Gafyn had a grudge against the occupation, one he was happy to prosecute by sneaking refugees out of the city under the very noses of Sir Radulf’s vaunted knights and terrible dragons.
This, though, would be the last mission Qui’thonas would run for a while. After the elf and his family were safely gone from the area, Qui’thonas would lie low and wait for Sir Radulf to get tired of feeding another dozen knights and squires—not to mention twelve ravenous dragons who would devour herds of sheep and goats before long.
After that... Dez grinned. Most of the damn dragons’ll be gone, and off we go again.
With the darkness silent behind her, Dez looked ahead, and her eyes adjusted to the changing light. Outside the mouth of the tunnel the sky hung down like an iron helm. The night closed in, thick and murky by the riverside. Dez looked for Dunbrae and saw the dwarf as only a dim figure at the riverside—a dwarf whose fathers had developed their eyesight over generations of life underground. Dunbrae had no need for light.
He lifted a hand to signal all-clear.
Dez turned and whistled, a low short sound to tell Gafyn to get the little group of refugees moving. She heard the shuffle of their feet, the sound of the little girl’s rapid breathing. Confident that Gafyn had them well in hand, she stepped out of the tunnel.
The first hot drops of rain she’d felt in weeks splashed onto her face. She looked up and saw the clouds had already begun to tatter at the edges. A shower, nothing more.
She waved the elves on. Liel came first, his daughter Seiley next, and Reith his wife after. Gafyn made up the rear, and Dez saw him slip a short sword from the leather sheath at his belt. Liel strung his bow. His wife already had hers in hand.
A small grumble of thunder rolled down the sky. A sheet of lightning flashed, then another. Seiley gasped, and her mother murmured something soothing in Elvish.
Dez had her eyes on Dunbrae, who stood looking back and upward, toward the hill under which ran this portion of the tunnel.
“Dunbr—”
Then she saw his face, his eyes, and his hand flashing for the throwing axe at his belt.
Dez whirled back toward the tunnel and shouted, “Get back! Back!”
It was too late. Four riders on black horses, three knights armored lightly, one an elf in mail red as blood thundered down the hill. Seiley shrieked. Gafyn snatched her up, tucked her under his arm, and fled to the riverside. Liel hung back. Reith, too.
Dunbrae shouted curses and bellowed: “Go! Go!”
It was the plan they’d sworn not to abandon if they were found out. No matter what, Gafyn would take the child and the parents would follow. No one must stay to fight but Dez and Dunbrae. A look of swift self-loathing on his face, the elf ran, his wife’s hand in his own.
In the moment they passed Dunbrae, the dwarf threw his axe and split the skull of one of the knights. Dez let fly an arrow and took another knight out of the world with a bolt through the eye.
“Dunbrae, heads up!”
The dwarf turned in time to see the red-mailed elf spurring toward him, sword raised like an axe to lop off his head. Dunbrae flung himself aside, rolled, and came up, his short sword in both hands. He thrust the blade upward, tearing open the horse’s belly.
The beast screamed, fell, and the elf flew over his mount’s head. Dez heard his neck snap. There was one more, somewhere.
Dez looked around frantically. There had been three knights...
And the last of them came charging around the side of the hill, howling curses, a mace whirling over his head. Dez drew, let fly, and missed. The knight thundered by, the mace wailing overhead as Dez fell, rolled, and came up behind the mounted man. She had no weapon but the knife in her boot, her bow flung aside in the fall. She snatched it out as the knight made another run at her. She saw his teeth flashing white, smelled the sweat on his horse ...
She stood her ground, and it seemed like she could feel the knight’s astonishment, could almost hear him wonder—What is wrong with this woman?
Dez grinned, and maybe it was that dreadful grin that warned the knight.
If it did, he took the warning too late. Dunbrae’s throwing axe flew, lopped off the hand holding the mace, and clattered to the ground. Blood spurted, the knight stared down at the stump where his hand used to be.
It was easy enough for Dez to finish him off after he tumbled to the ground. A swift, flashing stroke across the throat, and it was done.
Dunbrae looked around at the carnage. “We have to collapse the tunnel.”
“No we don’t.” Dez grunted. “They’re dead.”
“Yeah, but not the one who tipped them off to where we’d be, eh?”
Dez closed her eyes, cold in the aftermath of the fighting, sweat chilling like ice on her face and neck. Not the one who tipped them off.
“The boy knows where to go?” she asked.
“Better than either of us. He’ll be fine. If the elves do as they’re told, them and their little girl will be away safely.”
Dez nodded, and neither said what was most on their minds—that the hard part came next, telling Aline what happened and that no one knew anything about this run besides Dez, Dunbrae, and Madoc Diviner.
16
The line of gray light beneath the window shutters spoke of a sullen, clouded day. The air, once filled with storm charge and the tantalizing scent of rain that had not fallen, had a thick, unpleasant smell. No breeze stirred, and Usha lay still, watching the shapes of the furniture in her bedchamber emerge from the darkness—the wardrobe where her clothes hung, the desk and the chair where Loren liked to sit and read. The blue stone jug filled with water and the pewter cups caught the first half-hearted gleam of true daylight as it slipped across the room.
Her lover lay beside her, sleeping.
In a matter of an afternoon and a night, everything in Usha’s life had changed. In these quiet moments, with Loren asleep beside her, she held the memories of their lovemaking to her heart, precious and wonderful. But then she looked at the tangle her life had become and wondered whether she would recognize herself if she managed to unsnarl it all.
Usha turned to watch the morning light creep across the floor. It touched the bed, the pillows and rumpled blankets and, beside her, Loren asleep. His breathing was even and quiet, only hitching a little when he moved, the small motion of a man settling more deeply into sleep.
My love, she thought. The endearment came so naturally to her that she might have been naming him so for a year rather than one impassioned night.
Usha lifted a hand to touch Loren’s face, very different in repose than in waking. This, she thought, must be the face his mother knew when he was a boy, youthful and peaceful, for the mark of adult care was eased away for the few hours he slept.
But she didn’t touch him. She put her hand down, resting it on the soft sheets, musky with the scent of the two of them. She lay still, keeping quiet, as she had been since the first hint of day. Below, she heard the sound of voices as people went down into the inn’s common room in search of breakfast.
“What will we do,” Loren had said last night, laughing, “when people see that I came for supper and stayed for breakfast?”
She’d joined him laughing. It wasn’t the kind of question that truly wanted an answer. Not then. Now, though... now it did. People could whisper what they liked about the matter. They had been doing so since Loren had first come to sit in her studio to read and watch her work. Most likely the gossips imagined that what had happened last night had, in fact, begun weeks before.
These things didn’t trouble Usha. Another did, for whatever people had thought they’d seen they had not, in truth, seen a woman forsaking her marriage vows. Last night, she had done that, and so today she must do something she’d been dreading since waking. Before rumor and gossip spoke of it, Usha must tell Dez what had happened between her and Loren. She had no illusion that this would be an easy conversation, none that it would end peacefully. She didn’t know enough of her own heart to know how to defend her actions, yet she must defend them, somehow.