He showed her the correct knot, made her repeat tying it twice. Once he was certain she would not fumble or slip, he gave her shoulder a light slap of encouragement. ‘You’ll do, Princess, more than very well. Now stand back. Lead the other horses well clear. Also make sure that Stormfront’s secured. Let’s sidestep the known pitfall, and forestall his impulse to tear loose and follow the mare.’
As Anja realized, dismayed, he had made no contingencies, Mykkael silenced her with a headshake. ‘We do this just once. The lives of your horses rest in your hands, and I have not known you to fail them.’
He stepped back, a dwarfed figure in sadly soiled clothes who would stand or fall on lamed strength, naked will and ingenuity. Before Anja had mustered the resolve to go forward, Mykkael had taken his rock grapple in hand. He started it swinging. The whistling, tight circles compelled the princess to scramble clear and herd the horses against the cleft wall. When the hide tether sliced the air, then sang out with a whining hum, the captain raised his fist, and turned the spin horizontal. With the rock sling now whistling over his head, he payed out more line. His release was a masterwork of neat timing, no doubt perfected in siegecraft. The rock sailed over the chasm in a shot arc, trailing its runner of line.
It descended and caught in the first gnarled fir. Leashed momentum whipped the end in a caught spiral over the spindly tree. The snag sealed his commitment. No wishful tug could pull the line free. Mykkael would embark with no second chance. Either the rope was wound fast, or it would slip and break loose, or else tear up the evergreen, root and limb, the first time it came to be tested.
‘Anja!’ Mykkael shouted. ‘Come steady your mare. If the line fails, you must not despair! If I should fall in, and if I stay under for more than a minute, you will work with the horse and draw up the slack. Don’t stand at Fouzette’s head. Hold her back from behind, or you’ll risk being swept off your feet if she slides. Align her straight on. Try not to let her spin sideways.’
The captain backed the bay mare to harden the line. He tugged only once, to test its strung tension, then handed off Fouzette’s lead to the princess.
‘Don’t think,’ he insisted. ‘Just breathe and stay focused.’
Mykkael left her no chance to build apprehension, but charged three running steps and launched off the ledge. He caught the line and swung himself hand over hand above the raging white race that tore down the throat of the chasm.
The captain had drawn himself halfway across, when the anchoring tree snapped its taproot. The line loosened and sagged. His feet struck the tossing rush of the flume, and the sudden, sharp jerk yanked Fouzette into a disastrous surge forward.
‘Hold hard!’ Anja screamed. ‘Fouzette, hold hard!’
The mare answered, snorting. Her trembling hindquarters lowered to withstand the murderous drag at her forehand.
But Mykkael had already gone under. The beleaguered fir tree trembled and bent, the lesser roots still clutched to the crag overtaxed by the drag of the current. The captain remained precariously tethered, though the foaming water had swallowed his form.
The princess looked on, wrung voiceless, as the braided black rope knifed downwards into the tumble. The pressure twisted and wrung at the stunted fir binding the end to the opposite shore. Bark and greenery peeled. A branch cracked and parted. Loose pebbles spilled down as the strained roots ripped up the thin soil.
Anja watched, her heart all but stopped, while the improvised rope still holding Mykkael sliced ever further from the near bank. A mote in a maelstrom, he was being dragged downstream by the raging spate.
She remembered to start counting. Unnerved and frightened, she ran through the sequence too fast. More pebbles cracked loose. A stricken glance at the tree showed its trunk wrung in half. Second by second, the stubbed base was tearing out of the crevice. The rope sliced the wild water, carving up spray. The current’s brutal, swirling force swung Mykkael towards the far bank. If he could maintain his grip against its pummelling fury, if his strength held, and if the hide itself did not slide through his wet hands, he might have a chance to haul himself clear of danger. Provided the tree did not give way first.
The near bank posed no option. Even braced by Fouzette, the captain would be battered to rags against the undershot rim of the ledge.
Anja’s count had cleared forty. Dread squeezed her chest. If she called on Fouzette, she saw right away, the precarious fir tree must fail. The roots, now peeled backwards, could not withstand even an ounce of additional strain. Sight fixed to the thrumming strand of the rope, Anja begged for reprieve from the elements. She held Mykkael’s memory, rejecting tears, and compelled herself to keep his admonishment to breathe.
Tears blurred her vision, regardless. She caught Fouzette’s lead, prepared to drag in the line, when the whitewater at the far side kicked and splashed, thrown into savage recoil. A fan of spray shot from the moil of current. Then a dark hand emerged, sculpted with strain, still latched to the failing rope.
Mykkael reappeared, hurtled over and over in the tumble. He broke the surface, his head and face dashed under by the cataract of churned water. He ducked like a seal. Elbows tucked, he used legs and feet as a rudder, fought his clinging form in a slewing arc towards the shallows. Another haul on the line broke him clear of the murderous drag of the race. There he clung, trying to recover his stressed wind, spluttering and coughing up water.
‘Mykkael!’ Anja screamed out a warning. ‘Look up! You must! The tree’s giving way!’
He had already seen. If the line let go now, he would be lost. The slick, shelving rock that supported his hip hissed and boiled with sheeting, fast current. His attempt to fold on to one knee and gain purchase battered him once more downstream. The snagged fir tore again, raining pebbles. Another sharp tug would uproot it. The ledge where the captain languished was too slippery. If he tried to rise, he would be swept away. Each moment he relied on the line, the icy spate numbed the speed from his reflexes. Left no other choice, he dragged himself tenderly in, hand over inching hand. Each foot regained from the drag of brute elements, he seized from the poised jaws of fate.
Mykkael reached the far shore, scraped and bleeding, and all but stunned senseless. The knee of his breeches was shredded to rags. One of his boots had been torn away in the pummelling rush of the current. The wracked fir that had anchored him now hung straight down, with his improvised rock grapple dangling. The tied packet of peril that must be kept dry swung over the fast-rushing water.
Anja watched, breathless, as Mykkael discerned that unfolding disaster. He kicked off his filled boot and surged to his feet in one seamlessly desperate motion. Steel flashed in his hand, though she had not seen the sheath that concealed the short dagger he kept for infighting. He jammed the blade into a crack in the stone, risked his weight to its steel, and drew himself up by the handle. His outflung fist snagged the swinging rope. He ducked the recoiling spin of the stone, let its momentum thud into the cliff wall. It shattered on impact. Face and shoulders, he was raked by the back-falling fragments. He clung through the battering. As the broken stone fell away, leaving the cord bindings uselessly slackened, Mykkael snatched like a cobra. When he lowered himself down, he had the salt packet with the shape-changer’s remains once more in hand, tightly guarded.
He did not pause in triumph. The moment he had the burden stowed in the security of a dry crevice, he tugged down the splintered remains of the tree, and freed his length of snagged rope. He climbed again and whipped a tight half-hitch over a well-rooted tree bole. Once the trailing end of the line was reeled in, he tied on a new stone as a throwing weight. Then he coiled the slack, and hurled the line across the raced waters to Anja.
Mykkael did not call out in encouragement, or rush her to undue haste. The drawn tension on his face spoke more plainly than words: each second that kept him apart from his sword increased the potential for danger.
Anja caught up the icy, wet rope, and hauled the rock from its backsliding roll towards the water
. She fought the pull of the slippery hide, skinned her knuckles working the stubborn knots free. Despite the terror clamped in her gut, she fastened the line to Kasminna’s headstall. Then she knotted the trailing end to her waist exactly as Mykkael had taught her.
‘All right!’ Her tremulous shout arose thin as a gull’s cry over the thrash of the flume.
The captain nodded his instant acknowledgement and raised his cupped hands to shout. ‘Lay the slack line on the upstream side! Then climb astride. Grab mane with both hands, gallop straight on and jump! Go! No thinking! Do as I say, now, Princess!’
Kasminna snorted, pawing, already aware her young handler was uneasy. Anja clambered astride, her blind state of fear underscored by stark common sense. The wise horse she rode would balk, if she faltered.
Anja swallowed. Trembling, she stroked the mare’s neck, then balanced her weight for a running charge off the ledge. ‘Kasminna! Ready!’ She pitched the familiar command as though she prepared to launch a hot contest of steed wickets in the meadow.
The mare tensed beneath her, prancing with eagerness. Despite the strange setting, the start of a match was a well-known, beloved routine. The horse pricked her ears forward. Her muscles coiled with quivering anticipation.
‘Kasminna, go!’ shouted Anja.
The sorrel exploded forward. Her powerful stride unfolded and drove her headlong off the rim, then over the boiling torrent. The last thing Anja heard, through the whistle of air, and the foaming crash of the waters, was Stormfront’s distressed whinny, that his herd mate departed without his accustomed support.
Then the mare struck. The shock of the icy, turbulent water slapped the breath out of Anja’s chest. She gasped, stunned all but witless as she pitched into frigid immersion. The swift current hooked her clothes with battering force. Her body was torn off Kasminna’s back. The locked clasp of her fists in wet mane buoyed her, barely. She sucked in a breath, before a hammering wall of white water drove headlong into her face. She swallowed a mouthful, nearly choked as the spate pummelled her lips and closed eyelids. She held on, overpowered and blinded, and robbed of all sense of direction.
The frightened horse fared no better. Kasminna pitched and thrashed through the froth. Head upflung, nose tipped skywards, she bucked the pull of the rope on her noseband. Still, her stabbing hooves found no purchase. Swept downstream like a straw in a millrace, she rolled under, snorting in terror.
Through the cold and the dark, Anja thought she heard Mykkael’s frantic shouting. She battled the greedy suck of the current. Her puny strength did not avail her. The remorseless force of the flume wrung her under. She could not twist her face to the surface. The drubbing eddies hurled her into chill darkness, pounding her down without let-up. She clung. Kasminna’s struggles meant life. Anja felt her fingers inexorably sliding as her cramped lungs lost air, and the horse slammed, fighting, against her.
Then the shadowy deeps thinned around her. Sudden light burst and burned, and her head broke the surface, dashed with white fingers of foam. Her braid had wrapped around her wracked throat. She fought its wet choke hold, then felt her knees slam into a ledge of smoothed rock. One hand still gripped Kasminna’s streamed mane. Anja clung like a limpet, while the mare dug in her iron-shod forefeet and scrambled. Her upflung head showered spray against the reeling sky overhead.
‘Back up! Fouzette! Back, now!’ Mykkael’s shout sounded all but on top of her.
Anja coughed weakly. Cold water exploded from her filled nose and mouth. Somewhere near, a rope creaked taut. The stressed plies threw off moisture like plumed smoke.
Anja felt the jostling surge of the horse. She lost her last grip, slammed down and sideways into swirling water and rock. The fierce current clawed her, hauling at the deadweight of her filled shoes and soaked clothing. She hacked out a yell, felt the rope dig her chest. Then a ruthless pull from the tethering end snapped her ahead like a rag doll. A last, stinging wave slapped over her cheek. Then Mykkael’s fist grabbed her collar, hauled her free of the rip, and flung her gasping upon the splashed ledge.
First thing, she pitched over and heaved up her guts. The horrid, cold gush of breakfast and river water gouted over her bleeding, grazed hands. Tears burned her eyes. Her lungs ached like bruised meat. Mykkael caught her up, tossed her over his raised knee, and pounded her back as she gagged. Her clogged airway emptied. Her limbs felt like a mangled stranger’s. Shaking with shock, she shivered and retched, and fought in a raw gulp of air.
‘The sword,’ she gasped. ‘Kasminna.’
‘Both safe.’ Mykkael cradled her against his wet shoulder, steel and all. His cold fingers were trembling as he cleared the heavy, drenched braid from her throat. ‘You’ve done Sessalie proud as a princess.’
Anja freed a hand, pushed. ‘The others.’
‘We’ll bring them.’ Mykkael propped her upright, allowing the freedom her spirited pride would demand. ‘Once you can stand, you’ll help me.’
His tone was a level ribbon of steel, shocking her into recovery. Anja sat up, hampered by the unyielding burden of the weapon strapped on to her back. ‘You aren’t going back across!’
Mykkael released his supportive grip, warned off by her knifing anger. ‘Someone must.’ The chiselled set to his desert-bred features showed no softening change of expression. ‘For one thing, the bow and arrows must stay dry. Nor can we leave the supplies in my scrip.’
Anja glared at him, horrified. ‘Captain, no! If you try, you’ll be battered to death where the water undercuts the far ledge!’
He grinned. ‘I would if I planned to go swimming again.’
The tip of the sword scabbard clanked against stone as Anja shoved all the way upright. She arrived on her feet. White-faced and shivering, slightly rocked by the weight of the longsword strapped into the harness, she raised her chin, prepared to spit venom. Despite plastered hair and bedraggled appearance, she was every inch the crowned princess. Answers were expected, and prompt ones, to judge by the frown that snarled the cut silk of her eyebrows. ‘Take back your weapon. Then show me.’
‘I expect to.’ Mykkael caught her wrists, restrained her rushed impulse to start unfastening buckles. ‘Let’s untie that safety rope first.’ He reached with marked hands, began unlashing knots, his seal-wet head bent and still dripping. ‘The sword stays with you, Princess, until I can make my way back.’
‘Promise!’ Anja repressed a violent shiver. She needed to rail at him, but words posed too daunting an effort. Sickness and strain had unstrung her. Wretchedly chilled, she could not stop shaking. ‘You aren’t going to swim.’
Mykkael bowed with crossed forearms over his chest, the formal royal salute he preferred. ‘Your Grace, take my vow. The river is not going to have me.’ He went on in swift terms to explain what he wanted, then proceeded to scramble up the near outcrop. There, he made adjustments to allow his fastened line to slide under friction, and affixed the retrieved end around the sturdiest of the remaining trees.
The captain’s plan involved using the traction provided by two horses to create the crude principle of a block and tackle.
‘You’ll brace the line, so,’ he said. ‘Fouzette stands as anchor. I’ll cross over the chasm, hand over hand, this time without a disaster.’ He would not be immersed, except for his legs, and then, only for the final stretch where the slope of the line dropped too low to permit him full clearance. ‘If I carry the middle of the rope across with me, and tie on the horses’ headstalls, you’ll have two trees taking the brunt of the strain, and the other end pulled by Kasminna.’
Anja swiped plastered hair from her cheek. ‘How can you recover the centre of the line, once we’ve drawn the first animal across?’
‘Not a difficulty.’ Mykkael turned to Kasminna, and began to fashion a makeshift harness and chest strap. ‘I’ll string lead lines together. Knotted on to the rope, they will serve as a feed string to drag the loop back.’ With two horses pulling, the one crossing the current should be able to make the pas
sage with a reasonable assurance of safety. The strategy seemed sound, as long as no animal panicked, and provided Kasminna and Fouzette, standing anchor, did not slip on wet rock or go down.
‘The last horse,’ Anja whispered. No fool, she had foreseen the pitfall. The final animal must swim unassisted. Fouzette, like Kasminna, must assay the crossing with no anchor on the far bank.
‘You’ll have four horses on this side,’ Mykkael pointed out, his dark eyes unafraid as he watched her measure the catch. ‘And myself. Fouzette’s solid. If she can stand her firm ground at the end, I can cross back, hand over hand, just before her. Supposing the worst happens, and she fails at the last, you’ll still have four horses to pull from this side. They should be sufficient to bring both of us through.’
Anja swallowed. ‘If Fouzette gives way, Captain, you’ll cut her rope.’ ‘She won’t give way,’ said Mykkael. Droplets scattered from his sodden shirt cuffs as he tested the last knot on Kasminna’s improvised surcingle. ‘Just imagine your bay lady standing with Vashni, stuffing her belly on marsh grass. How would you like to snack on roast trout while we dry ourselves off in the sun?’
XXXI. Siege
THE SENESCHAL OF SESSALIE PERCHED LIKE A NETTLED BIRD ON ONE OF DEDORTH’S TATTERED FOOTSTOOLS. HANDS FOLDED IN PRIM DISAPPROVAL, he spoke across the rapacious chess game Taskin played against the physician from Fane Street. ‘I should go out. The council ought to be warned of the High Prince of Devall’s doubtful motives.’
The outstanding contract for marriage seemed a dangerous thread to leave dangling. Yet Taskin languished next to the game board, uncommunicative, his eyes shut.
Undaunted by his freezing silence, or the click of the game piece as the physician advanced Dedorth’s mouse-chewed white rook, Lord Shaillon cleared his throat and pressed on. ‘His Highness’s suit must be formally rejected. Your desert-bred captain was left wounded, you said. Should he fail to win through, Devall’s heir apparent must not retain the implied standing to influence Sessalie’s future.’