The Devil's Concubine (12 page)

The most dangerous time, however, came once they had landed, for they needed

to shift in order to complete their goal. The wounded man, slowed by his injury, caught yet another arrow as they settled in the garden, this one in the chest.

He was too wounded to shift. In his current condition he needed to remain in his

beast form to heal or he would die. By the time they’d managed to drag him to shelter, all of them were wounded and bleeding.

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Talin’s own wound was fairly superficial. An arrow had grazed his throat, but it

closed almost at once and the blood ceased to flow down his shoulder and chest.

Leaving his men to remove the arrows they’d caught so that their wounds could

close, he headed toward the door that let out into the garden.

It was a stout door, and well fortified from what he recalled of his first visit to the palace. His memory served him. It was heavily barricaded. Using his shoulder as a

battering ram, it still took three heavy hits before the wood splintered and the heavy timber bar on the inside split. Summoning his men, he shoved the broken door out of the way. The only warning he got that the corridor was manned was the whistle of an arrow.

It embedded itself into a fragment of door next to his shoulder. Wrenching what was left of the door from the hinges, he used the stout wood as a shield and rushed the men

crowded at the top of the stairs on the opposite end of the corridor. Those at the top fell back before his assault, creating a domino effect and bringing down the men behind

them.

Tossing the shield after them, he whirled and raced back the way he’d come to the

only interior door that opened off that particular corridor and slammed a shoulder against the panel. The interior door wasn’t nearly as stout as the exterior one. It caved in with the first blow and his impetus took him inside to a chorus of feminine screams and a

barrage of missiles that included everything from pillows to pitchers, bowls, vases and even a small chest.

“Cease!” he roared when he’d tired of batting the missiles and dodging them.

They stopped, but he thought that was more because they’d run out of anything to

throw than because of the bellowed order. ‘Weaponless’ now, the half dozen women in

the room scurried to the farthest corner to cower in fear as his men dashed inside behind him. After looking around a little wildly, the men dashed across the room and grabbed a large armoire, carried it back to the now splintered door and covered the opening before the castle defenders could regroup and launch another attack.

“I’ve come to gather the princess’ belongings,” Talin announced, planting his

hands on his hips and fixing the women with a stern stare. “Make haste and gather her most prized possessions.”

The women merely gaped at him as if he’d spoken to them in a foreign language.

“Now!” he bellowed.

The yell evoked another chorus of shrieks, but the women only covered their ears,

hid their faces, and crowded a little more tightly together. Uttering a growl of

impatience, Talin stalked across the room and looked them over. The one with the dark mahogany hair looked vaguely familiar, as did the one with pale blond hair. Grabbing the first, he hauled her to her feet. “Your lady has need of you. Will you do nothing but cower in the corner like a frightened rabbit?”

The woman stared at him in horror. “She’s … she is alive?”

Talin glared at the woman. “Why would she not be?” he demanded.

Her jaw sagged in surprise, but after a moment, instead of responding verbally,

she merely nodded jerkily and looked around the room blankly. Grabbing the satchel

he’d brought to fill, Talin removed the long strap slung around his neck and over one shoulder and handed it to her. “Fill it--clothing.”

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He grabbed the blond and hauled her upright. Catching a second satchel one of

his men tossed to him, he pushed it into the second woman’s hands. “The princess’

favored things.”

When he’d dragged two more of the cowering women from the huddle and put

them to work, he moved to the window to survey the lay of the land. Below, he could see the castle’s defenders pouring into the palace from every direction. “We are about to have company,” he muttered grimly.

Nodding, his men began to pile everything of weight against the barricade they’d

created with the armoire. When they’d finished, most of the room’s contents were piled in front of the door.

Commanding the women to hurry and finish, he moved to the window again and

uttered the keening cry to call his men to arms. When he saw the first arrive to begin the bombardment of the palace, he turned to study the women again. He’d hoped to bring

them all, but he had only three men with him and all of them were weakened from

wounds. Disgusted that his plan had degenerated into a scramble to grab whatever could be taken quickly and certain that he would find when he returned that the mindless

females hadn’t packed the half of what they should have, he nevertheless realized that they had to go if they had any chance of carrying off what they’d gathered.

The two maids he’d first drawn from the group were the same two who had tried

to defend Princess Aliya from him, and he felt certain the bond between them was strong.

She would be most pleased, he decided if he took those two.

Unfortunately, the soldiers did not seem to care where they placed their arrows so

long as they hit something. If he was not careful, he would end up delivering two corpses so full of arrows they looked like pincushions.

Striding to the bed, he began tearing strips from the linen.

Grabbing the blond, he bound her wrists together and shoved her toward the man

least injured. “Carry her on your back where she will be protected,” he said grimly.

Instantly, the woman began to scream and struggle.

Wincing at the high pitched shrieks, Talin tore another strip from the bedding and

gagged her. They would all be deaf if they had to listen too much of that, to say nothing of the danger inherent in it. For it would not only make it impossible for him and his men to hear what they needed to hear, but would insure that everyone for miles around knew their exact position.

Almost as an after thought, when he remembered how terrified Aliya had been of

the height, he tied a second strip over her eyes. Satisfied, he lifted her up and hooked her arms over his man’s head and then turned and eyed the red head. The moment his gaze

fell upon her she began to scream, dashing round and round the room in a blind panic.

The noise from the bombardment didn’t help, nor the battering against the

barricade.

Instead of chasing her around the room, he waited until she’d made the circuit and

grabbed her before she could whirl and dart off in the opposite direction. The moment he seized her, she whirled on him and, curling her fingers into claws, went for his eyes. He caught her wrists, but he discovered he couldn’t hold both and bind them. Gritting his teeth, resisting the urge to simply knock her out, he hunched one shoulder and ignored her pounding while he bound one wrist and then caught the one she’d been using to club THE DEVIL’S CONCUBINE

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him and tied that to the first. The gag came next, more because she’d resorted to trying to bite him than the screaming.

The barricade had begun to give way to the pounding from the corridor by the

time he lined his men up at the window to depart.

It was too narrow to allow them to shift
before
they went out. They had, perforce, to dive from the window and shift as they fell. Despite the gags, both women screamed deafeningly as they plunged downward. He wasn’t certain at what point the woman he

was carrying lost consciousness, but he was in trouble himself by then and had little time to worry about it.

He was the last to leap from the window, and even as he shifted he felt a blazing

hot poker pierce his chest that almost made him black out. At almost the same instant, two more arrows slammed into him, piercing his side and one thigh. Fighting to remain conscious and airborne, he managed to catch an updraft of wind and with that added

buoyancy climbed beyond range of the archers.

The wounds were bleeding profusely. He knew that, knew also that they could

not close so long as the arrows remained embedded in his flesh. He didn’t dare land to see to the wounds, however. In his weakened state, he was far too vulnerable and the lands were crawling with the man children gathering for war.

His men were in no better condition, but he encouraged them onward. The sooner

they reached the palace, the better off they would all be. Catching first one updraft and then another, the group managed to gain enough altitude to glide most of the way which was a fortunate circumstance since they were all in a sorry state and the effort to stay aloft with their burdens only made the task more difficult.

Despite the nearly blinding pain, Talin felt his spirits lift when he spied his palace in the distance. He was almost home. Aliya was going to be beside herself with joy

when she saw what he’d brought her.

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Aliya felt a stab of unease run through her when she heard a shout and looked up

to see the sudden alertness of the men manning the walls of the castle. Listening intently to hear what had caught their attention, she heard a great whoosh of air. It almost seemed to reverberate, bouncing from the mountainside across the courtyard where she walked

and pinging from wall to wall, a ricochet of sound rather than an object.

Stopping, she tried to discern the direction of the noise. When she found she

couldn’t, she moved away from the wall so that she could see the men atop it better.

To the man, they had turned to gaze to the south--where Anduloosa lay.

Her heart fluttered uncomfortably at the thought, but before she could even fully

form the hope that sprang in her mind, a tremendous golden falcon burst into view. It circled, spiraling lower with each pass and finally landed. Frozen with fear at the sight of the great bird of prey, it was several moments before Aliya realized that shadows raced along the ground all around her. Instinctively, she looked up, discovering more of the giant falcons.

Too stunned to move or to flee in any direction, she merely stood stock still,

watching as they settled. Several, she saw, were carrying great, bulging leather satchels.

They arched their necks, allowing the packs to slide from their necks and drop to the ground.

Two others carried not only satchels, but human burdens. She stared at the two

women that crumpled to the dirt where they’d been dropped in disbelief and horror. They were captives. That much was obvious--their wrists bound, gagged, blindfolded. They scarcely moved after they’d fallen, merely lay where the fell, moaning piteously.

Anger began to boil up through her fear. Without even realizing she had done so,

she began moving toward the two women. As she drew nearer, her gaze traveling over

them for signs of injury, a prickle of recognition dawned and then blossomed when she recognized the clothing they were wearing as dresses that belonged to Lady Beatrice and Lady Leesa. Abruptly, she caught her skirts, lifting them away from her feet as she broke into a run.

By the time she reached them tears of pure rage were rolling down her cheeks.

Her ladies! Her dear friends, battered, manhandled, frightened out of their wits, were struggling blindly to crawl away from their tormenters.

Uttering a cry of fury, she focused on the falcon nearest Lady Leesa and flew at

him in a rage, hammering at him with her fists. “You monster! You conscienceless

devil! What have you done to them?”

The falcon wavered. Abruptly, its legs gave out and it settled to the dirt and then

fell over on its side. Losing her balance, Aliya fell on top of it. Her surprise killed her rage instantly. Stunned, she struggled to her feet, her gaze drawn from the great falcon to her hands by bright red blood. She stared at the blood for several moments and then

down at her dress, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over her when she saw she was

covered in blood.

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Glancing from her dress to the bird, she saw that there were arrows protruding

from his chest, his side, and one thigh. As she watched, he caught the shaft jutting from his chest with his beak and wrenched it free. Fresh blood gushed from the open wound.

She uttered a pained cry, feeling almost as if the arrow had been pulled from her

own flesh. “Talin! By the mercy of the gods, what has happened?”

She was almost more stunned when he spoke to her in Talin’s voice than she had

been by anything that had happened before.

“Your father’s archers send their greetings,” he muttered, catching the second

shaft and tearing that from his flesh.

Aliya clapped a hand over her mouth, feeling bile rush into her throat, though she

wasn’t certain what sickened her more, the ripping of his flesh, or the thought that her father had ordered this. “Don’t! Please don’t! You’re only hurting yourself worse!” she cried as he caught the last arrow and tore it free.

Bursting into tears, she rushed to his head as he collapsed limply on the ground.

Falling to her knees, she lifted his head gently and settled it in her lap, stroking his beautifully feathered face soothingly. “You are wounded nigh unto death! Why would

you do such a thing?”

“I thought that it would please you,” he muttered.