A Battle Lord’s Heart (16 page)

           
Dark brown eyes stabbed the
ex-mercenary, and Renken felt his skin crawl. The doctor was not a man to
cross. “I’ll yell if she comes to,” Renken promised.

           
The physician relented. Quickly the
pair hurried, if reluctantly, back into the destruction. Once they were gone
from sight, Renken moved to the rear of the wagon where he could keep a better
eye on their surroundings. And on the Battle Lady.

           
To the northeast a bank of dark gray
clouds was forming. A storm was building, gathering strength to blow another
foot or more of snow across the land. Already the wind was picking up slightly
in anticipation.

           
Renken’s gaze swept back to the
woman lying on her side in a semi-fetal position. Other than that day when he’d
first arrived at Alta Novis, this was the closest he’d physically been able to
approach her. If he reached out, with little effort he could touch her boot.

           
She was taller than she first
appeared. The Battle Lord was a good six foot two or three, Renken’s own height.
Many times he’d seen D’Jacques rest his chin or cheek on the top of his wife’s
head when she leaned against him.
 
Renken guessed it was her puckish nature and
joie
de vivre
that
made her seem more petite and delicate. A deceptive description, he quickly
discovered. The woman could kill and gut a two hundred pound wolverine without
batting an eye, but she was reduced to a helpless kitten if she raised
D’Jacques ire. Or his desire.

           
He sighed noisily and scratched the
several days’ growth on his face. God, if he could only find a woman even
remotely like her.
           

           
For the next hour the soldiers
hunted diligently. A blanket was laid out near the main gates, and already
Renken could see some partial bodies lying there, awaiting the time when they’d
be wrapped securely for transportation back home. But none of them were of the
Battle Lord. Three sections of his armor had been found in the same area where
they’d discovered his sword. When Renken questioned one of the sub-lieutenants
how they could be certain it belonged to him, the man explained that the
armorer had engraved the last name of its wearer inside each piece as it was
being made, since each section was specifically fashioned to fit just one
owner.

           
Renken picked up one of the pieces
they’d placed on the blanket behind the wagon. Yep, up near the edge of the
shoulder cap was the single word:
D’Jacques
.

           
Mastin walked up to drop another
sword on the pile of weapons. Renkin motioned to him. “Hey. Look at this.”

           
The Second paused and glanced over
before heading back inside. Holding up the piece of armor, Renkin fingered what
was left of the leather strap used to buckle it on. Blood, once red but now a
sticky brown, had soaked into it.

           
“What does that look like to you?”

           
Mastin’s eyes narrowed, and he reached
out to finger it with bloodstained gloves. “It’s ragged.”

           
“Yeah. That’s because it was chewed
apart. Those things chewed his armor off.”

           
Mastin’s face went a shade paler,
and he turned and walked back into the compound without further comment.

           
Laying the piece down, Renken
glanced over at the two blankets spread on the ground. One held various swords
and weapons the men were recovering from the site. Another had a pile of
armored pieces. He swallowed hard. It was the third blanket containing the body
parts MaGrath had identified as belonging to some of the men from Alta Novis
that sent a chill down his back. After years of being a mercenary, he had
developed a pretty thick hide when it came to death and destruction. But the
aftermath of what he was seeing here from the Bloods was making him sick to his
stomach.

           
For the umpteenth time he checked
the Battle Lady. A coldness suddenly swept over him. She was...different.
Narrowing his eyes, Renken shifted modes. The skilled eyes of a seasoned
mercenary raked over her to spot what had alerted him. She took another shallow
breath—

           
Renken raced for the main gates
where he could alert the nearest man. “Atty!” he yelled, needing no further explanation,
and rushed back to the wagon. Behind him he could hear the word pass, until
presently he heard the sound of running feet.

           
“What?” MaGrath panted, gasping for
breath.

           
Renken pointed toward the still
unconscious form as the others joined them.

           
The physician gave her a cursory
glance, and turned back to Renken. “I thought you were signaling us that she
was waking up,” the man loudly exclaimed.

           
“She’s not asleep,” Renken curtly
corrected him. “Look at her, Doc. She’s
sensing!
”

           
There were several gasps behind him,
but Renken grimly smiled to see the look of incredulity on the doctor’s face.
For the barest of moments everyone’s mind wondered as to what she could be
sensing—when the answer nearly knocked them over.

           
Her sallow complexion had changed. A
pink flush now infused her, giving her face an almost normal, rosy glow. Atty
took another hitching breath, and to their astonishment her hand lifted.
Slowly, cautiously, almost reverently. Reaching out as if she could touch...

           
A bright wail of anguish tore from
her lips. Several of them jumped in their skins at the sound. Before he was
aware of what he was doing, Renken edged around to the side of the wagon and
lifted her into a sitting position. Atty’s hands flexed once, twice, and she
reached outward imploringly as her wail formed into a single word.

           
“Yuuuuuuulllll!
”

           
“Oh, sweet Jesus, she’s deranged!”
someone stated in a shaky voice.

           
“Shut up!” Renken barked. The
soldier returned the icy stare but did as he was told.

           
Slowly, Atty raised her hands to her
face. Her whole body jerked spasmodically. Finally, a tiny voice came from
behind quivering lips. “Cole?”

           
“I’m here, Atty,” the Second was
quick to answer, moving closer to where he could hear her better.

           
“Gather the men. Now. We’re heading
west.”

           
“West?” Mastin repeated, hoping he’d
heard her right the first time. “Why?”

           
Atty lifted eyes now haunted with
images only she could see. She was aware of them, aware of where she was, aware
of what surrounded them, yet her gaze remained inward, stubbornly refusing to
let go of the thin, impossibly tenuous thread of her connection.

           
“He’s alive, Cole. Yul. He’s...
alive!
”

           
No one questioned her sanity. No one
questioned the insanity of her orders. To a man, they gathered their weapons
and supplies, and in less than five minutes they were in exact formation, ready
for the go-ahead.

           
“Which way, Atty?” Fortune called
out.
 
Renken sat at the reins as the
Battle Lady leaned heavily against him.
 
Weakly, she pointed toward the forest on the other side of the roadway.

           
Mastin signaled them forward. The
soldiers advanced over the wide, rutted lane, toward the dense growth. But as
they neared the tree line, they could see where a distinct path had been
trampled in the wake of the Bloods’ retreat. Boldly, the battalion entered the
forest.

           
The path was irregular and not
difficult to track. “It’s as if they never expected to be followed,” Fortune
half-whispered.

           
“Of course not,” MaGrath hissed.

           
“But this is wrong. All wrong,”
Renken insisted, thinking aloud. “There’s more to this than we’re seeing.” He
turned to the woman sitting with her head on his shoulder. He caught of whiff
of her scent and the slightly minty smell of her hair. His stomach tightened.
“I’m right, ain’t I, Atty?”

           
She lifted herself into a sitting
position and clutched her pillow closer to her abdomen. “They’re on foot. They
can’t move as quickly as we can on horseback. We’re already starting to gain on
them.”

           
“Where are they heading, Atty?”
Mastin asked from where he rode to the left of the wagon.

           
“I don’t know,” she confessed
softly. She shuddered slightly, but she remained awake. Awake, but sightless,
as if all her energy was directed inward to focus on their single goal. Their
ultimate, top priority.

           
“He was unconscious,” she suddenly
blurted out. “That’s why I didn’t feel him. He’s...he’s confused. He’s hurt.”
She jerked unexpectedly, and a tear ran down her cheek. “Oh, God, they hurt him
so terribly.”

           
“Why did they take him prisoner?”
Fortune questioned aloud. “Since when do Bloods take prisoners?”

           
“Not prisoners,” Atty corrected him.
She blinked, and it was as if a veil dropped from her face. She turned a
bright, clear, if somewhat sad pair of eyes in her friend’s direction. “There’s
nearly a hundred of our men with them.”

           
“What?”

           
“
What?
”

           
Not realizing he’d pulled up the
mare and stopped the wagon, Renken was surprised when Atty reached over and
slapped his hands. “Don’t stop this caravan!” she heatedly ordered. The
ex-mercenary was quick to obey.

           
“Repeat what you just said,” MaGrath
asked her. Behind and before them, the soldiers’ strained to hear what she had
to say.

           
“The Bloods are dragging almost a
hundred of our soldiers along with them. But Liam, they’re not being taken as
prisoners.” She paused to swallow hard. “They’re being taken as food.”

           
Every man shivered in the wake of
her admission, then waited to hear more, but Atty leaned back against the man
holding the reins and closed her eyes.
As
twilight darkened the wood, Mastin finally called a halt. “We have to rest if
we’re going to make any progress tomorrow,” he announced. “Atty, how far behind
are we?”
     

           
She shook her head. “Not far. They
can’t move too fast with the number of prisoners they’re having to deal with.
And it’s harder progressing straight into the woods. We’re in their wake.
They’ve done the hard part, clearing the path for us.”

           
“Still, I don’t like being out in
the open like this,” the Second noted.

           
“We may not have to be,” Fortune
said as he stood up in his stirrups and sniffed loudly. Sitting back down, he
smiled at Atty. “Bumblebee, bumblebee,” he sing-songed lightly in a teasing
tone.

           
“Tell me what you hear and see,” she
automatically answered, then started.

           
“Or, in this case, smell,” the Mutah
hunter clarified.

           
She turned to stare at the man.
Slowly the old Atty could be seen pooling back into the blue-gray depths of her
eyes. It was like watching life reemerging, filling her with hope and purpose.

           
Carefully, with Renken’s arm to
steady her, Atty stood up in the little wagon and tested the air.
 
MaGrath was quick to notice how subtly she
slipped into her hunter’s mode, and the knowledge gave him hope. This was the
Atty he knew. It was like a ray of sunlight to his frantic soul to see that
side of her reappear.

           
“Bear. We’re in bear country.” She
looked to Fortune for confirmation.

           
“And where there’s bear, there’s
bear caves,” Fortune explained to Mastin. “I bet we can find a den or two that
we can fortify for the night. Give me and a couple of your men a few minutes,
and I’ll lead you to them.” He glanced back at the woman opening her mouth to
volunteer. “Not this time, Atty-cake. You stay here and keep that connection
going. This won’t take but a few minutes.”

           
Mastin peeled off two men to follow
the hunter further into the dense underbrush. MaGrath turned to Atty with a
silly grin spreading over his face. “Atty-cake?”

           
For the first time in days, she
returned a small smile. “It was what my parents often called me when I was
growing up. You know, ‘pattycake, pattycake, baker’s man’? Well...Atty-cake.”

           
“Of course, you having an
inexhaustible sweet tooth wouldn’t have anything to do with it, either, would
it, bluebell?”

           
To his delight, she grinned.
“Maybe,” she admitted, elaborating no further.

           
As he promised, Fortune quickly
returned and directed them back the way he’d gone. Within minutes the battalion
happened upon a large clearing surrounding a tall, rocky abutment. The entrance
to a small cave lay close to ground level.

           
“It’s abandoned, or else I would’ve
found an animal hibernating in there this time of year. It’s large enough to
comfortably fit Atty and a couple more. The rest of us can form a semicircle in
front of it.”