Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (31 page)

Sara whipped up the blanket and flipped it over Olwydd’s head to blunt his tusks, teeth and horns. As Olwydd roared in rage and tossed his head, she stepped in close and stabbed blindly with her belt-knife.

The blade didn’t go in, and she had to stab again, using both hands this time, desperate. Blood spurted across her knuckles.

Grunting, Olwydd wrenched himself backward and away. The blanket had fallen to one side, snagged on one of his horns. The knife, Sara saw, was lodged in his neck. It looked tiny there. Impossible to imagine the wound was more than an annoyance to him, an insect bite.

Olwydd’s red eyes found her and lit with hate.

Sara ran.

On this side of the mountain the trees grew right up to the top of the peak, but the shade from the tall pines had thinned out the undergrowth. Sara had room to run, but no place to hide.

Every second she expected Olwydd to break her spine with one swipe of his claws.

A roar came from almost directly behind her. Olwydd was playing with her. Sara willed herself not to slow, though her lungs were heaving and her thigh muscles burned.

A two-foot-deep ditch loomed in front of her. If she tripped and fell, she would never get up again… Panting, she jumped into the small stream and then scrambled out again and on, her feet wet.

Branches scraped her arms. Her foot skidded in a patch of mud; she barely caught herself before falling.

Crashing noises came from behind her. Sara looked back and saw Olwydd clear the gully in one jump. The knife still stuck in his neck, the wound running with blood, but if it slowed him, it wasn’t by much.

Loma have mercy
. Sara ran between two closely growing trees. She gained a few seconds, as Olwydd was forced to go around, but her foot came down wrong, twisting. Pain spiked up from her ankle. She ran on anyway, achieving a hobbling gait. She felt like a deer hamstrung by wolves.

And then she tripped over a root and fell. Her face was suddenly only inches away from red pine needles—and the muddy imprint of a legionnaire’s sandal.

“Help,” she tried to scream, but couldn’t get enough wind. Her breath tore at her throat.

Olwydd closed in on her, stalking her. He laughed, and this time there was a disturbing, bubbling sound underneath the grunt. The wound she’d inflicted might actually prove fatal, but not until after he’d killed her. “Lance can’t hear—” An arrow buried itself between his eyes. The great shandy faltered, slumped like an avalanche, fell.

Sara pulled herself upright with the help of a tree and stared down at Olwydd. “It wasn’t Lance I was calling,” she told his dead body.

Sara shook. Olwydd was dead, undeniably dead. The danger was past, but she couldn’t stop trembling. He’d tried to kill her. She should be relieved, but regret dragged at her. Olwydd’s life had been a cruel one, and his death had been no different.

“What kind of beast is it?”

The voice startled her. A dark-haired legionnaire carrying a crossbow emerged from the woods. His nose had been broken once, but he was young and not ill-looking.

He walked up to Olwydd’s body and toed it with his foot, his expression both spooked and fascinated.

Olwydd isn’t an it, he’s a him
. Sara swallowed back the words. Even though she and Lance had become separated, Sara was determined to keep her promise to save his sister. To do that she had to make it back to the capital with all speed. Step one was to convince the legionnaire of her identity and not give away her Kandrithan sympathies.

“I don’t know what it was,” she lied, “but it almost killed me. You have my deepest thanks and the thanks of my—”

He interrupted before she could tell him her House. A roguish twinkle appeared in his blue eyes. “Think I deserve a reward?” He set down his crossbow and hauled her into his arms.

Sara didn’t even think. She slapped his face as hard as she could, taking satisfaction in the cracking sound. She only wished she could do the same to Claude and Nir and all the others who’d grabbed her.

Outrage hardened his face. “There was no call for—”

Before he could grab her again, Sara drew herself up to her full height. “I’m Lady Sarathena of House Remillus. You will take me to your commanding officer at once.”

“House Remillus? Aiming a bit high, aren’t you?” He cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her modest Kandrithan dress.

“Don’t be fooled by the rags I’m wearing,” Sara said with a contempt she didn’t feel. She was going to miss the convenience of her split skirts. “General Pallax will be able to vouch for my identity.”

Her stab in the dark paid off. “How do you know General Pallax?”

“I almost married his son,” Sara said tartly. “Now come on, we need to hurry.”

“Why?”

Sara pointed at Olwydd. “In case there are more of these out there.”

“Ah, right,” the legionnaire said, grimacing. After that he didn’t argue.

* * *

Lance hurried toward the woods beyond the field of stumps where Sara would have hidden. His gaze was so fixed on his destination that he almost plowed Cadwallader down.

He absentmindedly yanked the Seer up and started to step around him, but Cadwallader clung to his arm. “Have you seen Dulcima?”

The question shocked Lance like a splash of cold water. Dulcima was a legendary shandy, a winged horse, also known as Kandrith’s Need. She’d allegedly given her Lifegift to appear when Kandrith most needed her. He supposed Kandrith might be in need right now.

“Have you seen her?” Cadwallader repeated. His fey eyes shone silver.

“No.” Impatient, Lance moved past the older man.

“Is Dulcima coming?” He heard his mother ask anxiously—he hadn’t realized she was following him. Hoping Cadwallader would delay her, Lance picked up his pace.

“I suppose she can fly someone into battle, but I’d hate to see her cut down by an arrow.” His mother’s voice grew fainter.

“Lance will heal—”

Lance reached the woods. “Sara?” he called. Receiving no answer, he looked around.

There. There were both clawmarks and hoof imprints in the muddy ground where Olwydd had tread. “Sara?” He was vaguely aware of his mother following him, but the fear roaring in his ears shut out everything but the uphill path in front of him.

Long minutes later, he saw the blanket he’d stolen for Sara hanging from a tree. Blood stained it. He hurried on, eyes searching. And then he spotted a dark shape at the foot of a tree—

Goddess, no.
“Sara?” His voice came out half-strangled.

But the body was too large. Olwydd lay there, a crossbow bolt between his eyes. Lance put his hands on the shandy, but his flesh was cooling already, dead and beyond the Goddess’s mercy.

“What does this mean?” His mother sounded bewildered and out-of-breath.

Lance pulled out the arrow and studied it. The crossbow bolt was Republican made. “It means Sara’s with the Legion.”

“She’s betrayed you.”

“No.” Lance stamped down hard on the niggle of doubt he felt. He faced his mother with new calm. “The Pact is broken. You’ve failed, Mother.” He gentled his voice. “It’s my turn to try. Let me bring Wenda home.”

He thought for a moment tears would break through his mother’s composure, but she blinked them back. If she’d cried he might have comforted her, but her control made him furious. Even now, when they were alone, she couldn’t stop being the Protector. The rage he felt over her attempt to kill Sara burned like a wall of fire between them.

“Cadwallader would remember if your help was needed,” she said coldly.

Cadwallader’s memories of the future were like Lance’s memories of childhood: uncertain and often triggered out of order. Sometimes, very rarely, they could even be changed. But she knew that as well as he did. “Goodbye, Mother.”

He walked up the mountain toward the Republican camp and didn’t look back.

* * *

Entering the Republican camp was easy, getting to the General took time.

Any hopes Sara had cherished that the camp would be small were dashed on the sharpened timber wall. It enclosed enough room for a town.

Her escort raised a hand to the sentries in the watchtower as they approached. Although puzzled by her presence, the men let them through the gate with only a couple of ribald comments. Sara learned that her escort’s name was Gaius Mendicus. He scowled at the guards, but didn’t reveal her identity until he reported to his centurion.

The centurion clearly didn’t know what to make of her story, but decided that he dared not risk treating Sara as other than what she claimed to be. He sent her to his commanding officer.

Gaius went along with her to retell how he’d slain a ‘monster.’ Sara supported his story, but carefully gave no hint that Olwydd had been anything but a dumb beast.

As they were bumped up the chain of command, Sara took advantage of the opportunity to study her surroundings. The encampment was only half full, but she counted six rows of tents before a strange contraption near the edge of the cliffs caught her eye. As she watched, a team of eight slaves turned the handle of a giant winch. Four ropes as thick as a man’s arm descended from the winch down the cliff.

As they stood outside the tribune’s tent waiting for admittance, the ropes groaned, and a platform came into view. Half of it was covered with meal sacks and supplies, the other half, balancing it, held six rather nervous legionnaires—the arriving army.

At least they didn’t have cavalry.

“Who built the winch in the first place?” Sara asked.

Gaius puffed up his chest—then paused as a grizzled captain came out of the tribune’s tent. He tensed and saluted.

The captain had obviously heard her question because he looked at her with suspicion from underneath beetled brows, probably wondering if she were a spy. “Go ahead and tell her,” he grunted.

Gaius glanced uncertainly from Sara to his captain. “One of the men in my century is a skilled climber—”

The captain snorted and crossed his hairy arms. “What’s this Mendicus? Modesty, now? Gaius here was the climber. Tell her your heroic tale.”

Under his captain’s eye, Gaius became much less expansive and told Sara only the bare bones, how he’d scaled the cliff with nothing but his hands, pulling a rope up with him. Then two more men had climbed the cliff with the help of the rope, and the three of them hauled up an engineer and materials using a harness until they could build the winch.

“How brave!” Sara smiled as if impressed and tried to hide her dismay. She stroked the refetti in her pocket for comfort, trying to calculate how many trips up and down the cliff would be needed to bring up a full Legion. How long before the army was ready to march?

Not long enough. General Pallax must have arrived in Kandrith about the same time she had. Sara pictured him racing to Temborium upon the news of Primus Vidor’s death only to be met with the news of her father’s confirmation as Primus and his wife and son’s imprisonment. Her father must have sent him straight here instead of to Qi. From the advanced state of the invasion, her father must have had provisions for the Legion already laid in. Another week undiscovered, and the invasion would have been unstoppable.

It might still be. In her mind’s eye, Sara compared this camp to the Kandrithan army’s pitchforks and makeshift weapons—and winced. Kandrith had Farspeakers and Movers and shandies, but she doubted it would be enough. Not without a Kandrith to lead them and call down large-scale magic. Unless she and Lance succeeded in rescuing Wenda or Cadwallader declared someone else the new Kandrith, the country would fall.

The thought preyed on her all through her interview with the tribune and her subsequent walk to the general’s quarters. The big circular tent was easily recognizable from its two banners: a large one for the Third Legion and a smaller orange one for House Pallax. Their escort spoke to an aide, who looked unbelieving, but must have passed the message on because moments later Sara alone was bidden to enter.

Despite the red-tinged dimness from the tent fabric, Sara recognized General Ambrosius Pallax—not from his resemblance to Claude, which was frankly non-existent, but from the air of absolute authority he wore. It, more than the golden sword clasps on his cloak, signaled his rank.

Without his plumed helmet, the general proved to be of only average height. His dark hair was cut military-short, but an incipient beard shadowed his chin, and hair covered his arms. His close-set blue eyes were intense and jewel-hard, whereas Claude’s always seemed diluted.

“Lady Sarathena Remillus, Aleron’s…daughter,” General Pallax said, voice edged.

He accepted her identity. Good, that simplified matters. Unfortunately, it sounded like he blamed her for the arrest of his wife and son.

“Leave us.” General Pallax gave a curt nod, and his subordinates filed out. The aide looked torn.

“I wasn’t expecting Primus Remillus’s daughter to fall into my hands today like a ripe plum.” He stepped in too close, intimidating her. “Nir himself must have sent you to me.”

Sara saw murder in his eyes, but no lust or cruelty. That gave her the courage to stand her ground. “General Pallax, I need your help. I must return to Tembor—”

“No. Your father,” his teeth ground together so hard Sara feared for his molars, “is holding my son hostage. My apologies, Lady Sarathena, but you are not going anywhere. You will remain here as my guest while I arrange for the release of my son.”

“I’m sorry that Claude is being imprisoned—”

“Are you?” His voice could have been used to chip rocks. “Pardon me, Lady Sarathena, but it does not seem that way to me. I blame you for his situation.”

“Very well.” Sara straightened her shoulders. “Your son is a loathsome dungtoad who drugged me with jazoria, so no, I’m not sorry for his plight, but I
am
willing to see him and your equally amoral wife go free in exchange for taking me back to—” She stopped because General Pallax was looking at her with a strange expression.

“You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

Instead of answering, he crossed the tent to a small, iron-bound chest. When he opened it, Sara saw it was full of salt crystals. Her nostrils wrinkled. There was something else, some smell…

General Pallax thrust a hand into the salt and drew out a severed head by its hair.

Sara gagged as she recognized Lady Pallax. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, but details continued to play across her mind. The skin shrunken over the face as the salt dried it… The mouth hanging open as if in mid-scream… The skin at the neck in ragged shreds from being hacked off…

The axe—

Sara’s vision grayed for a moment. When she fought free of the memory, the general was saying, “—had this delivered to me as a message, to show how serious he was.”

Sara kept her eyes closed. “I didn’t know.” Why was she surprised? Her father had sent Sara to die; Lady Pallax’s life would mean nothing to him.

Now that she thought about it, this explained the jazoria Claude had doubtless been ‘encouraged’ to give her. When her father decided he needed to send her to Kandrith with the blue devil, it left him with no hold over the Pallaxes. But drugging the Primus’s daughter gave him a pretext to arrest Claude and Lady Pallax.

A click told her the chest was locked again. Sara shut the lid on her own memories and faced General Pallax. He seemed satisfied with her reaction.

“As I said, you won’t be going anywhere.”

She thought furiously. She couldn’t let the general know that she was useless as a hostage. “He won’t believe that you have me, unless he sees me. Send me to Temborium with a group of men that you trust.” House Pallax was numerous, the army here was sure to have a few cousins or nephews about.

“I don’t know what your game is, but I’m not letting you out of my sight until Claudius is safe.”

“As you wish,” Sara said. “When do we leave?”

He gave a harsh crack of laughter. “You’re just as self-absorbed as my wife—was. We’ll go after I’ve won this war. If your father’s spies report that I’ve withdrawn, he’ll make good his threats against my son.”

Vez’s Malice. “Claude’s life is the only hold he has over you, a great general who commands the loyalty of the Legions. My father won’t dare kill him.”

“Perhaps not.” The general’s voice sounded lifeless. “But he’s threatened Claude’s sword arm and his testicles. Claudius isn’t much of a man—yet. I let his mother coddle him, but he is my only hope of grandchildren, of continuing my line. I was injured some years ago and shall not father any more myself.”

Sara bit her lip in despair, unable to find any words to convince him.

“I’ll have a tent set up for you—” General Pallax started to say, then they both turned their heads toward the doorflap as a commotion began outside.