Echoes of Betrayal (12 page)

His lips twisted in a sneer. “Not long enough; you should be dead.”

“And I am not, and you are dying. How long were you in that body?”

“Guess,” he said. “Or if you have the courage, bend closer; I will tell only you, not those scum.”

“I think not,” Dorrin said. Arcolin’s experience warned her. She backed away.

“Coward bitch!” he said; blood spurted from his mouth. His body convulsed, and a mist formed over it though the body still jerked. Dorrin spoke the words she had spoken when she expelled the Verrakai spirit from Stammel, but the mist did not disperse. Instead, it drifted toward her on the current of air from the north, hardly visible in the wavering torchlight.

“My lord?” The sergeant’s voice was shaky.

“If I cannot dispel the mist—if it enters me, if I act differently—kill me at once.”

“My lord!”

“At once.” Dorrin backed away from the mist a step, then stopped. She would not lead it closer to her people. They had no protection; she had her shield of magery. She must lure it to her alone. “I must not become what that was; this realm has had enough evil Verrakaien.” She stepped forward.

If Verrakai command words would not work on this one … what did that mean? Could it penetrate her mage-shield? Who had it been, and how many years had it lived, to have so strong a hold on life unbodied? And what would work?

Kieri’s words, the remembered words of the man who had freed him from torment, came to her:
There is a High Lord above all lords; go to his courts and be free
.

The mist reached her shield, thick enough to dim the torchlight and spread like a stain on glass. She felt a mental itch, a high thin keening like a fly trapped in a corner. The first touch on her skin was like fire. The noise in her head grew.

“Falk’s Oath in gold,” Dorrin said, “and the High Lord’s justice oppose your evil. By this ruby, by the High Lord’s rule, as Falk’s knight and the High Lord’s loyal servant, I banish you. Begone, foulness, and be born no more.” With her sword, blue now glinting from its blade, she drew the sigils for Falk and the High Lord on the mist; the mist brightened, condensed, and for a moment she felt engulfed in chaos. Then it was gone—the pressure, the sound, the mental itch, the burning pain.

The sergeant, sword drawn, stood near her, eyes fixed on hers as she turned. “It touched you,” he said. “I saw it pause and then—”

“My shield held it off briefly, then it got through. But I am unchanged,” Dorrin said. She saw doubt in his face. “I have no relic of Falk to prove it by, but I do still wear Falk’s ruby.” She touched it; it glowed to her touch. “And see the blade of my sword—you saw it flare when it touched the mist, and now when I touch my bare hand to it—” She pulled off her glove with her teeth and laid her hand on the blade. “Nothing.”

“How did you destroy it?”

“I did not,” Dorrin said. “It ignored my commands as lord of Verrakai. But Falk and the High Lord destroyed it. Did you hear my prayer?”

“No, my lord. Your lips moved, but we heard nothing. That’s why we thought …” His voice trailed away; he still looked worried.

“Watch me closely,” Dorrin said. “And by all means, when we reach Harway, tell the Marshal—as I will—and the Royal Guard commander what you saw and how I have behaved since. I’m going to get the courier’s seal ring and the messages he carried, if any.” Nothing happened as she touched the body. She found the message case, the seal ring, pulled off his gloves.

“Why’s that?” asked the sergeant, standing near.

“Look,” Dorrin said. On the inner wrist was a tattoo, barely visible in the torchlight, but the horned circle was evident. “He must have killed the real courier and taken his clothes; there’s no way a Royal Guard soldier could hide that mark.” She touched his chest and felt something lumpy. She ripped open tunic and shirt with her dagger, and there it was—Liart’s emblem.

The sergeant whistled. “That’s bad.”

“We’ll have to take his body and keep watch for the body of the man he killed. And we need to follow Daryan quickly. Get this loaded on his horse.” She glanced aside; the horse he’d ridden was gnawing on a lichen-covered limb.

She turned away, tucking the message case and ring into her doublet, and mounted her horse. She felt—different. But not different in a bad way.

When the body had been lashed to the horse, the sergeant told off three to stay with it and follow at a slower pace, and then with Dorrin set off at a hard gallop. The track was open now, unobscured, after the work she had done on it; even at night she could see the way, the snow seeming almost to glow in the starlight.

Dorrin hoped to catch up with Daryan before he reached the shelter, but he’d had a good start and she’d told him to hurry. She wished she could see the hoofmarks on the track more clearly. In daylight, she’d have known which were those from Gwenno’s party the day before, which were the courier’s, and which were Daryan’s, but in the starlight that was impossible. Still, the rumpled trodden snow should keep Daryan from getting lost.

At last they came out into the clearing around the shelter. Dorrin stared. No fire. No horse. No welcoming call from Daryan.

“Where is he?” asked one of the militia.

“I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “In trouble, I expect.” She kept her voice calm with an effort; her thoughts sped. If the one she’d killed had not been the only one—if others had lurked nearby, had seen Daryan ride away—She tried to put that aside.

The shelter had a supply of dry wood and ready-made torches; by their light they found the body of the real courier, his hands charred, his eyes gouged out, wounds all over his body, his blood darkening the snow and ground around him.

“Blood magery,” the sergeant said.

“Yes.” Dorrin could scarcely speak. She touched the ruined eye sockets, the charred hands. “Falk’s welcome for him and great reward for his service.” To one side she saw footprints leading into the woods. “Bring a torch nearer.” Three sets of footprints coming toward the shelter’s unwindowed north side from the woods … two going back. So the mage had had help subduing the courier, just as she’d feared.

And Daryan might have found two—or more—with mage powers when he arrived. Or they might have ambushed him along the track.

“Who’s best at tracking?” she asked the group.

One hand went up, one of the Verrakai vassals. “M’lord, I can read sign.”

“Did you see any indication that Daryan had veered off the track we were on?”

“No, m’lord, but we was riding too fast. I can look now.”

“We’ll start at this end,” Dorrin said. “Five of you—it’s not safe with fewer—and you nontrackers stay back, don’t confuse the marks. We need to find the trace of Daryan’s horse. Is there anything distinctive about it? You were on patrol with him.”

“Hisn’s got bigger hooves, m’lord. And more width at the heel than any of ours. I know it well, m’lord.”

“Do you think he’s captured?” the sergeant asked.

“I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “It cannot be good, whatever it is.”

T
hey soon found where Daryan’s horse had left the trail; the tracks were easy enough to follow. In a short time, they saw light ahead, flickering light that glittered on the snow, and as they
neared, they could see torches burning on stakes, forming a rough circle. The stumps of saplings showed where the stakes had been cut. In the center, bound to a larger sapling from which limbs had been cut, Daryan: alive. Light and shadow danced over his body, his face; it was hard to see how badly he was injured.

Or if he had been invaded.

One of the militia started forward. “Stop,” Dorrin said. “It is a trap.”

“But the boy—”

“We shall see.” In the light of the torches, she could not see into the trees beyond; the glade had been ringed by quick-growing firs, and now all she saw was a wall of darkness. Enemies could be—almost certainly were—hiding there, ready to shoot into the clearing. But she had to risk it. “Daryan,” she called. “Squire!”

His head lifted. “D-don’t c-c-come!” he said. “T-trap!” His voice shook; he must be perishing with cold. “D-don’t.”

“Can you tell us what?”

“C-crossb-bows. In t-trees. All around.” A pause, then: “My lord.”

“Back twenty paces and start looking,” Dorrin said to the troops. “They’ll be set with trip cords, like hunters’ traps.” It was easy to set up a crossbow to shoot that way. And it was proof the trap had been planned; they would have guessed another party would be using the trail to Harway. “The cords will be out there”—she gestured at the glade—“and run back to the individual trees, then up the trunks to whatever branch they tied the crossbow to. If we’re not careful, the arrows will kill Daryan; if we don’t find them all, they’ll kill one or more of us as well.” She could not feel any magery at work.

“Daryan, where are you hurt?”

“Th-they cut off—my-my thumbs.” A pause and then, “And … my—my heel-cords.”

Rage and horror filled her, then grief. She had let this happen to the lad, and now he would be a cripple the rest of his life. If he lived. She wanted to run to the boy, but no one could outrun a crossbow bolt. He would have to wait—whatever additional harm that did him—until they could get to him without killing him or themselves.

It seemed to take forever to clear all the trees—twelve bows in all
they found, and she hoped that was all. Finally, she led the way across the snow, catching her feet twice on trip cords. They had brought the torches nearer; now she could see the little pool of blood at his feet and realized that only the rope binding him to the tree held him upright. His skin was cold as the night itself, but his eyes still had the spark of life. She leaned close, wrapping her cloak around, ready to catch him when those cutting the ropes behind the sapling freed him.

“My lord, I was stupid.”

“Hush, Daryan … I have no blame for you.”

“I saw lights. I thought I should see if it was trouble—”

“The man you saw before I sent you away was not a real courier,” Dorrin said. “The real courier is dead.”

“If I had done what you told me—”

“You might well have run into the same ones at the shelter—that’s where we found the body. How many were there?”

“Three. Th-they—I think they—” He moaned as the others freed his arms, and his wounded hands fell forward. Dorrin put her arms around him, holding him upright as best she could as the others worked on the lower ropes.

“You’re a brave man, Daryan Serrostin,” she said quietly. “Keep talking—it will help you stay awake, and right now we need you awake, even though it hurts.”

“It wasn’t so bad after … after I got cold enough.” More of his weight came onto her. One of the others put his own cloak over Daryan’s back and helped support him as the last bonds yielded to daggers. “Th-they put snow …”

They had wanted the boy to live until Dorrin and her party arrived, wanted him alive and in pain and frightened, and wanted his rescuers to see that they had killed him with their attempt at rescue. As if her relatives spoke directly to her, Dorrin could see their reasoning: the injury or death of a squire would discredit her, even if she was not killed herself, and would impede Tsaia’s defense.

“I—I don’t know what—what I can do,” Daryan said. “My hands—”

“You are a man of courage and ability,” Dorrin said. “You will find a way.”

“But—but I can’t be your squire—”

“We don’t know that yet,” Dorrin said. “Lie still now—we’re going to carry you to the shelter.”

With poles quickly cut and blankets, they made a litter for him and before dawn had reached the shelter. Dorrin let her sergeant bandage his hands and ankles and forbore to say he was lucky not to have been gelded as well.

“I tried to fight, but it was all a dazzle,” Daryan said, sipping the mug of sib she held for him. “Like the light you make, my lord, but flickering. I couldn’t move after a bit.” He winced at the bandaging. Dorrin would have given him numbweed, but he was still too cold, and she dared not.

“My lord, what next?” That was the sergeant.

What next indeed? The attack had changed everything again. Knowing there were more Verrakaien in the woods—that they knew she was away from the house—could she justify being away? Leaving the defenses to Beclan, the king’s cousin, inexperienced as he was? And yet to send a messenger back was to risk that messenger. Her magery had not detected her relatives … she could not detect them now. They could be anywhere, just out of sight or on their way to Verrakai Steading, but what they meant was clear—malice.