Dace brightened considerably at the idea. “Do you think someone might try to steal her?”

“Definitely. They’re probably combing the hills as we speak, just waiting for a chance at her. Of course, if you don’t think you’re up to the task...”

“Don’t be ridiculous! If I can’t thwart a miserable bunch of humans, I’ll give up my believers and become a demon. You take care of the pursuit, Lord Brakandaran, and I will ensure that the demon child is safe.”

“I knew I could count on you,” Brak replied gravely.

They walked back to Tarja, who was bent over R’shiel. The girl’s face was peaceful and serene. The magic that had possessed her earlier vanished as if it had never been. The humans eyed him dubiously but stood back to let him check on her. Her pulse was steady and even. He picked her up off the muddy ground and handed her up to Dace, who had mounted again.

“Vigilance,” he reminded the god.

Dace nodded and clucked at his horse. They moved off into the dim morning, Sunny trailing with slumped shoulders, although Mahina’s back was ramrod straight. Brak turned to his black gelding, whose head hung miserably, his breath steaming.

“There’s a gully about a league back,” he explained as he tied the gelding to the branch of a twisted white- gum. “We’ll wait for them there.”

Tarja tied up his own mount and followed Brak back onto the narrow track. They made good time, but the sky was considerably lighter by the time they reached the gully. The track cut through a long-extinct watercourse, although the night’s rain had caused a trickle to gather in the center of the path in an echo of its former glory. The cutting was about the height of a man on horseback and near thirty strides long, wider at the far end than the end from which the two men approached. Brak could hear the soldiers faintly in the distance.

“They’re coming.”

The rebel glanced at him skeptically.

“Trust me, they’ll be here soon.”

“So what’s your plan? You do have a plan, don’t you Brak?”

“When they ride into the gully we’ll bring down the trees at either end of the cutting. With a bit of luck, a few of them will fall and break their necks in the confusion.”

“Bring down the trees? How?” Tarja was looking at him like he was a simple-minded fool.

“Magic,” he said. “We will call on the gods for help.”

“Who are you?”

“I doubt you’d believe me if I told you, Tarja. Just accept the fact that I’m on your side, for the time being. Explanations can wait.”

Tarja did not look happy with his answer, but the rattle of tack and pounding of hooves, loud enough for even the human to hear, distracted him.

Brak turned his attention to the cutting and wriggled forward on the muddy ground toward the edge. He picked out the two trees he had in mind and reached inside himself, his eyes blackening as the sweet Harshini power filled him. He reached out for the slow, lumbering touch of Voden, the God of Green Life. Voden was a Primal God in the truest sense of the word. He rarely concerned himself with human affairs. Voden would listen to the smallest blade of grass or the most ancient, massive tree, but he generally ignored the Harshini. As for humans, Voden considered them a kind of annoying blight that destroyed his trees for shelter and firewood. Fortunately, they occasionally redeemed themselves by planting things, which placated the god enough to leave humanity alone.

Brak felt incredibly puny under the weight of the god’s notice, but he concentrated on a mental image of what he needed, hoping Voden would understand. He let his mind fill with thoughts of Xaphista, the demon child, and finally the present moment when the Defenders were hunting them down. One could not use words with a god like Voden. One could only hope that he gleaned enough from Brak’s mind to understand that Xaphista could only be destroyed if the demon child lived and that the men who followed them threatened her. It seemed to take forever before he felt Voden’s somewhat reluctant agreement.

“Get around to the other side,” Brak ordered. He half-expected Tarja to argue with him, but the rebel merely slipped away silently. Within a couple of minutes he was in position.

The first Defender came into view not long after. The hollow was lit in the eerie predawn light, a mass of shadows and darkness. The Defenders rode at a trot, two abreast, following the muddy tracks cut into the ancient watercourse. Brak reached out to Voden, felt the power surge through him, and was gratified to hear the crack of splintered timber, startlingly loud in the gully. The lead horse reared in fright as a white trunk crashed down in front of him, throwing his rider. The other horses reacted to the fright of the first as the base of another tree exploded behind the last rider. It crashed down, cutting off their retreat. He then began, somewhat reluctantly, picking off the riders one by one.

Voden’s power was the power of growing things. Long-dormant roots broke through the ground and reached for the soldiers hungrily, strangling them with living tentacles that tightened inexorably around limbs and throats, cutting off terrified screams. The soldiers hacked wildly at a threat they could not comprehend, as the very ground they stood on suddenly became their enemy.

Tarja leaped into the melee and took on the remaining Defenders single-handed. The roots had killed three, and there were two others down, injured in falls from their terrified mounts and unable to get clear of the stamping hooves as the horses dodged and squealed in fright. Brak stayed his power and watched the rebel. He moved like a dancer, one movement flowing into the next with no effort, to the accompaniment of the ring of metal on metal, echoing through the cutting like discordant music. Brak was fascinated. Despite his own low opinion of sword fighting, he had to admit that Tarja was very good. He caught sight of a Defender coming up behind Tarja, his blade raised and ready to plunge between the rebel’s shoulders. The man dropped like a sack of wheat, screaming in agony as the ground beneath him erupted in a mass of deadly, writhing roots. Tarja had cut down two Defenders and was tiring, but Brak still stayed his hand, morbidly curious as to how long Tarja could keep up his violent dance of death. The third man fell, impaled on Tarja’s blade. The rebel jerked it free and turned to the last survivor. He abandoned all pretense of style and swung the blade in a wide arc, decapitating the shocked Defender where he stood. Exhausted, Tarja slumped to his knees amid the carnage.

Brak slithered down the loose slope and surveyed the damage. The horses were milling, but they were Defenders’ mounts and not distressed by the sweet stench of blood. Tarja was literally drenched in gore, and already the buzz of flies attracted to the feast was filling the air.

“Messy thing, sword fighting,” Brak remarked as he looked around.

“At least it’s more honorable than what you did to these men,” Tarja panted. His chest was heaving with the effort of his exertion.

“Honorable? You just decapitated a man. Where’s the honor in that?”

“Who are you?” Tarja demanded. “Or perhaps I should ask, what are you?”

Brak knew he could no longer put off the answer to Tarja’s question. Not after what he had just seen. “My name is Brakandaran te Cam. I am Harshini.”

Tarja accepted the information with an unreadable expression. He struggled to his feet, using the sword like a crutch. “I always thought the Harshini didn’t believe in killing.”

“It’s amazing what a little human blood can do.”

Tarja apparently didn’t have an answer to that. “Do we just leave them here?”

“No, I thought we’d bury them over there in a little grove and plant rosebushes over their graves,” Brak snapped. “Of course we’ll just leave them here! What did you expect, a full military funeral, perhaps?”

“As you wish. I don’t care what they’ll think when they find all these men strangled by tree roots.”

“Point taken. What do you suggest?”

“Burn them.”

Brak frowned. He was Harshini enough that the idea of burning a body, even one belonging to an enemy, was the worst form of desecration.

Tarja noticed his sick expression. “You’re quick enough to kill with magic. Yet you balk at destroying the evidence?” He wiped the sword clean on the shirt of one of the corpses before replacing it in the battered leather scabbard.

Brak agreed to Tarja’s suggestion reluctantly. Together they pushed the fallen tree out of the way. Brak found himself lending their effort a bit of magical help to move the massive trunk. There was no point in letting the horses wander back to the Grimfield to raise the alarm, and the extra mounts would be useful. Tarja found a length

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