James Lowder - Spectre Of The Black Rose

The anger in the Rose's voice, the fear it inspired in the Beast, did not sway Ganelon to the quest. It was love of Helain that prompted him to accept. "I'll storm Nedragaard Keep if that's what it takes to save her," he said at last.

"Do not make such offers lightly," the White Rose noted. Once more she held out a silk-gloved hand for Ganelon to kiss. As she did, her sleeve rode up just enough to reveal a glimpse of her charred and skeletal arm. "You may be called to account for such oaths in ways you never expect."

With a shudder, Ganelon touched his lips to her stiff, cold fingers.

The day was unlike any other for the Wanderers. For the first time since Magda formed the troupe all those years ago in Gundarak, the dawn found the Vistani in the same camp they'd used the night before.

Superstition had prompted the troupe to seek a new site each day. Magda's ancestor, the fabled Vistani hero Kulchek, had suffered under a curse that required him never to sleep in the same place twice. As she carried Kulchek's cudgel and traveled with a hound descended from his own faithful Sabak, so Magda took his customs upon herself. Her tribe had no choice but to follow her wishes.

Inza felt no such compunction, even though she, too, carried more of Kulchek's legacy than some vague blood tie. The dagger she wielded was none other than the hero's own storied blade, Novgor. That needle-pointed, ever-sharp blade had freed Kulchek from the chains the nine boyars used to enslave him. With it he'd picked the lock to the tower in which the giant hid his beautiful daughter. Novgor was the only weapon sharp enough to cut the tree the Wanderer found at the top of the world, the tree from which he fashioned his cudgel, Gard.

It was the only weapon sharp enough to score that same unbreakable cudgel, to render it useless in Magda's hands on the night of the salt shadow attack.

That dark deed had caused Inza no discomfort. How, then, could abandoning Kulchek's habit bring her harm? The curse, after all, had been leveled against him, and he was long dead.

So Inza had stopped the caravan from breaking camp the afternoon before. "We've found no better site on the edge of the Fumewood," was the only reason she gave.

Some of the Wanderers grumbled. A few even took their bedrolls and went off to sleep in the woods. Most of the gypsies, exhausted from a week of scouring the Fumewood for some trace of Bratu, merely slouched off to their vardos to get a few extra hours' sleep.

Now, in the still moments before dawn, when the whole world seemed to hold its breath in anticipation of the day to come, Inza walked quietly through the sleeping camp. Alexi nodded a somber greeting to her from his station at the low-banked fire. She stifled the urge to laugh. Whether keeping watch over the vardos or celebrating a well-run scam on some giorgio, the man maintained the same comically grim expression. It was as if he'd just eaten something so sour he couldn't open his mouth again to spit it out.

Inza knew the man feared her, so perhaps the expression was one he reserved only for her. It didn't matter. Alexi did what she ordered, without question, without hesitation. If he was lucky, he might still be around to help her put her final plans into motion, but she wasn't counting on it. Better, she knew, to rely only upon herself.

Still musing on the value of self-reliance, Inza made her way down a winding path to a spring-fed pool she had discovered two days ago. It was one of the things that made the site so attractive for a camp. When she came to the cool, clear water, Inza neither drank nor washed her face. Instead, she sat on the mossy bank and waited.

Just after the sun topped the Fumewood's twisted trees, a shout of alarm startled the raunie to her feet. She drew Novgor from the special sheath in her boot and took a step toward the vardos. She paused as the single shout was echoed by a second and a third cry of alarm. Finally, when the screams of horses and the clash of steel sounded from the camp, she set off at a run.

Inza surveyed the cramped battlefield from the edge of the clearing. A group of ogres stormed through the camp. Instead of the usual flea-ridden furs and tattered rags, these brutes were clad in plate armor or chain mail. Decorated helms hid their warty faces and greasy locks, and they carried weapons of a fine enough forge to satisfy any soldier. Though they wore no insignia and carried no standard, the colors of their cloaks-purple and black- declared their allegiance to Malocchio Aderre.

A quick count totaled the number of ogres at twenty. The Vistani were outnumbered, even if all of them were included as worthwhile fighters. Many of the older men and women simply were not. Still, the Wanderers seemed to be holding their own. Ten bodies lay bleeding into the dirt; the casualties were split evenly between the Vistani and the ogres.

Alexi in particular seemed to be acquitting himself well. At the moment he was driving not one, but two of the brutes into retreat. Whoever had shown the Vistana how to wield a sword, they'd taught him well.

"Regroup with me," Alexi shouted. Inza and the remaining Vistani retreated to his position, placing the arc of vardos at their backs. The ogres formed a semicircle of their own. Slowly they began to close in on the cornered gypsies.

"They were separating us," Alexi explained breathlessly. "We can hold off their charge, but only if we stay together." He gave Inza that familiar sour-faced look. "If there's some fey magic at your disposal, raunie, now would be the time to use it."

Inza didn't get a chance to answer. One of the wagons that the Wanderers had been counting on to keep the ogres from encircling them suddenly flipped over. Two Vistani were caught beneath the vardo, killed instantly. A second wagon toppled, then a third. The ogres surrounded them. With a cry of "Invidia!" they charged.

Greta, a blonde beauty who had promised to wed Piotr come spring, was trapped between two of the brutes. She fought valiantly. One blow from her staff and the shorter of her attackers dropped to the ground, broken nose gushing blood. The other snatched her from the ground even as she raised her staff to strike again. With a swiftness startling for his size, the ogre brought one knee up to waist height and cracked the girl over it like a bundle of dry firewood.

From across the camp, Piotr howled his anguish. He brought his sword down with such force that it bit into an ogre's armored shoulder and stuck there. The brute spun away, clutching at the weapon. In doing so, he dropped the pike he'd been carrying. Piotr grabbed it and charged the ogre that had killed his beloved Greta.

The pike's spiked tip lodged in the ogre's gut. The force of the blow knocked him from his feet. But the brute would not die. Even as Piotr twisted the polearm and jammed it deeper into his stomach, the ogre struggled to free himself. He was either too stupid or too tough to realize the severity of his wounds.

When it was clear that the pike was not going to finish the job, Piotr seized a large piece of firewood. As the brute wrestled with the blood-slicked weapon protruding from his stomach, the Vistana tore off his helmet and caved in his skull.

The screams, blood, and chaos set Inza's heart aflutter. She hung back from the brawl, Novgor clutched before her. The ogres left her alone. Time and again they ran right past her, as if she were invisible.

The rest of the Wanderers were not so lucky. Before long, Inza could see only four men standing. Alexi and Piotr were holding their own, but Katan, the troupe's youngest, was staggering from a nasty leg wound. Nikolas flanked him, offering some meager protection as the two tried to find some suitable place to make their final stand.

Inza smiled. It was time.