The Treason Blade (Battle for Alsaar Book 1) (27 page)

The raider
never had a chance. Before he could release another arrow he screamed, arched
his chest and jerked his arms outward. Ishar watched in confusion with her
notched arrow as he slid to one side and off the mount. The horse skittered
away nervously. She looked up. Her eyes widened as she stared into the
unreadable eyes of Traevyn. He was scowling as he reached for another arrow,
all the while attempting to control his horse.

The Raanans
were outnumbered but not outmatched. Ber and Kagon were mercilessly hacking
their way through the Tourna ranks with raw emotion, but the Tourna were not
without their own skill. Gavin and Davaris had engaged two Tourna swordsmen and
seemed evenly matched, but even as she watched Davaris’ brute strength begin to
wear down his opponent, as with each roar and swing the raider fell back.
Lysandr and Rayne, surrounded by at least five Tourna, held their own. Glyndwr
and Traevyn, armed with bows, bordered the edge, firing whenever a clear shot
revealed itself. Ishar watched as a Tourna moved too close and Glyndwr had to
grab his sword in defense.

A motion
caught her eye and Ishar watched as two Tourna approached her position. One carried
a bow, the other a sword and shield. She kept her head low, her thoughts
racing. Ishar brought the bow up and fired somewhat blind before ducking down.
A second later an arrow slammed into the rock wall above her and splintered.
She flicked a quick glance at her opponents. Her arrow was in the shield. It
had done no damage. She fumed. The archer was ready with another arrow. Thwack!
The archer dropped silently forward. His companion looked down and then behind
but by then it was too late. Traevyn did not take time to grab another arrow or
his sword. He leaped from the back of his horse and onto the man with only his
dagger. His weight knocked the Tourna to the ground. The dagger stabbed
downward and twisted. The Tourna jerked and went still, his eyes slack and
open.

Ishar moved
away from the rock and readied the bow.

Traevyn gave
a heavy sigh and stood up. He went still when he saw she had her arrow trained
on him and held up his bloody hand. “Ishar,” he began.

“Do not move,
Traevyn,” she muttered. “Do not even breathe heavy. I just want your horse but
if you try to stop me, so help me I will kill you.”
Please do not do this
, her mind pleaded with him. Do not make me
choose to take your life.

Traevyn held
up his other hand. “Ishar, I need you to listen to me. We are not your enemy.”

She stepped
farther around him. “I wish I could believe that. I do,” she said angrily, “but
all I can remember is the day you said nothing in my defense.”

His own eyes
grew dark. “Forgive me. I had just seen Eira’s body soaked in blood and then
found out it was your arrows pulled from her body.” Traevyn’s face was
pleading. “I am sorry. At that time it seemed too much to comprehend. Yes.
After a moment’s reflection I knew you could not have done it.” He stepped
closer.

She shook her
head. “You are just trying to save your own life, you bastard.” Her bow arm
shook ever so slightly.

“No,” Traevyn
said softly as he took another step. “If you want my life, so be it. Do it,
Ishar,” he said as he closed the distance and dropped the dagger in the sand.
“I have no weapon. I have no defense. Take the revenge you feel you deserve
over your pain. I have no way to stop you.” He stopped less than a foot away.
“But I wish you would yield the blow. I would not have you mourn your actions
at a later, more reflective time.”

Ishar felt
her hand that gripped tightly to the arrow and string shake. She gritted her
teeth, thought about the day at the holding when he just stood there. Her grip
tightened and she aimed for his heart with renewed anger. Her narrowed green
eyes stared into his black ones. She could not sense the deceit she so
desperately needed to feel to loose the arrow. The anger within her was not
enough. Her heart had doomed her, she realized. If his words were false, she was
as good as dead. She released the tension on the bow and the brought the arrow
down.

Traevyn
released a deep breath and relaxed. “Thank you for trusting me,” he spoke
softly, “I know after what happened at the holding it took a great resolve for
you to make that choice.” He glanced to where the battle raged. “But now I have
to keep you safe.” Traevyn looked back at her. “That is why we are all here.
To keep you safe.
We discovered Audris’ betrayal and Eira
and Varyk realized the true intention of this entire ruse: your death.” An
arrow swished by and Traevyn grabbed her, dragging her to the ground.

“Eira?”
Ishar fought to remove herself from under his
protecting body. “Audris told me Eira was dead, that the people of the holding
planned to drag me out and kill me.”

Traevyn’s
face hardened. “I wondered what would make you leave so quickly,” he muttered,
“but of course we had done little to reinforce our good will.” He glanced up,
studied the situation. “Eira is very much alive but right now we have a bigger
problem. We need cover. Tourna can be persistent.” He rose and pulled her with
him toward the rocks.

Thwack! Ishar
watched as Traevyn took an arrow in the leg. He fell forward on his hands and
rolled on his good leg while grabbing at the offending arrow. She notched an
arrow and let it fly. It caught the raider in the outer flesh of his upper arm.
He grunted but ignored the wound and grabbed his sword as he nudged his horse
closer. Ishar tried to notch another arrow but there was no time. Tossing the
bow aside she drew her sword and prepared to meet her attacker. Out of the
corner of her eye, she watched as Traevyn grabbed tight and yanked the arrow
out of his leg with a low groan. He crawled toward her discarded bow and
dropped arrow.

The horseman
arched the sword with a grunt of power. Ishar was nearly knocked to her knees.
She continued to block and parry the overhead blows with her right hand, her
left side pulsing with pain. She could see two more riders were closing the
distance. Suddenly the Tourna stiffened and fell forward, an arrow piercing his
temple. She looked past the horse. Traevyn stood in the sand beyond her propped
against a boulder with her bow.

She threw him
the quiver. “You might need these.”

“I fear our
time is too short for that,” he said, drawing his sword. “What is wrong with
your side?”

The two
Tourna had dismounted and now advanced warily. Ishar held her sword gripped
tight in her right hand. “What is wrong with your leg?” she replied.

Traevyn
tightened his lips and limped lightly to meet his opponent. The Tourna sneered
and quickly slashed across his front. Traevyn had to leap backward to avoid the
blow. He landed on the injured leg and nearly stumbled in the sand.

Focus, Ishar
thought, turning away. You cannot worry about him. You will only end up getting
yourself killed. She looked at raider before her. He stabbed inward, brought
his sword up and slashed down at an angle. She knocked the weapon to the side,
then
brought the blade up to block the downward movement.
The impact drove her back and she grappled to find her footing even as the
raider lashed out with a foot and caught her in the right side. Her left side
was slammed into the rock behind her. Ishar screamed in pain and the Tourna
closed the distance, pinned her with his left arm as he dropped his sword and
went for his dagger in such close quarters. With bared teeth, he brought it up
and down toward her heart.

Ishar caught the coming blow with her left hand.
She ignored the agony of the movement and kept him at bay as her right hand
slipped toward her boot. The moment her fingers felt the handle, she slipped it
out and upward. With a jerk of adrenaline, she plunged it into his side toward
his heart once, twice, three times. The third time she felt the power leave his
arm holding her and she threw him backward in the sand to die. She turned
toward Traevyn to watch as he blocked an inward stab, knocking the blade aside.
He then spun quickly around and slashed downward, giving the Tourna a death
blow to the neck and chest. The soldier fell silently to the ground. A moment
later, Traevyn stumbled and joined him.

Ishar ran
over.
“Traevyn.”

He motioned
away. “Get on my horse. If we cannot hold them,” he stated hoarsely, “I want
you as far away as possible.”

Ishar drew up
short with fire in her eyes. “I am not about to run anywhere and leave you
here.”

Traevyn shook
his head. “You do not understand. You are the reason they are here. If you fall
in this battle, the wound I suffer or any the others may suffer would have been
for nothing. There may not be a way to explain your death sufficiently enough
to satisfy your father,” Traevyn replied anxiously. “You must go.”

She reached
and grabbed the reins to Traevyn’s horse. She brought it to him. “Mount.”

He gave her a
puzzled look. “Why? I will not leave my friends.”

“Well,
neither will I,” Ishar retorted. “But we are both injured and will fight better
riding than on the ground. Now, mount,” she ground out.

Traevyn
looked past her. “Too late,” he muttered in defeat.

Ishar glanced
back. The Tourna, faced with defeat, had apparently decided to take her with
them into death. Every rider had turned from the Raanan warrior they were
fighting and now bore down on her and Traevyn. Even as she watched Ishar saw
several reach for arrows. The Raanans roared and raced to catch up.

Traevyn
grabbed her shoulder and shoved her toward the rocks. “Seek cover.”

Ishar moved
but turned back toward Traevyn in concern. He glanced back at her and muttered
a curse, shoving her again. She turned toward the rocks at the same time she
heard a solid thwack and felt Traevyn’s hand slid from her arm. Ishar stopped
and glanced back in time to see his close his eyes in pain as he fell forward
into the sand. She screamed and grabbed the bow. Standing tall, she released an
arrow. It threw a Tourna off his horse. Ishar readied another. A pain cut
across her shoulder and knocked her off balance. She stumbled backward into the
sand. A roar came to her ears as she fell and then everything went black.

*

Ishar took a
deep breath. It was filled with pain. She took another. The pain returned with
a stabbing motion to her side. She must be alive, she realized, as she groaned
and opened her eyes. It was dark and a fire crackled nearby. A face appeared
over hers. It was Rayne’s. He studied her,
then
looked
over his shoulder. “She is awake,” he muttered with a frown.

The fuzziness
in her mind cleared and Ishar took in her surroundings. She was in a cave near
its lip, settled next to a brightly burning fire that hindered her sight. All
she knew for certain
was
it was not the beach. Her
eyes flickered to Davaris as he knelt beside her.

“How do you
feel?” he asked quietly.

How did she
feel? It hurt to breathe. Ishar took inventory and tried to move her muscles. A
general feeling of exhaustion wrapped her limbs but it was her left shoulder
that truly protested the movement, as did her head. She glanced back at
Davaris. “What happened?”

He shrugged.
“You were lucky. An arrow caught you just above your shoulder bone. It sliced
through the top layer of skin. It must have thrown you off balance and you
stepped back. As far as we can figure you tripped, went down and smacked your
head on a rock.”

Ishar ran his
words through her head. “That is considered lucky?” She asked, confused.

Davaris
nodded. “The Tourna released several arrows before we could reach them. If you
had still been standing, I fail to see how they could have missed. It was the
last volley they managed,” he said stiffly. “Our horses rammed theirs and we
cut the rest down.”

The last
moments of the battle came back with a rush and Ishar tried to rise. “Traevyn,”
she murmured painfully when her side disputed the move and her surroundings
suddenly blurred. Ishar felt the pressure of Davaris’ hand hold her gently
down. She closed her eyes in desperation.

“Easy,” he
murmured, “Traevyn lives. He lies unconscious,” he said with a motion of his
head toward the other side of the fire.

She stopped
her struggles at his words and her breathing eased. The dizziness cleared and
Ishar opened her eyes. “How badly is he injured?” she whispered.

Davaris
sighed. “He will live. He is too strong willed to do otherwise.”

Ishar sighed
at the relief she felt flow through her.
“The others?”

Rayne joined
the conversation. “All the Tourna are dead,” he spat out. “Our numbers remain
the same.”

Davaris
nodded. “True. We left none alive who might send word of this. Let the Tourna
ponder on what happened to their spies. Perhaps it will give them pause.”

“Gavin took
an arrow to his lower shoulder but they missed his heart,” Rayne stated
solemnly. “The bleeding is but shallow now, for which we are grateful. Glyndwr
has a stab wound in one leg and Ber, a stab wound in his back. It still bleeds
but slower and the color is red not black as would indicate a death blow.”

Ishar closed
her eyes as she thought of the last words Traevyn had spoken to her. She
whispered in despair, “My father comes. I must make it back.”