Three Coins for Confession (28 page)

“They tried to kill your princess. Uissa.” Venry said it almost
as an afterthought. “My Duchess Lauresa. Before the wedding, they thought to
settle old scores with the duke. He smashed their main hold at High Summer last
as retaliation, sent them running for the frontier.”

Chriani saw Kathlan nod, remembering that story. A good tale, as
tales went.

“Laóith irnáera!”

Dargana’s voice shattered the hiss of the wind, the clash of
weapons following.
I kill the laóith!
Chriani stood to see her gone from
the prisoners, all of them watching her instead where the exile faced Jeradien
at the edge of the torch’s shimmering light. The two of them were hammering at
each other with bloodstained steel. Dargana pressed hard, swinging from both
sides, but Jeradien countered with blinding speed.

Chriani saw the same look in both their eyes. Both striking with
deadly intent, each of them ready to kill.

Venry was running for them, shouting for both of them to stand
down, but not even Jeradien seemed to hear him. Chriani sprinted in, his
shoulder flaring with pain as he drew his sword and swung between them to crash
off their blades, throwing off the timing of their strikes. He dodged Dargana’s
furious counter, twisted in to hook her leg and send her down. Jeradien lunged
in but his own sword flicked up to her chest, forced her to a stop.

They stood frozen that way for what seemed a long while. Venry
was at Chriani’s left hand, his own blade out as Dargana slowly rose.

“The two of you fought back-to-back a moment ago,” Chriani
hissed. He heard the anger in his voice that matched the cold fire in
Jeradien’s eyes. “What in fate’s name…”

“Chriani…”

He glanced over to Kathlan, saw her nod to the ground. A bloody
display there. An Aerachi dagger, close to the two archers Chriani and Venry
had first dropped. Jeradien had been collecting their ears as trophies.

Dargana spoke up from behind him, words for Jeradien. “Touch
these bodies again, laóith, and I’ll carve out your heart.”

“I invite you to try.”

“Enough!” Chriani lowered his blade and pushed Jeradien back. She
responded with a lunging forehand blow to his face, Chriani barely managing to
roll with it in time. The backhand follow-up would have caught him, but Venry
stepped in to grab his ranger. It looked like it took all his strength, his
voice cold at her ear.

“That was your troop sergeant you just struck. This ends now.
Stand watch on the prisoners.”

Chriani rubbed his chin as Jeradien went limp in her lieutenant’s
grasp. She nodded as he let her go, ignoring Chriani as she scooped up her
dagger and stalked off toward where the bound Ilvani still kneeled. All of them
were watching darkly, Chriani saw.

“For the actions of my guard, you have my apologies, lord.”
Venry’s voice carried a sense of formality, but Chriani had no idea whether it
was for Jeradien having hit him or for the trophies she’d been attempting to
collect in the first place. “I trust I’ll have your apology at some point for
all of us being forced into this battle despite your order to fall back.”

Chriani ignored Venry as the lieutenant paced away, calling to
Kathlan instead. “See if the Ilvani have a store of arrows. We can make use
them.”

“Yes, lord.”

Chriani couldn’t tell what she was feeling as she turned away.

“Dargana,” he called. He stepped to the bodies, pushing one onto
its back with his boot. Their sightless eyes looked up at him, green and amber.

“Dargana!” His voice was cold as he called her again, saw the
exile step up through the shadows. A faint sense of relief twisted through him
in response to the lack of gold in the Calala Ilvani’s eyes, but it vanished
quickly under the weight of an uncertainty that was channeling anger now. The
familiar feeling of losing control. “Do you feel like telling me why we just
attacked an Ilvani band of superior numbers in the dark? I ordered you to fall
back…”

“I don’t take your orders, lord.” Dargana’s voice carried a
degree of venom Chriani hadn’t heard since the time she’d tried to kill him. “I
saw them well enough to recognize their war-marks as Calala. Them following us
meant your plan to engage them by daylight might have brought every Ilvani of
the lóechari down on us.”

“They’re not the cult. You saw their eyes.”

“I see them now. I wasn’t taking chances then.”

“Not your decision to make…”

“I don’t wait on your decisions either, laóith. At the first sign
of the feint you planned for tomorrow, they would have run. Kathlan’s the only
one in either of your squads who can ride, but an Ilvani of the Muiraìden will
outride even her by day or night. Coins or no, these are the Calala that hunted
you in the Greatwood, and in Rheran. Your prince’s magic isn’t hiding you as
well as you…”

“Lieutenant!”

Jeradien’s strangled cry rang out over the hiss of the wind.
Chriani heard a stark terror twisting through her voice.

By the time they got to her, Venry was already there. Jeradien
was a half-dozen strides from the Ilvani prisoners, scrambling back and on her
knees. Her sword had fallen at her side, both hands shaking as she scribed the
moonsign against her breast, over and over again.

Three of the Ilvani were on their feet, twisting their arms
behind them, tearing futilely at their bonds. The other three were convulsing,
their limbs twisted with a violence that drove them across the ground, arched
their backs and legs as they thrashed.

“Chriani irnash!” The Ilvani leader screamed it, the muscles of
his arms and shoulders knotted tight. Chriani heard his wrist break as he tore
through the ropes that bound him. “Lóech arnala irch niir!”

In the eyes of the leader and all the Ilvani, a golden light
blazed.

Chriani had time to step back before the Ilvani reached him,
charging full speed and hitting hard. He had no weapon in hand but managed to
get his arm around Chriani’s throat, choking him as they both struck the
ground. Chriani’s longsword came up, stabbing in hard to take the Ilvani in the
shoulder, force him off. It took two more strikes, hammering awkwardly from the
ground, to end him.

Movement at the edge of his vision. Dargana was attacking, the
Ilvani shrieking as she cut them down. He heard a bow sing, saw Venry shooting.
Behind them all in the darkness, the dead moved. From the two archers that
Jeradien had cut, a voiceless rasping rose as their lungs emptied, a dread
tattoo beaten on the ground by their flailing limbs.

Then all was quiet again.

“Blood and moonsign.” Venry still had an arrow nocked, but he
raised his bow so he could roughly scribe that sign himself. Kathlan came in
from the shadows at a run, a clutch of Ilvani quivers stuffed with arrows in
her hand. She stopped short, stared.

Chriani stepped over the body of the Ilvani leader, looking down
to where the bright gleam of gold still filled his eyes. In his hands and
mouth, he saw the flash of coins, the same golden light gleaming in the hands
and mouths of all the dead around them.

Chriani had listened to the leader. Had heard his words and the
honesty in them. It hadn’t been a trick, he told himself. He knew that with a
certainty he couldn’t understand. The power of the cult was in all the Ilvani’s
minds, but they hadn’t known it until the magic of the coins claimed them.

Chriani remembered the Uissa prisoner, spun around as if he
expected her to have fled during the chaos. She was still on her side, though.
Staring at the dead Ilvani with a rapt expression. A fascination in her gaze
that set a chill in Chriani’s heart.

When he looked back again, Venry was staring at him, dark eyes
blazing.

“He called your name,” the lieutenant said. His gaze shifted from
Chriani to Dargana, then to Kathlan. None of them showing the anger or the fear
that marked him or Jeradien. “You know this. You’ve all seen this before.”

Chriani nodded. “It’s magic of an Ilvani cult. We’ve seen it in
the western Greatwood, and in Rheran.”

“And you thought to say nothing…”

“I’ll say what I have to say when I call it time to speak.”

“This is a trap, you fool! You lead us into Ilvani territory with
their agents following. Ready to surround us the moment we enter the wood.”

“They’ve been following for three days, Venry. If ambush was
their plan, they could have done it at their leisure. We’re in empty frontier.
Plenty of cover, no witnesses. This is why we’re here. These are the Calala
that the Laneldenari oppose. This power is what they fear. Why they want
peace.”

It was part of the truth at least. Venry’s reaction said it
wasn’t enough, though, even as Chriani saw a flicker of insight in the
lieutenant’s eyes.

“He called your name,” Venry said again. “Pursuing rangers of
Brandishear, he told us. You fought Ilvani in Rheran, your second said. A
war-band in the Brandishear capital.” The lines of connection were tightening
in the lieutenant’s thoughts, Chriani seeing it. “The Ilvani are following
you.”

“Yes.”

“You will tell me what’s going on here…”

“When I call it time.” They were all the words Chriani could
summon up, his thoughts scattered as points of darkness in his mind.

Venry spat to the ground as he turned away. He helped Jeradien to
her feet, directed her toward the horses. “Cut the Ilvani steeds free, but keep
the horse the assassin tried to flee on. We ride back now.”

The horses of the Ilvani took no other riders, and all rangers
knew of the peril in attempting to rebreak them. Tales were told of war-bands
pushing as far as the outskirts of the frontier cities to reclaim horses stolen
by the Ilmari — and to kill those who had taken them. Chriani nodded
his agreement to Venry’s order, but the lieutenant wasn’t looking at him as he
paced away.

“Help Venry,” he said to Kathlan. Dargana had already disappeared
into the darkness.

“Chriani…”

As Kathlan stepped close to him, Chriani heard the fear in her
voice. However, the surge of nausea that whipped through him told him it wasn’t
just the fate of the Ilvani that had affected her. He looked to the quiver she
held out to him, saw a single black arrow set in a side pocket.

He motioned her to drop the quiver to the ground. He had to send
his foot into the black arrow three times to shatter it, but the dark touch of
its magic passed like shadow before sunlight when it was done.

“Help Venry,” he said again. Kathlan nodded as she slipped away.

Alone, Chriani dropped to his knees beside the dead Ilvani
leader. His shoulder was aching again, the spill of blood cooling there. He
searched the body carefully, a kind of numbness settling across his mind. He
saw his fingers moving but wasn’t really conscious of it, feeling them trace
out the seams of pockets and compartments, slip within the lines of the
Ilvani’s light leather.

Beneath a closed flap within the warrior’s gauntlet, Chriani
found the hunter’s heart hidden. This new talisman was strung on a chain of
thin steel links rather than leather, but like the talisman Chriani carried,
its rough-edged bloodstone was dark within its golden claw.

As he watched, the golden light in the Ilvani’s eyes faded. Left
them the same bright blue as before.

He tried to make sense of it, tried to shuffle the pieces
rearranging themselves to unknown patterns in his mind. In the deep winter of
his journey to Aerach, the order of Uissa and the Ilvani of Calalerean had
attacked each other. Their animosity had saved Chriani and Lauresa, in fact,
the Calala taking vengeance for Uissa’s forces donning the livery of Valnirata
warriors to pretend that the Ilvani were behind the attempt on the princess’s
life. A bond between both factions now made no sense.

They were tracking him. He felt the truth of that. Someone else
in the troop might have been their target, but if they were seeking someone
else, the hunter’s heart should have shown light. With the talismans dark, they
must have pursued Chriani by stealth and observation alone. But for how long?
Or was there other magic at work here now, powerful enough to overcome the
protection of the badge at his waist?

Chriani slipped the second talisman to one of the pockets of his
belt, made the moonsign absently. When he glanced over, he saw the Uissa
prisoner watching him.

The sound of hoofbeats rose to mark the Ilvani horses set free,
then faded quickly as they disappeared into the darkness. Kathlan came back
through the center of the camp, scooping up her torch. Chriani saw Venry and
Jeradien circling past the edge of the light to head toward the distant rise
and their horses beyond. Venry was leading the prisoner’s horse at a run,
Jeradien making the moonsign behind him. Chriani stalked over to lift the
Ilmari to her feet, pushing her ahead of him as he followed Kathlan’s light.

They raced back along the same track they’d taken by day,
Jeradien and Kathlan carrying torches to front and rear. Chriani kept his bow
drawn, Venry leading the Uissa prisoner’s horse with the prisoner slung across
and lashed tight to its saddle. No one spoke.

When the light of the watchfires came into sight, Jeradien
sounded the horn to warn the camp of a squad returning. Chriani’s eyes marked
the rangers beyond the firelight, hunkered down behind the upthrust stones and
with arrows nocked. A heightened sense of wariness didn’t pass until all the
riders had slowed within the defensive perimeter.

They walked the horses to the grove, whereupon Venry untied the
Uissa prisoner and pulled her to the ground. While the lieutenant’s horse was
unsaddled and rubbed down, he hauled the prisoner off, disappearing with her
beyond the trees. Chriani knew it should have been him dealing with her, but he
was content to let Venry have his moment. He needed the time to focus, trying
to slow his frantic thoughts. Remembering how the prisoner had watched him.
Trying to understand what her presence among the Ilvani might mean.