They lurked, muscles tense and breath held, some in the leafy cover of the thick branches and obscuring foliage, some atop the paltry rises that bulged occasionally beside the roadway, and some lying flat beside that road, invisible in the night.
Adrienne sat at the highest vantage, clinging to the topmost branches of a towering tree. It was not a position she'd been asked to assume; no one came to her and said, “Hey, Adrienne, you're brand new and unproven, so why don't you be our lookout?” But as the lightest and most dexterous of the assembly, she could manage a perch where the others could not. So there she sat, greenery (well on its seasonal way to becoming orangery and brownery) tickling the back of her neck and her hands, sticks poking her in sensitive places. A gentle breeze, the soft breath of night, washed over her, danced a waltz with her hair, carried the scent of autumn's fallen leaves and the faintest hint of colder days to come.
And it carried, too, the indistinct but growing sound of hoofbeats, tired and unsteady, and the grinding rumble of heavy wheels.
She hissed down at the top of Pierre's head, his hair the only part of him visible in the moon's feeble glow. “Get ready!”
With a nod, he shimmied partway down the tree, passing the message along to the next in line.
Curiosity kept her up there a moment longer, peering intently as the small procession rounded the bend, their lanterns casting tiny moons against the night-dark road. Two men on horseback appeared first, each dressed in heavy leathers and thick cloaks, each carrying a rapier at his belt and a blunderbuss strapped to his saddle.
Four horses in harness clopped next into view, hauling the trundling carriage. Flanked by a second pair of guards, accoutered identically to the first, it made an impressive sight. The wood was stained a rich, dark hue, the doors and windows edged in silver that might or might not have been the real thing. It boasted no other decoration, save the family crest embossed in brass upon each door.
It was difficult to make out at this angle, but something about that crest nagged at her, like the refrain of a familiar tune that she couldn't quite place…
The carriage turned, following the curvature of the road, and Adrienne's heart sank. It was a familiar crest all right, though she'd seen it but once, and then only briefly.
A lion's head, mane flared, wearing a handheld domino mask.
Alexandre Delacroix was the man from whom she'd stolen the rapier that now hung accusingly at her side; the man who had stopped his servant from killing her, who had saved her life when any court in the city would have upheld his right to take it. And here she was, lurking atop a roadside tree, waiting for the right moment to attack him, to rob him, to…
To kill him, she admitted finally to herself as her sunken heart began to beat wildly about her chest. No, she wouldn't put sword through his gut or gun to his head, but she knew that it would happen. Joseph and his men would never reach the carriage so long as the guards lived, and they could never allow Delacroix to survive as a witness to the murder of the guards. The aristocrat had to die; and she'd gone along anyway, blinded at the thought of the riches to be won.
Would she have gone through with it, had the carriage conveyed anyone else? She didn't know; she never would. But it didn't, and she couldn't.
“Pierre!” she hissed as loudly as she dared, her voice barely rising above a whisper. “Pierre, we have to stop this! Pierre!” But he couldn't hear, having already dropped to the base of the tree so that he might take his position.
Adrienne slid as much as climbed her way to the ground. More than one splinter jabbed painfully into her palms and fingers before her feet touched soil, but she barely noticed. Her first instinct, nigh overwhelming, was to run as fast and as far as she could, to distance herself from the coming horror. Indeed, her feet pounded one after the other, carrying her at a dead sprint, dirt and leaves crunching underfoot.
Only when she smelled the horses, the wood, and the leather—when she glanced up and saw the road, and the first of the noble's guards looming before her—did it fully occur to her that she was not running away. In another second, two or three at most, she would be seen. She had exactly that long to make the most important decision of her life.
“Go back!” she called at the top of her lungs, her arms waving over her head. “Ambush! Bandits! Look out!” She didn't even know what she was shouting, really, only that she must warn them, must make them listen before it was too late.
She was certain, at first, that she'd failed, that she'd dashed headlong to her own grave, as the nearest guard slid his blunderbuss from the saddle and aimed it squarely at her. For a moment, she was back in the marketplace of Davillon two years ago, waiting in trembling helplessness for the lead to fly, to shatter her skull or her ribs or gods knew what else. This might even be the same man who'd almost shot her that day. In the dark of the moon, the face—with its red-brown goatee and mustache, and its cold, reptilian stare—certainly looked like the man she remembered.
But the weapon didn't fire. Even as the one guard covered her, unblinking, the others leapt into action. The remaining three guards—no, five, for a third pair of riders she'd never noticed were following behind—reined in their mounts, drawing into a tight circle around the carriage. They moved with practiced efficiency, so that the walls of the vehicle provided cover, so that their fields of fire overlapped, allowing no safe avenue of attack. The one who watched Adrienne slowly moved to his own station, motioning her forward, his barrel never once wavering. Uneasily, she followed.
“What the hell is she doing?!” Joseph's voice was harsh, strangled, his throat clenched around the words as tightly as his fingers around his weapons. “She's ruining everything!”
“I—I don't understand!” Pierre stammered, his own features gone more than a little pale. “I—I don't—”
“Don't what?!” Joseph barked, raging. “This is your fault, you bastard! You brought the bitch along!”
“I—But she wasn't supposed to—”
“No, she wasn't!” Joseph drove his curved dagger through Pierre's ear, full to the hilt. Mouth agape in an eternal silent scream, the young man twitched and convulsed horribly, his feet dancing spastically across twig-littered earth. Only when Joseph yanked the weapon free, steel grinding hideously on bone, did Pierre finally collapse and lie still.
“We attack now,” Joseph coldly informed the others.
“Joseph,” Anton the scarecrow protested, glancing nervously at the bleeding corpse, then gesturing roughly toward the carriage with his crossbow, “you sure? They've been warned now, and I ain't exactly looking forward to—”
“I said we attack now, damn you! So what if they've been warned? We outnumber them four to one! Move!”
Anton sighed in resignation and, like the others, moved.
In the glow of the lanterns that hung from the carriage, Adrienne could clearly see the face of the man who escorted her, and grew ever more convinced that he was indeed the same who had once tried to shoot her down. From his neck hung a pair of medallions, one bearing the masked-lion crest of House Delacroix, the other the same feline visage without the mask. She wondered what it meant.
“Bring her inside!” came the clipped, authoritative command from the carriage. Adrienne jumped, startled at how familiar the voice sounded, though she'd only ever heard it speak a handful of words.
“Sir,” the guard protested, “we don't know that she—”
“Now, Claude!”
Adrienne was shocked to see the servant blatantly roll his eyes at his master's command, even as he acquiesced. “Yes, sir. May I at least take her rapier from her first?”
“I think not.”
“Very well. I'll say a nice prayer at your funeral.” The carriage door loomed open. Unable to see much within, Adrienne felt as though she entered an abyss of endless darkness as she mounted the single step.
“Sit down,” the voice instructed.
She did, just as the attack began.
Men charged, screaming, from th
e trees. Crossbows twanged and firearms roared; bolts sliced through the air, lead balls and pellets tumbling beside them in a hail of metal, punching cruelly through flesh and bone.
It was a slaughter, but not the one Joseph and his thieves had planned. The cover offered by the heavy wooden panels of the carriage—not to mention the sheets of iron installed within each, for precisely this purpose—made the guards nigh impervious to any attack that didn't come from directly before them. And any bandit foolish enough to try to venture into that particular field was fired upon in turn. Six blunderbuss fuses burned down, six flocks of lead shot flew, and six flintlocks appeared from gods-knew-where. They, too, discharged, before the smoke of the first volley faded.
Between Adrienne's defection, the execution of Pierre, and the opening fusillade, Joseph lost half his men before laying even one of the enemy low.
As the last of the loaded ammunition flew, rapiers, broadswords, and knives appeared with a sequence of leathery rasps, a horde of hissing serpents. Joseph charged, his men following on his heels, and the guards moved to meet them.
Without the advantage of cover, it seemed the greater number of the bandits might yet turn the tide. Joseph was the first to draw blood, his blade painting a gash of red across a dark-clad rider's leg. The other thieves flooded in behind him, massed too tightly for the mounted soldiers to take advantage of their horses' speed, pressing them back against the unmoving carriage.
But for all their numbers, all their desperation, even their lives of violence on the streets, these were not men trained for this sort of melee. Horses reared on command, hooves lashing out to shatter bone. The soldiers used their mounts' bulk to force their adversaries back, then set about them with a vicious array of cuts and thrusts, each carefully considered, each aimed at whatever flesh left itself exposed. Joseph's cry of triumph was cut abruptly short as the man whose leg he had slashed delivered a perfect riposte, the height of his horse providing devastating leverage. His blade plunged neatly into the soft spot at the base of Joseph's throat, and the large bandit died with his face forever locked in a parody of disbelief.
The carriage rocked with the surrounding tumult, and Adrienne desperately wanted either to scream till her voice went raw or to dive for cover beneath the seat. Alexandre Delacroix did neither, however, so her pride allowed her no other option but to maintain her seat as chaos raged around her.
It ended mere moments after it had begun. Two of the defenders lay bloodied upon the ground—one who might be saved with proper attention, the other of whom had been opened from gut to groin and was clearly beyond help—alongside six or seven bandits. The few who survived, led by the gaunt and raggedy Anton, fled for the cover of the looming trees.
Everything was silence then—a moment between life and death when the hue and cry of battle faded away but the sounds of the night had not yet returned. The tentative peep of a mockingbird shattered the pall of quiet, followed by the buzzing chirp of crickets, and the night resumed its normal cacophony.
“It's over, Master Alexandre,” the nearest guard called into the carriage. “All but a handful of the brigands are slain, and the rest have fled.”
The old aristocrat surely made some reply to his man-at-arms, but Adrienne didn't hear it. Her blood hummed audibly in her ears, and sweat broke out fresh on her face.
All but a handful have been slain….
“Pierre!” she shrieked, lunging at the carriage door. She flung it open, utterly unaware that she'd knocked the speaking bodyguard clear off his feet, and sprinted for the woods the moment her boots touched the road.
Adrienne never saw the blunderbuss, swung stock first. An abrupt fire blazed across the back of her head, and she fell unconscious to the roadway.
The world was bouncing.
With a groan, Adrienne forced her eyelids open, staring at the carriage ceiling. It swayed back and forth, bounced up and down, made her dizzy, jarred her already throbbing head against the seat, and she knew that within a matter of seconds she would—
“Here,” someone said, shoving a wooden bucket in her direction. She accepted it a bare instant before she would have emptied her stomach onto the floor. As it was, she very nearly upended the bucket—and its acrid, unpleasant contents—when she fell back with a gasp to lie once more upon the wooden bench.
“I think we'll just get rid of that,” the same voice suggested. “Somehow, I think the cost of a new bucket is one I can absorb.”
Adrienne continued to stare at the ceiling, even as she heard the sounds of the door opening and the bucket falling to the side of the road, where it would no doubt provide food for all sorts of desperate scavengers.
“That's a fine sword you've got,” the carriage's other occupant continued conversationally. “Seems I've seen it somewhere before.”
Though it hurt even to think about moving, Adrienne tilted her head just far enough to look at the man across from her. Alexandre Delacroix appeared much as he had at the market: hawk-nosed, sharp featured, practically bald…and smiling. Why in the name of all the gods was he smiling?
“Do…” Adrienne squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden wave of pain. “Do you…want it back?”
“I think, child, that it's a small price to pay for you saving my life back there.”
“Just…just repaying a debt.”
The carriage hit another rut, and Adrienne moaned. The older man's features clouded with concern. “I'm terribly sorry about this, child. You, uh, rather startled my guards, leaping from the carriage like that. I'm afraid that Martin hit you harder than he intended. You'll be all right, though. I'll have my best healers see to you personally.
“What did you mean,” he continued a moment later, “about repaying a debt?”
“You…saved me from your man…in the market.”
Delacroix's face twisted in puzzlement, then lit in comprehension. Softly, he chuckled. “I'm flattered you think so highly of me, child, but I fear you ascribe to me motives far more noble than I deserve. You were running smack dab through the middle of a crowded market, and the blunderbuss is not a precise weapon in even the most expert hands. The truth is, I was afraid that some of Claude's shot would strike bystanders in the crowd. If I could have been utterly certain of his accuracy, I'd have allowed him to fire.”
Adrienne's mouth worked, but no sound emerged.
The aristocrat read her mind, or at least her expression. “What happened two years past is just that, child: past. You've saved my life tonight, and that wipes clean a great many sins. You are in no danger from me. After you've recovered, you'll be permitted to leave. Unharmed, I assure you.”
That simple statement, far from bringing the reassurance Delacroix intended, served instead to dredge up the recollection of why she'd run in the first place.
“Pierre…,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Delacroix nodded slowly. “Pierre Lemarche? Yes, I recognized him. I knew his father, before the family's unfortunate decline. I fear he didn't survive the altercation. It looked as though one of the bandits killed him before the attack even began.”
He looked on kindly, sitting silent as Adrienne wept.
Only when the girl had cried herself out did he continue. “I understand,” he said, his tone sympathetic. “My wife passed nearly two years gone. Not long after you and I met, actually.” Another pause. “What's your name, child?”
She sniffed once, trying to focus past the grief and the pounding agony in her skull, wanting nothing more than to drift off to sleep for a very long time. “Adrienne,” she told him softly.
“Adrienne. Adrienne.” He repeated the name, rolling it about his mouth, examining the taste just as he would a fine vintage wine. He seemed to be contemplating something, something beyond the simple presence of the girl before him, and through her pain, Adrienne grew afraid.
But for now, at least, there was little to be done. She couldn't run, couldn't even stand. And so she lay where she was, her head leaning back up
on the bouncing bench, with its insufficient padding. And all she could do was pray that this strange aristocrat told the truth when he told her he meant no harm.
NOW:
Julien Bouniard strode past the ponderous door, rough with age but sturdy as the day it was hewn. He yanked the gauntlets from his hands as he walked, sticking them haphazardly through his belt. His nose wrinkled in distaste beneath the assault of the clinging mildew. Through ugly, claustrophobic corridors he passed, his path illuminated only by cheap lanterns suspended from the ceiling. The damn miserly city bookkeepers wouldn't even spring for decent lighting down here. The lamps were so poor that the light from one barely reached the circle of illumination from the next, and they smoked something awful, a constant irritant to the eyes and throat.
A second door, identical to the first, slowly materialized from the darkness before him. He fumbled at the keys on his belt, clanking them together softly, and unlatched the gargantuan lock with a resounding click.
The room beyond was cleaner than the hall, though this wasn't really much of an accomplishment, and was lit by modern lanterns far more efficient (and far less suffocating) than those in the cramped passage. A faded beige rug—or at least it was beige now, though Demas alone knew what color it might have been when new—covered the stone floor, and several old tapestries partially concealed the walls. An enormous desk occupied the room's far side, a series of cabinets stacked beside it, and yet a third door—not only locked, but barred with an iron-banded shaft as thick around as Julien's calf—lurked beyond.
The fellow behind that desk, garbed in a uniform that mirrored Julien's own, glanced up from beneath an uneven black hairline. He recognized Bouniard, of course, but policy was policy. Instantly he aimed a pair of enormous crossbows, swivel-mounted to the desk, in the newcomer's direction.