Трой Деннинг - The Veiled Dragon

Both warriors lowered swords, and Godfrey hissed, “Vaerana Hawklyn!”

“You know me?” Vaerana asked. “Too bad for you.”

She shot the man in throat. Her companion did likewise to Henry, drawing a chorus of angry cries from the other quays. Vaerana nonchalantly glanced toward the shouting, then dismounted and stomped to the edge of the pier.

“Sorry we weren’t waiting when you docked, Tusks!” she said, grabbing Fowler’s hand and pulling him onto the pier. “We were expecting the Storm Sprite! ”

“We had some dragon trouble.” Fowler glanced at the other quays, where dozens of shouting, black-capped warriors were rushing toward shore, intent on avenging their comrades’ deaths. “Have you lost your mind, Lady Constable?”

Vaerana waved off the captain’s concern. “Don’t worry about the Black Caps. They’ve got a few surprises waiting for them.” The Lady Constable turned to Ruha. “You must be the witch Storm sent me.”

“Ruha of the Mtair Dhafir at your service, Lady Constable.” Ruha glanced at the two corpses lying on the pier. “Their crime was not so terrible. Was it truly necessary to kill them?”

Vaerana’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Only if I don’t want Cult assassins waiting behind every hill on the way home,” she growled. “Now, if you’re through interrogating me, can we get the hell out of here?”

“Yes, of course.”

Feeling sheepish for questioning Vaerana’s actions, Ruha stepped over to the side of the scow. Although Hsieh’s physician had done a remarkable job of healing her wound—her thigh was now swollen to only half-again its normal size—the witch could not help limping as she moved.

“What happened?” Vaerana was looking not at Ruha, but at Fowler.

“Sharks.” The half-orc waved a hand at his two amputees. “Them, too.”

Vaerana looked the men over, then turned to her rotund horse-handler. “This is going to be more difficult than we thought, Tombor.”

“We have a little time.” Tombor was staring toward the shore, where the Black Caps were already ducking for cover as a hail of crossbow bolts rained down on them from the windows of several huts. “Let’s just hope that once we’re mounted, we can charge out of town as easily as we sneaked in.”

“Maybe we should leave the one-legs here,” Fowler suggested, helping Ruha out of the scow. “They aren’t much good to me, and the ride’s liable to kill them anyway.”

Vaerana shook her head. “Can’t do it, Tusks. The Cult’s worse than ever; a ride on a galloping horse will seem like fun compared to what the Black Caps would do to them.” She turned to the grim-jawed rider who had killed Henry. “Pierstar, you and Tombor see to the crew. I’ll take care of Tusks and the witch.”

Pierstar jumped into the scow to help the amputees, while Tombor directed the rest of the crew to come around to the left side of the horses—he had to say ‘port’ before they understood what he wanted. Vaerana led Ruha and the captain to the first pair of spare mounts.

The Lady Constable held out the reins of the first horse. “You can ride, can’t you, Witch?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Ruha’s reply was unduly modest, for she had grown up riding camels. Compared to those cantankerous brutes, even the most spirited stallion was child’s play. She took the reins, gathered up her aba , and slipped her foot into the stirrup. Her only awkward moment came when she had to swing her injured leg over the saddle and did not quite succeed. A fiery ache shot through her entire body. In the tongue of her father, she cursed all fish and wished them a frigid death in seas as cold as ice.

Once Vaerana saw that Ruha could handle her own mount, she passed the reins of the second to Fowler. “How about you, Captain? Can you ride?”

“If I can handle a ship’s helm, I can steer a dumb animal.”

The captain picked Godfrey’s sword up off the pier, then clumsily thrust his large foot into a stirrup and hoisted himself into the saddle. By the time Fowler’s sailors were ready to ride, the Black Caps on shore had broken through the hail of crossbow bolts. They were advancing through the streets toward the end of the quay, where dozens of armored horsemen, all dressed in a similar manner to Vaerana and her companions, were beginning to assemble.

“I thought the Cult controlled Pros!” Fowler commented. “How’d you get so many of Elversult’s Maces into town?”

“The shark bounty; the fishing captains are desperate for crews,” Vaerana explained. “We snuck in a few at a time, pretending we wanted work.”

Vaerana stood in her stirrups and twisted around to look at the quay behind her, where Fowler’s crew sat two to a horse. The amputees were seated before the two strongest men and tied into their saddles with leather straps. They looked rather frightened and weak, but they had heard what would befall them in the Cult’s hands and made no protest.

“Listen up, sailors!” Vaerana said. “Your horses know more about this than you do, so don’t start thinking you’re smarter than they are. If you get in trouble, just drop the reins and hold on to your saddles.”

Arvold immediately released his reins. Though Tombor had already positioned himself at the back of the group, Ruha moved her own horse out of line and deftly backed him to the rear of the line. If the sailmender had trouble, she did not want to miss the chance to repay the debt she owed him.

Once the witch had changed positions, Vaerana pulled her mace and set the spurs to her mount. Pierstar’s horse reared, then bolted after the Lady Constable, and in the next instant the entire line was thundering down the dock.

When Vaerana neared the shore, she gave a loud whoop. The entire company of horsemen began to move, some blocking the alleys and others spurring their mounts straight down the village’s largest lane.

Ruha’s mount left the quay. She saw several enemy arrows streak through the air ahead of her; then she passed across the waterfront and followed the rest of the column into a warren of narrow streets. As the company passed, the warriors blocking the side streets fell in at the rear of the charge, and the witch soon found herself caught in the midst of a herd of snorting, pounding horseflesh.

The company galloped inland past a dozen ramshackle inns, then came to an intersection and turned westward. One of Fowler’s men panicked and jerked his mount’s reins, demolishing a shanty when the startled horse lost its footing and crashed through the hut’s weather-beaten walls. Ruha saw one of Vaerana’s Maces guiding his own mount into the debris to help the tumbling sailor, then she was around the corner and thundering down the muddy lane. A hundred yards ahead, the road passed through the gateway of a timber stockade, then curved around a grassy hill and disappeared from sight. A pair of Black Caps were trying to push the rough-hewn gates closed, but a flurry of crossbow bolts suddenly sprang from the front of the column to cut them down.

That was when a shower of flaming hail filled the air, followed by a flurry of arrows that caught the company in a deadly cross fire from both sides of the lane. Several men cried out, nearly falling from their saddles as fiery pellets pierced their legs and shoulders and even their chain-mailed torsos. Panicked, ringing whinnies echoed off the weatherworn huts as tufts of black fletching suddenly sprouted in the flanks and withers of galloping horses, and one of the beasts fell.

The rider went rolling head over heels down the street, coming to a rest before an alley too narrow to be called a lane. It was simply a space between two shanties. From this crevice shot a glimmering net of golden light, which quickly settled over the stunned horseman before he could recover his wits and rise.