From Across the Clouded Range (57 page)

Teth thought. She barely had the
energy to stand let alone find a suitable tree. “No. The barn
should do. The yard is such a mess no one could track us across it.
They’ll search the house first, which will give us a chance to run.
And there should be some hay there for the . . . .” Teth words
drifted off and her head nearly hit the table before she snapped
herself back up. A look at Dasen showed he had already succumbed,
his head resting on his hands. She pulled herself up through a
great force of will and roused Dasen.

They walked like the dead across the
darkened yard, under a moonless sky. As Teth had predicted, the
barn had a small loft with a foot of hay spread across it. They
tumbled into it, lying as close as spoons in the cool evening, and
were instantly asleep.

#

Dasen woke with a start but could not
remember what visions had roused him. He searched the small, dim
barn with bleary eyes and realized that there was a soft pressure
on him. Still half-asleep, he looked down and found Teth’s head
resting on his chest, arm draped across his belly, leg sprawled
over his.

His first thought was to wrap his arms
around her and go back to sleep, but her very presence, the
sensation of her body, soft skin and firm muscle, touching his so
intimately in so many places had sent his heart racing. He was
suddenly breathing in pants, smelling the musky sweetness of her
hair with each one, and growing aroused in a way that would be
unmistakable should Teth wake up and look down. Nonetheless, he
allowed his fantasies to take flight, imagined Teth waking, looking
up at him, kissing him, moving fully on top of him, and everything
that might follow. When he finally broke the fantasy, he was almost
shaking and very uncomfortable.

If Teth wakes up
now
,
sees me like
this, she’ll either skin me, laugh at me, or give me exactly what I
want.
He wasn’t sure he could handle any
of those outcomes, so he slowly lifted her arm off of his chest
and, with the greatest of care, rolled her off of him. He held her
head up off of his chest and gently placed it in the hay at his
side so that she was lying on her back with the deep straw
surrounding her. She shifted slightly as she was repositioned but,
after some incomprehensible mumbling, rolled onto her other side
and returned to sleep.

With a sigh, Dasen worked his way to
the edge of the loft. Only the dimmest beams of dusty light shone
through the rough-hewn walls, suggesting that it was still early.
The morning was cool, and a light dew covered everything, giving
the world a feeling of purity as if all the corruption had been
scoured away and life was waking anew. He took a deep breath of
sweet, musty hay, reveled in the goodness of that smell, then
climbed down the long ladder.

He paced around the inside the barn to
eliminate some of the stiffness that remained in his legs and back.
He was still decidedly sore, but it almost seemed normal now, not
debilitating. As he walked, he inspected the barn, hoping for some
scraps of food that the invaders might have missed. Finding
nothing, he cautiously opened the door. After watching the dawn
streaked yard and grey sky for several minutes, he exited and,
following a much needed trip to the outhouse, searched the other
buildings.

The invaders had been very thorough in
their sacking, but his search did not go unrewarded. He started
with the house, which provided a new shirt and pants. The shirt
still itched, the sleeves were too short, and it smelled of another
man’s work, but it was better than the sweaty, mud-crusted rag he
had been wearing. The pants were hearty canvas, much better suited
for trekking through the forest, and less likely to make him stand
out. Though they hung around his waist, his belt cinched them to
his hips. Before putting them on, he drew water from the well and
used a rag to rub away most of the dirt and salt that encompassed
his body. He dampened his hair and tied it back into a greasy tail
with a thong of leather, took a long drink, then donned the
wide-brimmed leather hat he found on the ground nearby – it fit
perfectly.

Finally he turned to the other
buildings. In the chicken coup, he found two eggs buried in the
straw. Hanging on a nail in the wagon shed was an old wooden bottle
with a stout cork that he filled with water. The stable provided a
feedbag with a couple of handfuls of oat lingering in its bottom
and a pitchfork with only a single remaining tine. But most
exciting of all was a short barrel half-full of arrows that had
been forgotten in the back of a shed.

Having gathered his bounty, Dasen
returned to the barn. There was no sign yet that Teth was awake, so
he laid everything out and began sorting the arrows – some of them
were warped and almost all were rusty. So intent was his
inspection, that he didn’t hear the footsteps until they were on
top of him.

“
Gotcha!” a voice
announced. Hands grabbed at his ribs as he spun around in surprise.
Heart leaping from his chest, he managed to grab an arrow before he
lost his footing and ended on his seat. Recovering, he held up the
arrow only to find its point looking back at him. He flipped it
around, but the only thing there to protect himself against was an
impish giggle.

"You need to be more
observant of what is happening around you.” Teth spared him a sly
smile. “I was quiet, but I wasn’t
that
quiet.”

Dasen let out his breath in a great
rush and shook the arrow at her. “Good morning to you too.” He held
out his hands to her, and she helped him to his feet. “While you
have been catching up on your beauty sleep – a commodity you have
obviously been lacking – I have been gathering
supplies."

That earned him a shot to the arm that
left him rubbing the muscle there. Teth followed it by looking
around him at the arrows. Her face lit. “You found arrows! That’s
better than a horse. Where did you find them?”

Dasen told her of his search while she
bent to inspect the treasure. “These are all pretty old,” she
admonished as she threw several of the warped shafts to the side.
“I can see why they were forgotten.” She sifted through the pile
with all the care of a jeweler inspecting pieces brought in for
hock. “Did you say you found oats? Can you find a bowl and start
them soaking in some water? Just enough to cover them,
okay?”

With a sigh, Dasen did as he was
told.

By the time he returned, she had
sorted through nearly a hundred arrows and found only eight worthy
of her quiver. “You don’t want any more than that?” he asked
feeling personally offended, as if they were his arrows that she
had rejected.

“
I’d love more than that,
but the shafts are so warped that I couldn’t hit a bear at five
paces with them. Even these are questionable. Better than nothing I
suppose.” She looked up at him and smiled, cracked lips splitting
mud streaked cheeks. “You cleaned up and got new clothes. That
doesn’t seem fair.”

“
The well’s right out
there. Nobody is stopping you from doing the same. Or do you like
looking like a dirt farmer on a rainy day?”

Teth stuck her tongue out and pushed
past him. “Here’s the flint and my knife. Can you start a fire
without burning down the barn?” Dasen barely caught the small rock
and sheathed knife as Teth backed out the door. “And no looking.”
She disappeared through the barn door a second later but left it
open just enough for Dasen to have a view of the well – if he
positioned himself in just the right place.

He worked on casting sparks into a bed
of hay while Teth searched the house for clothes. Then, terrified
but unable to resist, he watched as she stripped. Her back was to
him, bottom half blocked by the well, so that he could not see
anything beyond the expanse of her broad, muscular back, the barest
outline of a small breast, the very top curve of her rear. Then he
felt his knee getting hot. He looked down and found fire surging a
foot from the ground, charring his knee, which was balanced above
it. Moving back quickly and patting the knee, he nearly kicked the
burning hay across the barn. When he had enough of his senses to
realize what was happening, he cleared the area around the fire and
started adding the rejected arrows to keep the nascent flame
alive.

“
So did you like the
show?” Teth strode through the door, looking bright and fresh. Her
hair was plastered to her head, cheeks red from scrubbing, skin
clean and pale. She wore a clean shirt and pants almost identical
to the one she’d had on before. The sleeves of the shirt were
rolled, the neck laced tight to conceal the cloth she had wrapped
around her chest.

Dasen stammered at the accusation and
felt the blood rise in his face.

“
You did watch, you
bastard,” Teth admonished and kicked him in the side of the
leg.

“
I . . . I didn’t. I mean
. . . I didn’t see anything. It was just . . . the door was open,
and I . . . I mean. I promise I didn’t see anything.” Dasen rose to
his feet and sputtered, hands out defensively as Teth closed on
him. Then he realized that she was smiling. The freckles along her
nose seemed to have multiplied with the disappearance of the dirt,
running all the way to her cheeks where they met the tiny dimples
that her mischievous smile exposed. Dasen backed up until he hit
one of the beams that supported the loft.

Teth continued to close on him with
that nymph’s grin. “I asked you a question,” she said as she closed
the distance. “Did you like what you saw?”

Dasen stammered. “I . . . well . . .
you know I didn’t see . . . .”

That was as far as he got. Teth
grabbed his head, rose to her toes, and kissed him. It was a longer
kiss this time, harder, and they were certainly getting better at
it. Then she lingered, standing on her toes, nose touching his,
until he thought his heart might burst from his chest. “I wished
you had stayed with me in the loft,” she whispered. “I was
disappointed when I saw you were already gone.” Then she kissed him
again.

When she stepped away and walked to
the fire as if nothing unusual had happened, Dasen cleared his
throat, swallowed for air, and tried to gather his thoughts. “What
has gotten into you today?” The question slipped out before he had
a chance to stop himself. He instantly wanted it back.

Teth only smiled. “I had good
dreams.”

Chapter 26

Jaret’s mind spun.
My men! These are my men. I created these
traitors. This is my fault.
Now that he
knew the truth, it was obvious, but he could still barely bring
himself to believe it.

Though he knew better than
any other man how much the Emperor and his corruption weighed on
the Empire, Jaret also knew the power of tradition. Xionious
Valatarian had created the position of Emperor, had elevated his
most loyal general to the position and dictated that his family
should rule for all time. As with everything done by Valatarian, it
was the will of the Holy Order. The Emperor was the supreme
enforcer of the Order, its ultimate guardian.
The Book of Valatarian
said that as
long as an anointed emperor occupied the Palace of the Dawn, Order
would reign. So extreme was that belief that the Emperor was never
allowed to leave the palace, and when one Emperor died, the next
was anointed the same day, within hours if possible.

And now his men had decided that they
knew better than Valatarian, that they could destroy the order he
had created, that they could defy the word of their savior. Jaret
would not allow it, would kill every one of them if he had to,
would die trying if he had to.

He closed on the throne room and
looked at the massive doors that blocked his path. They were two of
the largest and most magnificent in existence. They spanned to the
ceiling some twenty feet above and filled the entire hall, another
thirty feet from end to end. Across their surfaces, inlays of
precious metals showed scenes from the height of the Empire. Those
scenes were so elaborate and well-conceived that they seemed to be
alive. The hall’s generous lamplight reflected off the metal from a
thousand angles, making it shimmer and move. Captivated, Jaret
almost lost his purpose as he closed on the door and reached for
the mighty ring that acted as a handle. Solid gold, the handle was
a hollow representation of the sun with spikes of flame rising out
around his hand where he clasped it.

He took a deep breath and tried to
pull the door open. His arm did not respond. His heart was pounding
beyond any physical exertion. It hurt, ached in his chest. His
stomach churned. He felt light-headed. He knew what he had to do,
but his every cell fought him. He knew that his death waited on the
other side of that door. He would soon fight his own men, would
kill them, and make them kill him. This is where it would all end.
He took another deep breath, built his resolution, and
pulled.

This time, his mind won out over the
objections of his body. His hand tightened around the ring, and the
door eased open on massive, well-oiled, but entirely invisible,
hinges. As soon as the opening was wide enough to allow his entry,
he leapt into the room, blades ready.

He was too late. Before him was the
most magnificent single room in the world, but there was no beauty
in it. He scrolled through the bodies scattered around the room and
could almost trace every blow that had been dealt in the recently
completed battle. The imperial bodyguards had clearly been the
first to fall. They had managed two lines, one at the door and
another around the throne. Their bodies formed short walls of
tangled limbs and crumpled armor to show the position of their
final stand. Scattered among those bodies were a handful of black
shapes – the legionnaires had not been spared. Far more gruesome,
however, were the bodies of the royal family. Men, women, children
even had been mercilessly slaughtered. Their extravagantly clothed
bodies scattered the room, arrows standing from their backs, heads
removed, huddled in corners where no retreat or quarter had been
available. The assassins wanted no legacy to remain. They had
started here, but this slaughtered showed that they would not stop
until the entire imperial family had been wiped away. It was
murder, cold-blooded and cruel. It was not what Jaret had trained
these men to do, and the sight of it made him sick.