Steel Maiden (32 page)

We rode hard all day and most of the night.
We stopped to rest for a few hours in a clearing, but as soon as I
closed my eyes, Jon was waking me to get moving again. We ate a
silent breakfast of cheese and bread, climbed back onto our horses,
and set off again. My joints, thighs, and lower back were stiff,
and the optimism we felt about reaching the stone before we neared
Soul City was fading.

My spirits lifted when we approached a camp
by the side of the road, and I recognized the royal colors of the
Fransians,
the Romilians, the
Girmanians, the Purtulese, and the Espanians.
I searched for
the red and gold colors of the
royal seal of Anglia.
But the Anglians weren’t there.
We were outnumbered, and I
prayed silently that the other kingdoms wouldn’t interfere. After
all, we didn’t have the stone.

As we
got closer, I could see only
bleak expressions on the faces
of the riders from the other realms. They were surrounded by
devastation. There had been a great battle. Bodies that had been
shot with arrows were covered in mud and lay in puddles of their
own blood. The coppery smell of rot and decay rose in the hot
morning sun like a mist. Limbs and bodies were scattered
everywhere, and bile rose in my mouth at the sight them. I felt
Torak tense beneath me, and we slowed down.

It had been a massacre. Only a handful of
men were left and no women. I tensed, one hand on the reins, while
the other rested on my weapons belt. Perhaps they had thought I was
dead. The last they knew, I had run off with the stone.

I saw the body of a single Anglian, and it
became clear that the others must have caught up with the prince
and had figured out he had the stone. They had apparently tried to
get it from him and had failed.

He still had it, and we needed to get it
from him.

Jon must have come to the same conclusion as
me. His expression was troubled, and he, Will, and Leo had all
drawn their swords.

Suddenly, a wave of angry, desperate, and
frightened men charged us.

And before I could urge Torak away,
something hit me on the side of the head, and the world went
dark.

CHAPTER 32

I
T WAS A MIRACLE that I didn’t fall
off my horse. The Goddess was protecting me. Warm blood gushed from
my temple, and I tried to blink the blood from my eyes and ignore
the wave of dizziness. Someone grabbed me from behind and tried to
pull me off my horse. I held onto Torak’s saddle, but my fingers
slipped, and I was hauled backwards until I was practically lying
on his back. Two bearded men pulled my left arm and nearly pulled
my shoulder out of its socket.

“The horse is mine!” said one of the men.
“I’m going to kill you, witch!”

I pulled out my dagger and stabbed him in
the eye. He let go with a howl and fell from my view.

“Stupid bitch. You’ll pay for that.”

The other man backhanded me in the face so
hard that I was thrown forward in my saddle. Tasting blood, I
didn’t give myself time to think and acted on impulse. I whirled
around and kicked out hard with my leg. My boot hit his head with a
horrifying crunch, and he went down.

I spit the blood from my mouth. Jon and the
others were fighting hard against the mob, and suddenly they had
cleared a path.

“Elena,” Jon turned to me, his face flushed
with sweat. “This way!”

He pointed through the opening they had
created.

I didn’t hesitate and kicked Torak’s sides.
The big stallion flew past the men in a thunder of hooves. With
Jon, Will and Leo behind me, we gathered speed and escaped.

We rode hard, and I was thankful for the
flatness of the land. We tore through the forest so fast that I
could no longer distinguish the pine trees from the birch.
Everything was a blur of browns and greens. I kept my focus on Jon
and marveled at the speed of his mare. I let out a shaky breath,
when I realized that I’d been holding it, and let my grip on my
reins relax a little. My fingers were stiff, and my blisters were
bleeding.

After a half hour of riding hard, we slowed
our pace. I was glad to be free of the hoard of crazed men, but I
soon started to feel wary again.

Where was Prince Landon? Did he take some
other route? A shortcut? Were there secret paths to Soul City that
weren’t on the map?

No one spoke for a long time. The tenseness
in Jon’s shoulders told me he was thinking the same thing. He kept
moving his head back and forth as if he were searching.
But
searching for what?

The silence was becoming too heavy to
bear.

“We should have caught up with them by now,”
I yelled to Jon over the beating of hooves and the wind in my
ears.

“It’s a two days’ ride to Soul City. How
could they have moved so quickly on foot? Do you think they found
another way in? Another path?”

“They’d be fools to travel through the
forest,” he said. “It would take them twice as long. No. They came
this way. I’m sure of it.”

But his face betrayed him, and he looked
like he was trying hard to convince himself.

“Are we too late?” I pressed anxiously.
“Will they get to Soul City before us?”

Jon’s dark eyes were troubled. “Can’t let
that happen. You heard what the witches said. Come on! Ride hard,
men!”

He slammed his heels into his horse’s flanks
and flew, his cloak flapping behind him as he rode.

I spurred my heels and Torak sprinted with a
clean, pure speed that we hadn’t achieved before. Perhaps he’d
gotten a little push from the witches.

Hooves pounded hard behind me, and a quick
peek back showed that Will and Leo were still hard on our heels.
The forest flew by me. I was amazed at Torak’s speed, but more
amazed that I was managing to hold on and hadn’t fallen.

I thought about the stone and the ancient
power I had felt in my bones. It was wild and dangerous, and the
vilest men in all the realms wanted it. I thought about the dirty
faces of the starving children in the Pit and about the courtesans,
the sick, and the elderly. Tears flew out of the corners of my eyes
as I thought about how much the children and Rose had suffered and
starved. It would get worse, a hell of a lot worse, if the priests
got ahold of the stone. Ada had said that the world would burn.

I had seen pure evil, and I had seen it in
the eyes of the high priest. He must never get the stone.

We rode in silence, each of us alone in our
own thoughts as we raced through the forest. Torak never tired, and
I was grateful for it. We flew up and down the hills we
encountered, slowing and speeding up again, but never stopping.
After perhaps two hours of hard riding, we cleared the woodlands
and were galloping through farmland on the edges of Soul City.

Jon slowed his stallion and assessed the
ground for tracks.

“Horses,” he said out of breath. “And by the
looks of it maybe eight or nine horses.”

He threw his hands in the air.
“Damn it. Damn. Damn. Damn.”

I slowed Torak and looked to the ground.
“Are you sure? These could be older tracks from before. These could
be our tracks.”

Jon frowned, shaking his head. “No, these
are fresh.”

“He’s right,” said Leo, and he swung down
from his horse in one swift move. He skimmed his hand over the
dirt. “These are fresh tracks. If I were to guess, I’d say only a
few hours old.”

The blood drained from my face. “But how can
that be?
Who
would know they needed horses, and how would
they know where to find them?”

“Merlins, most likely,” said Will as he
looked to the sky. “I don’t remember the prince having a bird with
him, but if he’s in league with the priests, then they’ve probably
been communicating.”

“And communicating this whole time,” said
Jon.

I had heard that the priests used pigeon
hawks to spy and to transport messages. I felt like someone had hit
me across the face when I remembered that I had heard a hawk’s cry
before, and that had coincided with Landon’s arrival at my fire. I
didn’t believe in coincidences, but I had dismissed it at the time.
Damn.

I swallowed hard. “But that means … that
means …”

“It means the royal bastard has been
planning this the entire time. He knew what he was doing from the
start. He knew how to play you, Elena. And he did.”

I glowered at him. “No need to bring that up
again.”

Will and Leo looked up at me, but I wouldn’t
meet their eyes. I was humiliated enough.

Jon kept on.

“He made sure to keep you in the race. He
waited for you to get your hands on the stone and didn’t interfere
because he was already planning on taking it from you. That’s why
he let you walk out of the temple with the stone. He knew he was
going to get it back eventually. But he needed you alive and well
because he knew
you
were the only one who could touch it. It
was all part of his plan.”

“His and the fucking priests’,” hissed Leo.
“Now I know who’s been leaking information to the temple guards. It
explains the raids on Wedgemore. Landon’s people were the moles.
They’ve been playing us too.”

Will punched into his hand. “I can’t wait to
get my hands on the royal prick’s neck.”

I had to agree with him. I had had my
suspicions about the handsome prince, and now Jon had just
confirmed it. The wine, the sweet smiles, him helping me with the
race, they had all been a ruse, and I had been the fool. I had
believed he cared for me, and it had hurt like hell when he had
left me to die. I was going to make him pay.

“Let’s pray that we make it back before they
do.” Jon spurred his horse’s sides and tore down the road.

When we had ridden on for another half hour,
it was clear that we should have caught up with the Anglian
company, and we hadn’t.

We reached the farming lands and homesteads
that dotted in fields just outside of Soul City. I could see the
great circular walls that surrounded the city in the distance, and
yet there were no traces of the prince.

The road became crowded with merchants and
carts moving to and from Soul City. We couldn’t continue our fast
pace without killing passersby and injuring our own horses.

A woman jostled against Torak and raised her
fist at me.

I looked down at the wave of humanity.
Was the city always this crowded?
I shifted nervously. The
wound at the back on my neck throbbed. The pain was increasing as
we neared the city.

“We’ll never get through,” I yelled and
slowed Torak to a walk.

“Keep moving, don’t stop.” Jon took the
lead.

He yelled and waved his arms to get people
to move to the side of the road and let us through. I kept as close
as I could to Jon and the others. I recognized a few traders from
the Pit. Still, they were slowing us down, and I cursed them for
it. I was sweating with anxiety, and my fingers trembled. I
tightened my grip on the reins to stop my hands from shaking.

“Keep going,” Jon yelled from ahead. “If we
stop now, we’ll never reach him before he breaches the city
walls.”

“I’m trying,” I yelled. “There are too many
people. I can’t get through!”

And the farther we went, the more densely
packed the road became. Eventually we were at a standstill. I
looked over the heads of the crowds. We were nearly there, but we
were completely surrounded.

A flash of red and gold caught my attention
inside the west gate. A man on a horse turned around, and our eyes
met.

Prince Landon had breached the gates. We
were too late.

E
VEN FROM A DISTANCE I could read the
surprise on his face. Clearly he thought I’d be dead. I was glad to
disappoint him. I smiled at him defiantly, and he turned around and
yelled something to his guard. I caught a glimpse of Thea grinning
victoriously, and then they galloped away.