Heirs of the Blade (71 page)

She had taken the only step she could, by sending her followers out in detachments at varying speeds, trusting to the fastest to bring her quarry to bay so that the rest of her strength could regroup and finish the business once and for all.

At first the bandits faced only airborne opposition, the fleetest of the Dragonfly-kinden – nobles and their retinues in light armour. They were few in number, for their strength had been spread wide to locate the fugitives, and the wiser of them simply waited high over the chase, signalling by their very presence the whereabouts of the enemy.

The rasher of the scouts, those keen to make a name for themselves, tried to harry the brigands on the ground, stooping on them with spears or loosing arrows as they dived past overhead. They soon found, however, that Dal Arche and Soul Je were both easily capable of hitting a mark whilst still running, twisting back and up to follow the flight of a passing warrior and then letting fly without ever stumbling or slowing. The scouts had minimal armour, the better to fly far and fast, and after the brigands’ shafts had brought several down the rest kept their distance.

The column of scouts, circling like some bizarre localized weather, would serve its purpose, though. Soon enough, Avaris the Spider called out, ‘
Riders
!’ as the first elements of the Salmae cavalry came in sight, still distant but gaining.

A handful still, but they would be harder to turn away than the scouts. Dal wordlessly changed his direction, striking out against the rise of the land. It was not clear to anyone if he had an actual destination in mind, and so Tynisa exerted herself to fetch up alongside him.

‘We can get under cover before they reach us?’ she got out.

He shook his head, saving his breath. Aware of her exasperated look, he grimaced and rasped, ‘These we kill. The next? Depends how soon, how fast.’

Tynisa nodded, dropping back. ‘Thalric, Mordrec,’ she snapped. ‘Rearguard.’

They both glared at her, neither of them happy to be taking orders from her. Thalric was supporting Che, who was still slowing them all with her injured leg. Wordlessly he passed her to Maure, who did her best to lend some strength to the toiling Beetle girl.

‘I count six,’ Tynisa stated. ‘Your stings, my blade.’

‘They could just go round us,’ Mordrec pointed out, half-breathless.

‘Then the archers must take them,’ Tynisa declared.

‘Let me take the lead,’ Thalric put in. ‘We need a horse kept alive for Che.’

The riders were closing swiftly, thrashing their horses to make up the distance, each one of them wanting to win the favour of Salme Elass. When they saw who awaited them, however, they faltered a little, two reining in and the rest swerving away.
They fear us
, Tynisa thought with satisfaction, and then she was rushing towards the nearest rider, even as he tried to haul his mount aside. He had ventured too close, though, and Thalric’s sting struck him against his breastplate. The scintillating mail turned most of the heat away, but the blow still sent the rider reeling back in his saddle, and before he could regain control of the reins Tynisa had lunged up, her blade piercing the chitin shell of his armour and running itself to the hilt into his side. She saw the man’s golden skin turn suddenly pale, and he toppled from his mount.

‘Maure!’ Thalric shouted. ‘Take the beast!’

The magician rushed forward but the panicking horse shied away from her, and as she stumbled after it, another rider charged her with lance levelled. Her wings lifted her from under the hoofs, but not fast enough to evade the weapon’s point. An arrow flowered in the rider’s neck, though, between pauldron and helm, throwing him sideways, jerking the lance aside. Maure dropped down onto the horse’s neck, kicking and elbowing until the rider fell from the saddle, and then snagging the reins with one hand and dragging the beast back towards Che. She looked around wildly to see Dal Arche fitting another arrow to his bow whilst, beside him, Soul Je aimed upwards, warning off the boldest of the scouts.

Two more of the riders had chosen the same moment to attack, and the Wasps had made them rue it. Whilst the armour of a Dragonfly noble might scatter some of their stingshot, the horses were not so protected. Thalric and Mordrec brought them both down in short order, lashing the wretched animals with both hands until they reared and plunged and fell. One of the cavalrymen kicked himself free and flew, darting in the air to avoid Dal’s next shot, and putting as much distance between himself and the brigands as possible. The other fallen rider had just got to her feet, swaying but reaching for her sword, when Tynisa reached her and finished her with a single straight thrust.

The remaining two horsemen kept their distance, keeping out of arrowshot but no further. There was movement beyond them, which could only be the rest of the Salmae’s forces, or at least a fair proportion of them.

‘Keep moving!’ Dal shouted. ‘There’ll be more cavalry soon.’

Maure had Che perched before the saddle now, although the horse protested at its double load. She kept a steady pace, keeping the animal on a tight rein, well aware that if she outdistanced the bandits, the circling scouts were likely to drop on her.

A glance back confirmed that there were more riders splitting off from the main body of the Salmae force, some making straight for the fugitives, others peeling off to circle round and ahead of them, intending to cut them off.

‘There!’ Dal cried out, putting on an additional burst of speed. They were still slogging up the rise of the land, but now they could see woods ahead, and within the trees some suggestion of stone.

‘A castle?’ Thalric asked him.

‘Not quite. A tower, though. Should be enough of it left to defend.’

‘Defend? For how long?’ Thalric demanded.

Dal’s backwards look told him all he needed to know. The leader of brigands was running out of plans.

A half-mile on and the whole bloody business was played out again, even as they were running for the treeline along the hill’s crest. The faster outriders had caught up with them, perhaps only a dozen, but to stop and fight them would give more of Salme Elass’s people time to catch up. Again Tynisa dropped back, the two Wasps shadowing her automatically now.

‘Ride!’ she shouted, and Maure kicked at her stolen horse’s flanks, making a break for the trees. A couple of the scouts swooped on her, but Soul Je shot one from the air in a single fluid motion, and the other darted away.

On either side of Tynisa, the Wasps’ stings crackled sporadically, a sound that made some inner part of her twitch away, from long experience.
How can they now be on my side?
The first flashes were at extreme range, though Thalric still made his target rear up and shy away, almost unseating the rider. Then arrows came hissing past them, most of the riders choosing to stay out of sting reach. Their small horse-bows were still enough to outdistance Mordrec, and of course many of them would have had first-hand experience of the Wasp Art during the war. Tynisa backed up, remembering how, when the spirit of Tisamon had been with her, she had batted arrows from the air as though they were juggler’s balls.

Thalric sighted down his arm and sent off a sizzling bolt of fire that struck one of the archers clean from the saddle, his bow springing apart, the string charred through. That bought them a little more time as the other riders swung their mounts aside, circling for more distance. It seemed ridiculous that the three of them could stand off a dozen cavalry, but the reputation of the Wasp-kinden was ground deep into their foes. The man that Thalric had knocked down was clearly not getting up again.

Tynisa only distantly heard the cry of warning, but her sword came up and back without the need for thought, catching a blade as it rammed for her back, and turning the strike aside. The scouts had now sensed their chance, or else they feared the wrath of the Salmae if they did nothing, and they were dropping down all around, some with bows and some with swords.

An arrow spiked Mordrec’s shoulder and he went down on one knee with a curse, the other arm flung out to sear its way across the bowman’s chest. Another archer loosed a shaft at Thalric, but hurriedly, the shot flying wide despite its close range, and then Dal Arche shot the man in the back, shouting, ‘Run for the woods! We have to move!’ In truth, by now only Tynisa, the two Wasps, Dal and Soul Je were still left.

Tynisa let her rapier twist about the sword of the scout attacking her, flicked it aside with a circular motion of her wrist and then jabbed into the opening she had created, pricking him through the throat. The cavalry had meanwhile regained their courage, and a couple were plucking lances from the holsters beside their saddles. She risked a glance behind her, gauging the distance to the treeline.

A bowman was there, the string drawn back to his ear and the arrowhead directed at her face. Even as she spotted him, he loosed.

She felt the impact like a hammer blow, but it had fallen on the guard of her blade, the weapon and her arm both finding their way by the age-old Weaponsmasters’ partnership. The impact drove her sword hand back to her chest, and the archer’s jaw dropped as the arrow sliced to one side of her, deflected from the curved quillons.

So it was me, and not him.
She killed the bowman even while registering the thought, leaping into a lunge that drove her blade through the chitin of his armour, barely slowing. Then she was running, Dal Arche helping Mordrec along beside her; as Soul Je and Thalric sent arrows and stingshot at the oncoming riders.

Abruptly the trees were above and around them, the riders behind them slowing and turning aside, and then they were running uphill towards tumbled stone walls.

Within the trees, the bows were of less use, which was just as well, as the enemy were bringing up considerably more of them than the brigands could muster. The cavalry would be next to useless, too, unable to charge or manoeuvre between the trunks. There would be a moment when the front-runners of the attacking force hesitated, waited for their fellows, fearing some trap, perhaps brigand reinforcements. It was enough to give Dal Arche’s people a headstart on reaching the ruins.

The airborne scouts were ahead of them, though, and a half-dozen had the wit to try and claim the ruin before the brigands could get there. The tower itself had been a circular structure, its height undeterminable now, but the lowest storey remained almost intact, surrounded by a broken area of fallen stone coated with moss and entwined by creepers. The fleetest brigands arrived just in time for one of them, a lean Grasshopper, to take an arrow in the throat from a Dragonfly archer crouched in the doorway. The others then scattered, taking cover amongst the trees. More arrows sped from the pair of narrow slit windows flanking the door.

Tynisa took in the situation the moment she arrived. Dal and Soul Je were shooting from within the trees, but the doorway lent cover enough that they were getting nowhere. She grimaced – but somehow it turned to a grin.

A moment later she was running forward, her sword levelled before her. She saw the man in the doorway draw back his string, focusing on some other movement within the trees, before one of his fellows shouted a warning and he saw her. His expression was all she could ask for, fright and shock making him twitch away, the arrow flying harmlessly high. Another shaft from one of his comrades hissed past her like a breath of air, and then she was amongst them. Her sword lanced the closest man under the ribs, but she just carried on running, plunging into the gloom of the interior while dragging her victim round until her blade slid free. The men within were dropping their bows, reaching for swords or daggers instead, but the walls close about them gave nowhere to run to. Her mind plotted a pattern on the dusty, leaf-blown floor and she let her feet trace it, treading in a jagged star with each point punctuated by blood. The rapier was never still, flicking and dancing through the air like a silver insect, fending off their strikes at her, leaping over their guards to pierce their armour of leather and chitin as though it was nothing but cloth. The last man got by her and ran through the doorway out into the open, only to meet Thalric’s sting that hurled him off his feet.

The brigands raced inside. Che limped in next, leaning on Maure, and finally Mordrec aided by Soul Je. It was now crowded company there, but even so it was plain that several of them had not made it. Aside from Dal and Soul, even now trying to extract the arrow from Mordrec’s shoulder, there were only half a dozen brigands left: two apiece of Grasshoppers and Dragonflies, a halfbreed and the Spider, Avaris.

‘They’re hiding in the trees now,’ someone called out, and bandits moved to the slit windows, arrows nocked. Tynisa herself went to the door, waiting for her next challenger. Overhead the sky darkened, the evening coming on fast. They had been constantly on the move for most of the day.

And I don’t feel tired, not at all.
She suspected that she would, though, as soon as the rush of it all had drained away, but for now Tynisa felt as though she could run for ever.

The first wave to come against them included a fair number of noble retainers amongst the levy, their armour glittering in the last rays of the sun. They met arrows and stingshot from the defenders – and then they met Tynisa in the doorway.

For a moment she felt fear: not fear of them but that the spectre of her father, or that murderous piece of her father that had been left behind, would descend on her again and make her his creature. Instead, she felt her training, her skill, her heritage and her blade all converge within her, a council of war that was resolved in moments, and she swayed away from an arrow and then met the first blade, flicked it aside with a small motion of her wrist and then laid open the wielder’s forehead, beneath the rim of his open helm, sending him staggering backwards with blood in his eyes. She cut aside spearheads as they quested for her, darting to gash hands and arms, to sever fingers, making a mockery of their reach. Then another noble was rushing at her, a Dragonfly woman with a fixed look of hatred, and Tynisa let her try to strike, let the sword cleave empty air, and then put an elbow in the woman’s eye and ran her through as she stumbled, dropping her neatly. The longer she held the door, the more damage the others could do through the arrowslits, and now Mordrec had hauled himself over to a window, so that stingshot was crackling from both sides.