Sasha pulled her sword from its scabbard, heart thumping and hands shaking. She hated that, and hoped Rhillian's eyes would not see…but any human, awoken thus in the dark, would fear. The horses were silent. Sasha's eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom, to recall her surroundings, and make sense of the shadows. Where were Yasmyn and Aisha? She moved carefully toward where she recalled Yasmyn's bed had been, figuring that Aisha had the night vision to look after herself. Rhillian caught Sasha's arm.
“Aisha is scouting,” she breathed in Sasha's ear. “We don't know where Yasmyn is. Stay still.”
“What's wrong?” Sasha whispered back.
“I don't know.”
“But how do you…?”
Rhillian silenced her with a finger to the lips. “Just wait. Stay to my flank, I will guide you if we must move.”
Sasha suffered another chill. Rhillian saw the stables well enough, but Sasha was well used to serrin night vision by now. It was Rhillian's certainty that chilled her, despite nothing more amiss than Yasmyn's absence. Sometimes serrin did this. She didn't know how. Sometimes, when something was wrong, they just seemed to know.
Something moved, very faintly, in the doorway.
“Aisha,” Rhillian murmured. She touched Sasha's arm and moved, Sasha following as silently as she could, trying to stay in Rhillian's footsteps. Aisha must have gestured them forward, but Sasha could not see it.
When they reached Aisha, she looked pale. “Three dead,” Aisha whispered. “Killed quietly. Assassins.”
“Raise the alarm?” said Sasha, heart pounding.
Aisha shook her head. “Not yet. We're surrounded. One alarm and they'll charge.”
Sasha visualised the temple and adjoining monastery quarters. The river to one side, the road to the other. If she were conducting a stealth attack at night, she'd come from the river side, where few dwellings could sound the alarm, and then…
“Aisha,” Rhillian whispered, “stay here and find the assassins, take them quietly if you can. Sasha and I will go to the riverside. When you hear fighting, raise the alarm.”
They ducked into the corridor beyond the stables and moved silently, Sasha staying in Rhillian's footsteps. Aisha disappeared into a side corridor, while Rhillian paused at tall doors left ajar. She peered within, then beckoned Sasha to follow.
It was a common room, tall stone walls with bookshelves and furnishings…. Sasha could barely make out the shadows, and could only trust Rhillian's sight to tell the room was empty. Rhillian paused at the next doorway, her hand gesture warning of something obstructing the way. Sasha followed her into the kitchen. In the dark she nearly tripped over a shape sprawled on the floor-a body. From the robes, Sasha guessed a priest…in search of a midnight snack? Investigating a noise? Even with Rhillian to guide her, she did not like this darkness. Rhillian could only see one direction at a time, and Sasha forced herself not to look behind, trusting Rhillian's vision made them faster than their attackers, whoever they were.
Rhillian paused again at the large doors leading outside from the kitchen. She tried the latch and found it locked. The assassins had entered some other way. Sasha heard a noise and spun, eyes searching the dark. Nothing. Rhillian tugged her sleeve and led her to the nearby storeroom, where sacks of grain and boxes of vegetables filled the air with musty smells.
Rhillian climbed onto some boxes to check a window Sasha had not even seen. A creak told Sasha it had opened. Again a distant noise, and a hiss, like air escaping lungs. Like someone dying. Sasha held her blade for an opening low cut, most lethal against any sudden attacker who was as blind as she and less ready to defend the upward cut than the downward.
Behind her there was a faint noise as Rhillian slid through the high window and disappeared. Sasha knew she had to turn to climb the boxes, but now there was no one to guard her back. She muttered a silent curse at her cowardice, and sheathed her blade so she had two hands for climbing in the dark. The boxes held firm with little noise, and her strength allowed her to pull herself up with little scrambling.
No sooner had she sat on the top box than she felt, rather than saw, something moving on the ground to her left. Her heart nearly stopped, and she barely restrained a panicked reach for her blade, lest that noise give her away. She saw the back of a head, long-haired, almost level with her boots. He moved carefully, crouched like a warrior, his one-handed posture suggesting a knife. If he looked up, he would see her almost on top of him.
Not a tall man. She stared, and resolved more of his clothes-roughspun and leathers, no armour, nothing fancy. Something about the way he moved said horseman. A saddlesore swagger, legs apart. Lenay? Surely not with a knife in the dark. Not only dishonourable but, against serrin, likely fatal. Lenays knew serrin too well. But there were only two serrin here…
And now as she sat here, he was past her, advancing into the darkness of the kitchen she'd just left. She should have jumped down and killed him, but that was awkward, and Rhillian was outside waiting for her. Aisha would deal with him. Probably Aisha was the cause of that last sound of dying. Where the hells was Yasmyn?
She slipped out the window, had difficulty sighting the ground, but jumped anyway and landed on turf. There was a little more light outside, perhaps from a sliver of moon. A large oak made a great sillhouette, and a tangle of hedges blocked the view of the river. She could hear it though, a deep murmur of water. Where was Rhillian?
Sasha drew her blade once more and edged along the wall. A wooden fence adjoined the wall, frustratingly-it was rickety, overgrown with bushes, and would be hard to climb silently in the dark. As she looked for a way over, a shadow against the fence abruptly moved, and only the emerald flash of eyes stopped Sasha from swinging.
Rhillian pulled Sasha into a crouch against the fence and pointed over her shoulder. At first, Sasha saw only varying shades of dark. Then a shape moved. Rhillian's finger moved also, to another spot. Against a tree, an odd formation of trunk…with legs. Another move, then another.
“I see fifteen,” Rhillian whispered in Sasha's ear. “There will be more.” Their scouts were in the building. If they did not return soon, they would attack.
“Who are they?” Sasha murmured.
“Kazeri.”
Horsemen of Kazerak. The rumours had said they were on their way. Sasha had envisioned an army of wild men on horses…this must be an advance party. And she realised that if they took a direct line from Kazerak through Rakani and Tournea, it would take them directly through these lands.
“I will go through them,” said Rhillian. “You take advantage of the confusion.”
“One against fifteen?”
Rhillian kissed her cheek. “Remember Leyvaan,” she said. “This way, there is a hole.”
She led Sasha to an unseen hole in the fence, and Sasha did think of King Leyvaan, the last king of the united Bacosh throne, who had advanced too fast into the forests of the Telesil foothills in Saalshen, and lost an entire army. The fighting then had been mostly by night. For humans, against serrin, it was unwise.
Sasha crouched behind bushes as Rhillian crept forward, and lost herself in the tangle of fruit trees, long grass, and weeds. Sasha wished she could see beyond Rhillian, downstream to the town's main bridge. The bridge. Why did the thought of it make her uneasy?
She peered through the bushes. Rhillian would be killing Kazeri by now. Sasha wondered how many she would get before the Kazeri realised what was happening. But the Kazeri Army was coming in the tens of thousands, surely. Small scouting groups were one thing, but this country was notoriously unfriendly to invaders. And what were the odds that the Kazeri just happened to stumble upon them like this? What if it was no coincidence? In that case, if they knew exactly who they were after, and why, surely they'd have sent far more men than this to deal with them?