It was impossible to speak around the knot of tears lodged in her throat. Ildiko swallowed several times before answering. “No. He was in the thick of the fighting when I last saw him, and that was only a glimpse.” For all she knew, the Kai would arrive, with one bearing the news that he or she carried Brishen’s mortem light within them. The grim thought made it hard to breathe.
“Don’t lose heart, Ildiko.” Serovek abandoned his formality in an effort to comfort her. “They won’t kill him. Not yet at least.”
His words did nothing to lessen her fear for Brishen.
The ruins Serovek led them to butted up against a gentle slope surrounded by trees. Ildiko had no sorcery of her own, but even she sensed the presence of power here. The Beladine mounts balked at moving closer. Accustomed to the thrum and whisper of magic that every Kai possessed, no matter how weak, Anhuset’s gelding picked his way among the stones, unconcerned. The other horses soon followed.
Serovek motioned to the other riders, complicated hand signals that mystified Ildiko but that his soldiers understood. Three dismounted and melted into the shadows that ringed the temple’s perimeter. The remaining three gathered up the horses and led them deeper into the ruin’s sanctuary to shelter behind the ridges of broken half walls and copses of pillars. In the far distance a familiar howl rode the moonlight. Ildiko shuddered. Not again.
She followed Serovek who carried his unconscious burden through the low doorway of a tiny chapel within the temple ruin. The blackness inside hung thick enough to pour from a bottle, and the skitter and squeak of disturbed rats played on her ears. She leapt aside at the suspicious slither of something gliding along the floor near her foot.
“No light yet, Ildiko.” Serovek’s deep voice was more vibration than sound. “We wait.”
They stood in the suffocating silence, listening as the rustle of leaves stirred up by running feet crackled nearby. Long sniffs and quiet growls joined them.
Ildiko clenched her teeth together and tried not to breathe. Her heartbeat drummed so loud in her head, she was certain their pursuers could hear her.
“Anything?” a voice called out in the Common tongue.
Another answered. “Fresh tracks, but it’s a big party and the hooves are shod with shoes of Beladine making, not Kai.”
“Patrol then. We’re within Beladine territory, but it’s High Salure. That bastard Pangion would as soon hang us with our own innards as wink at us. His troops won’t be too friendly if they come across us. Let’s go.”
“Don’t you want to search the temple?”
Ildiko felt Serovek tense even more beside her, and his soft breaths stopped altogether.
“Why bother? Look at the magefinders. They’re just whining and sniffing about. Probably smelling badger or deer scat. The girl is riding with a Kai. If they were here, we’d know it by now. We’ll keep going. I’m not too keen to cross a patrol anyway.”
“I’m not keen on crossing that Kai. You saw what she did in the clearing. Took down all three hounds.”
“Just means you need to be on your guard. Let’s go.”
The minutes of silence stretched into an eternity of stillness until a night bird’s call sounded outside.
“They’re gone.” Serovek spoke in conversational volume. Shuffling noises accompanied his statement. “Outside, Highness, where we can see our hands in front of our faces.”
The moonlight seemed like the noonday sun after her time in the chapel’s sepulchral darkness. Ildiko blinked and caught sight of Serovek as he crouched to settle Anhuset gently on the ground. The Kai woman lay ominously still, but her chest rose and fell in easy rhythm, and Ildiko exhaled a relieved sigh.
Serovek rose. “Stay with her,” he said. “I need to get supplies from my horse.” He paused to give instructions to the two soldiers who stood guard nearby before disappearing into the foliage surrounding the temple grounds.
When he returned, he carried a small satchel, a blanket and a bottle. He dropped down next to Ildiko who was stroking Anhuset’s hair from her face. He fished inside the satchel and retrieved an oddly shaped utensil. Diamond-shaped with a shallow lip folded inward on all sides, it vaguely resembled a spoon, though Ildiko couldn’t figure out how such a design might adequately hold porridge and would never contain broth.
“What is that?” she asked.
Serovek took the knife belted at his side and cut away the laces on Anhuset’s hauberk. “An arrow spoon. If our luck holds, I won’t have to use it.” He didn’t expound further and split the stitching around the armored scales that were sewn to the gambeson and surrounded the shortened arrow shaft sticking out of Anhuset’s shoulder.
He cut through the quilted gambeson next and the clothing underneath. He set the knife aside. “I’m going to lift her up. I need you to peel away the hauberk and clothes. Quick but gentle. Can you do it?”
She nodded, and the two set to work. Anhuset rested still in Serovek’s embrace while Ildiko eased the hauberk, gambeson and shirt off her shoulders and away from the arrow shaft. Serovek laid the Kai woman onto her right side and bent for a closer look at the shoulder wound. “I think it’s a bodkin tip. I won’t know until I cut into her.” Ildiko blanched, and Serovek’s responding smile lacked all humor. “It’s a mercy she’s suffering through marseret poisoning. I’ll have to work fast before it wears off.”
He cut away Anhuset’s trousers while Ildiko removed her boots. Naked in the cold air, her gray skin riddled with goose flesh, she shivered lightly. Ildiko covered her legs with the blanket for warmth and added her own cloak for protection.
Serovek pulled a small candle from his satchel and coaxed a flame from the wick using flint, steel and charcloth. He passed the candle to Ildiko. “I’m no Kai to be cutting into wounds in the dark, so hold that steady and don’t let the flame die.”
He doused the blade with the contents from the bottle he’d brought back with him. Smoke rose in tendrils from the blade. He glanced at Ildiko whose eyes had rounded at the sight. “Peleta’s Tears. Good for drinking and keeps wounds from festering.”
“You drink that?” She’d heard of Peleta’s Tears. Named after the goddess of dragons, it laid low any who dared to taste its brew. Surely something that made metal smoke wasn’t safe to imbibe.
“Sometimes. When I want to forget.” Serovek positioned himself so that Anhuset lay recumbent between his knees, her chest pressed against one of his thighs while he braced her back with the other. He trickled more of the drink onto the wound. Ildiko flinched, right along with the unconscious Anhuset. While the drink might smoke metal, it didn’t burn the skin.
Serovek’s legs flexed against his patient as he made incisions with the knife and widened the wound. Ildiko poured Peleta’s Tears over his bloodied fingers as he felt for the arrowhead. Anhuset didn’t move, but a small moan escaped her lips.
Serovek’s shoulders sagged in obvious relief. “Bodkin,” he said. “Not broadhead. Bad enough but easier to remove.”
Blood ran in thin rills down Anhuset’s back, staining Serovek’s breeches as he worked. The arrow shaft detached from the tip but not before he managed to extract the bodkin from the wound.
Ildiko gave up her overskirt to use as bandages. Serovek packed the wound with moss he pulled from his satchel and bound it with strips cut from the skirt. They repeated the process on Anhuset’s hip. By the time they were done, her clawed fingers had begun to flex and relax against her palm, and dawn gilded the edges of the eastern facing trees with pink light.
“Will she be all right?” Ildiko tucked the blanket and cloak more closely around Anhuset. The shivering had stopped, but her breathing had turned more erratic.
Serovek stood and wiped away the perspiration on his brow with his forearm. “I think so. Kai are hard to kill.”
“Have you killed them?”
His mouth quirked. “A few. We have our raiders; they have theirs. Your husband and I deal with both because they cross into each of our territories. It’s just a
matter of who gets to them first.” He took a seat next to Ildiko, grabbed the bottle of Peleta’s tears and tipped it to his lips. The first swallow made him gasp and shake like a wet dog but didn’t stop him from taking a second swallow. He offered the bottle to Ildiko who shook her head, preferring not to torture her already queasy stomach even more. Serovek passed her a flask of water instead so she could rinse the blood from her hands.
“Why didn’t the dogs sniff us out?” she asked.
Serovek placed the bottle of spirits between them and draped his arms over his knees. His gaze drifted to Anhuset’s face and stayed. “They did, but their task was to hunt Kai, not humans. The sorcery lingering here confused them and made Anhuset hard to detect.”
“Didn’t their handlers know that such a thing might happen?”
He shrugged. “Only if they were familiar with this land or a Kai. This temple sits inside my borders, but it’s Kai-built and once Kai-worshipped. Brishen told me about it a couple of years ago while we shared a bottle of Tears between us and commiserated on the vagaries of volatile mistresses.” He winked at Ildiko.
Ildiko tried to smile at the idea of the two men crying on each other’s shoulder over women, but her lips refused to obey. She couldn’t get the image out of her mind of Brishen’s set features when he thrust her at Anhuset and shouted for them to ride for the bridge. She’d seen death in that glowing gaze—his death.
She blinked to fight back the tears that suddenly blurred her vision. “How did you find me and Anhuset?”
Serovek tipped the bottle again before answering. “A rumor about the ambush reached High Salure. By the time I dispatched a rider to Saggara to warn the herceges, you were already at Halmatus township. We set out to meet you but were too late.”
It did no good to dwell on what-ifs, but Ildiko couldn’t help but think how their fate might have differed if they had waited one more day before leaving Saggara. “I wonder if this is the same pack that attacked us on the trade road after Brishen and I were married.”
“Probably not. That attempt failed. Whoever is moving the pieces on this board doesn’t want to fail twice. They’ve supplied this party with mage hounds to anyone or anything with magery, like the Kai. An expensive weapon and far outside the means of even the most successful raiders. I suspect half this group isn’t even Beladine, so they’re bringing in sell-swords with no allegiance except to the sacks of coins paid to them.”
Ildiko recalled the brief exchange between Brishen and Anhuset when the night’s darkness had exploded into blinding flashes of light. “They have a battle mage with them as well.”
Serovek scowled. “That will be a problem when we retrieve your husband.”
When they retrieved him, not if. His matter of fact reply gave her hope despite its dire prediction regarding the mage. “Do you really think Brishen’s still alive?” She held on to hope that he was. Her husband was a formidable fighter, but who knew how many raiders they faced or the sorcery used against him and the other Kai by the mage.
Serovek held up one of the two arrowheads he’d extracted from Anhuset. Coated in dried blood, its dagger-like point bounced a stray beam of anemic sunlight off its tip. “These are marseret-tipped bodkins. If they wanted to kill Brishen—and you—right away, they would have used broadheads. The bodkins pierce armor and bring down horses, but a man shot with one can survive longer than if he were shot with a broadhead. Had it been the second, Anhuset would have bled out before she even fell from her horse.”
He tossed the arrowhead aside. “I have no doubt that Brishen is alive and a prisoner. Your escape put a knot in their plans. They were in a better position to force either the Kai or the Gauri to renegotiate or break their alliance in order to save you. They only have one of you now, but that’s enough to begin negotiations for his life with the Kai royal house of Khaskhem.”
Ildiko almost burst into tears at that. Her hand trembled as she reached for Serovek’s bottle of Peleta’s Tears. The drink set fire to her tongue and throat and sent the tears pouring down her cheeks. Serovek snatched the bottle out of her hand and hid it behind his back.
She wiped her streaming eyes and gave a bitter laugh. “Then he’s dead already. Neither of us is of any real worth to our families. The Kai throne is secured by Brishen’s older brother and more sons than you can count on one hand. Brishen is a spare without value. Secmis will turn her back on him, and her husband will follow her lead.”
Serovek looked beyond her into the ever-brightening tree line. “I’ve never met her and hope not to, but rumors abound. It’s hard to believe that the Shadow Queen of Haradis birthed such a man as Brishen Khaskhem.”
“It’s hard to believe anything with a soul came out of that womb.” In that moment Ildiko hated Secmis more than any person she’d ever known.
“Whoever in Belawat is paying these sell-swords doesn’t know there’s no love lost between them. So we have time. Not much. A few days only but enough to find their hiding place and rescue your husband.”
Ildiko twisted her tunic in her hands. “What can I do? Surely, there’s something I can do.” She hated the helplessness, the lack of martial skills. Common sense dictated that no one could have foreseen such circumstances for her, but the knowledge offered little comfort.
Serovek gained his feet and helped her rise as well. “There is, but I want Anhuset’s opinion first. The effects of the marseret should fade, and she’ll awaken soon.”
“What about her wounds?”
He had kind eyes. A soft brown the color of roasted chestnut with flecks of gold radiating from the edges of the pupils, they shimmered with a steady humor. He was a good man, a brave one, and his attraction to Anhuset was palpable. “You should know by now the toughness of a Kai. Those wounds won’t slow her down anymore than flea bites would.” He patted Ildiko on the arm. “I’ll bring you extra blankets. You can rest beside her.”
“I can’t sleep.” There was no possible way she could sleep, not with Brishen out there somewhere, a hostage of Beladine mercenaries.
“Try,” Serovek said. “I need you alert and sharp later.”
She did as he requested and rolled into the blankets he gave her. She was asleep as soon as her eyes closed. It seemed like only a handful of moments before the sound of voices arguing in bast-Kai awakened her. Ildiko rubbed her scratchy eyes and squinted at the couple glaring at each other not far from where she lay alone. Anhuset, wrapped in a blanket tied at her good shoulder, was awake and arguing fiercely with Serovek.
“It’s a sound idea,” he said and crossed his arms.
Anhuset mimicked his actions, her features drawn into a scowl. “Until someone skewers her or puts a bolt in her.”
“I saw her handle your horse. She’s an adept rider. She can do this. If you want this to work, she needs to do this.”
“Brishen sacrificed himself to save her. We risk making that sacrifice for naught.”
Serovek blew out a frustrated breath. “Stop being so eager to kill him off. He isn’t dead!” His body tensed as a furious Anhuset rounded on him, fangs bared.
Ildiko threw off her blankets and leapt to her feet. “Please,” she said. The two forgot their fight and turned to her. “I’ll do whatever you ask of me. Anything. I’m sorry I’m not a warrior. I wish I were.”
Serovek gazed at her with an implacable expression. “We don’t need another warrior, Highness. We need bait.”
*****
The sun had burned away the last of the lingering morning fog. Ildiko reclined against one of the temple walls and tried not to gnaw her fingernails down to the quick with worry. Instead, she worked to repair the laces on Anhuset’s gambeson and watched as the Kai woman paced back and forth with a hitched gait, her lips drawn back against her teeth as she glared at Serovek.
“This is taking too long,” she snapped.
Seated cross-legged near Ildiko, he didn’t bother to look up from his task of sharpening a knife on the whetting stone he held. “It’s taking as l
ong as it needs to,” he said calmly. “You might as well sit down before you wear a path in the stones.”
No sooner had he finished the sentence than Anhuset went still, listening. “Horses,” she said after a moment.
The scrape of blade on stone halted as Serovek joined her. “But no dogs,” he said. A bird’s whistle carried through the trees, and Serovek answered back with a similar whistle. He stood and sheathed the knife at his waist. “We’ve company, and it’s friendly.”
The temple ruin was soon filled with both Beladine and hooded Kai warriors and their horses. They split into two groups, the Kai to gather around Anhuset and Ildiko, the Beladine around Serovek. One of the Beladine bowed before Serovek.
“We think we know where the raiders are hiding. A honeycomb of caves no more than a league north of here.”
Serovek’s lip curled, contempt souring his words. “They’re moving farther into my territory, thinking it safe.”
One of the Kai addressed both Anhuset and Ildiko. “We recovered our dead on the other side of the ravine. Two fallen. The raiders fought only long to capture the herceges and flee.”
Ildiko’s shoulders sagged. She glanced at Serovek. “You were right.”
He nodded. “Right now he’s more valuable alive than dead. Now we just need to discover how many we’ll face when we rescue him.”
The soldier who gave the raiders whereabouts spoke up again. “We’ve captured one of them.” He gestured with a nod over his shoulder when Serovek’s eyebrows rose. “We broke up a raid on a lower holt just within our borders. They massacred the family steading there and stole the sheep and grain. We killed all but one and hanged them from the trees as a warning.”
Ildiko closed her eyes. So much killing and over two people who were never supposed to matter.
The crowd parted as a Kai shoved a human to his knees before Serovek. An impromptu circle formed, caging in their captive. Filthy, lice-infested and splattered with blood, the man glared at Serovek before spying Ildiko who recoiled from his lascivious, black-tooth leer.