The harbor was packed with ships, and the waterfront seethed with activity despite the rain, like an anthill that’s been overturned. The invaders were wasting no time off-loading soldiers, horses, and supplies.
Horsemen rode up and down the beach in their thickly padded coats, head wraps, and knee-length breeches. They carried the curved swords they’d used so effectively on the city battlements. Some wore bits and pieces of Highlander uniforms along with traditional garb.
Corporal Sasha Talbot eased up beside him. She stared down at the scene for a long moment, swore softly, then blotted at her eyes with her sleeve. She cleared her throat. “That answers that,” she said. “It looks like they mean to stay awhile.”
Hal nodded, watching her out of the corner of his eye. The statuesque bluejacket had been subdued and gloomy since the city fell and the empress Celestine sailed off with the heir to the Gray Wolf throne. At least she no longer talked about drawing her sword and charging down into the midst of the horselord pirates, taking out as many as she could before she went down herself.
She blames herself, he thought. And I blame myself. He guessed there was more than enough blame to go around.
“Do you see any of ours?” he said, focusing on the scene below.
Talbot slowly turned her head and stared at him.
“Yours, I mean,” he amended quickly. He and Talbot got on fairly well, except for the fact that she still considered him to be a prisoner of the crown. At least she’d allowed him to keep the weapons he’d collected off a dead soldier.
Talbot looked again, then murmured, “I think they’ve got some of ours repairing the fortifications.”
Hal saw it now, teams of workers hauling rock under the supervision of the riders. It seemed that one of them wasn’t moving fast enough, because his horselord guard unslung his blade and cut him down.
Talbot swore again. “I wish we could help them.” She fingered the hilt of her sword.
“Come back with an army,” Hal said quickly. “Then you can help them.”
Talbot grunted. “I don’t know if we can field an army that can stand against them,” she said, her expression bleak.
“Buck up, Talbot,” Hal said, punching her lightly on the shoulder. “It’s not like you to surrender before the battle begins.”
“I’ve never fought soldiers like these,” she said.
Hal knew she was second-guessing every move she’d made, all the choices that resulted in the loss of her captain. Her princess. Her friend. Hal was doing a lot of that himself.
“We’ll be ready for them, next time,” Hal said. “They may be fierce and fearless, but they’ll bleed like any other soldier.”
“I’m not so sure,” Talbot said. She shot Hal a defiant look, as if daring him to contradict her.
Hal fully intended to bring that same story to his father, but he knew better than to go before the thane unprepared. He needed more information.
“Stay here,” Hal said. “I’ll be right back.”
When he began scrambling back, away from the cliff, Talbot gripped his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to go down and see if I can find out a little more about who we’re up against.”
“What if you don’t come back?”
Hal struggled not to lose his temper. “If I don’t come back, I’ll be dead, but you’ll be alive, so you can go tell your Captain Byrne and your queen what’s going on.”
Talbot scowled, but released her hold. Hal crept south along the cliff until he found an icy streambed where he could descend to the beach. Once on the sand, he threaded his way forward between huge chalk slabs until he could get a clear view.
The horses were being ferried ashore in small boats south of the high cliffs and kept in temporary paddocks until they could be moved into the city. They were not the dun-colored Ardenine military mounts Hal was used to, nor the sturdy, shaggy ponies used in the highlands. These horses had chiseled heads, arched necks, and long legs, and they carried their tails high.
A sentry leaned on the paddock fence, watching the progress of a longboat back to the ship anchored offshore. Unlike most of the others, he was bareheaded. He wore his hair in a long plait that extended nearly to his waist, though the top of his head was shaved clean. His beard was also braided and decorated. He wore light armor over loose-fitting clothing. More than anything, he resembled the horselords from the desert realms across the Indio.
Hal was still debating whether to kill him outright or to try to take him alive and risk giving himself away when the rattle of pebbles on stone behind him alerted him to danger. He dove sideways in time to avoid being beheaded by the curved blade of the horselord who’d crept up on him. Hal rolled to his feet, his sword in one hand, a fistful of sand in the other. He managed to block his attacker’s next swing, but the force of the blow all but rattled the teeth from his head.
Hal was no slouch, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that he was outmatched. The horselord was strong as an ox, and yet so quick on his feet that Hal could scarcely do more than dodge and feint, rarely getting in a blow of his own. The horselord’s next swing all but disarmed Hal, but the curved blade caught against his own, and Hal took that opportunity to come in close enough to fling the sand in the horselord’s eyes. When his blade dropped away, Hal drove his sword beneath his rib cage, all the way to the hilt.
The horselord smashed his gauntleted arm across Hal’s face, pitching him backward onto the sand. Then the other sentry was there, his blade at Hal’s throat, pinning him to the beach. Hal watched in horror as the man he’d skewered yanked the blade
