A Battle Lord’s Heart (19 page)

           
For a moment he appeared irritated
that she hadn’t witnessed his speech to the men. “Two shrill whistles,” he
repeated for her.

           
Atty shook her head. “Won’t work,
Cole. Wind’s picking up. It’ll drown you out to the other side.”

           
“Do you have a better idea?” the
Second questioned her.

           
Smiling faintly, she bit her lower
lip and nodded.

*
* * *

           
The Blood army was spread out in a rough
circle around an enormous bonfire. The ground in front of the small inferno had
been scoured to prevent the fire from spreading during the night and engulfing
the creatures while they slept.

           
Inside their circle, the last of the
defending force of Bearinger lay or sat huddled against each other for warmth.
Another one of their own had died on the trek through the dense winter refuse.
Thankfully they didn’t have to witness his body roasting on the spit on the
other side of the fire, as they’d been forced to do in nights past. Or watch
the creatures tearing chunks from the carcass as they ate.
      

           
The prisoners had been given water
twice that day. It was one of the rare times cold weather did them in good
stead. Had the weather been hot and muggy, more of them would have fallen from
dehydration.

           
Paxton painfully lifted his head,
only to have his gaze fall on the lone figure on the extreme edge of the
circle. Tonight the Battle Lord was hanging by his wrists from one of the old
apple trees. From the limpness in his figure, the lieutenant could tell the man
was unconscious.

           
Thank God.

           
But once their meal was over, the
torturing would begin again, and he wondered how much longer D’Jacques could
take their abuse.

           
Paxton ran a filthy hand over his
face and hoped he could get some sleep tonight, snowfall or no snowfall. A
movement from the corner of his eye gave him pause. He turned to see one of
their captors, a Blood that wore a human skull like a cap on its head,
approaching. It had a waterskin it would let the men share. One skin for
eighty-one men. It would barely make the rounds, even if they each took a sip.

           
“Better drink fast,” the creature
taunted, “before the cold turns it to ice.” It dropped the skin at Paxton’s
feet and walked away.

           
Or started to walk away.

           
Slack-jawed, Paxton watched as a
flaming arrow arched out of the forest like a shooting star. More golden than a
beam of light, it gracefully danced out of the treetops, toward their little
group, moving faster and angrier as it approached. Until it sought out the
Blood with the skull cap and drilled directly into the back of the thing’s head
with a screaming
eeeeeeee-fump!

           
The Blood was lifted off its feet by
the impact, flying forwards to land less than a yard away from their enclave.
For precious seconds Paxton stared at the Ballock dagger lashed to the arrow’s
shaft, and the pennant dangling with it. A pennant that was half-red and
half-blue.

           
Energy from some reservoir of power
he never knew he had saturated every fiber in him, and he lunged for the arrow,
pulling it wetly out of the thing’s body. At the same time the men who had
witnessed the attack were ready for the lieutenant when he untied the dagger
and began to hack away at the ropes binding them together. Unfortunately for
the Bloods, the men had been kept tied together by two half-hitches around
their necks. The creatures were so self-assured in the knowledge that none of
their prisoners could escape without being caught, they hadn’t individually
bound each man before tying him along with the rest of the prisoners. Their
lack of preparation proved to be their undoing.

           
Paxton was vaguely aware of the
growing sound of screaming and thunder. Horses were bursting from the woods all
around them. Armored riders on horseback, brandishing swords and taking on the
Bloods, literally cut them down where they stood or ran.

           
Arrows were raining all around,
flying fast and thick. Once the men were released, he shouted for them to grab
anything they could find to use as a weapon. Several snatched large rocks,
tackling a nearby Blood to the ground before pounding its head into pulp with
the stones. Paxton raced for the bonfire for a length of burning wood. Hefting
a long branch that felt a little like his own sword, he started running toward
the grove of trees, toward the Battle Lord.

           
Before he’d taken a dozen steps, a
figure stepped out of the woods a few yards away. She continued to fire arrow
after arrow, and her targets continued to drop.
 
Paxton’s figure floated through her range of vision, and she
hesitated, lifting her face from her bow.

           
“Warren!”

           
“Atty?”

           
He found himself suddenly wrapped in
the woman’s arms. He squeezed her as tightly as he was able before she pulled
back from him.

           
“Yulen?”

           
“This way!” He turned and continued
to run toward the apple grove.

           
Atty spotted her husband before
Paxton had the chance to point him out.
 
She stopped, aimed at the ropes suspending him overhead, and fired,
slicing through the thick cord. Yulen’s blood-drenched body dropped into Paxton’s
waiting arms.

           
She shook her head, focusing all her
skills, all her attention, on what she had to do next. “Take him over there!”
she yelled at the soldier above the noise of the attack. Paxton turned to see a
small trail leading from the clearing. “Liam’s waiting for him!”

           
“What about you?” he cried out,
hoisting the Battle Lord over his shoulder.

           
“Don’t worry about me. I have a
score to settle.”

           
Giving him a push, Atty watched her
husband being carried away. He was still alive. She knew it. She could feel it.
She would take him where he could recuperate, and she would love him through
the worst parts. He would recover, even if it took months or years.

           
But before that happened...

           
Atty stepped back into the clearing
and crouched, waiting. She could feel all of her senses coming alive as
Atrilan, the huntress-warrior, staked a claim to her body. To her far right she
could feel a fellow spirit take her back. Fortune would protect her while she
sought her prey.

           
“Atty!”

           
Her head jerked up as Renken wheeled
his horse around and pointed behind him with his bloody sword. Rising to her
feet, she turned to see the reptile-looking Blood with its vest of flayed human
skins standing by the bonfire.
 
It was
tapping the blade of a dagger in the palm of one hand. And it was staring
directly at her.

           
“D’Jacques!” it called out.

           
Atty faced it, every nerve singing.
In her belly, she felt a slight movement, and a split-second of fear burst
through her. “Not now!” she urgently whispered to her unborn son. “Mohmee has
to save your father. Please. Not now.”

           
As if hearing her and understanding
her need for him to be still, the babe ceased moving.

           
“D’Jacques!” the Blood screeched
again.

           
All about them the soldiers of Alta
Novis ceased their slaughter to watch the Battle Lady’s face off with the
creature. Even with the numbers in the Bloods’ favor, having sheer
determination, skill, the need for survival, and the surprise advantage had
rapidly shifted victory in the other direction.

           
The Blood army was all but
nonexistent now. This leader with its human vest knew that. The Battle Lord had
been absconded, but his Battle Lady stood a few yards away. Vulnerable. And
with child.

           
“You destroyed us today, D’Jacques,
but you haven’t destroyed all of us. We will be back.”

           
“So will we,” she promised it. Her
bow remained by her side, even with the nocked single arrow, and the Blood
began to wonder if it might have a chance.

           
“Eventually we’ll overcome you,” the
creature boasted. “We heal faster. We reproduce faster. We are the superior race.”
         

           
Atty lifted her chin. “Show me.”

           
A chilling wind swept over them.
Both adversaries rocked on their heels in its wake. They stood, eye to eye,
neither one moving. Neither giving ground.

           
Faster than the eye could follow,
the snake-like Blood lifted the dagger by the blade and flung it with deadly
accuracy.

           
With deceptively calm movements,
Atty raised her bow and let the arrow fly.

           
Barbed tip met steel, to ring in the
freezing air like crashing bells.

           
The Blood stared in disbelief as
Atty slowly pulled another arrow from her quiver, never taking her eyes off the
creature. “I am unarmed. You would kill me in cold blood?” it hissed.

           
“Yeah,” she breathed, and fired. The
arrow ripped through the Blood’s chest with a wet, hollow sound. The point
poked out from its back. Staggering backwards, the creature somehow managed to
remain on its feet.

           
“Go ahead. Kill me. Your man will
die anyway,” the creature swore.

           
“Nope.” She took two casual steps
forward as she pulled another arrow and fitted it against the string. Her
movements were deliberate, smooth, and determined. There was no hesitancy in
what she intended to do. And no remorse.

           
“He was weak, but I had great fun
with him,” the Blood laughed. “I crushed his heart.”

           
“There you’re wrong,” Atty informed
him, drawing a bead.

           
“How?”

           
“Because he left his heart inside of
me before he left. And I’ve kept it safe until he needs it back. Now, say
‘ahh’.”

           
As the Blood stared at its death,
his jaw dropped obligingly. Atty pulled even further back on the bow and
released her third arrow. There was a gurgling noise as the shaft came to a
stop half-in, half-out of the back of the thing’s throat, the fletchings
fluffed around its mouth.

           
Still, it refused to die. Mortally
wounded, the Blood reached up with both hands and tried to jerk one of the
arrows free. Swaying on its feet, it hissed through its pain while Atty pulled
a fourth arrow from the quiver slung across her back. Without warning, the
creature shrieked and flung itself toward the woman. Its arms reached outward,
clawed hands extended, hoping to tear her apart at the throat and belly.

           
She let it get closer before she
sent her final shot into the left eye socket. The force was so great the side
of the creature’s head exploded, sending chunks its brain and skull into the
air. Bits of matter and blood hissed as they flew into the bonfire. The Blood
leader whirled halfway around from the impact before collapsing in the dirt in
a heap.
   

           
Slowly, Atty walked away from the
squirming, dying Blood, never glancing back to check to make sure it would no
longer be a threat. She didn’t have to.

           
Around her, the soldiers of Alta
Novis, both prisoners and rescuers, turned and followed her into the woods as
the bonfire continued to crackle and burn brightly.

           
By the time the snows arrived, not a
single Blood from the original amassed army was left alive.

Chapter
Fourteen

West
Crestin

           
Atty climbed into the back of the
wagon as the blankets were being distributed to the survivors. She pulled Yulen
into her embrace and settled next to him. Come hell or high water, she wasn’t
budging.

           
MaGrath crawled in on the other side
of the Battle Lord as Fortune took the reins. “Now where?” the Mutah hunter
asked.

           
Flakes were falling faster. If they
remained immobile much longer, they would soon be covered. “West Crestin,” she
told him.

           
Fortune gave her a disbelieving
stare. “Atty, are you sure? There’s nearly two hundred Normals with us!”

           
“Fortune, it’s Yulen’s only hope!”

           
He needed no further urging. She was
right. It was the closest chance of shelter out of the weather, not to mention
additional medical help. Slapping the reins, the wagon lurched forward. The
rest of the men slipped into formation. Every man, save a small handful, were
riding double.

           
“How far is West Crestin?” MaGrath
asked her.

           
“I’m not quite sure. I wasn’t that
observant on our way over here. Fortune, how far do you think it is?”