David Weber - War Maid's choice

Flames began to leap and dance along the roofs, the columns of smoke growing thicker and denser, beginning to billow on the fires’ growing updraft. He watched those columns climb and waited.

Some of the armsmen and servants dashed for the watering troughs and the lever-arm pumps that served them. It was an instinctive reaction, but one Leeana knew instantly was futile. There were simply too many arrows, too many separate pools of flame spreading across those roofs, and her heart sank as she pictured what the heat and smoke were going to do to their ability to defend the King.

But then she heard a sound even more horrifying than that thought-the screams of panicked horses.

“ The stables! ” she shouted, and ran madly across the courtyard, ignoring the scattered rain of burning arrows hissing out of the heavens. More feet pounded behind her, following her towards the stables with the bone-deep instinct of all Sothoii.

Hooves thundered on box stalls, more whistling screams of terror rose from within the smoke, and Leeana heaved desperately at the bar across the stable doors. Someone skidded to a halt beside her, helping her, throwing the locking bar aside, grabbing the huge double door panels and hauling them wide. Smoke, heat, and those bone chilling screams billowed out of them, and Leeana coughed as she ran into the heart of chaos.

She flung open the stalls nearest to the entrance, dodging frantically as the horses in them threw their weight against the opening doors. Those horses saw light, knew where the door was, and terror gave them wings. They thundered out of the stable, fleeing madly from the crackling flames, and Leeana coughed again, harder. The smoke was incredible, and the stablemaster had stored a loft full of hay against the coming winter. Burning bits of shingle and roofing timber spilled into the loft, and the dried hay caught instantly. White smoke joined the seething coils of wood smoke, and it was suddenly impossible to see more than a foot or two through the choking, suffocating waves of heat.

‹ Come back!› Gayrfressa cried in the back of her brain. ‹ Leeana! Sister- come back!›

Leeana heard her hoofed sister, but even Gayrfressa’s voice was lost and far away, somewhere beyond the immediacy of her mission. She staggered in the blinding smoke, finding the stall latches by feel more than by sight, throwing them open, but these horses couldn’t see the entrance, and even if they could have, crackles of flame danced and leapt between them and the stable door. The path to escape and life lay between those flames, but they eyed the wall of smoke with ominous red glare, and the panicky horses shied away from the visible menace. They reared and trumpeted madly, deadly in their terror, and Leeana jumped aside, barely in time, as one of them blundered blindly deeper into the death trap of the burning stables.

She caught another by the halter, and was nearly dragged from her feet by the terrified creature. She managed to hang on, wishing desperately that she could somehow bandage its eyes, but that would have taken an extra set of hands. All she could do was speak to it as soothingly as the tumult of sound and her own coughing breath would allow while she dragged it towards safety.

She’d managed to get it almost all the way to the entrance when a flaming bit of debris landed on its croup. The fiery piece of wreckage wasn’t especially large, but the burned horse squealed and bolted forward, nearly trampling her as it broke free of the stable. She staggered, almost falling, then started back into the roaring inferno once more.

Something hit her. Already off-balance, she fell, and barely managed to tuck a shoulder before she hit the ground. The cut on her ribs sent a stab of pain through her, but she ignored it, shoving herself back up onto her knees, starting for the stable again.

“ No! ” a voice shouted in her ear.

She coughed, trying to understand, and felt hands on her shoulders, dragging her back. She turned her head and found herself looking into a face she knew.

“No, Milady!” Tarith Shieldarm said. He shook his head, tears washing pale lines through the soot on his own face. “No…it’s too late.”

‹ Listen to him! Listen to him, Sister!›

Leeana twisted, trying to pull free, the hideous screams of the horses still trapped in that vortex of flame washing over her, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“No,” he said once more. “You can’t! It’s too late!”

The words broke through to her at last, and she sagged, suddenly aware that she wasn’t simply coughing. She was weeping wildly as those shrieks of agony rolled over her, and the man who’d been her personal armsman for so many years gathered her into his arms and held her tightly.

“There, lassie,” he murmured in her ear, stroking her singed, ash-smutted hair with one callused hand. “There. You did what you could. Come away now.”

“No, here- here! ” Hathan Shieldarm shouted.

“Leave the horses!” he heard Tellian bellowing. “Fiendark take it, leave the horses! ”

Hathan winced at the pain and rage in his wind brother’s voice, but the baron was right. They couldn’t save all the horses, whatever they did, and in trying to save any they played directly into the hands of the men trying to kill the King. He snarled, beating at one of the King’ armsmen with the flat of his saber, hard enough the man staggered and nearly fell. He came back up, his face a snarl of fury, then stopped when Hathan struck him again. The armsman shook his head, and reason flowed back into his expression.

Reason…and hate. Hate directed at that moment against the wind rider who’d stopped him from running into that roaring, crackling furnace.

Reason won. The armsman shook his head, then nodded and staggered back towards the King.

“Into the corner!” Tellian shouted. “Get the King into the angle-now, damn you! Now! ”

Sir Frahdar Swordshank’s voice joined the baron’s, whipping the remaining armsmen and courtiers into something resembling organized motion. They dragged the wounded with them, trying to keep low, under the smoke, as they backed into the southwestern corner of the walled enclosure. The wind-such as there was of it-was out of the west, pushing the worst of the smoke away from them. The rolling, roaring flame which had engulfed the main lodge was to their right front, and the wall itself was to their left. It was a pathetic excuse for a defensive position, but it was the best they had.

‹ They’re moving, Brother, › Gayrhalan told Hathan. ‹ They’re moving.›

They were, and the wind rider heaved a mental sigh of relief. Then his head came up as a huge, chestnut mare loomed out of the smoke beside him. Leeana leaned against Gayrfressa, coughing, her face streaked with tears, and Hathan’s heart twisted as he saw her. He started to reach out to her, but there was no time. The best he could do was give her a nod of encouragement before he and Gayrhalan crossed to Tellian.

The baron looked up grimly as Gayrhalan drew up beside Dathgar.

“She’s all right,” Hathan said quickly.

“So far,” Tellian grated. His face was as filthy as his armor, smeared with ash, and his eyes were hard, as close to despair as Hathan had ever seen them.

“They’ll be coming again…soon,” the baron continued, wrenching his thought and heart away from his daughter, focusing on the desperation of the moment. “This time it’ll be the gate.”

“Unless they decide that’s what we’re going to expect and they use the cover of the smoke to come over the walls again,” Hathan replied.

‹ It will be the gate,› Gayrhalan said flatly. Hathan looked down, and the courser turned his head far enough to looked up at him with one eye. ‹ We hurt them too badly on the walls last time, Brother. They won’t come in scattered that way a second time.› He flicked his ears in the equine equivalent of a shrug. ‹ The gate will let them come in together, and they’ll expect the smoke to keep us from seeing them until they’re right on top of us.›