The seneschal raised his hand over the metal drum half full of oil in front of him. He opened the door in his mind that would let the demon come through, invited.
Kryv, they whispered together in a single voice.
With a billowing roar the oil ignited, ripping into a sheet of flame. A rolling plume of black smoke and sparks ascended, torching the green leaves in the canopy above the road. The fire quickly settled into a hot, bright blaze, a contained inferno.
As the troops rode past, the archers, headed up by Caius, hung back, their long bows, nocked with tar-tipped arrows, at the ready.
As the carriage wove down the forest road, the remaining six guards covered the driver, spurring their horses desperately, trying to keep time with the panicked team that was struggling to break free from the burden it was towing.
Two more pockets of assailants, one on the left rear flank, the other ahead on the right, rode out of the woods, firing a cross-hail of bolts, some aimed at the guards, but more trained on the driver and the team.
Rhapsody’s driver and guards were now so badly outnumbered that it was all they could do to keep the carriage on the road. The rear flank seemed bent on driving them right, while those approaching from the woods ahead were veering left. The driver’s hands, bloody from gripping the reins, threatened to give out as he yanked the team left, away from the gullies at the side of the road.
As they crested a rise in the road, another phalanx of riders, three this time, charged out of the woods, directly perpendicular to the coach. They charged, firing first at the driver, who slumped on his perch, then at the carriage and the guards, hitting some of each, driving the team northward, off the road, and into a low-lying area just beyond.
Rhapsody’s remaining guards, borne down on now by four times their number, stopped and drew, interposing themselves between the oncoming marauders and the carriage.
It was like trying to hold back the sea with a shield.
The attackers fell on the guards, slashing them to ribbons, driving their horses off into the forest with the bodies still hanging from the saddles.
Up ahead, the three riders propelled the driverless carriage closer and closer to the deep swale off the road. One rode alongside the team, slashing with a sword at the hitchings, hacking until the team separated from its burden and galloped off, still yoked together, into the deep green shadows of the forest.
The driverless carriage, with one last great jolt, teetered on the edge of the swale, then overturned, crashing down on its right side. It lay in the gully, vibrating, its wheels still spinning impotently.
Atop a slight rise in the forest road, the seneschal nodded with satisfaction.
“Set it afire,” he called to Caius, who was turning pale where he stood. “Stand ready to take her when she comes out.”
In response, the archers dipped their pitch-tipped arrows into the fire barrel, renocked, and, at a second signal from the seneschal, let fly.
The missiles sailed through the air and sank quickly into the wood of the carriage, echoing with the pleasant pattering sounds of rain on a wooden roof.
The seneschal gestured a third time; the breeze picked up, racing along the forest road, driving leaves and small branches ahead of it.
The carriage smoldered for a moment, then, as the wind blew through, tore into flames.
Farther back along the forest road, Anborn could see the black smoke from the fire that was engulfing the carriage. A curse more profane than any he had uttered in centuries tore forth from his throat; he swung his bastard sword all the more deeply across the chest of the last of the attackers near him, slicing the man open from nipple to nipple, then urged his horse forward again.
He charged up the forest road in the direction of the black smoke.
For a moment the fire burned, unabated, and seemingly unnoticed. Then, in the middle of the smoke, the door that had at one time been the left side entrance to the carriage opened unsteadily, and Rhapsody’s hands appeared. She was holding Daystar Clarion, drawn, in her hand; it resembled nothing more than some sort of firebrand, blending in with the flames that were surrounding her. She tossed it aside for a moment where it rested, un-held, as she pulled herself out of the carriage, holding a wet kerchief over her lower face, and crawled out onto what was now the top.
All around her the forest appeared to be burning, though she knew from her tie to the element of fire that, for the moment, it was just the coach and the dry grass of the swale directly under it. Just beyond the great sheets of flame she could see figures hovering, some on horseback, some on foot.
None of them were her guards.
Her mind, foggy and thickheaded a few moments before, honed down into clear, pragmatic thoughts. She had nothing to fear from the flames; she was the Iliachenva’ar, the bearer of the elemental sword of fire, and as such was impervious to it. So she determined she was better suited to waiting inside the circle of bright heat and light than the guards were.
She was wrong.
A door of sorts seemed to open in the firewall, parting as if in response to a command. The men on foot moved through the flames, approaching her cagily.
Ok gods, she thought, racking her brain for solutions. They must be hosts of F’dor, or a demon’s thralls at least. Oh gods.
She looked over her shoulder.
Eight or nine more men were behind her, approaching her slowly, their blurry shapes crossing and blending into one another in her confused vision.
Struggling to quell the panic that was rising, she coughed to clear her throat from the smoke, and grasped Daystar Clarion again, concentrating on the deep connection that she had to the blade, drawing its power through her hand to steady herself. She thought back to her training under Oelendra, the previous Ilianchenva’ar. The ancient Lirin woman had bound her eyes, making her spar with her opponents blind, requiring her to use the inner vibrational signatures that the weapon allowed her to see.
She closed her eyes, focusing on the power of the sword.
In her mind she could see them more clearly, rainbow-colored figures with cool blue weapons in their hands, their red hearts and faces pounding with heat. There were fourteen of them altogether, surrounding her, slowly broaching die spreading flames that were spreading from the burning carriage. She dropped the kerchief and raised the sword slightly to her side, holding her other hand out, palm up, as if it were a shield.
“Stay back, or you will die,” she said as loudly as she could over the crackling roar in a voice that rang with a Namer’s authority.
To a one all fourteen froze, hovering in the smoke at the fire’s edge.
Rhapsody turned slowly, her sword at the ready, her eyes still closed, so she could better watch the attackers. For a moment no sound could be heard save that of the burning carriage.
A hundred and a half yards up the road, a distant figure in a calf-length cloak and hood standing near a barrel of blazing fire shouted something in a tongue she didn’t understand.
The men blinked and shook themselves, as if shaking off the effects of her words, then swarmed forward in great strangling circle.
“Come, then!” she screamed, her voice harsh with anger. “Die, if you insist.”
Her nausea and imbalance vanished as battle rage swept through her. Cold calculations, instantaneous, appeared in her mind.
The first advantage she could perceive was their intentions toward her; she could tell by their postures and the way they held their weapons that they were not advancing to kill her, but rather to take her captive, seeking to spare her from the edge of their blades.
She had no similar compunctions where they were concerned.
Rhapsody raised the sword over her head, and quickly drew a circle of protection around herself, catching the note of the sword with her own voice. The thin circle of light hovered over her head, reflecting the light of the fire, diverting the currents of the wind around her, obscuring her now as much to them as they were to her hazy eyes.