offered when he left-the children that had served under him in the Gwardeen, there in the outposts at the Ends of the Earth. But he had declined. It was an evil thing to take an endowment from a man, for if a man gave you his strength, his heart might fail thereafter. Fallion could not bear the thought of using another person that way. Still, he had nearly three hundred forcibles in his pack as part of his inheritance, and if the need was great enough, he knew that someday he might yet have to take endowments.
There was a gruff cry, a man shouting, “Damn the wench,” followed by a smack, the sound of a fist pummeling a face. “She bit me.”
The woman’s wail went silent, though she grunted and struggled still.
“Open the gates!” the attacker cried in his deep voice. “Open the damned gates, will you?”
In the hills, strengi-saats roared.
“They’re going to give a woman to the strengi-saats,” Rhianna whispered.
The thought horrified her. She found her heart pounding so hard that she was afraid it would burst.
The strengi-saats wouldn’t simply eat the woman. Though they were fierce carnivores, with claws like reaping hooks and teeth like scythes, they didn’t simply rend one’s flesh. No, one of the females would rape the woman, inserting a long ovipositor into the woman’s womb so that it could incubate half a dozen leathery eggs.
Then the strengi-saat would drag the woman into the woods, hide her high among the limbs of a tree, and keep her, terrified but alive, until the eggs hatched, and the young ate their way from the woman’s body.
“Fools,” Fallion growled. “What are they thinking? In killing her this way, they only reinforce the numbers of their enemies.”
“Something more heinous is going on here,” Talon concluded. “Perhaps that is what they want-to increase the numbers of the strengi-saats.”
The castle’s gate began to creak open. Talon clutched her blade, which was as long as her arm and two fingers in width.
Fallion studied the sentries along the wall. He could see their shadowed forms, pacing. There were no more than half a dozen. Two were peering down inside the gates, watching whatever struggle was occurring, but the others showed better judgment, and kept their watch still.
The castle gate swung out, and a pair of burly guards in chain mail and helms dragged the woman outside, hurled her to the ground. The guards turned, trudged back into the castle, and slammed the gate.
Fallion could see a tangle of blond hair on the woman, a white night dress ripped and dirty. She cried in terror and tried to pull her torn dress up, covering her breasts.
She looked forlornly at the gate, went and pounded on it.
“Better run, lass,” one guard shouted from the wall. “In ten seconds, our archers open fire.”
She peered across the darkened fields. There was no shelter out there, only the ruins of a few cottages.
An arrow bounced off the ground at her bare feet, and then another. She leapt away from them, gathered her courage, picked up her skirt, and took off running.
West. She was heading west, toward a tall hill where a lip of woods protruded closest to the castle.
“Not that way, silly wench,” Rhianna hissed.
From the western hill, a strengi-saat raised a barking call, one that Rhianna recognized as a hunting cry.
The woman stopped in her tracks, spun, and headed east, closer to Rhianna’s direction, racing along a muddy track that looked black among the fields.
Rhianna saw where it would reach the woods, just two hundred yards to the north. With any luck, Rhianna thought, I could meet her there.
But it would be a race, with the strengi-saats hot on the woman’s trail.
Rhianna leapt forward, racing through the dark woods.
We’ll have to fight them, Fallion realized, chasing after Rhianna, leaping over a fallen tree, running through a patch of ashes. The morning air was wet and full of dew, thick in his nostrils, muting the biting tang of old ash.
Fallion pumped his legs, driving hard.
In a more perfect world, he thought, a rescuer could run with infinite swiftness.
As he raced, crows came awake, squawking and taking flight in the night air, black wings raking the sky.
“The strengi-saats are coming!” Jaz warned, as he and Talon raced up behind Fallion.
Out across the field, several large, nebulous shadows moved in from the east. Fallion could not see what lay within them. The strengi-saats drew in the light, deepening the darkness all about them. In the night, in the woods or upon a lonely street, so long as they remained still they would stay hidden, camouflaged among their shadows. But running across the fields, their strange ability did them little good. True, their forms remained indistinct, but their presence was easily detected.
The woman reached the woods just ahead of Rhianna, then halted and dropped to her hands and knees, gasping for breath, looking up to peer about in wide-eyed terror. She glanced in Fallion’s direction but seemed not to see him. It was not until Rhianna’s boot snapped a twig that the woman leapt in terror, rising up with a small branch as her only weapon.
“Don’t be afraid,” Rhianna whispered. “We’re friends.”
Rhianna turned and took a guard position, peering among the trees, her staff at the ready.
The young woman stood staring at them all, holding her stick out like a rapier. Apparently she could not believe that anyone would be out here in the forest by night, among the strengi-saats. “Who are you?”
Fallion peered hard. The woman looked to be eighteen or nineteen, a little younger than he. Her face was familiar.
“Ten years is a long time,” Jaz offered. “But not long enough so that I would forget your name, Farion. Your father was a good teacher.”
Farion stood rooted to the ground, shaking. “Jaz?” she said, incredulous, then looked to Fallion. “Milord?” she cried, dropping to one knee. Tears began to flow freely down her face. “I-we thought you dead. I thought you had died ages ago.”
“We’re sorry to have left,” Fallion said. “Our enemies were too numerous to fight. It had to look as if we were dead.”
“Have you come to take back Castle Coorm? Where’s your army?” she looked back into the woods, as if hoping that thousands of runelords marched at his back.
“There is no army but the four of us,” Fallion admitted.
The words seemed to break Farion’s heart. She sagged to the ground, as if all hope were lost, and just began to sob. Nearby, Fallion heard the rumbling growl of a strengi-saat.
Dawn was still minutes away, but it was dark here in the woods. He knew that a fire would keep the monsters at bay. It would also alert the soldiers at Castle Coorm to his presence.
“All is lost then,” Farion muttered. “All is lost.”
“Not all,” Fallion said. “I’ll gather an army soon.”
Farion shook her head. “Lord Hale tried to force me to his bed. I fought him, and he threw me out, as an example to the others. I’m afraid…he’ll make an example of my sister. She is only thirteen.” She looked forlornly to each side of the woods. Then she peered up into Fallion’s eyes. “Please, she’s all that I have left.”
“Damn,” Jaz swore, looking to Fallion, urging Fallion to fight. He added hopefully, “The men on the walls have ashen bows. Mine has a farther reach.”
“So,” Fallion said, “you’ll fire on the guards while I batter down the gate? I think your jokes are getting better.”
The group had not planned to stop at Coorm. They had more urgent business farther on.
Now they had to stop, Rhianna realized. They couldn’t leave these women to suffer. A woman alone might live a night or two here in the woods, but the strengi-saats would get her in time. Rhianna knew by the look on Jaz’s face that live or die, he would not leave Castle Coorm without a fight.
But Fallion seemed reticent.
What’s wrong with you? Rhianna wondered. We both know what it’s like to be children, to be held in the clutches of an enemy. Don’t you dare walk away from this, Fallion. If you do, I will stop loving you.
But Fallion looked to the west longingly, unsure.
He wants to mend the earth, Rhianna thought. The need presses him, and it breaks his heart to hold back, even for a worthy cause. He must weigh the risk that many might die during the time that is lost against the
