‘No! Powers have mercy!’ She snatched at him, furious.
‘Princess! We have to! Just ride!’
She reined her mare sideways, enraged fit to kill. ‘Captain, please, no!’
Her cry of betrayal scored his heart like cold iron, but did not deter his intent. Too late for recovery, the sacrificed horses swerved away from their bunched fellows. Mykkael shouted. He drove the loosed animals leftwards and down, towards the open expanse of the lakeshore.
The volatile grey Vashni pounded away, dragging the less than willing Fouzette on the impetus of his hazed panic. Both horses galloped. They had worked in the bridle, matched together, for months. Fully extended, their powerful strides drove them over the rough ground, their cheek-by-jowl heads snorting trailed plumes of steamed breath.
Offered an unencumbered target, the marauding kerrie clapped down its wings and veered in bloodthirsty pursuit.
Mykkael dropped his makeshift rein. He snatched up the bow, yanked an arrow out of the jouncing quiver. To Anja, he shouted, ‘Play them! Like wickets! Use their minds!’
Her face changed. She responded, and pealed out the voice cue for the halt. Then, wrung white with desperate hope, she repeated the command, louder. She hung every shred of her will on the call, that the horses’ schooling might override their terror-stricken instinct to bolt.
Blessed Fouzette dropped on to her haunches, a sliding stop made at punishing speed. The sudden jerk caught Vashni short on his lead rein. He spun sideways, wrenched out of stride, while the kerrie whisked over his grey crest and missed its aimed strike. The killing, bared talons slammed into bare ground. Feathers slapped up loose stones, rattling through a bone-chilling bellow of rage.
‘Jee!’ shouted Anja. ‘Jee! Now!’ Tears streamed down her face, pride and grief mingled as she watched her magnificent horses dare the murderous predator that spun in recoiling fury to rend them.
They answered, wheeled right, Vashni’s mad scramble fought into breathtaking recovery. Ears back for the shame of missing his first prompt, he threw his heart into the game he had trained for, one that tested the limits of agility and obedience, with the prize of this match stark survival. As Fouzette reached her rhythm, the grey gelding blended his powerful stride into unison. He hurtled down the lakeshore, paired stride for stride with his sturdy, dependable teammate—as he had through countless afternoons in Gurley’s back meadow, yoked to the mare by the arch of a wicket hoop, attached to their tandem harness. Fiery grey gelding and northern-bred bay, they poured out their hearts to lead the grand chase, as though they charged in safety over the greensward, opposed by a third horse and rider contending to snatch the target prize looped in the wicket sling.
Mykkael had his strung arrow sighted. Yet no opening for a clear shot presented as the kerrie sprang aloft and arrowed into thunderous, flapping pursuit. Air slapped off its vast, pumping wings and pounded gusts through the verge of the aspens. Such roiling wind would drive any arrow awry, even had the monster’s scaled underparts granted a target for an archer taking aim through dense trees, from the back of a galloping horse.
‘Wheel them again!’ he told Anja, breathless. ‘That kerrie can’t turn with anything near your horses’ agility.’
Anja’s cry rang out clear and steady over the clatter of hooves. ‘Haw! Haw, now!’
Bay mare and grey gelding dropped on to their hocks like paired dancers, the more agile Vashni digging into his counterstride on the outside, anchored by Fouzette’s solid pivot. Again, the kerrie overshot. As its thrashing wings rose to brake, Mykkael snatched his moment and released.
His arrow arched out, clipped a twig, and glanced left. Yet he had not waited to score his first effort. His next arrow was already nocked and drawn. The bow sang again before the first shaft dropped, clattering, amid the bare stone by the lakebed. The second shot did not go awry, but still missed the vulnerable moment of the kerrie’s fullest extension. It caught the creature’s right wing through the down-sweep, and lodged deep in the tissue between joints. If not a kill, the missile would hamper. The sting as the point tore through working flesh caused the enraged monster to spew molten fire.
‘Go! Go! Go!’ pealed Anja, exhorting her horses to gallop.
‘Bring them back!’ Mykkael ordered. ‘Turn them under the trees if you can.’
This time, she gave him her trust without question. ‘Jee! Vashni, Fouzette, here to me! To me!’
They responded, manes flying, and nostrils distended to show the red flare of the linings. The kerrie descended hard on their streaming tails, its lamed wing scarcely posing a hindrance.
‘Too far out. They’re going to be hit,’ said Mykkael. ‘Use your commands, try to dodge and win clear.’
‘Whoa! Fouzette, Vashni, Whoa!’ Anja halted the team, swerved them once, then twice, forcing the kerrie to fly wrenching manoeuvres to keep pace with their drilled co-ordination. The arrow-shot wing suffered under the strain. A spreading flood of scarlet now stained the bronze feathers on the underside of the tendons. As the horses spun again, Anja called. Their flat run veered upslope, as the captain required, then stayed on straight course for the treeline.
Now, the kerrie’s driving strokes in pursuit showed a ragged, uneven rhythm.
‘Oh, well done, Princess!’ Mykkael reined up short. He nocked another arrow. While Stormfront stood in quivering obedience underneath him, he pulled the bow to full draw for the shot that would save, or the miss that was going to leave them burned meat in the beak of a merciless predator.
There, Mykkael held. Though his scourged back stung like vengeance, he tracked his aim through the dark lattice of branches. He held, as the teamed horses came pounding in; held as the kerrie swooped upwards to clear the wind-ravelled edge of the wood.
He released, point-blank. His arrow launched out, hissing, and thudded into the soft ventral muscle at the root of the monster’s tail. Mykkael caught up his dropped rein, stabbed in his heels to roust the black gelding to flight. ‘Turn!’ He slapped the princess’s mare, merciless in his need to get her away. ‘Run!’
Anja slammed her mount into a tight pirouette, her cry for the horses milling in wild-eyed confusion beside her. ‘Jee! Jee!’ Exhorting, she urged the two still on lead ropes to move into pace with her mount. Running, now, her desert-bred chestnut pounding hard after Stormfront’s lead, she threaded her reckless, galloping course through the thinning stand of aspen. Shouting, she summoned the loose bay mare and grey gelding pelting under the trees. ‘Fouzette! Vashni! Haw! Haw now! To me!’
The frantic team swerved, caught their lead rein short on a sapling, just as the kerrie, squalling in mortal pain, crashed into the treetops over their heads.
‘Go! Go! Go!’ shrilled Anja. ‘To me! Fouzette, Vashni, to me!’
As one horse, the pair reared. They ripped clear of obstruction, staggered on scrambling legs, then regained their shared balance and bolted.
‘To me! To me! To me!’ Anja’s encouragement sawed through the crackle as the downed kerrie hurled fire, and exploded the saplings in conflagration.
Her horses responded, pounding in lathered terror through flaming boughs, and a white fall of cinders. Tails singed, hides scored and stinging, they galloped headlong after their guided companions.
Mykkael weighed the risk, turned them out of the wood. He swung right by the water, then whipped the small herd in a clattering dash down the packed gravel fronting the lakeshore. When Anja cried out, begging respite, he touched the rein, then angled Stormfront’s long stride just behind her mare’s streaming tail.
‘Fly, Princess!’ he exhorted her. ‘Keep your horses together. Make for the head of the chasm. We can’t stop, now. The kerrie is down, but a demon’s minion flies the ridge just behind it. If we’re not under shelter before it arrives, it will slaughter your brave teams on the run.’
XXVII. Trap
MYKKAEL MUST HAVE SEEN FOUZETTE’S LIMP BEFORE THEY FORDED THE FRESHET. UNTIL THEN, THE MARE’S HIGH-SPIRITED EXCITEMENT had mas
ked the onset of pain. The blood streaming from the gash on her left pastern had been hidden by her dark stocking. When she emerged on the far bank, hobbling three-legged, Anja noticed the ripped flap of skin, opened almost to the bone.
Her cry of dismay met Mykkael’s deadpan calm. ‘She and Vashni saved your life, Princess. I promise we’ll do all we can for her.’
‘What she needs is a lengthy soak in this stream. Cold water will keep down the swelling.’ All but frantic to attend to the damage, Anja surged to dismount.
Her move was caught short by the captain’s firm clasp on her forearm. ‘No, Princess! Stay mounted. This place is unsafe. Your mare’s wound won’t swell as long as she’s moving, and we can’t make speed over this rough terrain, anyway’
The princess resisted him, anguished. ‘For mercy, Captain.’ Her plea echoed off the rock cliffs, and rebounded through the tumble of rushing water. ‘She’s in terrible pain!’
Yet Mykkael remained adamant. ‘The faster we reach shelter, the sooner we can take steps to ease her.’ He glanced over his shoulder, and scanned the black shore of the lake left behind, past the cut leading into the chasm. He saw no sign of Benj’s best hound; had not, since the kerrie descended. The fires kindled by the monster’s death throes stippled the basin in copper, beneath a star-scattered sky that stayed empty. The looming ice of the Howduin glaciers, and the snagged profiles of corniced peaks showed no trace of moving pursuit. If the shaman’s mark on his sword hilt stayed mute, the sign gave him no reassurance. Mykkael’s instincts remained nettled, as though the sorcerer’s minion made a game of the hunt, lurking just outside range of his wards.
The streamlet where they had paused to regroup raced between the moss-capped boulders of a dell. Here, the vertical rise of the rim wall offered no cover, and no haven to stand off attack.
Mykkael stood by his initial decision. ‘A pause in this place could cost us our lives. Princess, that injury has laid tendon sheaths bare. Fouzette’s leg will stiffen, the longer we linger. I have seen enough suffering on campaigns to know she has no better choice but to bear up and go onwards.’
He spoke sound sense. She knew this. The streamlet’s surrounds left no margin for flight. Another attempt by a hunting kerrie would end in bloodletting disaster. Mykkael clung to the rags of his patience. Orannia’s straits had taught him too well that the heart could not always be reconciled with the brutal demands of necessity.
Soon enough, Princess Anja relented. The anger as she shook off his grasp reflected sore grief, and the wear of remorseless exhaustion. They pressed ahead to the stagger of Fouzette’s lamed stride, and passed into the ever deepening gloom as the high rock of the gulch swallowed the sky on both sides. To the left, the black swirl of the current acquired white snags, torn by the jut of obstructing stones, and the crabbed limbs of wedged deadfalls. The gusts that ripped down through the notch wore a fine spray of moisture, loud with the swelling thunder of unseen falls and leaping rapids. Guano streaked the overhead cliffs, where kerries had perched to dry out soaked wings, or seek nesting cracks in the ledges.
Again, Mykkael measured the turn of the stars. Perhaps two hours remained before dawn. Daylight would bring a small measure of reprieve, since kerries preferred feeding at night. The minions of demons also disliked strong light. Although they could fare abroad after sunrise, their senses were sharpest in twilight and darkness. The air and earth ties that channelled a sorcerer’s long spell weakened as well, under the fire-sign influence of the sun. The assault he expected was most likely to strike before daybreak.
Mykkael scoured the gulch for a likely cave or deep crevice. If he could find a defensible site, he might widen his options, even waylay hell’s minion, and trap it.
Anja broke the strung silence between them. At first, he thought she spoke out to redress the upset caused by Fouzette’s laboured breathing. When the rush of the water forced her to speak louder, he realized just what direct question she asked of him.
‘How bad is the injury to your back, Captain?’
Taskin’s three stripes; blinding glory, how was he to explain that self-evident mark of chastisement? Or the scars underneath, brutal remnant of a more punishing ordeal, that his last campaign officer had taken amiss, not believing his account of the truth? Mykkael faced straight ahead, made aware of the sting that should have warned him Jussoud’s dressings had torn through from the rigours of pulling the bow.
‘Fouzette can still walk. My archery’s dead accurate. What I call a scratch does not signify until my fighting strength is impaired.’ She opened her mouth; he cut her off. ‘Not your business, your Grace, unless I can’t defend you. Which is obviously far from the case.’
His phrasing carried a shade too much vehemence. Too late, Mykkael saw the clamped set to her jaw. His misjudgement had happened because he was tired, and hurting, she saw that much, too clearly. The lapse on his part only made him more slit-eyed and furious.
‘How you hate it when somebody takes notice of you,’ Anja observed at due length.
Revenge for the mare, Mykkael could but hope, or the acid-drawn prod of sheer boredom. He happened to be the sole target at hand to field her inquisitive interest.
Since her keen innuendo could force a response, he snatched at the shallow retreat. ‘In my trade, the man who was noticed became the most likely enemy target. I don’t like being shot at, with arrows or words.’
‘I was not attacking,’ said Anja, nonplussed. ‘If my value is more in the world than a princess, then yours goes beyond being a soldier.’
‘Does it?’ Mykkael grinned. ‘I’ve never been hired, except for my sword.’
She refused his insouciance. ‘Yes, but who are you, beneath the trappings of your profession?’
He stonewalled her. ‘A mercenary’
‘Who do you become, when you lay down your weapons?’ She ducked a sprung branch, undaunted, still caring. ‘Has no one but family ever loved you?’
He grinned the more broadly. This time well warned, and foreknowing his mistake, he dismissed her kindly meant overture. ‘You’ll have to see whether I talk in my sleep.’
The sorry truth lay too close to the bone: that his quarters in the keep contained only a cot, a trestle and stool, and one simple box of belongings. His Lowergate officers all knew that he slept with his hand on his sword grip. Not being Anja, they had never made comment on behaviour more suited to a hunted fugitive, or a man pursued by the pain of an active tragedy. He had no wish to dredge up the ghastly details. The Princess of Sessalie was not Jussoud, with a brother’s blood kinship that tied family honour to the facts of Orannia’s misfortune.
‘Coward,’ said Anja, the accusation served after a ruthlessly measuring pause.
Had she not been a princess under threat of cold sorcery, Mykkael would have laughed for the irony: of all the insults she might have tried, that one alone could not touch him. While silence was his preferred response, he could not afford the blind self-indulgence of risking her slightest contempt; not when the matter of her survival relied on her trust in his resources.
He inclined his head, deferential, and not smiling. ‘Your Grace.’
‘Blinding powers of daylight, Captain!’ In darkness, her flush could be felt, and her fury.
Yet whatever else Anja intended to say, Mykkael pressed Stormfront ahead. Throughout the next hour, he presented her with the unflinching dignity of his back.
In that fashion, they rode down the throat of Hell’s Chasm. The low ground of the ravine wended deeper into the narrowing channel carved out by scouring whitewater. The footing turned slippery, then treacherous. At each crook and turning, the bared shelves of the ledges grew shagged with moss. Although the crest of the spring melt had passed, the thrash of the cataract was deafening. The inexhaustible race of white foam misted the air with flung spray. That unending barrage of splashed moisture combined with the funnelled rush of the wind. Mounts and riders alike suffered the bone-hurting cold. Tails tucked, shoulders hunched, they pl
odded in silenced misery. The horses picked their way in single file, often sliding over the loose wrack hurled down in the spate of the thaws. The rock cleft reared up and towered on both sides, heaped at the base with smashed stone and split trees that had crumbled off the high rim wall.
Since the cavalcade moved more slowly than a human on foot, Mykkael slipped off Stormfront and signalled the princess to dismount. The piled boulders made punishing work for his knee. He had to lead each stride with his good leg, at the risk of turning an ankle. The encumbrance of the terrain gave him cold sweats, alongside the incongruous fact that the sorcerer’s minion withheld from attack.
He chafed for the unease.
Such restraint made no sense, with the woman under his charge and six straggling horses forced to a tactical standstill. Mykkael fretted over the unfavourable odds, too well versed not to worry. No enemy ceded ground to no purpose. At each turn, he expected the trap that would set the final seal on their doom.
The crawling pace wracked his taut nerves, until, almost, Mykkael would have welcomed the whine of roused wards in the sword strapped over his back.
No such raised warning disturbed him. His limp degenerated to a lurching hobble, until he had to cling to Stormfront’s mane to stay upright. Another league would bring his collapse, if he failed to find secure respite. The roar of the watercourse grew steadily louder, dire warning of worse ground ahead.
‘We need to stop soon,’ Anja called at last. Not for her own sake: the bay mare, Fouzette, was visibly flagging, dropped back from the rear of the column.
Mykkael nodded, distressed by the thought that they might have to snatch rest in the open. He was too spent to stand a reliable watch. That quandary posed a disastrous peril. To fall asleep without shelter, day or night, was to invite certain death. He wrestled the despair of outright defeat, when a crook in the chasm opened ahead. There, he found the site he had hoped for: the dark mouth of a cavern cut into the cliff wall, too low to be of interest to kerries, and with footing the horses could manage without stumbling.