Scourge of the Betrayer (31 page)

Gurdinn turned and walked over to the men, most of whom were already in their saddles. Braylar looked at Gurdinn, practically daring him to dispute his rule in this matter again, and when no protests were forthcoming, he climbed onto his horse and led the way back up the hill. I climbed onto my own horse and moved alongside Lloi as we headed up. Glesswik was laid across his horse like a sack of grain, just like the other Syldoon next to him—Tomner—and the two Brunesmen behind. Tomner had been struck across the back deep enough to sever his spine if not decapitate him completely. With every movement his horse made, his head wobbled.

I gagged and turned in my saddle, stomach heaving, though nothing came out of my mouth except some residue of bile. My shoulders rocked forward again, and I looked around, glad I was in the rear and seen by nobody save Lloi. I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve, wondering if the vomit was truly going to come then, willing it out of my body so I could be done with it. But all I could manage was some heinous bitter spit.

Finally confident the spell was over, I sat back up. Lloi handed me a leather flask. I pulled the stopper and took a small swallow. It was old tart wine that spoke of abandoned orchards and dried-up vines, but it was an improvement over the bile, so I took another grateful swallow.

I handed the flask back to her with shaky hands, thanking her. She nodded and took a swallow herself. “Glesswik hated wine. Said he hated it, that is. But he drank more than most any two men.” She lifted the flask to her lips again, swallowed enough that some drained down her chin, and handed it back to me. I took another small swallow before returning it.

Lloi seemed about ready to tip the flask up again for another swig but then decided against it. She held the flask back out to me a final time, but I couldn’t stomach another and worried that I was in danger of keeping what I’d drunk in my stomach, so declined.

More than halfway up the hill, I was looking over my shoulder at the temple retreating behind us, half expecting more of the underpriest’s guards to suddenly emerge from the ruins or surrounding woods. There were bright splashes of blood at the entrance, most obviously on the steps leading to the arch, but also spattered here and there among the outer columns. Before meeting Braylar, I never imagined I’d witness such a scene of carnage, let alone somehow be a part of it. I wasn’t really a scholar anymore, having walked off that path now forever. Regardless what else occurred, I knew I’d never return to that life the same—though what I’d become or was becoming, I didn’t know.

Lloi said, “You did well. Back there.” I didn’t respond right away, and she pointed ahead. “Capturing the priest. All this, for nothing, less than spit, we return without him. Captain Noose might say it—probably not, most like—but capturing that priest, could be you saved some lives, whether you fought or no.”

I leaned forward as the incline became more pronounced. “What do you mean?”

She lowered her voice so the closest Brunesmen couldn’t hear. “Returning to their baron, no priest in tow? Well, might not have sat too well with him, is all. All loss, no gain? Bad trade, bookmaster. Nobles like gain, like it fierce. All they live for, most of them. And those that rob them of it tend to not be living long at all. So, you and me, different as we are, we’re two…” She hunted for the right word, and grinned when she found it, “retiainer who got something in common. We might not be Syldoon, but we might not be anything else now, neither.”

That gave me a shiver, and I didn’t know how to respond, so I only nodded. Braylar and Gurdinn led our small column through the woods, our passage muffled by the thick carpet of needles on the forest floor. I began to say something else to Lloi, but before I had three words out, she reached over and grabbed my arm.

I glanced up the column and saw that the riders, both dead and alive, rode through the forest in total silence. Only the closest Brunesmen had heard me speak and had turned around, no doubt to tell me to shut my mouth before seeing that Lloi had been quicker. I looked away from him and waited until he was facing forwards in the saddle again before looking up, my cheeks again flush.

I cursed myself, silently, of course. It was possible that I truly was one of the Syldoon now, by proxy if nothing else, but I wondered if I’d ever learn to conduct myself in a way that was more… military. I always seemed to be doing something or other to elicit either scorn or chastisement. It was easy to see how Braylar’s other archivists hadn’t survived long with his company.

The trek back to the road seemed to take less time than it had to get to the temple. Suddenly, the trees gave way again to tall yellow grass, and our group was moving with more speed as we made our way to the road. I looked back at the trees behind us. We were alone.

Braylar wheeled his horse around and held up a hand, and we all came to a stop. Voice still hoarse, he ordered Hewspear to remain behind as a rearguard while we continued ahead. Hewspear saluted and rode off to the trees on the opposite side of the road to take up a hidden position. He sat stiff in the saddle, and I wondered what injuries he’d sustained.

Braylar looked up and down our small column, then fixed on Vendurro, his horse alongside the body of Glesswik. “Ride until you sight Xen. Tell him we’re on the move and he’s to scout the road ahead. Report back when finished.”

Vendurro didn’t respond immediately and Braylar shouted as much as his bruised throat would allow, “Syldoon! I gave you an order. Ride to Xen. Now.”

Vendurro looked down at Glesswik once before kicking his heels into his horse and galloping off.

Braylar addressed the rest of us, “We sleep in Alespell tonight. But not if you blow a horse. Ride hard, but not too hard.” He spun around and led us down the road.

I looked for Hewspear, but he was already hidden, and then for Vendurro, but he was disappearing around the bend of trees ahead, the sound of his horse’s hooves disappearing with him. What remained of our company, bandaged and bent, was a pitiful group indeed. I considered our prospects of surviving any kind of attack minute, and utterly bleak if we were outnumbered, which seemed the most likely possibility. And so I tried to force myself to look straight ahead, at the Brunesman’s horse in front of me.

Before long, Braylar called back for Lloi and myself, demanding we join him. I looked at Lloi, she shrugged her shoulders, and we rode up the column. The underpriest turned and stared at me with all the violence a bound and gagged man could muster, and the Brunesmen largely ignored us. We took our place alongside Braylar and Mulldoos.

Mulldoos looked at me, his face even more pale than usual, lips tight, as if each small movement in the saddle were an agony that he was unwilling to let show, and I realized he must have been injured as well, though I couldn’t tell where.

Braylar, too, didn’t seem to be faring well, though his physical injuries seemed to be the least of it. Lloi rode as close as she could and whispered, “Captain Noose?”

Braylar nodded, eyes closed, and if our brief history together told me anything, he was battling things unseen to the rest of us. I still found this difficult to believe, never having encountered anything like it before, but I’d seen enough to convince me he was no madman. Well, not wholly.

He licked his lips. “I’m well, Lloi.” His voice was still like tangled underbrush. “Well enough.” He straightened his back and rolled his posture back up to the rigid position it was so commonly in, though this seemed to take a great effort. Then he looked at me. “You shot the crossbow, yes?”

The question surprised me. “Yes. It was me.”

He asked, “And were you trying to hit me or him?”

When we’d first met, I might have been reluctant to answer, turning his words over carefully, like overturning stones with the knowledge that a snake was coiled under one of them. But I was too tired. “I was trying to distract the guard.”

“Well then, it was a fine shot. A fine shot, truly.”

Unaccustomed to his praise, I was silent, waiting briefly for a barb or nasty qualifier. None came, and so I mumbled my thanks.

That was the extent of our exchange on the subject, as he turned to Lloi and said, “When we return, I’ll have need of you.”

“You got need of me now. Might be there is no later.”

“There’s a later if I will it so, and I do.” He rubbed his bruised throat and closed his eyes.

Mulldoos chuckled and said, “Cap here is a master of will, he is. More willful than the gods with half as much regret. Doubt that at your peril.”

I expected Braylar to send me back to the rear again but he didn’t. And he didn’t speak to anyone else again. There are some men who are silent in a way that indicates they’re wrestling with their thoughts or drawn into a waking dreamworld, in both cases, withdrawing from those around them. Braylar was the opposite—his silence seemed to radiate outwards with an almost physical force. It was heavy and oppressive, either driving those around him away or deep into their own reveries, or demanding something be said to break the uncomfortable quiet. There were times his scorn was preferable to his silence. I was tempted to speak, either to him or one of his two remaining retinue, but held my tongue. And so we rode along, silent from the front of the column to rear. Heat lightning stole closer, but still no thunder.

A few miles later, Vendurro came back down the road to meet us. When he reined up, Braylar asked, “What of the road?”

Vendurro’s voice was flat. “Road’s clear, Cap. Least, it was last I looked. Not looking now.”

“Very good. Rejoin the column.”

Vendurro saluted and started to turn his horse, but Braylar reached over and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing once. Vendurro licked his lips but didn’t look at Braylar, and the captain released him. Vendurro rode back beside Glesswik’s horse and body.

The hours dragged by, each more unnerving than the last. The procession was full of funeral quality, in mood if not in finery. We rode along, mute as the miles came and went, stopping once to briefly water the horses. We passed small hills harboring fugitive clumps of trees among the small pastures and homesteads, accessed by smaller paths leading off the road. We saw several fields of sheep, and now and then a man mending a hedge. Even then, with the wild abandoned temple many miles behind us and Alespell and the baron’s protection drawing closer, the silence didn’t lift.

Then we saw a figure galloping down the road towards us. Xen was alone, but we all knew there was only one reason for him to be galloping. He reined up, horse spewing foam out of the corners of its mouth, sweat pouring down his face. He looked over his shoulder briefly, but one shout from Mulldoos and he spun back around and gathered himself. “More of the priest’s men. Riding hard. Coming down the road.”

Braylar asked, “How many?”

“Hard to say, Cap. Didn’t stop to introduce myself. More than ten. Less than twenty. Riding in a column.”

“How far back?”

Xen started to glance over his shoulder again but stopped himself. “A mile? Two? No, less than two. But more than a mile, I say.”

Braylar looked at Gurdinn, who’d ridden up to hear the report. Gurdinn assessed our small company with a scowl. “We don’t have the numbers to engage them. Not directly. We should find a defensible position.” He pointed behind us. “That copse of trees looks to be on a small hill. I say, we ride there, take cover in the trees. Hope they ride by. It’s the closest cover. I see no other choice.” If he believed this plan might actually work, it didn’t carry through to his voice, which was less than inspiring.

Braylar was still facing up the road, eyes closed. “They won’t.”

Gurdinn looked confused. “Won’t what?”

Braylar let out a deep breath and opened his eyes. “They won’t ride by.”

“Might not. They might not. We don’t know.”

Braylar had a flail head in one hand as he replied, almost sadly, “I know.”

Gurdinn puffed his cheeks out and swore. “You don’t. But even if you’re somehow right, we should still take the high ground. Force the bastards to come to us. They’ll be lancers. We should dismount in the trees, make them engage us on foot. So, to the copse then? We don’t have much time.”

All of us were looking at the two commanders, our futures fixed in the center of their debate. Gurdinn said, “We hide, then fight if need be. We have no other choice. And no time.”

Braylar acknowledged Gurdinn slowly, almost as if seeing him for the first time. “Yes. The copse. Get your men moving now.”

Gurdinn grunted, indignant that Braylar had taken too long to arrive at such an obvious decision. But as he took up the reins of his horse he stopped and looked at Braylar. “Wait. My men? What of yours?”

Braylar ignored him and turned to Mulldoos and Vendurro. Glancing up at the clouds, not yet letting loose their rain, he said, “A good day for crossbows, yet. Do you whoresons still remember how to ride?”

Mulldoos whooped and punched the air, suddenly fifteen years younger. “About damn time.”

He and Vendurro pulled their crossbows from the leather cases at their sides and spanned them, working the levers with expert ease.

Gurdinn looked at the three Syldoon as if they had sprouted blue feathers from their heads. “Ride where? You just agreed we head to the copse.”

Braylar loaded his own crossbow. “I agreed you needed to head to the copse. Take your men and the injured. Lloi, Xen, and Arki will accompany you. Hewspear has no doubt noted that we stopped, and will likely join you as well. Ride to the copse at once. Leave the dead.”

Gurdinn shook his head, face turning crimson. “We stand no chance at all if we split our forces. None.”

Braylar ignored him. “Lloi, fetch Glesswik’s crossbow, Tomner’s as well. Be quick about it. Go.”

Gurdinn eyed the crossbows and the Syldoon holding them as Lloi ran back to the horses bearing the dead. “The three of you will be slaughtered. And us to follow. Our one chance is to stay together, engage them on ground of our choosing.”

Braylar lifted the crossbow and looked down its length to the road beyond, as if willing a target to appear. “We ride. With the dead. You should go.”