“There are too many men to bury, Tam. Anyway, what do you care if they cremate a few Karien corpses?”
“It’s not right!”
“No, but neither is it our concern. Now keep moving.”
Adrina tugged her horse forward and did not look back to see if Tamylan was following.
Sometime later, they reached the first Fardohnyan corpse. It was a young man with vaguely familiar features, although Adrina could not put a name to him. He lay on his back, his foot still trapped in the stirrup of his dead horse who had fallen beside him. A long, red fletched arrow was embedded in his boiled-leather breastplate. His eyes were wide open and he stared at the sky, as if engrossed in the strange constellations of the northern sky.
“Oh, gods!” Tamylan breathed as she drew level with Adrina. “Lien Korvo.”
“Was that his name? I didn’t know. I hardly knew any of them.”
“And yet they died for you.”
Adrina looked up sharply. “They didn’t die for me, Tam. They died for Cratyn. A debt I intend to make him pay.”
Tamylan looked around with a shake of her head. “If we survive this.”
“We’ll survive.”
“The Overlord will watch over us,” Mikel added.
Adrina resisted the temptation to turn on the boy. If this was the Overlord’s work, she wanted no part of it. But she needed the child. They still had to get past the Defender’s camp, and he knew its layout.
“I’m sure he is, Mikel. Come on. We have to keep on.”
The closer they came to the edge of the field, the more Fardohnyan bodies they encountered. Adrina did not look at them, afraid of what she would see, afraid of who she would find. Tristan was here, lying dead on this foreign plain, killed by a godless Defender. Her anger increased with each step, divided equally between the Kariens, who had condemned her brother to death, and the Medalonians, who had carried out the sentence. She would have vengeance for this slaughter, although how or when she did not know. But one day, she vowed, Karien, Medalon and even Hythria, would pay for the life of her brother and those of her Guard.
“Here! What are you after?”
Adrina stopped and turned her head toward the voice. It was a red-coated Defender although, as she knew nothing of their insignia, she did not know if he was a private or a commandant.
“We were just looking for loot,” she said, in her best Medalonian. “A girl has to look out for herself, y’know!”
“Who are you? What are your names?” the man demanded. He peered at them suspiciously.
“We’re court’esa. From Hythria. I am Adrina, and this is Tamylan. The boy is our servant.”
“Aye, I’ve heard of your kind. Fancy whores is all you are,” he said, sounding a little disgusted. The man stared at the jewelled collar. “I’d have thought that trinket ’round your neck would be enough for you, without you needing to loot the dead, as well.”
“Don’t you touch her!” Mikel cried as the Defender reached out to touch the collar. Adrina could have slapped the child. Now was not the time for bravado.
The Defender laughed sourly but made no move to come any closer. “Quite a bodyguard you ladies have. Now clear off! Lord Jenga has ordered all the looters off the field.”
“Don’t worry, sir, that’s exactly what we planned to do.”
The Defender nodded and watched them as they pulled their mounts forward. Mikel glared at the man defiantly, but held his tongue. Adrina’s heart was pounding as they walked away, expecting him to call them back. She risked a glance over her shoulder and discovered the man had moved away towards another group of looters. She let out a breath she had not realised she was holding and glanced down at Mikel.
“That was very noble and very foolish. In future, try to curb your enthusiasm for protecting me.”
“But your Highness, I —”
“Don’t call me that!” she hissed. “You must call me Adrina. At least until we are away from here. We are trying to be inconspicuous!”
“I’m sorry, your... Adrina.”
“That’s all right. Just be on your guard.”
“Seems a bit rough,” Tamylan said, as she trudged along beside Adrina.
“What do you mean?”
“You just told an enemy officer your real name, yet you chastise the boy for trying to protect you.”
Adrina stared at the slave for a moment, not sure what surprised her most – Tam’s blatant criticism or the fact that she could have been so stupid.
“I never thought...”
“Not thinking is what got us into this mess,” Tam pointed out grumpily. “First you don’t think if you can sail a ship. Then you don’t think about threatening the Karien Crown Prince. Then you drag us across a battlefield in the dead of night —”
“That will be enough, Tamylan. You forget yourself.”
“Not as often as you do,” the slave muttered under her breath, but loud enough that Adrina could hear her.
It was almost dawn by the time they passed the last of the bodies, but Adrina’s relief was short lived. At least the men on the battlefield had been mostly dead. Now they would have to get through the Defenders and the Hythrun who were alive and on their guard.
They swung into their saddles and moved off toward the scattered crowd heading away from the field. With luck, they could mingle with the other camp followers and go unobserved. A few people glanced at them enviously. They were mounted on Fardohnyan horses, but Adrina had decided she would claim they had rescued the beasts from the battlefield if they were challenged.
Daylight finally turned the sky the colour of pewter as Adrina and her companions left the battleground behind. They rode at a shambling pace amidst the looters and the walking wounded, tired, hungry, thirsty and emotionally drained. The war camp and the tent city lay before them, and beyond that, another two or more weeks to the Glass River. Perhaps there, with luck, a Fardohnyan trader would be waiting, making the most of the profits of this war, before Hablet joined the fray and turned them into enemies.
Nobody challenged them, or even cared about them, it seemed. The only time anything caught the interest of the people around them was when a man and a woman galloped past on glorious golden horses. Both were tall in the saddle and rode with the ease of those born to ride. The young woman wore dark leathers, much as the old tapestries depicted the Harshini. She had a thick long braid of dark red hair, and both she and her companion wore grim expressions. At their passing, several civilians fell to their knees, but the pair did not notice.
She looked at Mikel, who was on the verge of falling asleep in his saddle.
“Mikel, do you know who they are?”
“Who, your... Adrina?”
“That man and woman who just rode by.”
Mikel looked in the direction of the rapidly dwindling figures of the horses and shook his head. “I’m sorry, your... Adrina. I didn’t see.”
“No matter.”
Adrina put the pair out of her mind and allowed herself one glance over her shoulder before fixing her eyes forward. She did not need to be reminded of the past hours. The images of the battlefield would stay with her forever.
Chapter 31
In the cold morning light, Damin Wolfblade surveyed with disgust the carnage that was the remnants of their first serious engagement with the Kariens. It was not what he expected at all. The air stank of smoke and death. Even the sky was grey with low, sullen clouds that gazed with disapproval over the battlefield. Like Tarja, he had never faced a battle on such a scale, and the aftermath left him strangely unsettled. Although he could not fault the tactics of the Defenders, this had not been a real battle. It was like killing cattle in a corral. There had been no opportunity for personal glory, no chance to fight for the honour of the War God. He had lost one man to injury and that through a fall. The Defenders had lost a dozen men and perhaps fifty were injured. It had been a thoroughly unsatisfying affair.