The Sleeping King (48 page)

Eventually, Ceridwyn shrugged. “Anton intentionally weakens the landsgraves, of course, by ordering them and their subjects on what is bound to be a bloody mission, and furthermore, forcing them to pay for the expedition out of their own coffers. As usual, Hyland sees through the ruse. But his hands are tied. The Boki must be confronted.”

A silence fell between them, and he relished it. Most humans labored under a distressing compulsion to fill pauses with meaningless babble.

Eventually, Ceridwyn murmured, “Have you had any communication from our friends of the Shadow?”

“Nay. Cauchemar and his servitors have been quiet of late. Truth be told, I have heard little the Hidden Province.”

He thought fondly of the nulvari homeland deep in Under Urth. He should go back for a visit when he retired. Aloud, he said, “The only directive I have received is that we are to continue to monitor the situation closely. A number of powerful forces seem to be converging on Haelos toward some unknown purpose.”

“I have heard the same from other sources, albeit unreliable—soothsayers and seers mostly. Even Anton seems uneasy. Earlier this evening he called for the old military reports from the Boki insurrection to be brought to him. He spent the evening poring over the maps his commanders drew.”

Maps, eh?
What did the canny whoreson seek on the old maps? Mayhap the location of that grove from so long ago? The one Tiberius had conveniently failed to draw on the maps of the previously uncharted Forest of Thorns?

“Nothing the governor does or says go unobserved?” Selea asked.

“I have been watching him for twenty years. I do know how to do my job,” she replied mildly.

No more needed to be said, so he rose to his feet and let himself out of the chamber silently.

*   *   *

Desperate, Will pressed his knife harder against the attacker's throat. And belatedly became aware that the person's skin felt oddly resistant under the blade. Cool and slightly … metallic. That wasn't skin. It was scales.

Recognition exploded across his brain.
The lizardman female
. This was the same wiry frame beneath his hands as yesterday. The same smooth, unnaturally cool scales. The same desperate strength.

A foot hooked behind his right ankle and he started to go down. But from somewhere unconscious within him the proper technique to counter the sweep came to mind and he executed it—not perfectly, but well enough to keep his feet. Startled at his success, he yanked the girl upright.

“What're you doing here?” he growled in her ear.

“My treasure. Taking back,” she grunted as she strained against him.

He released her abruptly and she stumbled forward, crashing to her knees. The noise and disturbance brought the others awake and they leaped up in various degrees of readiness for combat. Rosana was the last to wake, and she looked badly disoriented as she roused slowly.

“I ran into this girl yesterday in Dupree,” Will announced. “Literally. She's the one who gave me the wood disk.”

Rosana's gaze shifted to the lizardman girl in interest. “Where'd you get it?” she demanded.

The lizardman girl remained silent, oozing surliness. Kendrick lit a small oil lamp with some sort of flint and steel device he pulled out of his pack. A circle of golden light illuminated the clearing.

“Where's Cicero?” Raina asked abruptly.

Eben replied, “He took the watch after me.”

“The kindari in the woods, you mean?” the lizardman girl asked. “Knocked him out I might have.”

Raina lurched. “Where?” she demanded.

The lizardman girl pointed over her shoulder. Raina wasted no time plunging into the darkness, and Will was relieved to see Kendrick follow her, sword drawn. The healer didn't strike Will as particularly capable of protecting herself. He turned back to the lizardman girl. “Why did you give the disk to me?”

“Give it to you I did not. Your pocket I used to hide it from those cursed soldiers.” She stared at him defiantly for a moment, then added, “Give it back!”

“I wish I could.”

The lizardman girl jolted. “Sell it you did not?”

“Nope. Still have it.”

“Then hand it over.” Her voice grew more truculent by the second.

“I can't. It's stuck to me.”

The lizardman girl frowned. At least he thought so. With that fine mesh of scales covering her entire face, it was difficult to make out the nuances of her facial expression. “What mean you, ‘stuck'?”

Will sighed. He reached for the top of his shirt and peeled the garment back to reveal the wooden disk stuck fast to his chest. The lizardman girl took a step closer to him. He groused, “If you know how to remove this thing from me, by all means, please do it.”

Her right hand snaked out lightning fast and snatched at the disk.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed, jerking back. It felt like she'd tried to rip off a patch of his skin with her hard, sharp fingernails.

His eyes widened as her nails extended into dangerous-looking claws and lifted toward him once more. He reached up instinctively to bat her hand away. No way was he letting her slice into him with those things!

“Weak human,” she complained. “Alchemy we use, then.” She reached into her pouch and pulled out a small glass vial filled with lime green liquid.

“If that is a solvent, we already tried it, and the stuff didn't work,” Will announced. The lizardman girl frowned momentarily, and then her face lit up. She pulled out another vial. The glass was brown, so Will could not see the color of its contents. “What's that?” he asked warily.

“Acid,” the lizardman girl replied confidently.

“No!” Rosana cried out.

Will threw a protective hand over the disk. The smooth, warm wood felt good under his palm. Inexplicably, he was comforted by the feel of it nestled below his collarbone. “Nothing you can do will remove it,” he declared.

“Gone and done it, you have now!” the lizardman girl flared up.

“I didn't do anything!” he retorted. “I fell on it, and the blasted thing stuck to my chest. It's not my fault. I just want it off me.” Although as he said the words the slightest uncertainty rippled through him.
I do want it off, right?

“What do we do, now?” the lizardman girl demanded.

Rosana's eyes widened of a sudden. “Run!” she screamed.

*   *   *

Raina screamed as a half-dozen armed men rushed out of the woods toward her. They were dressed rough like bandits, but their blades were high quality. Gleamed with recent sharpening. Were well tended. Instinctively she drew magic to herself, but she had no idea whatsoever how to use it in combat. Nonetheless, the massive, crackling ball of energy between her hands gave the charging men pause.

In that breath of reprieve before they killed her Kendrick jumped in front of her, sword drawn. The attackers resumed their charge. Weapons clanged and men shouted. Eben materialized beside Kendrick, forming a wall in front of her all by himself with his muscular bulk.

Although her companions were clearly much more skilled than their foes, there were a
lot
of bandits. Her father used to say often that quantity would overwhelm quality every single time on the field of battle.

Her initial impulse was to hide, but the sight of the first actual fighting she'd ever seen was so morbidly fascinating she didn't immediately seek cover. She stared, unable to tear her horrified gaze away from the grisly scene. One bandit dropped. Then another.

Out of nowhere, Cicero charged forward, taking a position on Kendrick's right side. His sword flicked in and out like the tongue of a hungry beast, seeking flesh and blood and finding it again and again.

More bandits charged into the tiny clearing, Her companions laid into the attackers and mowed them down like tender spring grass. Kendrick had clearly trained with master swordsmen. His technique was elegant, efficient, and deadly, even to her untrained eye. Cicero's style, while less refined, was honed by actual, life-and-death experience, and the right end of the line of attackers was thinning rapidly. Eben also held his own through raw strength and power alongside Kendrick, although he began to show small nicks and cuts before the other two.

Another wave of attackers, this group mostly made up of rakasha swinging their claws, charged. With their shorter blades, the cat changelings closed aggressively, pressing in hard upon her companions. Raina spied her protectors' arms growing battle weary and bloodstains beginning to blossom on their clothing.

Eben, on the left flank, was closest, so she made her way to him and laid her hand on his back. “We have no time to do this gently!” she shouted over the noise of combat. She slammed a bolt of healing energy into him.

The jann grunted in pain, but his nicks and wounds disappeared. He nodded a quick thanks as he dived with renewed vigor into the fight.

She made her way behind Kendrick and Cicero to heal them as well. It took a few minutes and several rounds of combat healing into her friends' backs, but the ranks of bandits gradually dwindled. The sounds of clashing metal and men's cries grew less deafening. Maybe they were going to make it after all.

And then, without warning, no fewer than a half-dozen heavily armed shapes ran out of the trees from behind them, right into their midst.

Her relief evaporated in a rush of ice-cold terror. Those were
not
bandits. They were soldiers. Wearing the black and gold of the Haelan legion.
Anton's men
.

Powerful arms wrapped Raina in a crushing hold and slapped a hard hand over her mouth. She struggled like mad, but the attacker overpowered her with ease.

With her mouth covered, she couldn't utter any incants. Without incants, she could cast no magic. And without magic, she could not help her friends. Panicked, she looked around and saw that all three of her friends were down on the ground and similarly restrained. At the end of the day, their foe's numbers had just been too great for them. Various bandits and rakasha sat on her friends' chests or stood on their necks. They were the roughest, meanest-looking ruffians she'd ever laid eyes on. The soldiers didn't look any more reputable. She and the others were going to die.

*   *   *

Will scrambled for his dagger, knowing even as he fumbled to draw it that the small weapon was completely useless in combat against longer weapons. But it was all he had on him. His staff lay beside his bedroll, useless.

Rosana cried out an incant and a bright flash of magical light flew wild, slamming into a tree with a shower of sparks. A black figure raced past him, momentarily halting the headlong rush of the bandits toward them. The lizardman girl was fleeing the scene by practically barreling through the middle of the bandit line.
Coward.
One of the attackers peeled off to follow her running figure, but the remaining brigands resumed their advance.

Will assumed a fighting crouch. Not that it would do him a cursed bit of good. At least he got to stand and die like a man. Three bandits squared off against him and Rosana.

“Get behind me,” he muttered to her. She edged closer to him, trembling so badly he could see her shaking.

Grins spread across the assailants' ugly faces. One of them muttered something under his breath and the other two laughed. Will didn't need to hear it. Oh yes. He was going to be good fun indeed for these whoresons—a mouse in the jaws of tigers.

The smallest of the bandits, still a powerful man with a broad chest and massive arms, stepped forward. He gave an experimental thrust with a spear, and Will leaped away from its hungry tip. The bandit thrust again, this time a powerful strike that would've gutted Will had he not dodged nimbly out of its path. The watching attackers laughed, and the one with the spear scowled.

Spear Guy howled a battle cry and charged. Will retreated fast, but not fast enough. The bandit's arms came up and forward with obvious intent to imprison Will in a crushing grasp. A flying object whooshed past Will's ear and a tinkle of breaking glass came from the vicinity of the man's chest.

Will's opponent staggered forward, slamming into him. They crashed to the ground and Will, on the bottom, grunted as the air was smashed out of him. Whatever that alchemical gas had been, it had been strong to drop this ox of a fellow.

Will shoved at the bandit and was stunned when the fellow's arms loosened without resistance. He gave another frantic heave. The brigand rolled away, a telltale hole eaten through his clothing. Acid. The lizardman girl must have thrown some at this poor sod. The bandit looked dead, or at least bleeding out. Either way, he would not be rejoining the fight without some serious healing.

Will leaped to his feet in time for one of the two remaining bandits to peel off and run for Rosana. Will shouted in a feeble attempt to draw the attack to himself as he struggled to free his legs from beneath the downed bandit.

He watched helplessly as the brigand charged Rosana, a sword raised over his shoulder. The weapon swung in a deadly arc. At the last moment the fellow turned the blade, striking her in the left ear with the flat of the blade. It sent her flying. She landed, crumpled, in a motionless heap. Rage and terror exploded in a fury of white light behind Will's eyelids and he finally managed to pull free of the deadweight upon him.

Something glinted overhead, rushing down toward him. Will rolled away from the mace that buried itself in the spongy earth beside his head a bare instant after he dived out of its path. He finished the roll and gained his feet, panting.

He sidled left, away from the stalking bandit coming in from his right. The fellow looked plenty mad now. The one who'd hit Rosana closed in from the left.

Will took a step backward, feeling around with his foot.
There.
Rosana's pack. He jumped backward over it, dropping his dagger as he landed in a crouch beyond the leather rucksack. He grabbed the hilt of her short sword and whipped it out, swinging wildly. The blade slowed his attackers enough that he was able to take a few more steps backward and scoop up his staff with his left hand.
Better.
At least he would die now for lack of skill and not for lack of weapons.