Sasha (48 page)

The small horse wheeled in confusion, Sasha spurring hard until it lurched downslope, weaving between tents and tripping on bodies of fallen animals and riders…a pair of Ranash cavalry came across in front, Sasha reining desperately backwards, then sought the way those two had come, to wrongfoot and dash for the clear space…A dismounted man in black and red appeared suddenly in front, slashing low for the dussieh's legs. It fell with a shriek as Sasha barely managed to leap with her feet clear of the stirrups.

She hit the ground and rolled, coming to her feet, her sword in hand as the Ranash man came at her. She flicked his downward smash aside with a twist of wrists and elbows, then slashed his stomach and spun clear to remove his head as he doubled over. The first two riders were coming back, and she ran, dodging to avoid a rushing Taneryn, hurdling another's bloody corpse as yet another stumbled screaming nearby, his arm severed and spurting blood, until a passing cavalryman cut him down.

She dove behind a collapsed tent, gasping for breath, huddling close to the canvas for cover. Something moved beneath the canvas and whimpered. Sasha pulled it aside in horror…and found Rysha, staring with wide, terrified eyes. Sasha grabbed her with her free arm and held her. The little girl clung to her, too frightened even to scream or cry. I got you into this, Sasha thought. What have I done?

Beyond the edge of the encampment, horses wheeled and riders fought. She watched as Taneryn warriors were cut down, outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and overpowered. There were Ranash cavalry everywhere. If she could just find another riderless horse—if she could just break clear and make for the trees—a little dussieh would be more nimble through the forest than a great warhorse…

Only now there were dismounted cavalry moving in, searching through the tents, examining bodies. One drove his blade into a fallen Taneryn to be sure. Sasha felt a surge of fury, rivalling the fear.

“Hide,” she said to Rysha, pulling the collapsed canvas more fully over her. Then she rose and stepped toward the approaching Ranash, having now no other choice.

They saw her, and one in particular had the lead. “Hello hello!” he said with cocksure delight, twirling his blade. His clean-shaven face was bloodspattered beneath his helm. “What have we here? The queen viper herself in the viper's nest? I'll have you for a nice trophy, my pretty. Goeren-yai princess indeed…”

He lunged and swung. Sasha faded, parried and split his head like a melon, helm and all. Another roared fury and leaped, Sasha parrying whilst spinning aside and into a third attacker. She defended once whilst falling to a crouch, and took his leg while rolling. She came up fast, crossed the next overhead defence into a vicious, diagonal slice of rotating shoulders and wrists, taking the second man across shoulder and face, then driving the sword point through the chest of the fallen man whose leg she'd taken, all in one motion.

Hooves thundered, and running footsteps approached from all angles. It had been seen. Dismounted men came running, weapons ready, their eyes wide, noting her identity and the corpses upon the blood-soaked ground beneath her boots. They encircled, warily, blades at the ready.

Sasha swivelled from one to the next, trying to watch all ways at once. The three at her feet, it occurred to her, had been easy. The next attack would be trouble—these would not take her so casually. But, even so, she fancied herself a slight chance. At the very least she would add to this pile at her feet.

This, she realised, was how it felt to be great. Not merely good, as many Lenay soldiers could claim, but truly great, as only one like Kessligh, or a warrior of Saalshen, might know. To feel confidence, where others might know despair. To know that the smallest error meant death, yet to remain unwavering. To see, in a vague and general way, that she was most likely doomed…and yet to stay calm, seeking an outlet, searching for the opening. To know that this, more than anything, was what she was, and what she was meant for. Despair was pointless. This was not her death. This was her life.

Shouts from behind, then, as several more horses came close, their riders dismounting. Then a Ranash man was pushed aside and Koenyg stood in his place, staring with disbelief.

“You!” he said. There was blood on his weapon, and more on clothes. But then, it had never been like Koenyg to order men into battle and not to partake himself.

“I came to rescue the little Udalyn girl,” Sasha told him, past the lethal, bloody edge of her weapon. It had cut through northern chainmail, yet bore barely a mark. Neither did her voice, which was cool and steady.

“Which little Udalyn girl?” Koenyg asked flatly. There was hostility on his broad face. And suspicion.

“The sister of the boy I brought to father,” said Sasha. “She is under the tent behind me. Look gently, she is frightened and harmless.”

Koenyg nodded curtly to a man behind her and there came the sound of canvas being moved. Then a frightened cry from a little girl's mouth.

“It's all right, Rysha!” Sasha called, not turning to look. Neither did she abandon her ready posture. “Rysha, be still! My brother is an honourable man. He would not harm a little girl.” With a dark stare at Koenyg, challenging him to prove her words true.

“You are in league with Lord Krayliss,” Koenyg observed, just as darkly.

“I am not,” Sasha said coldly. “I rode down here to rescue Rysha from your attack…”

“You left her here,” Koenyg said bitterly. “You brought the boy here too. Only Taneryn men could make sense of the Edu tongue. He helped you. You are collaborators against the crown, each as guilty as the other.”

Sasha felt a blaze of fury. Koenyg had often spoken of loyalty between members of Verenthane families, and now showed her none at all. Damn him. “If you wish to pass such hasty sentence,” she said icily, “then best you come to administer it yourself.”

“No,” Koenyg said grimly. “You shall face the trial that Lord Krayliss was to have had. It is not the prince's place to deliver that justice which is the king's to dispense.”

“Traitor,” came the mutter from the men surrounding. “Pagan whore!” And, “Kill the pagan traitor!”

“Others have tried,” Sasha said to that last, with an evil, sideways look. Braced and poised, awaiting an attack. “I stand on their bodies.” There was disbelief, and fear, mingling with the smell of blood and the thunder and screams of final pursuits across the hillside. Some men of Ranash uttered oaths and made holy gestures, furious yet somehow constrained. The men of the north had never believed the stories of the svaalverd. Now, they saw the evidence. Sasha recognised the fear on their faces—it was the fear of the supernatural, the ungodly, the unVerenthane. And she did not mind at all.

A crossbowman appeared at Koenyg's side and levelled that wicked contraption at Sasha's chest. There was contempt on Koenyg's face, his jaw set. “You shall relinquish your weapons and surrender yourself to justice,” he told her. “Do not be foolish. Your sister would never forgive you.”

Sofy, he meant. Sasha lowered her blade, slowly, and looked her brother in the eye. “It's not me who should be worried about that,” she said quietly. “When this is all over, brother, I fear few left alive in Lenayin shall forgive you.”

“I
DEMAND THAT YOU LET ME SEE MY BROTHER!”
Sofy stared up at the impassive Royal Guardsman and tried very hard not to cry.

“I'm sorry, Your Highness,” said the armoured and helmed Verenthane man, as firm as a rock before the door to Koenyg's chambers. “He is in audience. My instructions were explicit.”

“Princess, please,” Anyse said earnestly, tugging at Sofy's sleeve. “The sergeant is only doing his duty…”

“He threw my sister in a dungeon!” Sofy exclaimed on the verge of tears. “I want to know why!”

“Highness.” Anyse's tug was firmer. “Let us leave, there are other people you can ask…”

The city was in chaos, all soldiers called to full alert, rows of archers standing upon the great wall while cavalry mounted in the stables and made rows before the main gates. Rumour was that the Taneryn contingent had been slaughtered, though details were unclear. The circumstance surrounding Sasha was even less clear. If not for Sofy's carefully cultivated lines of gossip amongst friendly palace staff, she doubted she would have discovered Sasha's plight at all.

Koenyg was keeping it quiet. Now Damon had fumed to her, moments before mounting his horse and riding out on guard as his brother ordered, that Koenyg had known how Krayliss would react to the threat of a trial without Sasha's presence, and had been ready for it. Koenyg, the master warrior, played games to destroy his opponents. Now that game included Sasha's life.

“Who is he meeting with?” Sofy asked the sergeant, struggling for composure.

“I'm sorry, Your Highness, I cannot say.”

Sasha would know what to do, Sofy thought with a surge of frustration. Gods, she was so tired of being treated like a child. People ignored her, and patronised her, and told her to go elsewhere. Everyone except Sasha…and Damon.

She tossed her head back, and gave the sergeant a stare. “Do you have a sister, Sergeant?”

“I do, Highness.”

“Do you love her?”

“Very much, Highness.”

“Will you not let me in?”

“I love my prince too, Your Highness,” the sergeant said simply.

Sofy sniffed. “One day, Sergeant, I fear you may come to question that ordering of priorities. Pray that you choose wisely.”

She moved off down the stone hall, Anyse hurrying at her side. “Highness, we should really be making our way back to your Rathynal guests, they'll be wondering where you are…”

“Let them wonder,” Sofy said shortly. They descended the grand staircase to the royal quarters, Sofy noting that the guard had been doubled. Instead of making her way onward to the great hall, she turned left, back toward Koenyg's quarters. A smaller, service corridor ran along the east palace wall, its windows overlooking Fortress Road and up to Saint Ambellion Temple beyond, all aflurry with commotion and soldiers.

“Highness,” Anyse dared to ask, “where are you going?” Ahead, the corridor ended at an open kitchen door. A servant passed through, carrying porcelain plates on a tray. “Highness?” Sofy paused by one door, glanced up and down the corridor, then opened the latch and slid inside, beckoning Anyse to follow. “Those are the servants’ stores!”

Sofy grabbed her impatiently by the arm and dragged her inside. She left the door ajar to let in some light, for the room was pitch black and musty.

“Anyse,” said Sofy, “do you know where the servants’ uniforms are? I want one.”

Anyse stared at her. “Highness?”

“You heard me.”

“You…you want to dress as a…?” Sofy nodded.

Anyse looked aghast. “Absolutely not!”

“I'm going whether you help me or not,” Sofy said firmly. “Do you want me to get caught?”

“I'll go!” Anyse said desperately. “I'll spy for you, I'll listen to what they're…”

“No!”

Anyse blinked in astonishment to see such anger in the younger woman's eyes.

“I need to hear myself, there's no telling if you'll understand all that's said. Now can you find me a uniform, I don't know where they're stored.”

“Highness, no!” Desperately. “Sofy! It's too dangerous!”

“Do you think Koenyg would execute
me
?” Sofy said with disbelief.

“He thinks you're Sashandra's friend!”

“I am Sashandra's friend,” Sofy said firmly. “And if you truly are mine, you'll help me.”

The hem of the brown dress was low enough to obscure the fancy leather boots that were surely too good for any servant girl. No one looked at her as she entered Koenyg's personal kitchen. Cooks tended to pots atop metal ovens, firewood stacked high to one side. Another chopped and sliced on the main bench, while the head cook gave forceful instructions.

At the kitchen's far corner, a staircase wound upward. A servant descended that staircase now, placing empty entrée plates and glasses on a bench, picking up the empty water bucket and hurrying out, not sparing Sofy a glance as he passed. Sofy ducked her head, the servant's bonnet feeling most unusual tied beneath her chin and atop the bundled hair that Anyse had helped to arrange.