Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow 3)

The remaining two Volarians came for Frentis, close together and blades levelled, then tumbling to the ground as a cloud of arrows arched down from the hilltop to claim both riders and horses.

Frentis whirled, searching for Darnel amidst the raging chaos. Banders’s knights had shattered the Fief Lord’s command but were now fully engaged with the Volarians, men and horses wheeling in a mass of steel and rending flesh. Frentis caught a flash of blue armour through the heaving confusion to the right, a hunched figure on a horse being led away by two Volarians. Horns sounded and the cavalry began to withdraw, riders delivering a final slash before turning about and galloping back to the river.

Frentis saw a riderless horse a dozen feet away and vaulted onto its back, spurring in the direction of Darnel’s flight, hacking at any unfortunate Volarians in his way. He spied Master Rensial nearby, cutting down an unhorsed Volarian, and yelled to get his attention. The master’s eyes found him quickly, as ever in battle, focused, calm, and seemingly free of madness. Frentis pointed at the blue-armoured figure now nearing the river and the master spurred his horse in pursuit, Frentis riding hard on his heels.

Darnel was already labouring through the water when Rensial and Frentis caught up with his escort. Both men turning at the water’s edge to face them, manoeuvring their mounts with uncanny precision, Frentis grunting in annoyance at the sight of the twin swords on their backs. Kuritai.

Rensial attempted to skirt them, hanging half-out of his saddle to avoid a Kuritai’s blade, but the slave-elite leapt from his horse, landing nimbly on Rensial’s saddle and stabbing down with his twin blades. Rensial unhooked his foot from the stirrup and swung himself around his horse’s head, delivering a double kick to the Kuritai’s chest as they ploughed into the river, the slave flying free of the horse and the master regaining the saddle.

Frentis tried to dispatch the second Kuritai with a throwing knife, waiting until he was near level with the slave before sending it into his eye. The man barely seemed to notice the injury, hacking at Frentis as he rode by, the blade missing by inches, turning his horse to follow but falling dead as Davoka’s spear erupted from his chest. She hauled it free of the corpse and spurred her own horse onward, following Frentis into the river.

He could see Darnel ahead, flogging his horse bloody as it laboured onto the far bank, galloping east as an escort of Volarians closed around him and a rear-guard stood firm at the water’s edge. Rensial charged straight into them, his sword a blur as men fell around him, spurring after the fast-retreating Darnel then rearing as a Volarian blade cleaved into his horse’s neck. Another Volarian rushed towards the master, sword poised to strike at his back. Frentis’s horse ploughed into the Volarian’s mount before he could strike, his head transfixed by the Order blade a second later.

Davoka screamed in frustration as she fought her way through the remaining Volarians, spear whirling, blood trailing from the blade, leaving only two remaining cavalrymen, who vainly attempted to follow their comrades’ retreat, falling dead to arrows launched from behind. Frentis turned to see Sollis and Ivern fording the river at speed, bows in hand. Behind them the western bank was calm in the aftermath of battle, knights and free fighters wandering among the dead.

Frentis cast his gaze back at the dust cloud rising in Darnel’s wake, knowing they wouldn’t catch him now. Davoka uttered a Lonak curse and threw her spear into the ground. Nearby, Rensial knelt at his horse’s side, smoothing a hand along its neck and whispering softly as it breathed its last.

“That was reckless, brother.” Sollis’s pale eyes regarded him with stern disapproval, deepening further as Frentis laughed, long and loud.

“Yes, brother,” he replied as the mirth faded, knowing the expression on Sollis’s face to be a mirror of his own when he looked at Rensial. “Very reckless. My most profound apologies.”

• • •

“We had him!” Ermund fumed, hands on his sword hilt, stabbing the scabbard into the earth. “I was less than two yards away in the melee. We had him and still he lives. He’s laughing at us, I can hear it.”

“His knights lie dead or captured and he runs for Varinshold like a whipped dog,” Banders replied. “I doubt he’ll be laughing.”

“Though he does now have full knowledge of our number and whereabouts,” Sollis pointed out.

“But not the strength to do much about it,” the baron returned.

They were atop the rocky hill overlooking the spur. Below, Frentis’s fighters were moving amongst the dead, looting weapons or valuables. Near the riverbank a small cluster of Darnel’s knights waited under guard. They made a curiously pathetic sight when shorn of armour, just tired defeated men, eyes wide with fear and nerves frayed by the instant death meted out to those Volarians who had attempted to surrender.

“What’s these poxed whoresons doing alive, brother?” Draker had demanded of Frentis earlier, the prisoners within earshot and moving in a restless shudder. “Traitors to the Realm, ain’t they?”

“They yielded according to custom,” Ermund told him, not without a note of regret. “The baron will decide their fate.”

“Best keep ’em away from us on the march,” Draker muttered darkly before stomping off to do some more looting.

Banders had extracted enough information from the captured knights to reveal the depth of Darnel’s current delusions. “Rebuilding the palace, making himself a king,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m given to wonder if the Volarians haven’t put some Dark spell on him, stripping away all reason.”

“It was always there, Father,” Lady Ulice said quietly. “This madness. I remember it well enough. As a girl I mistook it for passion, love even. And it may well have been, but love for himself, bound only by his father’s will. With Fief Lord Theros gone he feels himself free, able to fly at last.”

“We’ll have to hope his unreason leaves him deaf to Al Hestian’s counsel,” Banders said. “Taking Varinshold by stealth may well be impossible now and all he need do is wait behind its walls whilst his allies conclude their business in Cumbrael.”

“I should still like to attempt the sewers, my lord,” Frentis said. “Alone if necessary.”

This drew some odd glances from the assembled captains, Sollis’s gaze particularly grave in its intensity. Frentis knew his freshly lightened soul showed on his face but the wolf’s gift was a cherished thing and he saw little reason to hide it. You must forgive yourself.

“I’ll . . . be sure to bear that in mind, brother,” Banders assured him with the kind of tight smile Frentis recognised. The smile you offer to one you think mad.

“We stand barely a few miles from the Nilsaelin border,” Lord Furel said. “A pause here to rest and await word from my messengers might be the best course. Reinforcements could well be marching to our side as we speak. At the very least some word will be coming from the Reaches.”

Banders looked at Sollis with a questioning eye. “I’ll send my brothers out in all directions,” the Brother Commander said. “If there’s word to be had within fifty miles of here, we’ll have it within two days.”

Banders nodded. “Very well. We camp here. Brother Frentis, you come under your brother’s word, not mine, but I think we are of like mind in saying your visit to Varinshold will have to wait.”

Frentis shrugged, bowing with an affable grin. “As my lord wishes.” His smile lingered as he made his way back to his tent, the unease he had felt at the very sight of his bedroll now vanished. A dreamless sleep, he thought, pulling off his boots and lying back on the blanket. I wonder how it’ll feel.

• • •

She watches them fight with cold detachment, assessing skill and speed as they dance in the pit below. Steely echoes rebound from the walls that surround her, the stone roof above coarse and free of decoration, for these are new pits, chiselled out far below the streets of Volar, the birthplace of long-gestated children.

Do you like them, beloved? she asks him, knowing he sees them, keen to engage his interest, hungry in fact to hear a single word from across the gulf that divides them. We learned so much from you.

The men in the pit below fight without restraint and die without screams. But their faces are not those of Kuritai, no blank automata here. These men grimace in pain and snarl in fury, register grim satisfaction at bloody victory. There are at least a hundred in the pit, moving with all the fluency of those bred to the fight.

Give a dog too tight a leash, she thinks, and it chokes. And however much you whip it, it will always be a dog. But these, beloved. She smiles down at the men in the pit. These are lions.

She turns away, moving along a stone walkway to a narrow door. The sounds of combat follow her as she walks; the tunnel is long and dark but she has walked here before and has no need of torches. The chamber she comes to is broad and high, tiered walkways rising on both sides allowing access to rows of cells, each sealed with bars of iron. She pauses and lets her song wander, feeling the dulled fears emanating from each of the cells. Drugs are widely employed by the overseers who service these cells, but still the fear always lingers. Her song alights on a cell on the middle tier to the left. The note is harsh, sombre, stirring a hunger.