his saddle, clutching at the pommel with his free hand, then swung around to
bring the blade of his sword down on the neck of Rafael's horse, missing the
rider's knee by a few inches. The horse shied and screamed, beginning to fall.
Donal scrambled to his feet, his face dripping blood. She saw the young paxman
brush his eyes clean, and then he drove his sword into Francisco's thigh,
screaming, "You traitorous bastard!"
Then a half dozen Guardsmen surrounded Dom Francisco, and one of them knocked
him out of the saddle. He lay unconscious, blood spilling from his leg, and
Donal, furious and swaying, raised his weapon to finish what he had begun.
"No!" The word sprang from Marguerida's mouth without thought.
Donal hesitated, and one of the Guardsmen dismounted quickly and bent over the
fallen lord. He looked up at her. "You want him alive, dom
na, or should we let
him bleed to death?"
Mikhail pushed between Donal and the Guardsman, his face grim and pale. He
studied Francisco for a moment, then knelt down beside him. Without a word, he
placed his hand above the wound, the light glittering from the facets of his
ring in the red light from the fire behind him. Within the space of a few
seconds the bleeding had begun to slow. "I want him alive," he told the Guard.
"Death is too easy an escape."
"If you say so, vai dom, if you say so." The Guard seemed disappointed.
Marguerida looked down at Francisco, and the entire scene became surreal, as if
she could not really grasp what had just happened. Kate had been right. As she
tried to grapple with her inner confusion, she felt an agitation bloom at the
edge of her mind. It was faint at first, and then it penetrated the cloudiness
within her. She turned and stared toward the back of the funeral train, toward
the carriages, and felt her heart tighten terribly. She could see movement, the
rush of fighters back and forth, punctuated by the occasional wild flare of
blaster fire. A clutch of fear seized her guts, twisting them.
Domenic! Mikhail's head snapped toward her, and then she started to run through
the milling horses and men, past the great flat wagon where the body of Regis
Hastur lay in his coffin. A broad chest rose before her eyes, clad in the blue
of the Hastur Guards, and she pushed her right hand into it and shoved with all
her weight. Despite his greater heft, the man went down on his bottom into the
dirt, making a noise as the air was knocked out of him. Behind her, she could
sense Mikhail following, and several others trying to make certain he was safe.
Her mouth was dry, and her blood was hammering in her veins so loudly she barely
heard the shouts around her. All she could think of was to get to her son as
quickly as possible.
By the time she reached the carriage, she was gasping for breath. The door was
open, and a pair of legs hung down to the ground. Marguerida moved around the
door and peered inside. Domenic looked back at her, his eyes very wide and his
face a sickly white. In his hand there was a short dagger, smeared with blood.
The torso and head of a man lay sprawled at Nico's knees, a wound in his thick
neck. Katherine was shrunk back into the far corner and Herm was trying to
staunch a flow of blood from his left shoulder.
"He didn't think a boy was any danger," Nico muttered dazedly, and then vomited
up the excellent lunch he had eaten an hour or so before onto the bloody
floorboards. The dagger slipped from his fingers and Marguerida swept him into
her arms, hugging him fiercely.
Katherine slid across the bench toward her husband. With a sharp movement, she
yanked the undersleeve from her chemise, pulling like a madwoman until the
stitches gave way. She dragged the torn sleeve out from beneath her tunic and
tied it above the wound as fast and tightly as she could, swearing and crying at
the same time. Herm was only half conscious, but he kept muttering that he was
all right.
Marguerida swallowed hard, assured herself quickly that her son had come to no
physical harm, and crawled onto the back of the dead man, her knees pressing
against the still warm flesh beneath the clothes. "Here, let me help, Kate."
"What can you do?" shrilled the other woman, appealing to her with stricken
eyes.
"You would be surprised," she answered, calmness claiming her so suddenly she
wondered where her fear had gone. The makeshift tourniquet had slowed the flow
of blood, but Herm's arm was a gory, terrible sight. "Get out of my way!"
Katherine stared at her for a moment, looked as if she would not move, then drew
back. Marguerida leaned toward Herm, lifted her still bare left hand, and closed
her eyes. By Aldones, she was tired! It felt like an eternity before she could
locate the vessels that had been damaged. The cut had missed the artery by no
more than a breath, but the wound was bleeding badly.
"What are you doing?" Kate shouted, frightened and furious at the same time.
"Let her be," Domenic yelled back, then spewed again.
"It is all right, Kate," came Mikhail's voice from behind Marguerida. She knew
he was standing at the open door of the carriage now, and she felt his weariness
as well as her own.
Marguerida tried to close her mind to the sounds around her, the braying of the
frenzied mules, the shouts of Guardsmen and Renunciates. That was easier that
shutting out Katherine's panic, Nico's horror, and her husband's concern. It
seemed to take forever, but at last she managed to focus on nothing but
Hermes-Gabriel Aldaran, and for a time, she was isolated with him. She lifted
her matrixed palm and moved it across the severed flesh, cauterizing the wound.
Momentarily she felt herself falter, and then felt Mikhail support her until she
had the strength to complete the task at hand. It would need to be cleansed and
sutured, but for now she had stopped the bleeding.
Marguerida finally realized she was kneeling on a corpse, and she drew herself
onto the bench beside her son. Her face was covered with sweat, and her hands
were trembling. She drew her sleeve across her brow, and caught a whiff of her
own fear-charged sweat and the blood on her hands. She wrinkled her nose in
disgust. Katherine was staring at her, her own hands covered with Herm's blood,
her skin a shade of white Marguerida had never seen before. "He will be all
right, Kate, until a healer can clean him up," she managed to croak.
She was too tired to move, but the noisome atmosphere of the carriage was nearly
unbearable. She wanted to get out of the carriage more than anything, but her
body refused to move. Then Marguerida saw a pair of strong hands grasp the heels
of the dead man still lying on the floorboards, covered with vomit and blood.
They yanked hard, and the corpse began to move away. There was a dull, sickening
sound as the body hit the earth, and she felt her gorge rise. She swallowed
hard, forcing her lunch to stay in her belly, as the door on the opposite side
of the carriage was pulled open.
She saw a Guardsman and one of the Renunciates there, eyes anxious. She heard
the sound of the dead body being dragged aside, and then Mikhail leaned inside.
Herm groaned and opened his eyes slowly. He tried to lean forward and gave a
gasp of pain. Katherine leaned forward and put her bloodied hands under his
arms, supporting him as much as she could.
"Get him out and bring a stretcher," Mikhail ordered the Guard on the other side
of the vehicle. "Lady Katherine, you might get down now, so it will be easier to
reach Herm." When she did not move, he spoke more sharply. "Ease him back onto
the bench and get out!"
She stared at him dumbfounded, and then she slowly moved her husband against the
seat and clambered down. "I am never going to get into a carriage again! Never!"
Then she started sobbing.
The carriage rocked as the Guardsman climbed in, and the Renunciate reached over
and took Herm's upper body. It took only a few seconds to remove him from the
close quarters, but it seemed a very long t
ime to Marguerida, still sitting on
the bench, too tired to stir.
"Don't worry, Mother. That's Danila, and Aunt Rafi says she is a good healer."
Domenic gave a rather hysterical laugh. "She's been wanting to get her hands on
Uncle Herm for days now. Come on. Let's get out, too. Here, I'll help you."
A hand grasped hers, and then a slender arm encircled her waist. Marguerida
smelled her son's flesh as he pulled her against him, the filthy odor of his
breath so near her face nearly oversetting her again. Beneath that the scents of
fear and sweat were mingled with woodsmoke and the faintest hint of mountain
lavender in the fabric of his clothing. For the first time in her life, she
leaned on her firstborn and allowed him to help her to her feet. He was safe,
and that was all that really mattered.
Once they were out of the carriage, Domenic did not release his hold on her, but
kept his arm around her, as if he knew she would collapse if he let go. Then
Mikhail swept both of them into his arms, and she leaned her head against his
broad shoulder. The three of them stood there, surrounded by armed men, and the
cries of the injured. Something was missing, and after a moment of flogging her
tired brain, Marguerida realized that the sound of blaster fire was gone.
Reluctantly, Mikhail released her. "How did that man get into the carriage?" he
demanded, his voice angry but sure.
"He broke through our ranks and then fell to the ground, vai dom. We . . . I
thought he was dead, and there was so much going on . . ."
"I see," Mikhail answered, unconsciously mimicking a tone that Regis had used
when he was displeased. He glanced around at the bodies of both Terranan and
Darkovans that were scattered across the ground. "He was a bit cleverer than his
friends. Are you all right now, caria?" There was a curt quality to his voice,
one she had never heard him use before, and she gave him a sharp look. Then she
realized that he was holding himself together by will alone, and that he needed
her to be strong.
"Yes, Mik, I am better now." She lied, and knew it. He probably knew it as well,
but he just nodded and gave her a firm squeeze on the shoulder. Nico was still
beside her, his arm around her waist, and she looked into his face. It was the
same familiar one she knew so well, but he was not the same person who had