Asteria In Love with the Prince (45 page)

BOOK: Asteria In Love with the Prince

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She ignored him and, taking a deep breath, vaulted up onto Dargadus’ back, head first across him, and let herself slither down the other side. There was a panicked exclamation from the trees ahead of them. She plucked her sword and scabbard from its straps as she fell, caught the saddle with her feet and let her momentum carry her under the horse, her hair brushing the ground. An arrow slammed into the horse’s flank, just a second too late, as she grabbed the saddle and pulled herself upright, safely behind the cover of the horse once more. Dargadus whinnied in agony, rearing up, but he was well trained, better even than the guard’s horses, and her mind reached out to calm him. His poor mind was a blaze of pain, but he would stand firm with her, protect her, for as long as he could.

The sounds around them were drawing closer. Salranna drew her sword and dropped into her fighting stance. If the bandits were expecting a defenseless girl, she thought, they were in for a shock.

Then they came, and there was no time for thought: no time for anything at all.

They were human: dressed in the camouflaging browns and greens of forest bandits, and yet they seemed too strong, too fast. They moved in pairs, watching each other’s back, flanking their victims. They didn’t need to speak: they had a plan. Too well trained to be bandits.

The guards both found themselves with two apiece, while a third pair came after her and Tonalee. Salranna pushed Tonalee behind her. “This girl has done no harm to you!” she snapped as she slowly backed away from the two men. ‘’If it’s ransom you want, my father will pay. Hurt no-one else!”

They didn’t answer, or even smirk: they just closed in, coldly efficient. She yelled and raced forward, clashing blade against blade, running the man’s sword back on himself almost enough to cut his own throat, before he could recover. But then they came at her again, both of them, and this time they had the measure of her. She parried blow after blow, but they were circling her, spreading apart, and soon she’d be unable to keep both in sight at once. And then it would be over.

It had been weeks since she’d sparred, longer since she’d practiced with two opponents. She was a princess, not a knight, and a head shorter than either man. But she was the King’s daughter, and that meant she was trained by the man-at-arms: without conceit, the greatest swordsman in Tyrelia.

She feigned a trip, staggered towards the nearest man. As he thrust forwards for an easy kill, she twisted gracefully, her body lithe and quick, and suddenly her sword was stabbing upwards through his thigh, deep into his body. She pulled back and wheeled away, and he fell soundlessly, a heap on the ground.

She risked a glance at the two guards. One was already down: barely alive, blood in his mouth as he turned his head to look at her. Despair filled his face as he saw her attacked, his charge unprotected and alone. The other guard had slain one of his attackers but now faced three, backing away as she was doing, his life measured in seconds.

She backed into something and almost tripped: the hysterical Tonalee, huddled on the ground, backed up as far as she could against Dargadus.

“Run!” she hissed to the girl. “Run! They won’t chase you. It’s me they want.”

She parried two more blows, her arms aching now: the strength of the taller, broader human was exhausting. “Run!” she screamed. She didn’t have time to look, but heard the girl finally get up and run, scuttling under the horse and away into the undergrowth. Then her sword was yanked from her hand, spinning away through the air and clanging against a tree. She lunged after it...then froze because a sword was at her neck.

The man holding it had long hair, tied back in a greasy ponytail, but he was too clean to be a bandit, and he fought too well.

“Who sent you?” she hissed, with bravery she didn’t feel. .

He didn’t answer. The blade pushed in towards her neck and she had to crane her head to avoid it, pressed up against her horse.

“My father will pay you!” she told him. “Double—triple what they’re paying you.” But there wasn’t even a flicker in his eyes. The blade shifted again, and Salranna tensed, and waited for the end.

The man suddenly collapsed in front of her, face down, ridden there by a figure in black, a dagger in its hand. The figure was up almost instantly, and wheeling towards the remaining attackers. The final guard had managed to take another with him before he’d gone down: that left two. One of the men rushed the figure in black, bellowing a war cry. The other ran straight for her. She searched frantically for her sword, spying it at the foot of a tree. As the man raced towards her, she jumped, rolled, her hands finding the pommel through desperation and blind luck. As the man reached her she turned to face him, the blade plunging into his stomach.

They stood there, her and the man, in a shocked tableau. The first one had been easy: she hadn’t even glimpsed his face, it had been so quick. But this time, the awful fear on his face wrenched at her heart, and as he slid backwards, dead, she collapsed to her knees, horrified at what she’d done.

The stranger was fighting the remaining attacker, swords clashing, the fight moving in quick, brutal flurries of blows. Then the attacker made the mistake of over-reaching. The stranger swayed backwards like a tree in the wind, and cut deep into the man’s defenseless back.

There was utter silence. The entire battle had taken no more than five minutes All of her retinue lay dead, save her and Tonalee, all of the attackers slain – unless more were waiting in the trees.

She stared at the men she’d killed, at the blood soaking through their clothes, and had to close her eyes before she was overcome by it.
Time for that later,
her father’s voice said in her head.
Mourn and rage and cry later: on the battlefield, lock it away and survive.

So she tried. She took her horror and her grief and her nausea and pushed them down inside her, and forced her breathing to slow. She opened her eyes and rose, on shaking legs, to find the stranger standing before her.

He was bigger than her, she saw now, a good head taller and broad to match, and when he pushed the hood of his black cloak back, she jerked backward in shock: he was a human. Light-skinned, but still a shade darker than her own delicate coloring, with close-cropped black hair and a day’s worth of stubble. He was striking, his strong features really quite...she blushed, pushing that thought away. He was staring at her, grey eyes full of concern, and something else she couldn’t quite read. Anger?

He held out his hand. “We must go.” His accent was broad: from far to the north. She had a hundred questions, but all of them could wait. He was right: they had to move. She opened her mouth to shout for Tonalee, to tell the girl she could come back.

A hand was suddenly clamped tight over her mouth, his hard body pressed as tight against her as a lover’s. His thick arms were like iron, as thick around as a tree. Outrage flared in her: to touch her this way was madness, a crime punishable by death. And at the same time, she felt another feeling rise unbidden in her: the way his body pressed against hers was so close to her day dream, re-igniting the fire she hadn’t realized was still smoldering. It was gone almost instantly, but there was no denying it had been there.

“You cannot shout!” he hissed. “They would not risk just one group, not for this. There will be others waiting, in case the first fail.” His eyes were searching the trees.

He slowly removed his hand, and she wrenched herself loose from him. “I am
not
leaving her!” she hissed. “She’s terrified and alone and she needs us!”

He leaned close, gripping her arm to stop her moving away, his breath hot in her ear as he whispered, “Princess, she is most likely already dead. If she managed to get away, her chances are best on her own. It is us they will be tracking.”

Me
, she thought in helpless fury.
It’s me they’re tracking.
The guilt threatened to overwhelm her: five dead, in all likelihood six: all for her. She closed her eyes for a second, then nodded. He released her arm.

Dargadus gave out a snort of pain and crumpled, his legs folding under him. Salranna reached the horse as he rolled onto his side, his flanks heaving as he tried to draw breath. Her mind found his much weaker one: he had stood for as long as he could, but the blackness was claiming him. She dropped to her knees and threw her arms around his neck, his wet nose pressed against her. Their time together – every moment since he was a foal – flashed through her mind. And then he was gone.

She stood. The stranger was holding out his hand to help her, but she ignored it.
Cursed,
she thought bitterly,
I’m cursed!
She felt like she was crying, but there were no tears. Down by her foot, she saw something brightly colored: the pokka blossom she’d picked. It had been shredded by a boot and crushed into the mud.

The other horses had fled the fighting: they’d have to go on foot. Not trusting her voice, she nodded her head back the way they’d come, and the stranger nodded in reply, leading the way down the path.

You can find The Elf Princess’s Lover wherever you downloaded this book.

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