James West - Lady Of Regret

Rathe batted away the rider’s bottom half, and dropped into the saddle. He leaned far over the horse’s neck, snatched the reins, and yanked the beast around. Whether or not the horse knew its true master was dead, it responded to Rathe’s commands, and galloped back toward camp.

Loro came into view, surrounded by three circling riders intent on tormenting their prey. Rathe ended their silent sport with a chilling shout. As he swept into their midst, his sword ripped through the neck of one rider. Instead of a bloody shower, red dust burst from the wound. The headless rider floundered out of the saddle, as his horse galloped into the night.

Rathe wheeled to see one of the two remaining horsemen strike Loro a blow to the head. The fat man dropped as if his bones had become water, the way a man will fall when struck dead.

“No!” Rathe howled, charging back. His horse collided with another, and both went down. Rathe clambered free of the thrashing beasts, thrust his blade through one warrior’s visor, wrenched it free, and set out after the last rider.

The warrior’s steed reared, hooves slashing the air before Rathe’s nose. Swinging his sword like an axe, one hoof fell away. When the horse dropped down, Rathe plunged his blade hilt-deep into the beast’s belly and laid the horse open, freeing loops of shrunken innards. A rear hoof lashed out, catching Rathe a glancing blow to the hip. He went down in a heap, numb all over. Close at hand, Loro stared with blank eyes, blood running freely from a gash on the side of his head.

The last horseman guided his hobbling mount to stand over Rathe. Grasping his broadsword by the blade, he hoisted it high. As the rider tensed to strike, a thin bar of green fire streamed out of the shadows, engulfing both the warrior and his mount. The horseman dropped his sword as Yiri escaped the bushes, a seething sphere held between her hands, the source of green fire. She smiled like a girl with a new doll.

Rathe scrambled up, and dragged Loro farther from the prancing horse. Burning like a torch, the rider tumbled to the ground, and there writhed soundlessly within a furious ball of consuming flame. Faring no better, the horse charged a short distance into the forest before it collapsed. In moments, the intense heat abated, the flames died, and only smoking piles of ash remained.

“Gods and demons,” Loro murmured.

Rathe nodded, too stunned by what he had just seen to speak. Then he started violently, and looked down at his friend. “Blessed Ahnok, you’re alive!”

“Did you expect otherwise?” Loro said, offering a weak grin.

Before Rathe could kneel at his friend’s side, Yiri shoved him out of the way, muttering under her breath. “It worked,” she kept saying, sounding delighted and shocked, all at once.

“What was that?” Rathe asked, uneasy.

“If I am to help,” she snapped, “then stand aside.”

Rathe backed off. Horge seemed to spring from the ground at his feet. Weariness and concern for Loro could not quite overshadow the ratty man’s abrupt return, or the latest revelation of his sister’s talents. “Soon,” he said to Horge, voice menacing, “we must have ourselves a long conversation.”

Horge gave him a fretful look, then reluctantly nodded. “Aye.”

“We have to leave here with haste,” Yiri said, helping Loro to his feet. He looked better, despite the blood covering his face and neck.

“Tell me why?” Rathe demanded. He was finished being put off and lied to. Everyone he had met since crossing the Gyntors seemed guilty of one or the other, and sometimes both.

“Other riders will come,” Yiri said, scanning the dark forest.

“Who are they?”

Yiri opened her mouth to speak, then pressed her lips together.

Horge answered for her. “The Wardens of Tanglewood.”

“Unknown grace has spared us a fate worse than death,” Yiri added. For the first time, Rathe detected an emotion besides scorn or anger in her voice. Now he heard fear.

Rathe said, “When we are safely away, I want answers.”

Yiri faced him, ratty hair parted round one squinted black eye. “Once given, your wants might change.”

Nesaea peeked through the door’s small, barred window. She could just see the curve of the guard’s jaw. Far as she could tell, he had not moved since she came awake in the dim cell. She had hoped he would become careless, but that now seemed unlikely.

Mind made up, a rising sense of urgency filled her. She backed well away from the door, raised a finger to her lips for quiet. Fira watched from one corner of the cramped cell, as Nesaea swiftly unlaced her breeches, reached into a pocket sewn in the leg, and withdrew a set of lock picks. “We have to get out of here.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until later in the night?” Fira asked. Like Nesaea, she bore numerous bruises and scrapes, but seemed no worse for wear.

“We’ll make our escape in the small hours of the night, just before dawn,” Nesaea assured Fira, despite neither of them knowing what the present hour was in their windowless cell. “For now, I want to make sure we can flee, when the time comes.”

“We don’t even know where we are. What if we end up in the hands of those-” Fira faltered “-those dead folk?”

That was as close as either of them had come to mentioning those who had beset them, or the pale woman who had put a halt to the attack. Nesaea had avoided thinking about what had happened. Now that the subject had been broached, she had no choice.

She knelt before the door and, with a delicate touch, began working the lock. “After we get out, we’ll need weapons.”

“Blades didn’t help much the last time we used them,” Fira said with a shudder.

Nesaea felt a tumbler go with a soft click. She pressed the picks deeper, wiggling, probing. “We’ll have to stay hidden.”

“A fine plan, if we can stay out of sight. What if not?”

An idea came, but Nesaea was reluctant to say it. “There is a way, if hard.”

Fira glanced out the barred window. “Well, have out with it.”

Nesaea considered the young woman she had cut the hand from and then beheaded, the same who had then blindly wrapped her remaining hand around Nesaea’s throat. “Cut them to pieces. Anything to slow them down, and keep them from coming after us.”

Fira shuddered again. “That didn’t work so well before.”

“Our butchery was not thorough enough. That’s the key, and our only hope,” Nesaea said, as another tumbler went.

“A lot of extra work, cutting folk to bits.” Fira’s face contorted at the ghastly nature of the conversation. After scrubbing her palms over her eyes, she went on. “Work like that takes time. So much time, I expect they’ll overrun us.”

Nesaea tamped down her rising irritation. Fira was just trying to be helpful. “I-”

She cut off at the sound of approaching footsteps. Nesaea backed away from the door, hastily stuffing the picks down the front of her breeches. The naked steel was cold again her skin, but not as cold as the tight knot that formed in her gut when the lock rattled and the door swung inward. The pale woman stepped into the cell, and calmly regarded them. Fair, slight, and golden-haired, she did not look dangerous. Yet she had commanded the dead folk, and they had heeded her. She spoke without preamble.

“Why have you come to Ravenhold, when both fools and the wise shun this fortress and its holdings?”

Nesaea forced herself to remain calm as the guard moved behind the woman, the visor of his helm a black, light-devouring slit. “I am Nesaea Vonterel, mistress of the Maidens of the Lyre.” She avoided adding Lady to her name, aware of how foolish it would sound, here and now. Nesaea glanced at the fire-haired woman behind her. “This is Fira Timon, a dear friend, and sister of the lyre.”