Through the Wildwood (7 page)

Trevin was sucking only blood from her wrist now. His mouth felt hot and raw from all the venom he’d extracted. He was starting to feel feverish himself, but he didn’t care. Gallarael’s color was getting closer to normal again, but her skin was still hot to the touch. For a while she’d glowed cherry.

Trevin would die for her, he knew. He loved Gallarael that much. That is why he didn’t even pause to acknowledge the fact that Captain Moyle was hacking his way into the area. Trevin spat a wad of cottony saliva from his mouth and bent down to suck more fluid from her wrist. Vanx’s haulkatten let out a rumbling growl, but Trevin didn’t look up.

“What are you doing to her?” Captain Moyle asked harshly as he yanked his bow from the saddle and nocked an arrow.

“Where’s the escaped slave?”

Trevin spat the contents from his mouth. A trickle of blood ran down his stubbled chin. He tried to focus on the captain, but felt himself getting dizzy.

“You!” Trevin accused, pointing above and beside the captain. “You led us into a trap. It’s your—it’s your fault.” The last words came out in a drunken slur.

Captain Moyle took a single step and booted Trevin away from Gallarael. “I asked you where the slave was, man. Answer me! That’s an order!” The captain’s eyes skittered around nervously. From his knees, Trevin fumbled around at the ground for his sword but only managed to stumble.

“You’re not my captain,” he managed as darkness swirled around the edges of his foggy mind. “You—you’re a murderer.”

“Ah, lad, I had hoped you’d see it differently.” Moyle drew back the arrow he had ready and aimed it at Trevin’s chest. “Now I’ve no choice but to kill you too,” he said as he let the razor-tipped shaft fly.

Just then, Vanx stepped into view, seemingly out of nowhere. Captain Moyle was so shocked by the slave’s appearance that his arrow went high and caught Trevin in the shoulder instead of the heart. Trevin’s pain-filled yelp drew Vanx’s attention to the situation just as the captain brought another arrow up to bear.

“If you kill me, Gallarael dies,” Vanx said calmly. “She’s been poisoned and I have the makings of a remedy. You’ll not be able to return to Highlake without her.” Vanx snarled smugly at the man before him. “The duchess will have you quartered, and your head piked on ogre row.”

The captain licked his lips and glanced at Gallarael’s arm and sweat-slick skin. “What does an adulterous songsmith know about healing a poisoned girl? I think you’re lying.”

“She’s running out of time, fool,” Vanx sighed. “The duke didn’t want you to kill his daughter. He wanted you to kill me.” Searching his mind for an idea, or a plan of action that might actually work, Vanx drew a blank.

“Let me heal her and the boy,” said Vanx. “After that you can do what you want with me.”

Trevin moaned and struggled to sit up. He yanked at the shaft protruding from his shoulder and yelped out as the pain hit.

“Do what you must for Gallarael, slave,” Moyle snapped. “But Trevin Lispan will die with you when it’s done.”

“I’ll do as you say, captain.” Vanx went to his haulkatten to get a pot for the herbs he’d gathered, and the tinderbox to start a fire. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t hold his tongue as he continued. He regretted each word even as he spoke it. “Gallarael and Trevin are lovers, and she already knows of your treachery. She will have your head faster than her mother will for all of this.” Vanx forced a chuckle. “If Duke Martin doesn’t remove it himself for botching his plan.”

“I guess that means I have to kill the lot of you and make it look like the trolls did the bloody work.”

By the icy sound of the captain’s voice, and the way the man so calmly sighted Vanx’s heart down the length of his arrow shaft, Vanx had no doubt that he was about to die.

Like roots they spread and dug in deep

they built a kingdom strong.

And if the short-lived take hold here

we’ll all be but a song.

– Balldamned (a Zythian song)

T
he arrow flew and all Vanx could do was throw his arms up to block it. The herbs he was carrying went everywhere. There was a loud “ping!” then a sharp pain bit into his chest over his heart. At the same time the deep, rumbling growl of Amden Gore’s haulkat came from the forest not too far away. If Captain Moyle had others with him, Vanx knew that Gallarael and Trevin were done. Then he wondered why he wasn’t already dead. He fell to his knees and looked down to see Captain Moyle’s arrow sticking through the cooking pot he’d been carrying. Its tip was buried in his chest, but mostly visible. There was pain, then the relieved shock of somehow cheating death. Still, the emotion that consumed him was panic. How could he brew Gallarael’s remedy in a pot with a hole in its bottom?

Remembering that a murderer was trying to kill him, he looked up and rolled to the side. The wild-eyed captain was drawing back another shaft. Scrabbling away, the thorny undergrowth bit into Vanx’s loose-fitting garb. It threatened to snag him still as he struggled to get clear of the coming arrow.

Had Captain Moyle possessed the ultra-keen senses of a Zyth he might have sensed the slaver’s haulkatten rapidly approaching. Moyle was only human, though; a human consumed with murderous rage. His hope of returning to Highlake as a hero was ruined. He would fare better if he killed these three. He could catch a ship to Coldport or Oradyn and change his name. If he went back and pilfered the purses of the corpses at the destroyed camp, there would surely be enough left after buying passage that he could make a new start.

The simple fact that these limited choices were being forced upon him was making his blood boil. He stalked closer to the struggling slave. He wouldn’t let his shot get fouled this time. He would spit the adulterous dog right through his heart.

Vanx pushed the cooking pot away. The arrow tip came out of him and he felt a warm trickle of blood as it ran down his ribs. The thorny underbrush had him stuck, but he wasn’t about to give up. Kicking and rolling, he did all he could to tear himself free, but he only managed to tangle himself further. He could see the hate in the captain’s eyes as he came storming closer. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to save Gallarael and it looked like Trevin needed the remedy as well. The thought burned his brain. It might already be too late for them. It wasn’t looking too good for him, either.

Vanx couldn’t move his legs, and only one of his arms was free of the gripping growth. He had no weapon, and just a punctured pot to defend himself with. The Captain’s arrow was now only a few feet away from his chest. He tried to put the pot between him and the arrow tip, but the thorns held his sleeve short and kept him from getting it where it needed to be.

“Die, slave.” Moyle raised the bow and sighted with a sneer.

With a sigh of sorrowful resignation, Vanx closed his eyes and waited for the shaft to pierce him.

He heard the thrum of a loosing bow string and his body tightened reflexively. The sound, though, had come from a good distance away. Then he heard a thumping gurgle over him. He picked up another, closer, bow string loosing and the angry hum of an arrow whizzing past.

He opened his eyes, wondering what sort of luck might have saved him this time, and what he saw was as relieving as it was baffling.

With his free hand Captain Moyle clutched at a bloody arrow that was jutting out of his throat. The captain’s eyes registered, that his shaft had missed Vanx and, even though he looked to be choking on his own blood, he drew another from the quiver at his hip and nocked it.

Vanx was helpless but showed no fear. He could see and hear Amden Gore’s angry haulkatten growling as it bounded up and swiped Moyle to the ground with a razor-sharp claw.

Vanx was amazed that it was the one-handed whore, Matty, commanding the slaver’s beast. She looked as if she’d been beaten half to death. Her face and neck were a misshapen welt of blue and purple, but she was grinning with delight. She couldn’t have fired the arrow that saved him, he realized, and the half-dozen questions that came to his mind were answered when one of the young men from the caravan came trotting up holding a bow.

It was the blacksmith’s apprentice.

“You owe me now, Vanxy,” Matty said in a hoarse croak with a devilish lick of her lips.

Vanx could only imagine how she would demand her payment, but he had other things to worry about at the moment. “Get me up! Gallarael and Trevin are poisoned, they need our help.”

Darbon, the apprentice boy, dropped his bow next to the bloody heap that had been Captain Moyle and began tugging Vanx’s clothing from the thorns.

“Who poisoned the poor lass out here?” Matty asked with mock concern.

“She was bitten,” Vanx said. “Tell me you have a good pot in your packs, woman. The girl is the only proof that the duke tried to have us killed. She’s the only advocate for your freedom and I need a pot to boil some herbs for her.”

“We need no advocate,” Matty chuckled roughly, brandishing a bundle of loosely tied parchments from her perch in the saddle. “I found our papers of ownership in Amden Gore’s pack.”

“They’ll do me no good, woman!” Vanx roared as the boy freed his upper body. He sat up and glared at Matty. “I nailed the duke’s wife. The tale is probably to Harthgar by now. As long as the duke’s treachery goes unknown, he’ll have a price on my head.” Tearing his last leg free with an audible rip of cloth, he found his feet. “A pot, Matty. I need a pot.”