The Kinshield Legacy (12 page)

Take the initiative.
Daia heard Aminda’s voice in her head and knew what she had to do. She heeled Calie and went in pursuit.

“Daia, leave it,” Cirang shouted.

Daia heard the command, but she was determined to finish the thing off. It wouldn’t live to attack someone else. She rode after the beast, surprised at how swiftly it moved despite its injuries. Calie’s labored breath sounded loud in the eerie quiet of the forest, punctuated by her hooves pounding the ground.

The beyonder pulled up short and turned. Its teeth and armor plating snapped in the air.

Daia reined hard, bringing Calie to a quick stop less than ten feet from the beyonder. Her own chest heaved, and she turned her mount to an angle and awaited its attack.

It stood and watched her, teeth and armor clacking. Was it truly injured, perhaps unable to run further? Why didn’t it attack her?

A girl’s scream echoed through the trees. Daia’s blood stilled in her veins.

The beyonder before her opened its mouth wide. The skin inside its mouth oozed gray-green liquid that coated the teeth, and a thin strand of the saliva stretched from a top tooth to a bottom. It leapt.

Daia drove her sword deep into the thing’s mouth, past the six rows of teeth and into the fleshy gullet. A flood of the gray-green liquid spurted from the wound and coated her blade as she drew it out and thrust it back in. Steam rose from the creature’s mouth as though it had swallowed fire. The beyonder went limp on the ground. The plates of its skin rolled downward and lay at rest.

Daia pulled her sword out once more and turned her mount, digging in her heels and urging Calie to a gallop. The sounds of battle grew louder as she neared the road. Ahead, through the trees, Daia saw Cirang battling furiously from her horse. JiNese was on foot fighting with everything she had. Beyonders. At least four of them, and two more bodies lying still on the ground. JiNese’s horse lay on its side, neighing and trying to get up. A reddish beyonder leapt onto the horse’s neck and a spray of blood arched into the air.

Daia burst through the trees and identified her first target: a slithering snake-like thing with smooth orange fur coiling to strike at JiNese’s back. Daia leaned so low to the side she risked falling out of the saddle. With a sweep of her sword, Daia took its head off as she thundered past. Calie circled around the wagon toward the rear. A ryna was trying to leap into the back with Naylen. A wooden gargoyle flew from the wagon, hit the ryna square on the head and bounced away. Another followed it, and another. The beast turned toward the horse and rider and sprang at the prancing hooves. While Calie danced to avoid it, Daia leaned first to one side, then the other trying to stab at it. Her horse started to buck in desperation. Daia leapt from Calie’s back and into the wagon. The ryna turned its attention to her.

Daia thrust her sword deep into the ryna’s chest and gave it a twist. The smell of sulfur assailed her as the beast collapsed onto the ground. She jumped down and ran around the wagon’s right side just in time to see Cirang and JiNese slay the last beyonder with a pair of sword thrusts to its black body.

Daia circled the wagon, looking for signs of more beyonders, but saw none. “Is anyone hurt?” she asked.

JiNese bent over, her hands propped on her thighs. She shook her head, chest heaving.

“Naylen!” Yardof cried. He climbed down from his seat.

“I’m all right,” the girl called back. She jumped down from the back of the wagon and began to pick up the gargoyles lying on the ground. Yardof ran to his daughter, took her in his fleshy arms and squeezed her tight. “Father, I said I’m all right,” she said, squirming free.

JiNese went to her horse and knelt, running her hand over the huge blood-spattered face. Her shoulders began to shake and she bowed her head.

“Arek was smiling on us this time,” Cirang said. “We lost JiNese’s horse, but at least we are uninjured.”

“They coordinated the attack,” Daia said. Such behavior was unprecedented. This could only mean the beyonders had some measure of intelligence -- and the ability to communicate with one another. “The one with the teeth - it meant to separate us so the others could attack.”

“Which was why I gave you a direct order not to pursue it,” Cirang shot back.

Daia drew back, shocked. “You knew what it was doing?”

“Doesn’t matter whether I did or didn’t. I gave you an order and you disobeyed it, putting our charges and your fellow Sisters in jeopardy.”

“How was I to know? The danger appeared to be gone. What if the thing survived and attacked others?”

“Others are not our responsibility,” Cirang said. “These people and this cargo are. Our duty is to deliver them safely to Tern, and once this mission’s finished, then we can worry about the others who hire us to protect them.”

Daia closed in on Cirang and looked down into her angry dark eyes. “You mean to tell me,” she said in a low voice, “you care only about those we are paid to protect?”

Cirang stood her ground. “My personal feelings are beside the point and so are yours. I have no choice but to report this incident to Aminda and Lilalian when we return.” The two women stood nose to nose, neither speaking. Daia was unwilling to risk disciplinary action for what she wanted to do right now, but slamming her fist into Cirang’s face would feel so good.

JiNese stood and walked toward them. Her eyes were rimmed in red, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Daia did what she thought was right, Cirang. I would’ve gone after it too.”

“Then it would have been your ass in the stockade instead.”

The rest of the journey was quiet. JiNese and Naylen rode in the wagon while Daia and Cirang flanked it. No one spoke until they were almost to Tern. Daia tried again to convince Cirang she’d done nothing wrong.

“We lost a horse because of you,” Cirang snapped.

“I did not kill the horse, Cirang. I wasn’t even there.”

“Exactly my point.”

“The horse might have been killed anyway. You have no way of knowing my absence had anything to do with it.”

“You acted rashly and against my direct order.”

Daia gaped at her across the backs of the draft horses between them. “Rashly? What do you call what you did, then? Screaming like a madwoman and going after the first beyonder without even discussing our plan first?”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Cirang said, wagging her head side to side. “I’m about action. While you stood around wanting to talk, I was trying to kill the thing.”

“And when you failed,” Daia said, “I took the initiative and finished the job while you sat there, talking.” She couldn’t contain her anger or her contempt any longer. If the merchant and his daughter hadn’t been there, Daia would have pulled Cirang off her horse and pounded some sense into her.

“My actions didn’t result in the loss of a horse and the possible loss of human lives--”

“Stop, please,” Yardof broke in with an embarrassed laugh. “We did not get hurt, we lost none of our goods. Our journey was merely delayed a short while. I don’t see any fault in Miss Daia’s actions, and she did return in time to save Miss JiNese.”

“Shut up. This is none of your business,” Cirang said.

“Cirang,” Daia warned.

“Enough. The matter’s closed.”

Chapter 12

While Brodas sat at his desk, writing in his journal, Warrick fidgeted in the chair beside him. Brodas wrote, The guild mistress suffered an unfortunate accident, which left the Viragon Sisterhood in the capable hands of the former captain, Lilalian. Thankfully, Lilalian and I have mutual respect for one another and see eye-to-eye on the most important matters. The amulet she wears close to her heart proves her devotion to me.

Warrick tapped on the desk, drawing a crease between Brodas’s lowering brows.

I am eager to learn how the women of the Sisterhood took the news of Aminda’s death. Their reactions could well divide them as a group and

“Brodas.”

“What is it?” he replied, unable to hide the irritation in his voice. He’d wanted to finish his journal entry before their guest arrived.

Warrick cleared his throat. “I’m not in the habit of asking you for anything I can get myself,” he said. “But if you would use your, ah, influence to--”

“You want the captain? Pardon me -- the guild mistress?” Brodas asked. He blotted the quill and set it on an oblong wooden plate before looking up, his index fingers tip to tip against his mouth to hide a slight grin. The man was so predictable.

“That is, if you don’t want her for yourself.”

Brodas put his hands up. “No, no. Not that one. I prefer a more refined lady, one who doesn’t stomp around like a man. A lady who was well-brought up and knows how to curtsey in the presence of her lord.” Warrick’s relieved smile was not lost on Brodas. “Give it time, Warrick,” he said. “She has a lot to cope with right now after what has happened, not to mention what I am about to ask of her.”

“I know, but... Brodas have you truly looked upon her? She’s beautiful beyond comparison. Her eyes are brown like fertile dirt, her mouth looks like fruit ripe enough to pluck; her hair’s like the color of... of... fresh straw, and her bosom. So firm and round -- the perfect size for each of my hands. I hunger for her like no man has ever hungered for a woman.”

Brodas chuckled. He hoped Warrick did not consider his description poetic enough to share with the lady. “And you shall have her. Right now, we need her for our larger plans, and when all is settled and in place, you may bed her or wed her or anything you like. Too soon and people who are close to her might suspect something’s amiss. I urge you to find patience, and she will be my gift to you. Now, what’s the time?”

Warrick stood. “The tenth hour’s near. She will be here soon. How’s my hair?”

Brodas laughed as he stood and clapped Warrick’s arm. “Your hair looks fine.”

“What about her resistance?”

“Resistance to what?” Brodas asked, cocking his head.

“You did murder her guild mistress in front of her.”

Brodas chuckled and raised his ring to his mouth, then huffed a warm breath onto the stone and buffed it with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m guessing she won’t remember it quite that way.”

When Lilalian arrived at the manor a short time later, Brodas welcomed her as he would an old friend, with a quick embrace and light kiss on her cheek. Her smile seemed genuine, and her eyes twinkled with her laugh. Warrick likewise greeted her, and she gifted him with a kiss of her own on the corner of his mouth. Warrick winked at Brodas, but he would be pleased to know Brodas had done nothing to encourage her.

“Come into the sitting room and let us talk about our plans,” Brodas said. He gestured to the left and followed her in, then signaled to the manservant to bring refreshments.

“How have you been?” Warrick asked. He sat on the sofa beside her, draping his arm across its back. “How did the women of the Sisterhood take the tragic news about Aminda?”

Lilalian bowed her head. “Of course, everyone was saddened to learn she’d choked on her food. We held a memorial, and many of the women made offerings to Yrys to guide her to the next plane, in the Afterlife.”

“Yrys, yes,” Brodas said. “I had heard many of the Sisters revere the Farthan god. I’d like to know more of that someday, but we’ll leave that conversation for another time. Did anyone challenge your story?”

Lilalian cocked her head. “No, why would they?”

“Well, because you both were wearing different clothes when you returned than when you had left earlier in the evening,” Brodas said. Admittedly, he’d been eager to test her, to test the amulet. Make sure his control was solid.

“It’s the truth,” she insisted. “You were here -- you tried to save her.”

Brodas smiled and shot Warrick a look that said ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ “It occurred to me some might think it was a story you concocted to usurp Aminda’s position.”

One corner of Lilalian’s mouth went up. “If some think that, they wouldn’t be foolish enough to suggest it aloud. It was an unfortunate way for such an excellent warrior to meet her end. We all hope for a glorious death in battle, but these things happen.”

“Indeed,” Brodas said. “I am certain your women are all strong and capable, and receive excellent instruction in swordplay. But perhaps you can clarify something I have been wondering about.”

“Certainly.”

“I heard rumor the eldest daughter of the Lordover Tern is a member of your guild. Is that true?”

Lilalian nodded. “She was formerly known as Dashielle Celònd. Her battler name’s Daia Saberheart.”

“Is she the lovely lady with the magnificent gift?”

Lilalian cocked her head. “Gift? She’s a gifted battler, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I mean her gift of channeling...” Perhaps Lilalian did not know about the woman’s unique talent. He let a smile turn his lips. “Never mind. I must have been mistaken. I have no doubt that, as a Viragon Sister, she’s a woman of strength, courage and integrity, but as a noble, I expect she also has the grace of a lady - an intriguing combination. I would like to meet her.” As Dashielle Celònd, she would be an ideal candidate for his queen. As Daia Saberheart, she would undoubtedly be resistant to the demands of her master and would need a heavy hand to keep her in line. Yes. Brodas would like very much to meet her.