Thawed Fortunes (28 page)

Moving before the other man could act on the
fact that he recognized Peters, Va'del drew his weapons and lunged
forward. Dispatching the two men took only a fraction of a second,
and then Va'del was inside the tent, weapons still at the
ready.

Peters entered a heartbeat later, pulling the
dimly-glowing light sphere that Vi'en had provided them from his
pocket.

The link was still roaring through Va'del,
filling him with strength and making time seem to creep along. The
scene that was revealed as the soft, blue light of the sapphire
illuminated the tent, seemed to slowly unfold like a vista from the
birthplace of the Dark Powers.

All four Daughters were tied and gagged, and
if Alis looked the worst, none of them were free of bruises.

White-hot rage flashed through Va'del, and
for a second he turned to run out of the tent and kill Vladir, but
the matching rage on Peters' face stopped him. Instead he fought
down his anger and started cutting the girls' bonds. If he didn't
keep his wits about him, there was no chance of the Daughters
remaining calm.

Jain looked up at him as he pulled her to her
feet, but there was no recognition in her eyes, and Va'del tried
not to worry as he slung her over one shoulder and Ka'ti over the
other.

Peters and the other guardsman had the
remaining two girls, and Va'del nodded to them, and then took a
deep breath as he turned and led the way out of the tent.

The trio made it nearly thirty feet before
someone challenged them and Peters was forced to cut the man down.
Va'del charged forward dodging hostile forms in the near darkness
as his companions struggled to keep up.

A knot of resistance was forming as they were
nearing the horse pickets, but their various tasks completed, the
other guardsmen appeared as if by magic and engaged enough of the
other men for Va'del and the rest to reach their destination.

Two of the guardsmen jumped onto horses
they'd spent the last few minutes saddling, and then reached down
and pulled Jain and Ka'ti up to ride in front of them.

Other men did the same for the remaining two
girls as Va'del turned and threw himself into the fight. Most of
the men he was facing had only recently awoken. As a consequence,
they were disoriented and poorly equipped. Va'del was easily able
to cut his way through to his remaining men, freeing them to get
far enough away from the fighting to mount horses of their own.

Va'del killed two more men, and then heard
yelling and screaming behind him as the guardsmen scattered the
horses.

The sub-Guadel sheathed his blades, turning
and running away from the remaining enemies as Peters rode in at an
angle, trailing a spirited horse that was so dark as to be nearly
invisible.

The strength and grace imparted by the link
made it easy to perfectly time his jump. Va'del landed astride the
animal, and felt a wave of relief course through him as he leaned
down over the horse's neck and urged it on to greater speed.

The link suddenly evaporated, and for a
second Va'del felt as if he'd fall from his horse, but the past two
days had taught him a little about riding. He just managed to
retain his balance as his time sense slowly adjusted back to
dealing with the world at a normal speed.

Massive muscles bunched beneath Va'del's
knees. His horse seemed determined to pass up the riders before
them, but the sub-Guadel reined the beast back slightly. His place
was at the back where he'd be the first one run down if the Baron
organized enough of a pursuit to follow them.

The group came around a bend and found Vi'en,
Se'ath and the last pair of guardsmen waiting for them. Va'del
slowed just enough to take a pair of lead ropes for the horses
they'd left behind, and then they were all off again.

Peters nodded to two of his men, and then
dropped back to ride next to Va'del and Vi'en.

"We cut forty or fifty girth straps, and
sprinkled that drug in their water and food stores. Their horses
are mostly scattered as well, which will buy us some time."

"Thanks, we'll just have to hope it's all
enough for us to stay ahead."

Peters flashed Va'del a smile and then moved
back up to the head of the column. Vi'en shot the pair a
disapproving look, and then concentrated on staying atop her
horse.

In all of the excitement, Va'del had
forgotten about his wound, but there wasn't anything else to
distract him now, and the pain slowly grew. By the time Peters
pulled everyone over to change horses, Va'del was in enough pain
that he had a hard time thinking of anything else.

Despite his near incapacitation, the switch
went much more smoothly than Va'del had expected. A junior officer
saw to Va'del's mount while he tightened up his bandages, and then
everyone was back on the road.

The next couple of color cycles were the
tensest, and despite the pain involved in the motion, Va'del found
himself looking back over his shoulder for pursuit every few
minutes.

When Vladir's men failed to appear behind
them, the pain in his side pulled his attention inward. The
steadily-rising tide of agony seemed at the point of overwhelming
him. Then without his noticing the change, his thoughts died away,
leaving him alone with the pain. This in turn seemed to fade away
as the everyday commotion of thought and worry stopped dominating
his mind.

The steady motion of his horse should have
proved a distraction, but instead it seemed to coax Va'del's
awareness deeper inside him. It wasn't until the horse in front of
him stumbled and nearly fell, that the trance was broken and
weakness and fatigue once again pulled at him.

The reappearance of his pain brought with it
new worries, foremost among them a fear that Mark, the stable
master, wouldn't come through on his end of the plan. Just because
Va'del's men hadn't been caught yet didn't mean they were safe. If
Mark wasn't waiting with the remounts, Va'del's plan was still
almost sure to fail. They'd used the horses too cruelly for the
poor animals to make it the rest of the way to the castle at any
kind of decent pace.

As they got nearer and nearer to the place
where Mark had promised to wait for them, Vi'en looked back more
and more often, as if to emphasize the fact that Va'del's trust in
the old stable master had been misplaced.

The uncertainty wore at Va'del, made worse as
first Se'ath and then more and more of the guardsmen looked around
nervously, obviously worried they'd been betrayed. As the sun
started to rise Va'del switched from worry and started assuming the
worst. He alternately scrambled for solutions to the mess they were
in and wondered what he'd been thinking to trust the success or
failure of their rescue to a stranger.

Riding in the van of the column, Peters
suddenly veered to the right, and Va'del felt relief flow through
him as they thundered into a clearing full of horses and stable
hands in the Baron's colors.

Mark hobbled up and helped Va'del down from
his horse as a stable hand hurried forward and took the horse's
reins. "You weren't bleeding when I saw you last."

Va'del looked down at the blood that had
soaked through his shirt and down his pant leg, and then performed
a half shrug that only caused a little surge of pain. "You weren't
limping when I left."

The stable master shrugged in return.
"Sleeping on the ground isn't for old backs. Once we're moving
again I'll be fine."

Mark pointed Va'del towards a roan-colored
mare, and then hobbled away yelling orders to his apprentices, all
of whom were unsaddling the newly-arrived horses with a speed that
was nothing less than amazing.

As Va'del pulled himself onto his new mount,
the horse master showed back up and clasped his arm. "Your men are
all mounted. Hopefully any pursuit continues to follow you. If not,
well, we'll be gone inside the half cycle, and we'll split up to
offer a less appealing target, so they should give up and return to
the road before following us too far."

"Thanks for your help."

"'Twasn't nothing. I saw those girls you
rescued, and they've been treated worse than the poor beasts you
rode in on. The animals will recover; I just hope the younglings
will do likewise."

Va'del nodded, trying to ignore a growing
sense of uneasiness, and then followed Peters and the rest of the
guards back to the road.

Secure in the knowledge that they had fresh
mounts beneath them and that their enemies must be tiring by now,
the group set out at a more sedate pace. The slower speed of the
horses was the only thing that allowed the guard holding Jain to
avoid dropping her when she suddenly started convulsing.

Prompted by something he couldn't describe,
Va'del had already started riding further up the column before the
first yells broke out from the men trying to restrain the
Daughters. Her skin waxy and glistening with unnatural sweat, Kati
was the next one to begin shaking, but the other two had started
thrashing violently as well before Va'del made it to Jain's
side.

Ignoring the sharp pain the
action caused, Va'del pulled Jain from the worried guard who'd been
holding her, and then spun his horse in a circle looking for
Vi'en.
We were wrong, they were already
addicted.

"They're going into withdrawal." Vi'en was
dismounted and kneeling next to Kati. The Guadel closed her eyes
for a second, palm resting on the Daughter's forehead before
continuing. "Their symptoms aren't as severe though, I believe I
can buffer one of them out. This one is the strongest."

For a second Va'del's vision dimmed, and when
it returned he found himself standing before his wife, Jain still
clutched in arms trembling with emotion.

"You're not sacrificing her. You will heal
Jain."

Vi'en took a deep breath as her skin flushed
with anger. "This is about more than just your supposed affection
for the girl. She's the weakest of the four. If I try to save them
all I risk losing them all, and then this entire effort was for
naught."

A tiny part of Va'del's mind was still calm
enough to make sense of the words, rational enough to fabricate an
argument that might be believed. "If you save only one, or even two
of them we're still doomed. Three of you will never be able to
bring the other Guadel out fast enough for us to stand off the
Baron. Save all four of them."

Vi'en lunged to her feet, mouth open to say
something else, but Va'del pulled her close in a mockery of the
physical closeness they'd never shared. "I'm well aware that you
will probably see me exiled for what I'm about to say, but if Jain
dies, I'll see you dead before her body cools. Save. Them.
All."

For a moment Va'del thought his wife would
say something else, but he let the emptiness that the thought of
living without Jain summoned bleed out through his eyes, and she
was the first to look away.

Va'del pointed to four guards at random. "We
can't stop. You four are responsible for the other Daughters and my
wife."

By the time the column was moving again, Jain
had stopped shaking, but her breathing was shallow and hurried, and
her skin looked ashen and even paler than before.

Vi'en, mounted in front of one of the guards,
moved up and down the line, pacing each one of the listless forms
for a few minutes.

Somewhere along the way, Va'del's wound broke
back open with a slow trickle of blood. Despite the sharp jolts of
pain, he refused to transfer his fragile cargo to one of the other
men. Each guardsman was exhausted and sore from riding for so many
cycles, but he hadn't heard a single word of complaint. If they'd
lost their honor when they surrendered to Vladir, they'd regained
it with this mission.

When they finally made their tired way into
the castle courtyard, Va'del handed Jain down to one of the
guardsmen, and then tried to dismount from his horse, only to
somehow lose his balance and fall into Si'mon's waiting arms. The
darkness was waiting to claim him, but Va'del fought it off for a
few more seconds.

"They were amazing. Even if the Daughters
don't survive, the Guard made a heroic effort. Make sure they know
how well they did."

Jain was waiting with tear-streaked cheeks
when Va'del finally opened his eyes again. "Oh, Powers! I was so
worried about you."

Va'del found himself trying to reassure Jain
that he was okay, when he wasn't sure that was really the case. As
his vision cleared up, a surge of anger cleaned away the last of
the fuzziness from his thoughts.

She looks terrible. Bruised and thin, with
her eyes sunken and dull.

"I'll be fine, are you going to be okay?"

Jain got her tears under control and nodded.
"I look pretty bad, huh?"

Knowing that nothing he could say would be
right in that instance, Va'del just held Jain's hand and
waited.

"Some of it is the result of being beaten by
Be'ter when we all refused to link with him. Some of it's from
Kra'ven alternately starving and drugging us in an effort to make
us tell him how linking works. The rest is just from using too much
power in the last twenty-four cycles. Don't worry, if we make it
through the next two days I should be fine."

Before either of them could say anything else
On'li came tottering through the door followed by Javin and Si'mon.
Va'del should have been prepared after seeing Jain's condition, but
he'd still somehow not been expecting On'li to look quite so old
and worn out.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm well aware
that I look like I'm two days dead and just waiting for the
darkness to finally get around to recognizing that fact."

On'li reached down to give Va'del's free hand
a squeeze. "None of us women look much better than this right now,
I'm afraid. Half of us are still being buffered through the last
stages of withdrawal, the other half are just plain worn out from
using so much power in such a short time, but none of it is
anything that a few days of rest won't cure."