They were Alends.
Then hooves danced on all sides of her, thudded the dirt, hammered at her life, and she couldn’t do anything except cling to herself and clench her eyes shut until the horses either killed her or backed away.
They backed away. Geraden was on his feet: he yelled at the horses, slapped at them until they retreated. At once, he reached down and pulled her to her feet.
“The Queen!” he panted as if he had broken something in his chest. “What happened to the Queen?”
At the same time, another woman cried from the bottom of her heart, “Mother? Mother!”
Staggering, Terisa turned; she dragged Geraden with her.
Torrent stood amid the ruins of the porch as if she had never been touched. Her arms were locked and rigid at her sides; one of her hands clutched a knife. She didn’t look down into the hollow, at the horses, down at Terisa and Geraden; her face was lifted to the sky.
“Mother!”
Terisa stumbled in that direction, out of the confusion of horses, trying to reach the Queen’s daughter before Torrent went mad. With Geraden behind her, she clambered among the splintered and canting remains of the porch.
“She wasn’t killed!” she answered Torrent’s wail, shouting to make herself heard over the memory of thunder. “They took her! She’s been kidnapped!”
Master Eremis had sprung another of his imponderable traps. But this one changed everything. Alends—! He was in league with Alends? As well as Gart and the High King? What in the name of heaven was going on?
Terisa’s shout snapped Torrent’s head down, brought her frantic gaze out of the sky to Terisa’s face.
“What?”
And Geraden demanded fiercely, “What? Kidnapped?”
“Soldiers came.” Terisa could hardly distinguish between her own voice and the long, deep rumble echoing inside her. “Alend soldiers. They took her. That’s why this happened. So they would have a chance to take her.”
“Alend soldiers?” Geraden began to snarl uncharacteristic obscenities, ones Terisa had never heard him use before.
“Why?” Torrent asked softly, as if she were being split apart.
“Because she’s so important!” Geraden rasped at once. “King Joyse will do anything to save her. He’ll surrender Orison and the Congery and every one of us to save her.”
Slowly, Torrent raised her knife, stared at it. “It’s my fault.” Terisa was amazed that Torrent wasn’t weeping. The Queen’s daughter sounded like she was weeping. “I wanted to take a knife. So I could help defend us. Elega would have been ready for that. Myste would have been ready. But I forgot. I ran to the kitchen.” She turned the blade from side to side as if she had the idea of stabbing herself. “If I’d been with her – if I hadn’t forgotten – I could have saved her. I could have tried to save her.”
There was no doubt about it in Terisa’s mind: Torrent was going mad.
If she had gone to her bedroom, as her mother had expected, instead of to the kitchen, she would have been killed almost instantly.
“No!” Terisa replied as loudly as she could, trying to convey conviction through her mounting sense of horror. “None of us could have saved her. They took us by surprise. The horses caused too much confusion. The men—”
Abruptly, she pivoted away to see what had happened to the groom, the servant, the Fayle’s men.
The dawn was brighter now: it didn’t raise much color, but it showed everything clearly.
A hoof had crushed the groom’s head: he lay in the dirt as if he were abasing himself. One of the Fayle’s men clutched at an incapacitating wound in his left shoulder; the other had been hacked to death. Dead and dying horses sprawled everywhere, some of them still quivering. Perhaps ten of the beasts remained alive, but of those at least half showed injuries of one kind or another.
In the middle of the carnage, Queen Madin’s servant knelt beside his mount, whimpering for his life.
Swallowing nausea, Terisa whipped herself back to face Torrent. “None of us could have saved her,” she repeated hoarsely.
“Then” – Torrent’s voice shook wildly, but she drew herself up as if she had become a different woman – “we must rescue her.”
Terisa stared at her, shocked by the strange sensation that she could see King Joyse in Torrent’s eyes.
“How?” With a visible effort, Geraden forced himself to speak gently, reasonably. “We don’t have any weapons – and there aren’t enough of us. By the time we get help from Romish, they’ll be long gone. They’ll have plenty of time to hide their trail.”
Torrent shook her head. “Not Romish.” She took several deep breaths as if she were hyperventilating, with the result that she was then able to control the wobble in her voice. “You must get help from Orison.”
Both Geraden and Terisa gaped at her.
“They will not hide their trail from me. I will follow and make a new one behind them. I am helpless for everything else, but that I can do. He” – she indicated the man with the badly cut shoulder – “will get support for me from Romish. But you must ride to Orison. You must warn Father.”
She had lost her mind. There was no question about it.
Torrent couldn’t entirely stifle her rising hysteria. “Do you not understand? It is his only hope!”
Terisa and Geraden stared at her, gaped, held their breath – and suddenly he gasped, “She’s right!” He grabbed at Terisa’s arm, wheeling toward the horses. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!”
Terisa froze: she couldn’t move at all. Get out of here. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Ride like crazy people halfway across Mordant to Orison, while she goes after those Alends and her mother alone. You’ve done this once before. Don’t you remember? You sent Argus after Prince Kragen, and he got killed. And stopping Nyle didn’t do us any good.
“Terisa,” he demanded. “I tell you, she’s right. It’s his only hope.”
“What—?” She couldn’t make her throat work. An avalanche had come this close to failing on her. Like the collapse of the Congery’s meeting hall. “What’re you talking about?”
In response, Geraden made one of his supreme and unselfish efforts to control himself for her sake. Intensely, he said, “His only hope is if he finds out what happened to her before the people who took her know he knows. Before they can tell him. Before they start trying to use her against him. During that gap – if we can give him a gap – between when he knows and when they know he knows – he can still act. He can do something to save her. Or himself.”
“Yes,” Torrent breathed. “It is the only thing I can do.”
Abruptly, she climbed out of the ruin of the porch, heading toward the horses. Her knife was still gripped in her fist.
As if she were her mother, she commanded the injured man, “Take a horse, ride to Romish. You’ll be tended there. Tell them what happened. Tell them I require help. I’ll leave a trail for them.” Then her tone softened. “You’re badly hurt, I know. There’s nothing I can do for you. I must attempt to save the Queen – and my father’s realm.”
As if she were accustomed to extreme decisions – not to mention horses – she chose a horse, untethered it, and swung up into the saddle.
Terisa would have tried to stop her, but Geraden’s acquiescence held her. “Geraden—” she murmured, pleading with him. “Geraden—”
“Terisa,” he replied, so full of certainty that she couldn’t argue with him, “she’s right. I’ve got the strongest feeling she’s right.”
“Farewell, Geraden,” Torrent broke in. “Farewell, my lady Terisa. Save the King.
“Do that, and together we will rescue Queen Madin.”
Geraden turned to give the King’s daughter a formal bow. “Farewell also, my lady Torrent. This story will fill King Joyse with pride, whatever comes of it.” A moment later, he added, “And both Myste and Elega are going to be impressed.”