Sourcethief (Book 3) (48 page)

Three horses picked their way through the trackless
forest, sharing five riders among them. Abbiley rode slumped against Rakashi’s
back, secured with a rope that wound about both their chests. She had awakened
from her injuries in the night with an aching head and had fallen victim to
spells of dizziness. Her eyes could not bear the brightness of the sun, so she
wore Soria's cloak with the hood pulled low.

Brannis watched them ride, wondering why he felt no
twinge of jealousy. Rakashi's horse took the lead, setting an easy pace for his
patient's comfort, allowing Brannis a view of them, as well as the horse
carrying Soria and Tomas. The latter pair did not bother him either.

Soria had agreed—with no small reluctance—to share
her horse with Lord Harwick's son. The keep's stables had been emptied, leaving
them just the three horses they had brought, and Rakashi insisted on looking
after Abbiley. Soria could not deny it made the greatest sense, especially
given the opinions she had occasionally voiced regarding the girl. To put a
second rider with Brannis would have done the animal a disservice. As it stood,
either of the other two horses only carried slightly more weight with two
riders each. Tomas sat behind Soria, balanced just forward of the horse's rump,
a veritable study in not quite touching a woman. She wore her armor lest there
be any confusion about where his hands belonged—or did not.

Brannis felt a strange emptiness, a lack of urgency
that cast his thoughts adrift. Abbiley and Tomas were no longer in any danger;
their journey back was a mere formality. He had never felt so free of
responsibility or of purpose. Brannis's life had been laid out before him.
Before the Academy, his memories were vague, like stories he had been told. The
Academy had guided his studies, his activities; there was always some next
thing beyond what he was doing. The School of Arms had been even more
regimented, dictating the hour he rose, the hours he slept, and all the hours
between. The knighthood, and his service to the army, had given him duty. He
was far freer to set his daily actions, especially once he had gained a command
of his own, but there were always orders to follow and missions to complete.
His time since meeting with Rashan had been a whirlwind of plots, strategy, and
logistics.

What now? I can still help Kyrus
with his studies, I suppose, but that's no proper trade.

"So Tomas," Brannis called out, bringing
his horse up not quite even with Soria's. "What is it that we bring you
back to, anyway? Your father always monopolizes any conversation that happens
within earshot. What is it that occupies your days?"

"Scant little, I'm afraid. Officially, I manage
my father's interests in Scar Harbor, but I have men that handle the details of
it. My real job is to give those men a hard look in the eye, and convince
myself they aren't robbing me," Tomas replied with a self-deprecating
chuckle.

Soria turned in the saddle. Brannis noticed that
Tomas leaned out of her way as she did so. "Thinking about signing on as
an apprentice, Sir Erund?" she teased. Her face fell, eyes wide. "Aw,
horse piss, we're being followed!"

"What?" Brannis exclaimed, wheeling his
horse around. He scanned the forest behind them. "I don't see
anything."

"Well, spit, if you'd been paying attention
before, maybe you would've," Soria retorted. "Rakashi, we've got to
move!"

"I think not," Rakashi called back.
"She is in no condition. We must confront whoever it is."

Brannis still searched the trees for signs of the
pursuers Soria had seen. "Tomas," he called over his shoulder.
"Can you ride?"

"Of course," Tomas replied, indignant.
"I've won ribbons at it."
Wonderful, if we need any fences jumped,
we'll have you to look to.

"Take mine then, and get Abbiley on it with
you," Brannis told him hurriedly. "Don't go far, else they circle
around us to get to you. Keep just far enough away to stay out of harm's
path." Brannis swung himself off his mount, still feeling the shape of it
between his thighs after a full morning in the saddle.

Tomas climbed straight from Soria's horse to
Brannis's, showing a spirit-buoying aptitude in keeping with his boast. Soria
then moved to help Rakashi transfer Abbiley from his horse to Tomas's.

"What's going on?" Abbiley asked, as she
was hoisted in front of Tomas. With no time to secure her properly, it was the
safest place for her.

"Not to worry, my dear," Tomas reassured
her, "our friends just appear not quite done with saving us. They're about
to do a bit more. You shall be safe here with me in the interim."

Brannis stood with Avalanche drawn, waiting. He saw
Soria dismount and take cover behind a tree, and he followed suit. She saw him
looking over at her.

"Never learned to fight from horseback,"
she told him.

F-f-f-f-f-f-thook!

An arrow embedded itself in the tree Soria sheltered
behind, then two more.

A voice called out something, it must have been
Kheshi, for he only understood a single word out of all of it:
"Tezuan."

* * * * * * *
*

"Come out, and make it easy on yourselves. We
are Tezuan warriors, and you cannot escape us," the voice called out into
the woods. Soria swallowed hard, wondering what it would be like facing Tezuan
brothers as mortal enemies. She hoped they were like the two that Parjek
Ran-Haalamar had employed in Marker's Point. She suspected not.

Tezuan mercenaries went as far as coin demanded.
Kheshis knew their value, and the best rarely had to travel far to earn great
fortunes for the temples. A twinborn noblewoman? She had likely hired the best.

"If you've come from the keep, you must have
seen what we're capable of," Soria shouted back, not moving from behind
the tree. "You don't have to try to avenge your employer."

"I don't know what happened at Hronsvaar Keep,
but if you are responsible, it is all the more reason to bring you to
justice," the voice called back. Soria could hear them coming. The horses'
hooves had no artfulness in woodland sneaking; they crunched leaves and snapped
twigs at every step.

"What are they saying?" Brannis asked.

"They seem pretty intent on not going away
quietly," Soria replied. She reached back and drew her daggers—make that
dagger.
Gut me, I've only got the one left
. The other was somewhere amid
the rubble of the keep they had destroyed.

"They are moving to surround us," Rakashi
shouted.

"Can you get a count?" Soria asked. She
looked all about. Surrounded by bowmen could mean trouble.

"A dozen, perhaps," Rakashi replied.

"We can't let them surround us completely, we
need to keep Abbiley and Tomas protected," Brannis called back.

"What's your plan, then, grand marshal?"
Soria asked.

What plan, indeed?

Brannis ransacked his memories, overturning shelves
and spilling the cupboards out onto the floor. They had no bows, nor pistols or
muskets. Their foes were mounted and must have had at least two bowmen among
them, the rest carrying unknown arms. There was only one means of combat that
put them at advantage.

"We charge," Brannis answered.

Leading from the fore, Brannis stepped from behind
his sheltering tree, and sought the first hint of movement. He saw a pair of
horsemen, still some ways off, obscured by the undergrowth. He broke into a run
in their direction, screaming a wordless war cry to draw their attention.

A pair of arrows whizzed his way, one missing
cleanly, the other glancing off his breastplate. The two horsemen seemed
unsurprised to see an armored foe still in pursuit. They dropped their bows and
drew swords. They turned to meet him, their mounts restless in the face of a
foe.

Brannis chose at random, and veered for the horseman
to his right. The Kheshi warrior was armored like the others, in the thick,
sleeveless leather armor that the Tezuan favored. By his attack, he was not
much of a creative warrior. The Kheshi reached across his horse to hack
straight down at Brannis. Avalanche caught the blade, deflecting it wide. The
Kheshi was quick with his sword, and had a parry ready to line up with
Brannis's counter, but Avalanche tore the blade from his hand before cutting
the man in half.

The second horseman had maneuvered himself around to
come behind Brannis, but stopped short when he saw what happened to his
companion. He urged his horse around a tree, and put it between himself and
Brannis. Brannis took a swipe at the horseman anyway, splintering the tree as
Avalanche passed through. The tree fell straight down, at first, the upper
portion clipping the newly formed stump, and spiking into the earth near its
own roots. It creaked and moaned, tangling with the branches of other trees as
it toppled. Brannis and the horseman fled to opposite sides of it.

"Brannis!" Soria screamed. "Watch
that sword of yours or you'll bring the whole forest down on us!"

Bring the whole forest down ...

That was the answer. The horsemen had the advantage
of speed over them, and bows.
Limit their options. Block their paths.

Brannis shouted back. "Just watch yourselves as
they fall. We want this fight on our terms. Someone's going to catch an arrow
in the throat if we keep this up."

Brannis did catch another arrow, but his armor
protected him. He darted for the next nearest tree and chopped it through as
well. He repeated the process, trying to circle wide around the combat. With a
few practice trees, he was even getting the hang of directing which way they
fell, forming them into a rough defensive circle.

One of the riders caught on to his plan, or at least
understood the threat that dozens of falling trees presented. Brannis turned to
see one of the horses vault a fallen tree, the rider's spear leading like a
lance. Instinct overrode sense, and Brannis batted the spear away, only to be
trampled by the horse. He hit the ground, and a mass of horseflesh passed him
by. He flailed about with his blade and heard an equine shriek of agony,
followed by a clatter to the ground.

Brannis rolled over to push himself to his feet,
scrambling when he saw that the rider had disentangled himself from his
butchered horse, and was advancing. The spear was gone, discarded, and the
rider had drawn two long daggers.

The rider called out to him, but it was nothing but
garbled sounds to Brannis's ears.

"Sorry friend, I'm just a Kadrin, a long way
from home," Brannis remarked. It seemed to matter little, telling a man
who could not understand him and who would shortly be dead.

His opponent spoke again, but all Brannis understood
was the word “Kadrin.” Brannis took a step back. He was unprepared for that one
word to ring true. The language sounded different as well, not quite like the
Kheshi tongue whose cadence and sounds were growing familiar, if no more
understandable.

"You Kadrin," the rider said, switching to
speaking Kadrin after Brannis had no reaction. Brannis nodded. "Ah, I
Ghelk. You die."

"Not today, I think," Brannis replied.

The Ghelkan twinborn took up a stance that Brannis
recognized. It was one that Soria used, even down to the choice of daggers.
This twinborn was Tezuan trained.

* * * * * * *
*

Rakashi counted himself fortunate to have such
clever allies. From the moment Brannis's sword first cut a tree, Rakashi
thought to turn the battlefield into a clutter of fallen oaks and maples. He
had done little before then but play the deer for his huntsman foes.

A bow is a wonderful weapon for hunting, and for
holding fortifications against massed troops. It begins to have its failings
against targets who are aware of the bowman, and do nothing but keep to cover
and dodge. There was little else he could do without giving them too good a
target. Unlike Soria and Brannis, he was unprotected.

When the trees began to rain, he was able to watch
their dying Sources with his patched eye. With his good eye, he kept track of
his bowmen, perched on nervous horses that were unsure how to react to the
strangeness of a falling forest. He kept himself to the leafy ends of the
trees, concealing himself behind branches. When one of the horsemen leaped to
his side of a tree, he dove and rolled under to switch sides once more.

After the fourth time leaping a fallen tree, one
horse missed its footing on the landing, spilling its rider. Rakashi rolled
back onto the horse's side of the tree and closed the distance to the rider.

The bowman was remarkable in his concentration. He
had kept his bow intact through the fall, and even from lying on his side,
nocked an arrow. Rakashi did not dodge. He waited for the bowman to take his
measure, and watched his aim. If a man were to assume Rakashi lacked depth
perception due to his patched eye, he would find himself wrong. If an archer
were to wager his life that a one-eyed Takalishman could not place his
half-spear to deflect an arrow mid-flight, he might find himself dying quite by
surprise, with a half-spear in his throat.