“And they’re not going to catch up with me, Your Highness,” he assured her. She glared at him, and he shrugged. “You might ask Earl Coris about the visit my friend Ahbraim paid him. For that matter, you might think about the first time you and I met, Your Highness.” He shook his head. “Trust me, once it gets fully dark-especially in this kind of terrain-I’ll be able to slip away from them on foot without any problem. All they’ll catch up with in the end is a bunch of worn-out horses with no riders. In fact, I’d love to see their expressions when they do. I wonder if I can hang around close enough to actually watch?”
She glared at him, obviously unhappy with his airy assurance, and he looked at Coris over her head.
“She’s your Princess, My Lord,” he said. “Personally, I’m not going to be all that impressed if she decides to throw a tantrum. If she does, though, are you going to be able to handle her?”
“I’m not a piece of luggage to be handled!”
“No, but at the moment you’re not thinking very much like a princess, either,” Merlin pointed out, his tone suddenly much more serious than it had been. “Even assuming they were going to catch me-which they aren’t-it would be my job to lead them away and your job to make sure your brother gets to safety. Now, are you and I going to have to argue about this?”
She locked eyes with him for another moment. Then her shoulders slumped, and she sighed.
“No.” She shook her head unhappily. “No, we’re not going to have to argue about it. But be careful, Merlin. Please!”
“Oh, I’m always careful, Your Highness!” He leaned forward and, before she realized what he had in mind, gave her a quick peck on the cheek. She reared back in surprise, and he grinned unrepentantly. “Just for luck, Your Highness,” he assured her, and nodded to Coris, who was trying very hard not to laugh.
“Take care of her, My Lord.”
“I will,” Coris promised. “Well, Tobys and I will. And while we’re doing that, she’ll take care of Daivyn.”
“Are you going to tell him goodbye?” Irys asked quietly. He looked at her, and her smile trembled just a bit. “He’s lost most of the stability in his world, Merlin. Don’t just disappear.”
“A good point, Your Highness,” he acknowledged, and looked back at Coris.
“Straight down the river, My Lord. There’s a waterfall about twenty-five miles downstream. The boats are supposed to be waiting just below it.”
“And if they’re not there?”
“If they’re not there, my advice is to continue downriver, anyway. If they’re not at the rendezvous by the time you get there, they’re probably still on their way. Charisian seamen don’t turn back easily, you know. So if you just keep going, you’ll probably run into them.”
“‘Probably’ isn’t one of my favorite words when applied to desperate escapes,” Coris observed dryly. “Despite which, that sounds like the best advice.”
“One tries, My Lord.” Merlin bowed, then straightened, looking past him at Daivyn. “And now, if you’ll forgive me, I have to go tell a young man goodbye.”
“Is Seijin Merlin really going to be all right, Irys?” Prince Daivyn whispered urgently. He was mounted in front of Irys now, since hers was the freshest horse and she weighed the least of any of the experienced riders. He twisted slightly, looking up at her, his expression hard to see in the rapidly fading light. “Tell me the truth,” he implored.
“The truth, Daivy?” She looked down at him and hugged him tightly. “The truth is that I don’t know,” she admitted. “But if anybody in the whole wide world can do this, it’s probably him, don’t you think?”
“Yesssssss,” he said dubiously, then nodded. “Yes!” he said more firmly.
“That’s what I thought, too,” she told him with another hug.
“But how is he going to make sure they follow him? ” Daivyn demanded. “I mean, it’s getting awful dark. What if they don’t even see him?”
“I don’t know what he has in mind, Daivy, but from what I’ve seen of Seijin Merlin, I think we can predict it’s going to be something fairly… spectacular.”
Sergeant Braice Mahknash stood in the stirrups so he could massage his posterior. Hardened cavalryman that he was, he’d spent long enough in the saddle over the last two or three days to last him for months. But that was all right with him. He wanted the traitorous bastards who’d massacred so many of the Royal Guard. And the news that Earl Coris had betrayed his trust-actually taken Cayleb of Charis’ bloodstained gold and sold his own prince and princess to their father’s murderer-filled Mahknash with rage. He hoped Bishop Mytchail was wrong, that Coris and the so-called “ Seijin Merlin” wouldn’t really cut the prince’s and princess’ throats rather than allow them to be rescued, yet surely even that would be better than letting them be handed over to the heretic emperor and empress to be tortured into proclaiming their allegiance to Prince Hektor’s killers.
And that wasn’t the only reason Mahknash wanted them. Delferahk had suffered enough at Charisian hands without accepting the insult of an attack on the king’s very castle! Not enough to massacre the Royal Guards who’d thought they were there to protect Prince Daivyn, the treacherous sons-of-bitches had actually blown up two-thirds of the castle and set fire to the rest! King Zhames had taken Prince Hektor’s orphans in out of the goodness of his heart and a kinsman’s love, and his reward was to have his armsmen slaughtered and his home itself destroyed? No, that couldn’t be allowed to stand, and it wouldn’t. Not with the pursuit so close upon them.
And the bastards don’t know their ride isn’t coming, either, he thought with grim satisfaction.
The discovery that the fugitives were headed for the Sarm Valley, where the West Sarm flowed through the gap between the Trevor Hills and the Sarman Mountains proper, had made sudden sense out of the mysterious boats which had clashed with a troop of Earl Charlz’ dragoons two days ago. Clearly this plot had been organized far in advance, with plenty of forethought, but that didn’t mean it was going to work. Especially not when the boats they were counting on to rescue them had turned back the day before yesterday.
Mahknash smiled in satisfaction. The dragoons had suffered heavy casualties, but the Charisians had been even more badly hurt. Their boats had been observed headed back downriver, heaped with wounded, running with their tails between their legs. Moving with the current, they’d easily outdistanced any pursuit, unfortunately, and it wasn’t like there were any warships or galleys on the river between them and Sarmouth, so their escape was virtually certain. But they’d managed it only by cravenly abandoning the people they’d come to meet.
Still, what more could you expect out of heretics and blasphemers? Out of people who cut children’s throats as blood sacrifices to Shan-wei? Mahknash had read every word of the confessions the Inquisition had wrung out of the Charisians the Earl of Thirsk had handed over for their rightful punishment, and he’d been horrified by their crimes and perversions, but not surprised. After all, Delferahk knew what Charisians were like. In fact, Delferahk knew better than anyone else, given what the bastards had done to Ferayd!
I wonder if they’ve got any sort of fallback plan? he mused. I don’t know where they expected to meet those boats, but assuming they manage to get past the patrols-Ha! As if that were going to happen!-they’re bound to realize eventually that they’ve been left high and dry. So what do they do then? Try to head cross-country all the way down to Sarmouth on horseback? Fat chance! We’d be on them in Sergeant Mahknash’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a forty-five caliber bullet launched from one of the first two cap-and-ball revolvers ever manufactured on the planet of Safehold. It struck him squarely at the base of the throat at approximately eleven hundred feet per second, driven by sixty grains of black powder, and blew out the back of his neck, knocking him back across his horse’s rump. He hung there for a moment, then thumped heavily to the ground, and his companions shouted in confusion as more gunfire rang out through the darkened mountain woods.
There had to be at least a dozen attackers. Obviously the collision had been as unexpected for them as for Sergeant Mahknash’s patrol. The shots came in rapid succession, but they’d have come in a single, concentrated volley if the traitors had realized they were about to run into the pursuit.
Three more of Mahknash’s troopers were hurled off their horses, and a fourth swayed, wounded but sticking to his saddle, and they heard voices shouting to one another in alarm. Then they heard the thunder of hooves as the fugitives turned, spurring their weary horses away from the patrol.
“Nyxyn, see to the wounded!” Corporal Walthar Zhud shouted, reasserting command. “Zhoshua, you’re on
