“He’s letting her go,” Martaina said, “with the head, to return it to Sanctuary.”
“Why?” J’anda breathed.
“Some sort of bargain between them,” Martaina said, and her fingers twitched, desirous to hold her bow, to feel the arrow knotted between her fingers, to let it fly and see it run through Hoygraf’s skull. “Doesn’t seem likely he intends her to actually be able to save him, though, does it?”
“We have minutes,” Aisling said. “Barely time enough, if that. Every moment we wait brings him closer to permanent death.”
“There is mercy in us, though, is there not?” Grand Duke Hoygraf had begun to speak again. “For a man of Actaluere, our superiority is nothing but obvious, and we can find it in ourselves to allow the fallen enemies to go back to their brethren, can we not?” He placed a boot on Cattrine’s cut and bleeding rump and rested his weight on it, causing her to cry out. “Once we show someone their place, and they are convinced of it, is there any reason not to be a little generous? When they know the price of betrayal, can we do any less than reassure them of their place in the order of things?”
He pressed on her again with his hard-soled leather shoe, and Cattrine, who had been trying to get to all fours to crawl was forced to the ground again, and her screams of pain were almost too much for Martaina to bear; the bow was in her hand and an arrow ready to fly before she felt J’anda’s hand on her wrist. “Hold,” J’anda said.
“No time,” Aisling said, and Martaina could hear the agitation in her voice. “He means to let the sands run through the hourglass before he lets her go, if even he does so then.”
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” A voice crackled through the air as though a thunder spell had been unleashed into the midst of the gathering, and all the heads turned. A phalanx of soldiers emerged to their right from the main road through the camp, their armored boots slapping the dirt into a cloud, their deep-blue armor and surcoats those of Actaluere, but different than the Grand Duke’s livery. In their midst was a man Martaina had not seen before, yet whose station was obvious by the amount of bodyguards surrounding him-
“Milos Tiernan,” J’anda said, “the King of Actaluere.”
“I figured that one out all by myself,” Martaina said, and let the bow dip downward; the illusion made it look as though she were doing nothing more than holding a sword over her shoulder.
Tiernan made his way through his crowd of bodyguards to Hoygraf, who waited with an air of patient expectation, seemingly unworried. In truth, Martaina could smell the fear on him; the man had begun to perspire the moment Tiernan had spoken. Tiernan closed to feet from Hoygraf, who stood between the King and Cattrine, who was now up on all fours, one of her hands clutching Cyrus’s hair tightly. “You mean to force us into a war?” Tiernan said under his breath, standing only two feet from Hoygraf now.
“No war,” Hoygraf said. “You heard them; the Westerners mean to go to Syloreas’s aid. And no war with Galbadien, either; my dear wife has pledged to return to me and has accepted her punishment-and more to come.”
“Has she now?” Martaina heard a distinct frosting on Tiernan’s inflection as it cooled. “I am certain she enjoyed your lash with all enthusiasm; but tell me, Hoygraf, what possessed her to accept your punishment, seeing that she was well free of your loving touch?”
“You would have to ask her,” Hoygraf said, with a minimal shrug. “Love of her husband, perhaps.”
“Trying to save my homeland, more like,” Cattrine said from her hands and knees.
“We all have our own reasons,” Hoygraf said with a further shrug. “She has received what she was promised and shall receive more in the bargain. Now she will return the head of Sanctuary’s General to them, then come back to me, and war will be averted with Galbadien because of it.” Hoygraf’s teeth showed, evenly, far too polished for Martaina’s taste, too white for the blackness of the man’s soul. “And you can send your forces north to Syloreas to counter this threat that has everyone so worried.”
“You know very damned well that western magic works to revive the dead for only so long after they’ve been killed.” Milos Tiernan appeared to shake with this pronouncement, as he stared down Hoygraf, but still he kept his voice low enough that none of the crowd could hear. “You have killed him, which I would suspect would be an act of war in the view of the westerners, and stripped him of his head, and now you sit here, torturing my sister and letting time pass idly by. How long ago did he die, Hoygraf?”
“I hardly know,” Hoygraf said. “An hour, perhaps? Perhaps less, perhaps a little more. It is hard to be worried about such things when you are striving to enforce richly deserved justice.” He broke a little smile again toothily and pretended to wipe a bead of perspiration from his brow that was not even there.
“Now you expect my sister to return him to his people, in the condition you have rendered her to, before the allotted time runs out?” Tiernan’s voice was steady, surprising Martaina. There was an edge of restrained fury in it, she could hear, but it was not raised at all. “You want this war, want to fight the westerners, want your revenge, do you?”
“I fear no westerner,” Hoygraf said, and leaned heavier, both hands on his cane, but the smile was gone. “And certainly no silliness of the north from the Syloreans. Let them come, and we will break these western fools. Let Syloreas fall to whatever chews at it, and the army of Actaluere will deal with that as well.”
“I need a courier.” Milos Tiernan raised his voice now, so that the entire crowd could hear. Martaina had set foot forward before she even realized she had, stepping out of the circle of observers, crossing the ground between her and the post, where Tiernan stood facing Hoygraf and Cattrine. The voice went low again, but Martaina followed it as she approached them, the lone person who did so. “You are a fool, Tematy, and your war is direly timed. You are twice the fool if you think that whatever afflicts Syloreas will be easier to defeat without their aid as with it. You may have dominion over my sister now-to my eternal shame and dismay-but you do not rule my Kingdom. You do not declare war for me or take action that will cause me to have to fight after you provoke others into them.” Martaina arrived at his side, then, and the King of Actaluere looked to her without any sign of recognition. “Please take my sister and her … accompanying package … to the Sanctuary camp to the southeast. Ensure that she is able to return their general’s head to them, but give them no further message.” His face twitched. “Stay with her while she is there, and perhaps one of their healers will find it in them to ease her pain. Do you understand?” Martaina nodded, and Tiernan waved her off. “Be on with it, then, with all alacrity. Hurry.”
Martaina knelt next to the Baroness, whose head snapped back at her approach and again as she wrapped an arm around Cattrine and pulled her to her feet. The Baroness’s legs did not work, not at all, and she was dead weight as Martaina carried her along, half-dragging her to the edge of the crowd, which watched her. There was silence from behind her as Tiernan and Hoygraf continued to stare at each other, or possibly at her, and she could almost taste the bitter conflict between the men, burning hotter than the summer day around them, and with none of the occasional idle breeze to break it up. The quiet was oppressive in its own way, and every step she could feel the Baroness sag against her and the slippery, bloody, naked skin of Cattrine was slick within her grasp.
They made their way past the circled crowd, and J’anda and Aisling joined them as they passed. “I’ll take this,” Aisling said, and laid a hand on Cyrus’s head. “I’ll run ahead.”
“No,” Cattrine said, halting, her words choked with pain. “I need to get it to … Curatio. To the Sanctuary guild members.”
“You have,” Aisling said quietly, and Cattrine cocked her head. Her eyelids fluttered. “Let me take it, so that I can get it there in time.”
“All right,” Cattrine said, weakly, and relinquished her hold. Aisling, for her part, did not waste a moment- she ran, no stealth, no guile, and faster than Martaina would have thought the little dark elf could have moved, disappearing between the tents ahead of them in a flat-out sprint in the direction of the Sanctuary camp.
“I’m going to get you to Curatio,” Martaina said to Cattrine. She could feel J’anda hovering next to her. “We need to get something to cover you, and we’ll make certain you’re healed.”
“I’ll give her my robes when we’re out of the camp,” J’anda said. “Take care with her, those wounds are …” The enchanter cursed, a word that Martaina had heard before, something in the dark elven language that was so foul it left a bitter taste in the air. “Barbarians.”
“No doubt,” Martaina said, hurrying along as fast as she could side-carry the Baroness. The tents around them passed in slowest speed. The soles of Cattrine’s feet were red with blood and covered with dirt, which stuck to the crimson in flecks, dust holding in place from the stickiness. Every time Martaina tried to readjust her grip, Cattrine cried out; there was nowhere to hold the woman that wasn’t hurt, oozing blood with her every motion.
