Fifth Quarter (45 page)

"I looked right at them. "

"You're a bard."

The conversation from their first day on the road hung in the air between them.

The hair rose on the back of Gyhard's neck as he tried to force himself to look amongst the willows that lined the far bank. It was dark, far darker than it should have been. All at once, he thought of a use for four undead soldiers.

"VREE!" He slammed his heels into the gelding's sides and the startled horse charged toward the water's edge.

Vree turned at the sound of her name and kept turning as a crossbow quarrel parted the billowing folds of her sleeve.

"We can't go back! We'd be a target the whole way!"

"We head for the trees. They won't be able to use the bow." She pulled her long dagger as she ducked and raced for the shore, splashing up as much water to screen her progress as she could.

They met her on the bank.

Training—instinct—brought her blade up to break the downward slash of a short sword. The jar against her raised arm, the sound of steel on steel shoved away the self-delusion her kigh had been practicing.

Four soldiers. Two older ones and a boy. The fourth with a peg and an eye patch, reloading her bow a short distance away. Walking dead.

If she wanted to live, she could not give in to terror.

Vree marked their positions as she dove to the right, rolled, and came up with a throwing dagger in her hand. The crossbow had to be taken out. She was moving again before the dagger hit, the boy's sword nearly parting her hair at the forehead. The walking dead were slow, but she realized, slashing a bloodless thigh from hip to knee, they had the advantage of not feeling pain.

The horses would go to the water's edge but no farther. Gyhard threw himself out of the saddle and into the river with Karlene close behind.

"Watch out!" Bannon twisted her body away from the corporal's thrust as the edge of the boy's flailing shield caught her under the chin. She went down hard, spat out a mouthful of blood, and whipped her leg out of the way just before the corporal struck sparks off the rock she was lying on.

She half-stood. Staggered. A sword whistled past her face and she sliced at the fingers holding it, her blade gouging into the hilt. Three fingers fell, but the two remaining continued to hang on.

"Start Singing!"

"Singing what?" Karlene demanded, stumbling on the uneven and unseen bottom. Arms whirling, momentum carried her forward another three paces, then she tripped over the weight of the water and fell.

Gyhard dragged her up onto her feet. "Sing their kigh free! Out of their bodies and away!" He released her with a shake for emphasis and continued his charge.

Gasping for breath, water pouring off of her, Karlene stopped moving and started thinking. She could Sing the kigh away, she'd done that once already, but how was she to get them out of their bodies?
Don't be an ass, Karlene
, she told herself as Gyhard reached the bank, then leaped back into the river to avoid a sweeping length of steel.
They don't want to be in their bodies. Just remind them
.

Vree ducked through a circle of edged steel and found herself face-to-face with the archer—blind now, a dagger hilt protruding from the unpatched socket. She kicked at the peg. An unlucky grab as the soldier went down buried undead fingers in Vree's hair. Training barely overcame terror as she tried to cut her way free.

Neegan left his horse a little way downstream and slid into the river, eyes and nose only above the water. He could see his targets fighting four soldiers—the four from the station he'd wager, although he didn't bother studying them too closely.
They
were not his concern as long as Vree and Bannon remained alive.

He would watch and wait and move only when his targets were either victorious or dead.

Gyhard grabbed up a fallen branch about four feet long.
This is not something I want to go into armed with only a dagger
. Teeth clenched, he whipped it around and slammed it into the back of the corporal's head. Her helm rang with the force of the blow. Her head jerked forward, then back. She should have gone down. Instead, she attacked. "Shit!"

Vree blocked a swing from the dead soldier's other hand, the stock of the crossbow slapping into her palm. Shoving her dagger between her head and the fingers still clutching at her hair, she dragged the razor edge over her scalp and scrambled clear.

"What? This isn't enough? You have to be bald, too?" Bannon kicked out and slammed her bare heel into the side of a knee. The joint popped and the boy-soldier tilted crazily to the right.

Stepping toward shore, Karlene began to Sing a soldier's song that a First Army captain had taught her back at the Imperial Palace. She kept it simple, for the moment working only at getting the attention of the dead, her voice reminding them of the life they'd been so cruelly cut out of.

The corporal turned first, her face expressionless, then one by one, the other three joined her. Even the blind woman seemed to stare.

"Vree! Are you all right?"

Vree nodded, spat out another mouthful of blood, and grimaced. "It's hard to remember they're dead. We kept anticipating reactions they didn't have." Wrapping her hand around Gyhard's wrist, she allowed him to help her to her feet. His skin seemed hotter than it should beneath her fingers. "I bit my tongue…" The Song made it hard to think. Brows drawn in, she turned to face the bard.

Still in the water, Karlene changed the Song. There were notes played on a horn every night at the First Army garrison. The captain had explained their meaning as a sort of a combination pat on the back and dismissal.
Good soldiers, your duty for the day is done. Rest knowing that because of you, the Empire is safe
. Karlene had never asked if the same notes were played in
every
garrison, but given the efforts made to keep the seven armies unified, she was willing to bet they were.

She Sang the notes over and over, making them both a call to the soldiers' kigh and stressing the dismissal.

Good soldiers, your duty for the day is done…

Hidden in a tangle of willow roots that extended out into the water, Neegan heard the Song and shook it off. His duty would not be done until his targets were dead.

"Vree! Listen to me! You aren't in the army any more!" Gyhard grabbed her face, pulled it close, stared into her eyes. "Don't you remember! I dragged you away and made it impossible for you to return!"

Vree blinked at him. "I'm a
good
soldier…"

Suddenly, the soldiers collapsed, puppets with cut strings. Karlene threw herself into the Song and joyfully Sang away the kigh that whirled about her.

Gyhard felt Vree sag in his grip and at almost the same instant, stiffen. He could feel her breath, warm against his mouth. If he lowered his head just a fraction…

He let his hands fall just as hers rose to break his wrists. She frowned, and for the first time, he wasn't sure if it was Bannon or Vree he saw.

"Why didn't you…" Her voice trailed off.

He shook his head and stepped back, unable to answer. All he knew was that he had to get away from her, far enough away to be able to think clearly.
I
should have killed her when I had the chance
…

"Vree! Are you all right?" Karlene splashed up out of the water and squelched across to the assassin's side. "I saw you get hit!"

Neegan watched and waited and, when the moment was ripe, attacked. A heartbeat later, he knelt between Bannon's shoulders, dragging back his head with a handful of hair and pressing the point of a blade into the arc of his throat.

Now, he would get some answers.

Heart slamming up against his ribs, Gyhard froze. The grip in his hair hurt more than the dagger although he could feel a warm trickle of blood run down from the point. If this assassin killed him, thinking he killed Bannon, the circle would have turned to death at last. He couldn't jump bodies without eye contact—all he could see was the riverbank. All thought fled, leaving behind only the terrified question.
Why aren't I already dead
?

Crouched, dagger in her hand, Vree stared, wide-eyed at the commander. Assassins who deserted died.
It's over
.

Vree's sudden, irrational charge took Neegan by surprise. In spite of her speed, he could still have opened Bannon's throat before she reached him, but he hesitated. He knew it was Vree charging toward him, shrieking defiance, but it was Bannon he saw.

"Bannon, no!"

He/she/they dove, hitting the commander under his left arm, using his/her/themselves as a battering ram to throw the older man off Bannon's body. The knife point drew a crimson line toward Gyhard/Bannon's ear.

Bannon, Vree; it became irrelevant whose wrist he held, whose rib he drove his knee into—Neegan had lived this long by adapting to the unexpected. He jabbed three fingers hard under the curve of a muscle, twisted, and nearly got a hand free. An elbow slammed down and pinned his palm to the ground.

"You've been trying to kill me all my life, old man," Bannon hissed through Vree's lips. "But I've always been too good for you." Impervious to pain, impervious to anything but survival, he smashed Vree's forehead against the bloodstained rag tied over Neegan's brow.

The commander grunted, and his grip spasmed around Vree/Bannon's blade hand.

"An assassin who deserts dies," Bannon snarled, shifting Vree's weight to keep Neegan pinned. "And an assassin who stays dies. And this assassin…" He laid the blade against the vein pulsing in Neegan's throat. "… dies now."

Trembling, gulping in the air, she stopped the knife with the point just below the skin. "Why?" she whispered, her voice no louder than Neegan's would have been. "Why should I stop him, Karlene?"

She almost couldn't hear the bard's answer over the sound of Bannon's shrill challenges. "Look at him, Vree. He's your father."

My what
? But the words never made it past the clenched barricade of her teeth. They didn't have to. The commander's face told her everything she needed to know.

Eyes clouded with pain, Neegan stared up at her.

For the first time, she noticed how like Bannon's his eyes were. Recognized the angle of his cheek. Remembered how he'd always been there, forcing them through harder and more deadly training, tangling their responses until the lines between them blurred and they struck as one blade.