Jin galloped across the plain, a wild rage flooding her, filling her veins and powering her limbs, a feral, kinetic energy that needed to be released.
Never had she felt such hatred.
She had stared at the riders in their blue deels beneath the Cheren hawk banner as they’d approached her wains, at first pleased that more of her warriors were alive. She had been worried about them, and troubled by their absence.
Her eyes had been drawn to their leader. A dark-haired warrior, sun glinting on a lamellar vest.
And then she had seen the same man draw his bow and start putting arrows into her warriors.
For a dozen heartbeats she had stared open-mouthed, struggling to understand what she was seeing. His riders had moved from a canter to a gallop, spreading behind him, and sent a hail of arrows into her warriors. She’d seen Tark shouting a warning, killing prisoners, then reaching for his bow, putting an arrow into the leader in the lamellar vest.
Somehow, she had been frozen; confused, unbelieving.
“It is the Sirak,” Gerel had said, his hand gripping her arm.
“It is Bleda,” she had whispered back at him. By then other Sirak were surging up the bank from the river. Tark was down, prisoners pouring from her wains, and Bleda was cantering over to Tark.
“It cannot be Bleda.” Gerel frowned, straining his eyes.
“It is BLEDA!” Jin screeched.
Her shock was burned away in a flare of hot rage, incinerated by it.
She had screamed for her warriors, Gerel putting a horn to his lips and blowing, summoning the Cheren, wherever they were, even as Jin was kicking her horse into motion and reaching for her bow. In heartbeats she was hurtling across the plain, her body one with her mount’s, the two of them moving in unison, muscles and hooves flowing in the perfect rhythm of the gallop.
The Sirak were fleeing, now, the one she thought was Bleda leaving last, pulling another Sirak up behind him onto his mount. She reached for arrows, knowing they were out of bowshot, but nocking and loosing anyway. It fell infuriatingly short of the last riders.
A cloud of dust was swept up by the fleeing Sirak, marking their retreat, four or five hundred riders at least, by the look of it.
There must have been three hundred prisoners, maybe more.
They were riding up a ridge, now, beginning to disappear over it by the time Jin reached the wains. The ground was littered with Cheren dead, ninety, a hundred of her warriors. Jin dragged on her reins, a spray of grass and dry earth, pulling her horse to a trot, stopping where she’d seen Tark fall.
“My Queen,” she heard a voice call, saw Tark close by, trying to drag himself upright. He was badly wounded, blood sheeting his leg from an arrow wound, one arm hanging at the wrong angle.
Hooves drummed, Gerel catching up with her, the first of her riders with him, around a hundred and fifty. More were riding from the Heartland, a steady stream, though she could still hear the faint din of battle, swirling on the wind.
“See to him,” Jin said, and Gerel slipped from his saddle, kneeling beside Tark. He cut Tark’s breeches around the arrow protruding from his thigh, gave Tark a drink from his water skin and then poured the rest over the wound, washing it clean. He touched the arrow, probed the wound. A grunt from Tark.
“Will have to cut it out,” Gerel said. He took Tark’s arm, a protruding lump on the forearm where the bone had snapped. “Bite on this,” Gerel said, slipping his knife’s sheath from his belt.
“Wait,” Jin said. “The one who spoke to you.” She paused, blew out a long, unsteady breath. “Was it him?”
Tark looked up at her, pain, anger, shame mingled in his eyes.
“He called himself Bleda,” he said.
Jin sucked in a strangled scream.
“What did he look like? Describe him.”
“Young, like you,” Tark said. “He was arrogant, though I put an arrow in his arm. Dark. His face was soft, for a Sirak.”
“Aye, like mine. Because we have not ridden the Sea of Grass for ten years.” She looked at the last riders disappearing over the ridge line. “What did he say to you?”
Tark’s eyes flickered away.
“Tell me everything. You will heal, ride the grass again. If you wish to ride at my side, you will tell it all to me.”
A grunt and nod from Tark. “He said he would kill you, soon. He boasted of cutting Uldin’s throat.”
A memory of her father, black blood jetting as Bleda’s knife sliced through his neck.
“What else?” Jin said, a tremor in her voice. She focused on Tark. “There is something else.”
“And that he chose a half-breed whore over you.”
The fire in Jin’s veins turned to ice.
I will kill him. By Elyon above and Asroth below, I will kill him, if it is the last thing I do.
“Set his arm,” she grated at Gerel. There were Cheren riders all around now. Maybe five hundred of her warriors, a trickle as more crossed the plain to join her.
There was a grinding sound as Gerel pulled on Tark’s arm. The old warrior hissed, went rigid as Gerel manipulated his broken bone back into place, boot-heels scraping in the grass.
They must have numbered close to two hundred. Then the prisoners, another two to three hundred, though most of them are weak, injured, weaponless.
She made a decision.
“WITH ME!” she cried, standing tall in her saddle, and then she was riding towards the ridge line. The drum of hooves behind her, Gerel calling out, but she ignored him, setting her face to the dust cloud that still hovered in the air.
Cheren riders settled around her, grim-faced men and women. Jin reached for her bow, slipped it from its case, took a handful of arrows from her quiver, holding her reins loose and guiding her horse with her knees and ankles. She was riding up the ridge, now, a steady canter. She was angry, angrier than she had ever felt before, but the wild heat was gone, replaced by an icy rage that she could think through.
I will not rush blindly into some trap. She signalled right and left, a few score riders branching off, sweeping wide. Then she was cresting the ridge, arrow nocked, leaning low over her saddle to give a smaller target. She was expecting the snap and whip of arrows.
Nothing.
The ridge was empty, trails flattened through the grass. Jin rode on a short way, so that she wasn’t silhouetted upon the crest of the ridge, and then touched her reins, her mount stopping while she surveyed the land, using the high ground. A series of dried-out stream-beds clustered below her on the plain, separating again to thread their way to the river Selen. Where the streams met there were signs of her enemy, the ground churned by hooves, bloodied clothes and bandages discarded. Jin raised her hand and pointed. A handful of warriors rode down to the streams, searching. At the same time the warriors she had sent wide around the ridge appeared. They had been sent to root out any flanking ambush, or to undertake their own flanking manoeuvre if Jin had ridden into a fight. They signalled that all was clear.
Jin was satisfied no ambush was imminent, and so lifted her gaze further afield. Riders were in the distance, a large mass riding away from her. They were riding hard, stirring up a dust cloud, travelling fast, not caring about hiding their passage or their numbers.
They are fleeing for their lives. Bleda knows he has stuck his head too far into the wolf’s mouth; he has seen my strength. Survival is all he has on his mind. He is running scared.
The drum of hooves behind Jin. She twisted in her saddle, but it was only Gerel. Tark was with him, his broken arm in a sling, the arrow that Jin had seen protruding from his thigh was gone, a bandage wrapped around it, blood starting to seep through.
Tark reined in with one hand and a word; his new mount stopped. Bleda and the Sirak had taken his old horse. His eyes scanned the scene, taking in the stream-bed and then the fleeing warband. They were already over a league away.
“Prepare to ride,” Jin called out.
“No, my Queen, they are too many,” Tark said. “They could be hoping to lure you out, away from the strength of your host.”
“No, Bleda is fleeing; he is scared,” Jin said.
“Is he?” Tark said. He shrugged. “Either way, you have five hundred riders here. They have more.”
“How many?” Jin snapped. Her father had taught her how to count and measure riders on the plain, but usually by noting the banners flying above them. Bleda’s warband had no banners.
“Nine hundred, a thousand horses,” Tark said. “They may have spare mounts, but I don’t think so.”
Jin sat there a few moments, not trusting her mouth. Her teeth ground, muscles in her jaw bunching as she thought.
“Let me track them for you; they shall not escape,” Tark said.
“You?” Jin said, expelling an angry breath and looking him up and down. His arm in a sling, his leg bound but bleeding.
“You are not fit to ride.”
“I am,” Tark said. “What is a little pain. My arm and leg are seen to; they will heal. Besides, I could ride with no arms.”
This was true, not some idle boast. The Cheren learned to guide their mounts through pressure from their knees and feet, far better than clumsy yanking on reins.
“But you cannot fight,” Jin remarked.
“Maybe not.” Tark nodded. “But I am the best tracker in Arcona, I have other uses. And I would make up for my failure to kill Bleda. Let me find him for you.”
Jin gave Tark a long, measuring look, and then nodded.
Tark snapped an order and a score of scouts set off after Bleda, moving down the ridge and onto the plain at a steady canter.
“They cannot gallop forever,” he said to Jin. “And they are unlikely to have spare mounts. We will catch them. Send word back to the Heartland, gather your warband about you. They will wish to see the death of Uldin’s killer.”
Jin smiled coldly.