Nancy Berberick - Prisoner of Haven

Again, a soft grunt. “Good. You’ve done well to bring this to me, half-elf. Now tell me, what do you see in the images?”

Rowan’s blood raced, pounding in his ears. “I… see you, sir knight.”

Sir Radulf called out, and a knight came into the room. “Find the woman Usha Majere. Start with Loren Halgard.” He looked at Rowan, eyes narrow. “From what this fellow tells me, I think Halgard wouldn’t mind handing her over if he knows where she is.”

The knight saluted smartly and left. Sir Radulf touched the edge of the sketch with one finger, turning it around to show Rowan a different angle.

Rowan felt his belly shrivel as the images changed to become a portrait of his own death. He looked up. The knight’s face was cold and still.

“Sir… ?”

A chill smile slid across that face, and two hard hands clamped down on Rowan’s shoulders from behind and yanked him to his feet. Rowan tried to turn to see who held him, but he could not move.

“This one has betrayed his master,” Sir Radulf said to the unseen knight. “Take him out and hang him.”

Usha found a pair of breeches in the pile of clothing Aline dumped onto the bed. She ransacked another pile for a shirt to fit.

“And hose,” she muttered.

Safe-house clothing, the gear Aline sent forward to supply the houses where refugees might spend a night along their path away.

Hose dropped from Dez’s hands. Usha snatched them gladly and looked around for shoes.

“Boots,” Dez said, dropping those down, too.

At the window, Aline paced restlessly. Usha looked up and warned her friend back from the window.

“He’s all right,” she said. “Madoc has been taking care of himself for a long time. He’s not about to forget how now. Keep away from the window.”

Aline protested. “It’s not as though people know I’m the head of Qui’thonas and could point me out to a dark knight from the street.”

Usha gathered up her borrowed clothing. “Aline, you don’t know what Sir Radulf has learned since last night. No one knows… no one knows what Loren has guessed.”

Aline turned from the window, her green eyes bright, her homely face softening with sympathy. “Usha, would he tell Sir Radulf if he guessed?”

“Can’t take the chance,” Dez said before Usha could answer.

“Won’t take the chance,” Dunbrae agreed. He glanced out the window at the color of the sky and the thinning light. “Madoc better be here soon. He could have gone to Steadfast and back three times by now.”

Unspoken among them was the fear that Madoc had gone to Steadfast looking for Usha and was not able to return.

Usha wanted to say that Loren wouldn’t betray her, no matter what he guessed or knew about her or about Qui’thonas .

“I don’t know,” she said, carefully around pain. “Loren thinks I killed his daughter. He thinks I’m a doom-weaver.” She laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “As if I couldn’t paint a better fate than this.”

Glances passed between Aline and Dez.

Dunbrae cleared his throat with a rumble and said, “All right then. Madoc knows where to meet. He’ll be there if he can, but we have to be ready to go when the light fails.”

He returned to Aline’s desk and the work of destroying her papers and ledgers. By Aline’s order, nothing must remain in Rose Hall to implicate anyone who ever worked with Qui’thonas . Her servants would know in the morning that she was gone. They would be guiltless of her vanishing. Usha took her borrowed clothing into another room and quickly changed.

When the light was gone from the sky, they were ready. They slipped quietly out of the house and into the garden. Madoc hadn’t returned, and Usha felt a gathering of grief when she looked in Aline’s eyes.

Dunbrae pointed to the shed and cocked a lean grin. “A fine set of tunnels down there, Mistress Usha. A bit muddy these days, but there’s a-”

Color drained from his face. His cheeks went ashen. Like winter suddenly fallen, terror washed through Usha, fear so strong she cried out as though in pain. Dez shouted, Dunbrae cursed, and in the sky a dragon appeared with the suddenness of lightning. A gout of flame shot from between the beast’s fanged jaws. Usha lunged for Aline and dragged her out of the way as the shed burst aflame. They staggered away from the fire, the two women still in the grip of dragonfear. Trees caught fire as the dragon dipped down then soared high, wide wings fanning the flames and running shadow on the ground.

Howling curses, Dunbrae punched Dezra’s arm. “Let’s get ’em out of here!”

For her part, Usha didn’t need anyone to get her out of there. She only needed to know where to go. When Dez cried, “Follow me!” Usha grabbed Aline’s wrist and ran.

The dragon circled, stirring fear in Usha’s heart as though it were stirring a cauldron. She ran after Dez, yanking Aline along with her as they scrambled across fences, through alleys, into dry stream beds and ponds scummed with foul smelling algae. They ran like ghosts through Haven’s back alleys and forgotten paths, while overhead two dragons circled.

Mounted knights thundered down the streets, and once when they stopped to catch breath, Usha looked back to see the whole quarter of Haven where Rose Hall stood on fire. Flames rushed up into the sky, and billows of black smoke painted out the stars.

“It’s like Haven falling all over again,” she said.

“Haven hasn’t finished falling yet,” Dunbrae said.

Usha ran on, following Dez, picking up Aline when she fell, climbing to her own feet when Aline thrust down a hand to help. Always Dunbrae was behind, keeping their backs. She had no idea where they were, she could only trust Dez and Dunbrae. Smoke filled her lungs, she ran gasping and coughing. Cries of fear and anger rang from the wider streets as people ran to get home and see to family or goods, or fled from burning houses. In the back alleys and narrow lanes they ran, people were seldom seen.

Usha ran bent over, trying to breathe, trying to shove away dragonfear and the terrible need to fall to her knees. That never got better, but the farther they got from the fires, the easier it became to run.

They stopped again, and Usha leaned against a stone wall overrun with briars. She hardly felt the sting.

Aline said, “Look,” and pointed to the roiling sky. White fire flashed out of a cloud-a black dragon dropped down, circling.

They dropped to the ground and huddled in the shadow of the wall, burrowing into the bramble hedge until they bled from the scratches.

“It’s gone,” Usha said, wiping blood from her cheeks and hardly feeling the sting. She didn’t stop to wonder how she knew. It was simply that the terror had lessened.

They went that way for what felt like hours-stumbling, ducking into shadows, tumbling into noisome gutters and alleys. In the dim light Usha began to recognize the quarter of the city they were in. Farther east lay the garden where she and Dez had seen the three hanged men-the first bitter, brutal sign of Lady Mearah’s reign. The ground sloped down, running toward the river and the wall that once kept proud Haven safe from predators and now made the city prisoner of the dark knights.

Dunbrae came up from behind to tap Usha’s shoulder. “Wait here.” He glanced at Aline. “Both of you.”

He slipped forward into the darkness to speak with Dezra. A moment later, the two parted. The night was hot, yet Usha shivered. Aline put a hand on her arm and whispered, “They’ll be fine. We’ll take this time to catch our breath. They’ll be back before you know it.”

So they were, and they came from behind.

“No guards at the river gate,” Dez whispered. “None on the walls.”