He slumped. “Yes.”
“You did well. You lived. Perhaps next time you’ll learn to guard what you’re hired to protect. But not bad, for the first. You’ll have a lovely scar to remember it by.”
Ansel felt his face as if he hadn’t noticed the wound. In the heat of battle he probably hadn’t.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s clotting up. They’ll take care of that at Shadrun.”
“Shadrun-of-the-Snows,” he whispered. “We’re almost there, aren’t we? Captain Nimor …” He glanced at the big man who lay with the bristles of the crossbow bolt protruding from his chest. “He said it was close, and we could relax.”
Lakini frowned. “He was wrong.”
Having retrieved her mare, Kestrel stood at the gelding’s head, stroking it to keep it calm while the woman in blue who had come to her aid examined its side. The gelding shifted restlessly but was otherwise still.
The guards slung the captured half-orc, trussed like a goat for the roasting pit, over their dead captain’s horse. The rear guard who’d come to the aid of his fellows was taking command, barking orders at the others to flank the sides of the road and look out for more attackers. Lusk, still holding his lowered bow at the ready, came to her, looking intently at the trees on either side of the road and sniffing the air.
“There may be more,” he told her, barely sparing a glance for Ansel, who looked from his striped face to Lakini’s in puzzlement. He had probably just realized the band across her eyes was not a mask.
She nodded. The faster they got the caravan to the sanctuary, the better. The rear guard with the pike, having marshaled everyone into some sort of order and remounted, urged his horse next to them and nodded.
“From Shadrun?” he asked. His face was lined and he had his own set of scars. His eyes, alert, flickered from them to the fallen brigands to the forest around them. He knows what he’s doing, thought Lakini. Why wasn’t he in charge?
“Lakini and Lusk, in the service of the sanctuary,” replied Lusk. “It’s one hour’s ride up the mountain path. We’ll stay with you and come back with horses for the bodies. We should hurry. We haven’t seen any others, but there might be another attack regardless.”
“Kaarl vor Beguine,” said the guard, and Lakini swiftly searched her memory for various naming customs and determined that Kaarl was a descendant of an illegitimate but acknowledged child of a Beguine scion.
“You’ve come from Turmish as part of the wedding negotiations?” she asked, and he nodded.
“I’m acting captain now, I suppose,” he continued, with a glance at his dead predecessor. He pursed his lips. “By the helm, what folly. I thought him too old a campaigner to let his guard down like that; to let the men play at ladies’ afternoon stroll, without a thought of the danger. I spoke to him of it, and he told me to get behind and not play nursemaid. Almost got the young mistress killed, if not for your skill with the bow, sir.”
He shook his head and spotted Ansel, still staring at the odd pair. “Wake up, Chuit. Catch your mount and fall in.” Kaarl vor Beguine gave the field of slaughter an appraising glance. “Pretty efficient, for holy folk,” he remarked.
Ansel obeyed, and Kaarl vor Beguine trotted over to the two women-the girl in the red dress must be Kestrel Beguine, betrothed to Arna Jadaren. The woman in blue, with the injured horse, looked too young to be her mother or governess and too self-assured to be a servant, and she wasn’t dressed as a bodyguard. Perhaps she was her sister. She turned from examining the horse to speak to Kaarl, making emphatic motions with her hands.
“Yes, Mistress Ciari,” Lakini heard the guard say.
Lakini stood beside Lusk. “Notice anything?” she said.
Lusk nodded. “Of course. It’s not customary for a raiding party to be in uniform,” he said, nudging the man at his feet with his foot. Lakini winced internally. It was against her nature to disrespect the dead, no matter the path they took in life. It used to be against Lusk’s nature, as well. But increasingly she noticed that her deva companion seemed to cherish the divine spark that existed in all living creatures less and less, and to regard his fellow creatures with a cynical air.
She would not think less of him. Lusk was her dagger-mate, as the knife at her belt and his proved, and had been for a matter of lifetimes. But it did distress her.
“Sage tunics, with a chevron on the sleeve,” she said. “The livery of House Jadaren.”
“Attacking the scion on House Beguine, on her way to negotiate her marriage to Arna Jadaren,” said Lusk. “Interesting, to say the least.”
“And I’ve heard nothing of the Jadaren party’s arrival,” said Lakini. “Curious that they’re not here yet.”
Again, she sensed rather than saw Lusk’s reaction to the name “Jadaren,” so small that it might have been merely his blinking at a gnat near his face.
“Very curious,” was all he said, securing his bow in its place across his back, and Lakini wondered if she had imagined it.
Under Kaarl vor Beguine’s urging, the caravan gathered into some sort of order and turned from the road to the winding path that led to Shadrun-of-the-Snows, following Lusk as he led them on foot. Before she fell in behind them, Lakini waited for the girl in the red dress to pass by, leading her bay mare. This must be Kestrel Beguine, soon to wed an enemy of her House and make him a friend. Lakini had the impression of intelligent green-brown eyes in a smooth, olive face. Kestrel still held her bouquet of lupines, and gave Lakini a hesitant smile. She slowed her horse.
“Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “You, and your … partner …” She indicated Lusk’s back. “I’m sure that man would’ve killed me. His face …” She shuddered. “I was foolish to dismount. I thought it was safe. I know better now.”
“You’ll be safe at the sanctuary,” said Lakini.
The girl glanced at the place where the late captain lay. One of his men had thrown a sage green cloak over the body. Her green-brown eyes filled with tears.
“Poor Captain Nimor,” she said. “He used to lead me on his horse when I was a child, and he a guardsman. My uncle will be especially saddened. They were close friends.”
“He didn’t suffer,” said Lakini. “I saw it, and I promise you that. Quick and clean.”
He had also died very
The woman in blue was close behind, gentling her gelding. The animal was rolling its eyes nervously at the vociferous objections of the half-orc prisoner to being tied on the back of a horse. Lakini doubted the horse thought much of the idea, either.
“Can any at the Shadrun see to Goldstone’s wound?” The woman addressed Lakini, but she was clearly concerned about the animal, so the deva took no offense.
“We have a stable-mistress skilled in tending animals,” she said, studying the woman’s face. She was taller and more solidly made than Kestrel, with determined eyebrows and a redder tinge to her hair, but her features were similar enough that Lakini thought she must, indeed, be the girl’s sister. “She’ll treat your Goldstone well.”
The woman nodded.
“We are much beholden to you,” she said in her straightforward way, gathering her skirts and tugging the gelding forward. “Thanks to the incompetence of our guards, my sister was almost killed this day.”
As she let the caravan precede her up the slope and fell in after the wagon passed, Lakini wondered. If the rogue intended to kill the Beguine girl, a long knife was a poor choice. It was more likely he would put it at her throat and take her hostage. He had tried to grasp her wrist, after all.
Was it coincidence that it was Kestrel he had targeted? Standing by the side of the road, was she the easiest mark? Or did it have something to do with her betrothed state? Many would profit from this proposed alliance, but many, too, would profit from the chaos that would result if it fell through.
What of the sage green livery? Were they ex-Jadarens, gone rogue? Had they plotted to meet the Beguine emissaries as friends but changed their plans midway?
And then there was that Captain Nimor, that expression on his face of surprise and more-betrayal.
It bothered her to think of Kestrel Beguine as a target. She liked the girl’s face.
Bithesi met the party and took charge of Goldstone personally, examining his wound while the children who helped her in the stables saw to the rest of the horses. As the simple stone buildings of Shadrun-of-the-Snows came into view, a messenger came to first Lusk, then Lakini, telling them that Sanwar Beguine, brother of Nicol-and Kestrel’s uncle-had arrived in the morning, while the devas were on patrol in the woods at the base of the
