Abduction

Two score cavaliers—less than half the full company that had left the outpost—followed Febbin into the clearing where he said the outlaws had camped. A granite outcrop towered above the trees, its face shattered. A pyre smoldered amid fractured boulders. Bethniel shuddered, remembering the blasted rock of Olmlablaire.

“Why blow up the rock?” Lillem asked. “And how much sulfa would this take?”

“A lot.” Or none. Dread and hope settled on Bethniel’s shoulders. Both were old friends now, especially when it came to Vic. Could her sister be out here? She suddenly regretted not checking her mail before they left the outpost.

Febbin screamed and leapt off his mount, falling to his knees beside the pyre. As his sobs echoed off the stones, Bethniel studied the human remains smoking alongside three steed carcasses. Relief washed through her; the hands on the skeletons were whole, the frames too short for her brother and too tall for Vic. Dozens of footprints headed east out of the camp, the trail a clear sign the Kia wanted them to find Lornk and his allies.

Two days later, the horses picked their way through hoarsgrout and messernils toward broken echoes of laughter and song. Greldren signaled a halt as a trooper slipped out of the underbrush. Straining to Listen—wishing she had real talent for it—Bethniel leaned forward in her saddle.

“—killed their last scout. They’ll have no warning.”

Greldren issued orders, and the company split to flank the pirates, the horses silent as stalking cats. “Keep her Highness safe,” the fieldmarshal ordered Lillem.

Hefting a spear, Lillem brought his stallion alongside Bethniel’s mount. She gripped her own spear and breathed deeply, wrestling her fear into the box, and drawing out her wrath. Lornk Korng will be killed or captured today, she promised herself, and Ashel will be safe. In Olmlablaire, she’d foolishly believed the Relmlord wouldn’t dare harm her brother. Now she knew better.

* * *

A year ago, when rumors of Prince Ashel’s imminent wedding to Vic the Blade swept through Narath, Wineyll had privately scoffed at other girls’ late-night laments. That spring, her tears had spilled over her father’s grave, not heart-littered diary entries about Latha’s most desirable bachelor. Yet like the other girls, she had wondered what the artistic scholar-prince could possibly see in the caustic warrior.

“What about the Elesendar’s technical specifications?” Vic asked as the couple squeezed through a gap in the underbrush. They walked apart from the pirates but still close enough Wineyll could Hear them. “What scriptural meaning can you possibly glean from a manual on touchscreen maintenance?”

“The Logs are full of mysteries,” Ashel replied sagely. “Do you know what a touchscreen is?”

“It’s a glass plate you use to control the ship’s functions.”

“By touch. Very mystical and mysterious.”

“The real mystery is how you people can believe we came from trees. What about cats and horses and cows? The mammals on this world are nothing like any other animal. Where did they come from? Did Elesendar mate with a bush?”

Ashel laughed. “What do you mean, ‘you people?’ That’s our people, Marshal Victoria of Ourtown, ward of the Lathan Ruler and bride to a Lathan prince. And please explain how arrival by spacecraft is any more believable than Elesendar’s gift of life?”

“Well, for one thing, we can see the spacecraft!”

Wineyll sniggered behind a fall of her hair and soaked up her Guild-brother’s happiness. Yesterday the newlyweds had walked together quietly, holding hands while Vic pretended to need Ashel’s help to endure the long day’s march. After another night of hushed moans and choked laughter, the couple had emerged bright-eyed and cheery. Vic’s feigned illness evaporated in the enthusiasm of their scriptural debate.

Their delight washed away Wineyll’s bitterness, and the chortles she secretly shared with them stirred up nuggets of hope, like gold in a stream. But the gold sifted from her grasp as the couple’s conversation turned toward the Guild and the Harmony’s purge.

“Silnauer wants to bury anything she thinks will promote heresy,” Ashel said bitterly. “She doesn’t want people questioning why a just god would allow evil like this”—he raised his hand—“or what happened to Wineyll.”

“You look troubled.” Lornk wrapped an arm round her shoulders.

She jerked away. “You—you told Silnauer about Olmlablaire.” She’d never confronted him on her expulsion from the Guild, but spite suddenly oozed from that reopened wound.

His lips rolled down, the lines at his eyes deepening. “You don’t need a guild to shine. In Traine, all the musicians freely compete for renown. The only politics are those of proficiency and talent.” His hands grasped her shoulders. “You would triumph there.”

“What would you know about it? You’ve never even heard me play.”

Someone shouted, and a thunder of hooves rolled toward them, horses and soldiers screaming. Swords flew out of scabbards and orders from the commanders.

“Take cover, Songbird.” Lornk pushed her toward a geilmor.

“I can hide you,” she cried as cavalry crashed into the pirate ranks.

Shoving her away, he parried a spear thrust from a mounted soldier. The horse reared, and Wineyll dodged into the swirling geilmor limbs. Arrows whizzed and thunked. The men afoot slashed at hamstrings and riders; the cavaliers thrust spears and threw them. Horses kicked and bit. Soldiers and seamen screamed. A pair of cavaliers harried Lornk and Thiellin. Swords and spear hafts clacked and clashed. Back to back, Lornk and the captain retreated toward a dense stand of trees.

Now would be the time to flee, but Wineyll couldn’t take her eyes off Lornk. She ought to hate him, and she did when she thought about what he had done to Ashel. Yet he had always been gentle with her, even in Olmlablaire, and as they’d traveled east through the Kiareinoll, he’d given more comfort than the old mothers surrounding them. “Rape is rape, even when it feels like seduction.” Geram had said that to her once, and it would be easy to call it that, absolve herself of complicity, go to Eldanion and play chamber music for silly nobles until she was reinstated in the Guild and could resume her old life. But she could never resume her old life; it had ended when her father died. Her breath caught as a spear plunged toward Lornk’s heart. He ducked, and the spearhead glanced across his shoulder. Relief flooded through her, and she decided: she believed in him.

Pressing her lips flat, she wove the image of a thicket of vines around him and Thiellin. She couldn’t see it herself, but she imagined them passing into it, imagined nothing but empty woods on the other side, and folded this image into the minds of their enemies. The Lathans drew rein and looked around in confusion. Thiellin thrust his sword through one cavalier while Lornk gutted the other. Wineyll winced and looked away. She’d just consummated a betrothal.

* * *

Cavaliers charged out of the trees, hooves thundering and horns blowing. Three passed them; a fourth stopped to lower his spear at Ashel’s chest.

“Lieutenant,” Vic scolded, batting at the haft, “get some spectacles! Do we look like Caleisbahnin?”

“I don’t know who you are, but—”

“This is Prince Ashel. The one you should be here to rescue?”

The man immediately raised his spear, bowing awkwardly. “Highness. Uh, forgive me.” He slipped out of his saddle, offered the reins to Ashel. “Please. Princess Bethniel will be pleased. She’s waiting nearby.”

“Is anyone not in this corner of the Kiareinoll?” Ashel grumbled, taking the reins and mounting. He held his hand down. “I need to get Wineyll.”

“I’ll find her. You find Beth and keep her safe. Can I borrow a dagger?” Vic asked the cavalier.

His gazed scraped over her. “For what?”

Ashel pulled a dagger out of the horse’s trappings and tossed it to Vic. Catching it neatly, she flipped it into the other hand. “She’s the Blade,” Ashel told the soldier. Spinning the horse around, he laced an arm under her shoulders and pulled her up for a kiss. Feet dangling, she let Woern-bliss soak into her. “Be safe, wife,” he said.

Her toes touched the ground, and she squeezed his right hand, holding the thumb and kissing the stump. His eyes tightened, but his lips stayed soft, and he brushed her cheek with his thumb. “See you soon, husband,” she said, her chest tight. Flashing her a smile, he kicked the horse in the direction the cavalier had pointed, leaving the stunned trooper behind. With a gruff laugh, Vic thanked him for the dagger and dashed toward the sounds of battle.

She spotted Wineyll cowering against a geilmor and followed the girl’s gaze to Lornk. He was hard-pressed by a pair of Lathans, and Vic’s throat closed as she watched his end approach. The cavalier jabbed her spear, spun the haft around for a swipe, thrust the point at him again. Driving him backward, wearing him down, she didn’t give him time for an attack of his own. Vic had dreamed for years of killing Lornk; it was strange to watch someone else deliver the death blow. She blew out a breath, reminding herself again that she’d given up her chance at him. Lornk was someone else’s problem—

He vanished behind a wall of leaves. The troopers hesitated. One fell backward off his mount, blood spurting. The other slid from her saddle, and Lornk appeared above her, driving his sword into her belly. Vic’s eyes snapped to Wineyll and the minstrel’s gaze, locked on Lornk. Spewing curses, Vic charged out of cover.

“Madam!” cried Etien, the old gnarled Caleisbahnin. Yelling, pirates dodged spears and hooves, rallying toward her. Lathan mounts spun and charged. “Shrine’s bastards!” She couldn’t let any Lathans see her using wizardry. Sprinting to Wineyll, she grabbed the minstrel.

“Leave me!” Wineyll tried to yank her arm away.

The Lathans caught up to Etien and Gustave. One lost his spear to the blur of the old man’s sword. The gap-toothed pirate pulled a sandy-haired woman from her horse.

“Madam,” Kelmair stumbled to a halt, panting fiercely. “With your help—”

Vic flashed the point of her dagger under Kelmair’s chin. “My help won’t go to you. Let us pass.” Battle sounds spun around them. A drop of Kelmair’s blood trickled down Vic’s blade. The pirate woman stepped back, and Vic yanked Wineyll away as a spear thunked into the geilmor’s roots. Crying, the minstrel clawed at Vic’s hand, twisting in her grip as Vic dragged her into a mesh of vines. She slapped the minstrel. “What are you doing?”

“Please, Vic,” Wineyll cried. “I’ve made my choice.”

Anger flared into a hammerstrike behind Vic’s eyes. “Lornk isn’t a choice; he’s a dead man.”

“Then I should die with him!”

“Bloody flaming Shrine!” An arm tight round the minstrel’s waist, Vic rose a few inches off the ground and darted between stands of hoarsgrout and allenver toward a cerrenil that promised enough cover she could fly unseen to the canopy.

“Leave me, leave me,” Wineyll repeated over and over. Each word knocked against Vic’s skull and churned the contents of her stomach.

“That vile bastard dies today.”

“No!”

Wineyll’s cry drilled into Vic’s brain, and she tumbled to the ground and retched. The girl vanished into the green, leaving only the cries of battle and the stench of failure.

* * *

Shouts and the clash of weapons filtered through the woods. Bethniel’s hand tightened around a spear, foreboding worming out of the box. Please keep Ashel safe, she prayed. Elesendar, please.

Febbin’s mount danced. “I’ve got to find Joslyrn. Fare well, Highness.” His horse sprang into the trees and disappeared.

“Good riddance,” Lillem muttered.

Whinnies, shouts, and the clash of weapons filtered toward them; their horses snorted and stamped in response. The noise of combat drifted closer, farther, closer again, dimmed to silence.

A scream erupted, and Bethniel’s mare reared up, pawing toward a young soldier reeling from the undergrowth, blood streaming down his face. Bethniel jerked her mount aside as a Caleisbahnin sprang after him, sword high. Flipping her spear around, she rammed the butt into the pirate’s breastbone. The blow jarred into her shoulder, but the man fell. Lillem’s stallion leapt atop him, hooves grinding his guts into the dirt.

The air stung with acid, sulfur, steel, the stinks of death and fear. “Pull back,” the lieutenant barked, and they cantered around a creeper-infested messernil and up a slippery bank of moss.

“Beth! Where’s Ashel?”

She pulled hard on the reins, and her horse spun up a spray of leaves. “Vic?”

Stumbling away from a foul mess on the grass, her sister looked sick as a drunken Weaver. “Where is Ashel?”

Pirates broke through the allenver. Bethniel leaned out of her saddle. “Get up behind me.”

Lillem’s stallion skidded in front of the pirates, and cavalier and mount held them off with a whirring spear and slashing hooves.

Vic looked up with eyes as green as grass. “Where is Ashel?”

“I don’t know! Now mount up or fly away!”

One of the pirates scrambled past the stallion’s flanks, sword high. Screeching, Bethniel kicked her horse around to face him, but Vic ordered the pirate to hold. He stopped short, the glitter in his eyes as shrill as the silver rings in his ear. “You will not harm her,” Vic said aloud. A greedy, gap-toothed smile ignited the Calesibahnin’s face, but an older pirate pointed his sword at the ground and backed off.

“Hold, lieutenant,” Bethniel cried as Lillem hefted his spear. “You look like you can barely stand,” she said to Vic.

“Then I look better than I feel.” Vic’s eyes mellowed to gray. “I lost Wineyll.”

“Wineyll?” Shoving aside her surprise, Bethniel extended her hand. “We’ll find her together.”

“Gustave,” ordered the older pirate, angling his head toward Vic. Grumbling, the other Caleisbahnin sheathed his sword and knelt, signaling that Vic could step onto his thigh. Bethniel’s astonishment mounted as Vic thanked the pirate and took hold of his shoulder for balance.

“Well,” Vic said, “are you going to move that animal closer?”

As soon as she was up, the old pirate rushed through the allenver toward the battle, but the young one touched Vic’s boot. “I’ll look for the snippet, if you wish.”

“We’ll find her. You’d better go before the lieutenant kills you.”

The Caleisbahnin gusted a laugh and stepped back, saluting Lillem with his sword hilt under his chin. “Another time?”

Lillem nodded, his gaze murderous. “Which way did she go?”

“Try that way,” Vic pointed at a hedge.

The stallion’s ears flicked forward, and a Kragnashian barreled out of the brush and snapped its mandibles through the neck of Bethniel’s mare.

The animal shuddered beneath them. Vic’s arms cinched Bethniel’s waist, and they hurtled backward, curses scoring Bethniel’s ears. Tree trunks and hoarsgrout rushed past the edges of her vision, but her eyes were stuck on Lillem’s spear plunging into one Kragnashian as a second charged them. Vic spun around and rocketed into the canopy, her arms still locked round Bethniel. Leaves and twigs scored her cheeks; she threw her hands over her face and choked on a scream.

A hissing thwook cut past the whipping branches, the acrid stink dreadfully familiar. Vic jerked, the vise of her arms convulsing into Bethniel’s diaphragm, driving the air from her chest in a violent huff. Vic’s shriek was an awl in her ear, a terrible cry that chased their fall through crashing limbs. They struck the ground, and Vic twisted away, back arched, throat emitting an inhuman squeal. Sucking air, Bethniel struggled to hands and knees. The Kragnashian rolled toward them. Lillem’s stallion screamed. Hooves scrabbled against the creature’s armor as its legs enveloped Bethniel in shadow. Sharp spines raked her skin; the dense smell of grass stuffed desperate lungs, and then she could breathe. Turning in the creature’s wake, she saw it sweep Vic off the ground.

Cursing, Gustave sprinted after it. He leapt aboard the trailing abdomen, and the Kragnashian fled with Vic and the pirate.

“Lillem!” Bethniel shouted. The lieutenant pulled her up behind him, and his horse raced after the abductor. The stallion’s muscles surged as it leapt gullies and twisted around trees. Bethniel glimpsed Gustave fighting to hang on as the Kragnashian pulled ahead and disappeared.

Sweat foamed the stallion’s haunches; his breath grew ragged. “I’m sorry, Highness,” Lillem said, letting the horse slow to a walk. “It’s just too fast.”

Anguish squeezed Bethniel’s chest—Vic was taken! The scent of cut grass—of hope—flared her nostrils, and she pointed at a bit of pale green ooze. “It’s wounded; follow it.”

The stallion trotted along the glimmering trail to an earthwork, densely covered with hoarsgrout and crowned with a gnarled old geilmor.

“You don’t mean to go in there?”

“It has my sister!”

“Highness, I saw what she did—if the Kragnashians want her, let them have her.”

“You don’t have to come with me; just give me a spear.”

“You’re not going to fight those things.”

“No, I’m going to negotiate with them. Give me a spear.”

Lips flat and sour, Lillem pulled two from the trappings and fished a lantern out of his saddlebags. Hefting the stallion’s reins, he scanned the nearby brush.

“Let him go. If another comes, he should be free to run.”

“How will we get back?”

She studied the opening, the faint scrollwork on the supporting stones. “I don’t think we’ll be coming back this way.”

Expelling a breath, he slapped the stallion on the rump and clucked it homeward.

They descended a steep ramp thick with cobwebs. Dust sparkled like fog in the lamplight. In a chamber at the bottom, Kragnashians’ tracks swirled around the broad, shallow depression and gemstone-studded compass slots of a Device. She knelt next to the small knob stuck in one of the slots, between a pair of glowing blue gems. “Looks like it took her to Direiellene. Are you coming?”

His knuckles turned yellow around his spear haft. “What do I do?”

“Take my hand.” Murmuring a prayer, she grasped the knob, and pinpricks sizzled over her skin.