heathen rebellion. He didn’t have the men to take on the Karien invaders directly but he would make life very difficult for them.
Adrina fell asleep and dreamt of ambushes, and sabotage, and hit-and-run raids on places she had never heard of.
They stopped just after midday at a small brook that tumbled over moss-covered rocks beside the road. The water was icy, but the horses seemed grateful. Adrina stood by her mare as she drank her fill, munching on a wedge of hard cheese, when one of the forward scouts came thundering through their midst. He skidded to a halt in front of Damin and Tarja, turning his mount sharply to avoid barrelling them over.
“Defenders!” he panted. “A thousand at least. Headed this way.”
“How far?” Tarja demanded.
“Five leagues. They’re not moving very fast, but if we stay on the road, we’ll ride straight into them.”
Tarja grabbed his mount and swung into the saddle. “Show me.”
The scout turned his mount and galloped off with Tarja on his heels.
“Almodavar!”
“My Lord?”
“Get everyone off the road. Make camp in that stand of trees we passed a league or so back. No fires, no noise. You know what to do.”
Damin was mounted and racing down the road after Tarja before Almodavar had a chance to acknowledge the order.
Adrina patted her mare with a weary sigh then climbed back into the saddle. Almodavar got them organised in a very short time, the urgency of their situation not lost on a single man. They rode back along the road at a canter, until Almodavar called a halt when they neared the trees.
The copse was a fair way back, separated from the road by a broad stretch of long brown grass. The captain studied the tree line for a while then stood in his stirrups to look over the surrounding countryside. Then he turned and cantered back in the direction they had come from.
“What’s the matter?” Adrina asked the guard on her left.
“If we ride through that grass, your Highness, we might as well put up a sign telling them where we are. The captain’s looking for a way to reach the trees without leaving any tracks.”
Adrina nodded, rather impressed by the Hythrun eye for detail. They waited for another few minutes before Almodavar returned.
“There’s a gully back that way that leads toward the trees,” the captain announced in Medalonian, for the benefit of the Defenders among them. “But we’ll have to lead the horses, it’s too treacherous to ride through. Once we clear it, we’ll have a bit of open ground to cover, so we’ll cross it in single file.”
He did not ask for questions, or expect any. Adrina followed her guards and picked her way through the gully after the young man who had told her of Almodavar’s intentions. A bubbling stream coursed through the centre, perhaps a tributary of the brook where they had stopped earlier. The rocks were slick and the icy water splashed over her boots. She was dressed in trousers and a warm jacket, as was Tam – there was no point in advertising their presence by dressing like ladies – but her feet were starting to numb by the time she led her mare out of the gully and mounted for the ride to the trees.
There was no respite when she reached them, either. Almodavar ordered no fires to betray their presence so she settled down for a long cold wait until Damin and Tarja returned.
Adrina was sitting with her back to a tall poplar, Tam’s sleeping head resting on her shoulder, when the sound of galloping horses woke her from a light doze. Expecting to find Damin and Tarja returning, she gently moved Tam’s head onto the cloak they were using as a rug and struggled to her feet. She found Almodavar waiting at the edge of the trees as a Defender and a Raider galloped toward them through the grass, making a mockery of his effort to conceal their hiding place.
“That’s not Damin and Tarja,” she pointed out as the horsemen drew nearer.
“The Raider is Jocim, one of the rear scouts,” Almodavar agreed. “I don’t know the Defender.”
They waited until the men had almost reached the trees before waving them down. Jocim stayed in his saddle, but the Defender jumped down, almost collapsing with exhaustion as he hit the ground. Almodavar reached out an arm to steady him, but he waved it away.
“Where’s Captain Tenragan?”
“He’s not here.”
“Who’s the ranking Defender officer then?”
Almodavar looked a little annoyed at the man’s insistence on following Defender protocol.
“If you have news man, out with it.”
The Defender looked as if he was going to argue the point, but weariness won out over procedure.
“I have a message from the Lord Defender,” he said. “The Kariens crossed the border two days after you left. The Defenders were ordered to throw down their arms. The Kariens have control of the Keep.”
Almodavar nodded, unsurprised by the news. “Jenga ordered you to founder a horse just to tell us that?”
He shook his head. “No. He sent me to tell you that two hundred Kariens were dispatched south at the same time. He thinks they know about the princess. Cratyn is leading them himself.”
Adrina’s heart skipped a beat. Surely they had enough lead on them to escape? The Kariens could not travel as fast as their troop and they were making excellent time.
Almodavar nodded and glanced at Adrina. Her expression must have betrayed her thoughts. “They’ll not catch us, your Highness.”
“Not if we keep moving,” she agreed.
Adrina left the rest of it unsaid. Almodavar knew, as well as she, that a force of a thousand Defenders was blocking the way south.
Chapter 59
From a distance, the northern plains looked as flat and featureless as a tabletop. The view was deceptive, though. In reality the plains were a series of low rolling folds that concealed as much as they revealed. Tarja, Damin and the Hythrun scout, whose name was Colsy, dismounted some distance from the Defenders. They led their horses off the road for quite a way, before leaving them to fend for themselves as they scrambled up a low hillside, dropping on their bellies as they neared the summit.
“Gods!” Damin muttered as they reached the top.
Tarja studied the scene below, forcing down a wave of despair. The column of Defenders was stretched out along the road in a snaking line that stretched for half a league or more. At its head, rode a Karien knight, displaying a coat of arms on his shield that he could not make out from this distance.
“Do you have your looking-glass?”
Damin nodded and handed Tarja the instrument from the pouch he carried on his belt. Tarja aimed it at the knight’s shield. As the three silver pike on a red field slowly resolved into focus he swore softly, then handed it back to Damin.
“Well, at least that answers the question about the whereabouts of the Duke of Setenton.”
Damin took the looking-glass and followed Tarja’s pointing finger.
“And where the order for the surrender came from,” Damin agreed. “What’s he doing leading half the damned Defender Corps north?”
Half was a gross exaggeration, but that near a thousand Defenders marched under the command of a Karien knight was cause enough for concern.
“If he was waiting at the Citadel when R’shiel arrived...” Tarja did not finish the sentence. He was afraid to put his thought into words.
“I wonder who’s in the carriage,” Colsy added, pointing at the elaborate vehicle drawn by six matched
