Bonemender's Oath (10 page)

For long moments they strained their ears against the dark. Silence. Their leader slumped back to his blankets. “It’s that ill-whelped monster,” he snarled. “I bloody hope those were its death throes. It sounds like the very Hound of Hell.”

Derkh pulled himself into a ball and tucked his hands between his knees in a useless attempt to generate some heat. The constant shivering was making his bound limbs cramp painfully. The Hound of Hell might be a welcome change, he thought. Though the dawn would bring warmth, it was unlikely to bring relief.

I
T WAS THE
fire, not the spear, the
seskeesh
could not accept. As soon as Féolan had moved the lamp to reveal the broken shaft protruding from her mate’s body, it was clear she understood. Indeed she made to grab hold of the shaft herself, and Gabrielle had to intervene quickly to stop her from pulling on it. Gently Gabrielle laid her hand over the powerful fingers, marveling at the tough smoothness of the leathery undersides, and reached out with her mind. She showed the
seskeesh
how deep the spear had thrust, the heavy bleeding that was sure to come when it was removed. She painted the image of her fear: that the injured one, roused by the sudden fierce pain, would lash out unknowing and
kill her. Last, Gabrielle showed her how it must be done: Féolan to draw the weapon, Gabrielle to control the bleeding and the
seskeesh
herself to restrain her mate and reassure him.

And so it was done. And though the great creature’s maddened roar of pain as the notched blade bit against him left them weak with fear, though he bucked and writhed against the weight as Féolan pressed the wadded blanket against the gushing blood, still his mate held him and crooned to him, until at last he lay still.

Working feverishly to stem the tide of blood, Gabrielle was only dimly aware that her motionless body shook now with cold. She did not see Féolan lay out the firewood or the
seskeesh
’s tense attention on his flint, his patient attempts to explain the need or her final panicky scattering of his wood. What she did feel was the female’s sudden presence looming behind her, the strong enveloping musk of her animal scent. Slowly the great creature lowered herself behind Gabrielle, pressed her great soft belly against Gabrielle’s back, wrapped her shaggy arms about Gabrielle’s shoulders and chest. Heat bloomed against her. Gabrielle sighed, leaned back into a wall of warmth, and sank deeper into the healing trance.

T
RISTAN
lounged back in the leather chair. LaBarque’s claret was doing an admirable job of calming the jittery weakness that had washed through his legs in the aftermath of the assassination attempt. Gods of the deep places, he had nearly been killed by his own countrymen! He expelled a shaky breath and helped himself to another long swallow. Better.

Easy, he warned himself. Don’t want to be pie-eyed when they come to hear your charges. Not relishing a visit to the lockup cheek-by-jowl with LaBarque, Tristan had instructed his guard to send the law clerks to hear him right on the premises. He straightened up at the sound of hurried footsteps in the hall. That was fast, he thought. But instead of the liveried clerks he expected, Red barged through the door, followed closely by Normand.

“You again! I thought I told you to clear off.”

The man fell extravagantly to his knees. “M’ Lord. Sire. Forgive me. I only just thought of it. I should’ve said earlier but it fair slipped my mind and...”

“What?” demanded Tristan, alert now. “Just say it, man!”

“Us three. We weren’t the only ones.”

“The only ones what?”

“You know, men as was hired by LaBarque. There was three others as he was talkin’ to when we arrived. I seen him give them money, and he said, ‘Your full payment when the job’s done.’”

“What job?” snapped Tristan.

“I don’t know, Sir. He never said. But Sir—Sire—those men weren’t local lads like us, Sir. Rough-lookin’, they was. I never seen them in these parts before, and they didn’t seem, you know, like they were afeared of him. The one fellow, he says, ‘In gold, mind—and the ship waiting as we agreed.’ All business, like... Sire?”

With a startled shout, Tristan was on his feet and flying out the door. He cursed as he fumbled to untie his horse’s reins—cursed the knot, cursed LaBarque, cursed his own stupidity.

Then he was galloping down the road, not waiting for Normand to catch up.

Rosie. Those men were going after Rosie.

T
HREE MEN, HEAVILY
armed, lay hidden in the strip of brush kept as a windbreak along the far side of the horse pasture. For the past hour they had observed the Martineau property from every angle. Now their leader, the man known to them as Shade, was ready to lay his plans.

“So. The two guards we weren’t expecting, but they won’t hold us back any.” His sharp eyes flickered from one face to another. His colleagues, as it amused him to call them, were nodding in cool agreement. He had expected no less. They had all handled tougher jobs than this.

“Aye, but Boss,” objected Thorn. It was a precaution Shade insisted on: nicknames only. Thorn and Wolf were both solid professionals, but Thorn was the faster thinker. “Those’re King’s Men, them guards. LaBarque didn’t say nothin’ about Royal Guards, and more’s the point, our fee don’t say nothin’ about them, neither.”

“True enough,” Shade agreed. As he talked, his watchful eyes scanned a circuit from the guard at the back door of the manor, to the barn, and across the nearby lawns and pasturage. “If LaBarque wants his girlie, he’ll have to pony up a little extra for our trouble. If he doesn’t—well, she’s a pretty little thing, and we have his ship. She’ll bring a high price in the Tarzine slave auction.”

The men smirked, but they knew better than to laugh out loud. Nothing interfered with business when you worked with Shade. He got back to business now.

“There’s no cover at the front entrance—just that wide driveway and low gardens. So we go in by the back. Thorn, you will distract our friend over there.” A finger flicked toward the guard.

“You gonna tell me how?” Thorn asked.

“Fire. You can make your way to the barn right along this hedgerow. An unfortunate thing, when a barn catches fire. Disastrous, if people don’t drop everything to help. Stick him in the confusion, if you can do it unobserved.

“Wolf, you and I go in the back. We head straight through to the front door, open it and take the guard before he realizes he has visitors. Then the girl. We meet up here, work our way back to where we left the horses.”

Two curt nods were his only answer. Crouched low, Thorn moved into the underbrush. Shade and his silent colleague waited.

R
OSALIE WAS TIRED
, all right. She hadn’t slept well in days, but it didn’t take her long to realize that she wasn’t about to sleep now, either. André’s suggestion that with a guard on each door they could enjoy an afternoon nap was sensible, but how could she relax knowing that Tristan might be face to face with LaBarque
at this very moment? Rosalie flopped over onto her back, pulled the quilt over her face to block out the light slanting through the open window and made a last effort to stop her mental hand-wringing.

Tristan would be regent. There was a thought worth savoring. Chênier and life in the big castle were, she supposed, more exciting, but to Rosalie a city without a seascape would always seem lacking. She would marry Tris, and they would live on her beloved coast. With LaBarque as your neighbor? The words came unbidden to her mind—and she was back to worrying again.

Enough! With an impatient sigh, she slid out of bed and reached for the dress she had hung from the bedpost. Her hand stopped midair, its task suddenly forgotten. Someone was shouting. Just one of the field-hands, maybe, but it sounded urgent. Rosalie was on her way to the window when she smelled the tang of smoke drifting in on the breeze. Fear rose in her throat. Just a grass-burn, she thought. Please let it be a grass-burn.

It was the barn. Black smoke rose from the far end of the building. As she watched, men ran from the nearby fields to help; Tristan’s guard was already at the well, pumping water. Réjean, the groom, emerged from the barn, struggling with a pair of frightened horses. On his heels came a shrill scream from an animal still trapped inside. “Pray heaven, save the horses!” Rosalie whispered. She had the dress over her head in seconds, was reaching for her boots when she heard the other noise and froze.

Footsteps. Quiet slow footsteps in the downstairs hall. Not the busy trip of the maid. Certainly not one of the men bursting in to warn of fire. Rosalie had a sudden vision of the guard at the pump—the guard away from his post—and was sure. They had trouble.

For a second the blood pounded in her head so wildly the room swam around her. “Don’t you dare!” her own angry voice slapped at her. She took a deep breath, forced her eyes to focus. Another breath. Now think. Leaving her feet bare, she padded silently across the room to the hook where her archery equipment hung. She eased the quiver across her back, strung the bow, fitted an arrow into place. Her own practiced movements steadied her. She was not helpless, not by a long shot.

Rosalie was creeping into the hallway, thinking about sneaking down the servants’ stairway to the kitchen and how silly she would look if there was no intruder after all, when she heard the front door open. The rest happened in a blur: a man’s voice, confused scuffling, a shocked cry of pain. It should have sent her down the back stairs in a hurry; but instead she found herself crouched at the front banister, peering down to the foyer.

Two men dragged the guard through the doorway and to one side of the wide entrance hall. A dark trail of blood followed them across the stone tiles. The man carrying the guard’s ankles laid them down gently, and with a lithe, almost elegant movement, reached back with his foot and eased the door shut. He glanced down the long hallway leading to the back of the house. “Now for the girl,” he said softly, drawing his knife and gliding across the foyer toward the stairs. He motioned his companion to stand guard by the door, then swept his gaze up to the stair landing. Rosalie stood at the top of the stairs, her bow trained on his heart.

T
HE
chunk of dark hard bread Derkh was given for breakfast brought back a world of memories. “Soldier’s bane,” they called it, and Derkh had eaten it on journeys and in training camps for as long as he could remember. The taste was bitter to him now, the taste of a life lost. He ate it anyway, tasting blood with the bread as his split lip reopened.

And though he kept his eyes down, he listened while he ate. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he had not yet lost interest in his own fate.

“So what’s next, Cap’n?” asked one of the men. “Do we take this’n”—thrusting his chin toward Derkh—”and head back?”

“You wish,” grunted the captain—Tarkhet, Derkh had overheard the men call him. “Our job’s to bring back one o’
their
soldiers, not our own! This lad’s just gravy.”

So that’s what they’re doing here, thought Derkh. But why? He tried to think like his father. To what end would an enemy soldier be useful? Information, obviously. That suggested a second invasion was in the wind. But something didn’t add up. The information an invading force would need—numbers, deployment, defense plans—you couldn’t just snatch some outpost soldier on lookout duty and expect him to know these things. And no one from Greffier, where only the highest rungs of the military
were privy to big-picture plans, would assume otherwise. So then what...

His speculation was cut off by the next remark. “He’ll be a right burr in the butt, that one, though, won’t he? I mean, how quiet’s he gonna keep while we go sneakin’ up on his new friends?”

“The thought had occurred to me.” Tarkhet’s voice, dry, speculative. Derkh glanced through the dark tangle of his hair, to find Tarkhet’s cold gaze leveled at him. He means to kill me, Derkh realized. He dropped his head, as though he could escape Tarkhet’s notice by ducking under his sightline. The blood boomed in his ears and behind his eyes; he fought to keep his breathing normal and listen.

“Interrogation’s not really my line,” Tarkhet continued in the same flat tone. “But on a special mission you sometimes have to go a little beyond yer usual line.” Tarkhet hauled himself to his feet and walked heavily over to where Derkh sat, his legs and hands still bound. The heavy boots came to a halt before him; Derkh looked up the broad trunk to meet pale eyes that betrayed no flicker of emotion.

“We’ll question him here. If he convinces me he’s loyal to the Empire, and is still fit to travel, we’ll gag him and bring him along. If not,” he shrugged, “you know what they say about dead men.”

In the silence that followed, one of the men scratched his head and ventured a question. “Uh, what do they say about dead men, Cap’n?”

Tarkhet’s humorless smile was a brief baring of teeth, nothing more. “They don’t itch yer butt.”

F
ÉOLAN PUSHED BACK
the hood of his cloak and stretched
out his legs. How long would Gabrielle continue? The sky had brightened with dawn some time ago, though only now were the sun’s fingers of light able to penetrate their shadowed nook from above. Both the
seskeesh
appeared to be asleep, the female snoring in Gabrielle’s ear. How it had alarmed him when she first lumbered over there. Not that he thought she intended harm, not by then—rather he had feared some blundering, unintended injury. But no, the female had seated herself on the ground and arranged her huge limbs around Gabrielle with a surprising gentleness. And Gabrielle had hardly roused, just accepted the great beast’s protection.

The experience had filled Féolan with awe, and he would have been in no rush to cut it short if not for Derkh. Two hours of daylight wasted already, and the trail gone cold to begin with. In any case, Gabrielle would be exhausted from her night’s work. She would have to rest, and then they would have to make straight for the pass and hope to get there first. For the first time since they set out, it seemed a slim hope.