The Queen of Mages (22 page)

Liam’s eyes slowly blinked open. Faint,
angular shapes lay scattered across the forest floor. As light
crept back into the world, shades of gray awoke into color. The
shapes resolved into fat, wet, brown leaves. Liam tasted dirt and
blood in his mouth, and felt a growing ache in his lower leg.

Only the buzzing of insects intruded on the
silence. He heard a scraping sound, and turned his head to see a
red blur that he eventually recognized as a fox digging in the
dirt. The fox noticed him, and watched carefully for a moment
before bounding away.

There were trees all around him, a dense
copse of witchwood. Liam sat up slowly, aching all over. When he
shifted his right leg, his ankle screamed in protest. He shouted in
pain and tried to hold very still, to avoid more agony.

He was deep in the woods. As he tried to
recall why, last night came back to him, the steel and blood and
deafening crashes that rent the keep’s stone walls as easily as a
child might smash a castle made of twigs.

Once their sally party was past the gate,
they’d broken into a canter toward Edon and his men, then wheeled
left to try to race past them. There was another tremendous bang,
and he heard a man and a horse scream behind him. In a moment of
fury Liam had kicked his horse into a gallop and yelled “Hedenham!”
as he charged at the edge of the formations of royal soldiers. Half
of the Hedenham men followed him, but the rest hung back, and he
thought he’d heard Asmus shout something. He knew he shouldn’t
separate from them, but he’d seen himself in his mind’s eye,
breaking through and leading them all to safety.

But their charge had faltered before a line
of mounted knights that swung around the edge of the king’s
formation, and Liam’s group broke into splinters. Another group of
knights came up the middle, pushing Dardan and the rest of the
Hedenham men back toward the keep. Liam raced to rejoin them,
losing men left and right to swords and spears in the dark. The
defenders were weakened and disarrayed.
If we hadn’t been cut in
half by my stupid charge…
He’d let his rage take control of
him, that deep rage that welled up unbidden.

Fighting a desperate retreat, he thought
he’d seen Amira or Katin emerging from the moat near the ruined
tower, but it had been impossible to be sure. Dardan had gone off
toward whoever it was as Liam turned back to fight off one of
Edon’s knights. The man was in plate head to toe, and Liam kept
dancing his horse out of range, until there had been another of the
startling thunderclaps, terrifyingly close, and rubble had rained
down from the keep wall onto them. Liam’s horse had spooked,
galloping frantically away from the keep and into the trees on the
sideslope. Racing through the dark, he’d almost gotten the beast
under control, when a branch had caught him in the chest, knocking
him half off the horse, catching his boot in the stirrup—

He poked gingerly at his ankle, which had
swollen up, painful to the touch. Somehow he’d gotten it untangled
and crashed to the ground without breaking his leg, or his neck,
but the horse hadn’t been interested in stopping to check on his
health. Liam pulled off his boot, trying not to scream.

He felt half a coward for leaving the battle
behind. He salved his pride by telling himself he’d been lucky to
survive as long as he did, facing knights in plate.
Being dead
would do me no good.
He wondered if Amira had gotten away, or
Katin. That woman wouldn’t go down without a fight.

A broken tree branch lay on the ground near
him, freshly splintered at one end. It must have been the one he
collided with. It was long and thick enough to use as a crutch.
Now I have my revenge on you, branch,
he thought, putting it
under his armpit and letting it take his weight.

The horse’s hoofprints remained as faint
outlines in the soil. He figured out which direction he’d come
from, and began to limp back toward Foxhill Keep. It was slow going
with the crutch, and every time his right foot scraped against the
ground, slivers of fire raced up his leg.

When faint voices echoed through the trees
ahead, he got down on his belly and wormed his way forward. Peering
through brush, Liam could finally see past the edge of the trees
onto the low grassy hill before the keep. Lines of tents surrounded
one large purple tent that must be Edon’s. Sentries walked the edge
of the camp.

Liam watched for a while. The sun was above
the trees, but only just. He waited as it rose and shadows got
shorter. He was thirsty and hungry, but he’d suffered worse. He
could wait.

As it happened he did not have to wait long.
After less than an hour, someone shouted an order and the soldiers
began pulling down their tents and packing up to leave. Edon came
out of his own tent and was immediately surrounded by a coterie of
knights. They moved off while other men struck Edon’s tent. But it
was not the last tent to be taken down; that honor went to a pair
of small tan tents adjacent to it. When Liam saw why, he almost
cried out.

Katin and Calys were brought forth from
those two tents. Each of them had their hands bound, but Calys’s
bonds were cut almost at once. She was put on a horse and escorted
away by a pair of knights, down toward the Hedenham road.

Katin was put into the back of one of the
supply wagons, and tied to its railing. Liam felt that deep fury
start to rise in him again, but he could do nothing. Katin was
surrounded by royal soldiers on all sides. He wouldn’t make it
twenty paces before someone saw him and put a sword through his
heart.

He waited, letting the fury wash over him.
Interminable minutes later, the knights and Wardens and Prince
Edon—
I’ll never call the man king,
Liam thought
bitterly—mounted and rode off, followed by wagons and the infantry.
Katin’s wagon was in the middle of the pack, and several soldiers
walked alongside her. Liam had had a fantasy of sneaking to it and
breaking her free, but it would have been impossible even had his
ankle not been injured. He realized he was pounding his fist
uselessly into the dirt, over and over, scratching the skin of his
hand on roots and rocks.

When the last of the army disappeared from
sight down the Hedenham road, Liam still waited another five
minutes before he stood. His legs cramped, and he had to lean
against a tree for a few more minutes, massaging the blood back
into them. When he could limp again, he went out onto the field
before the keep.

A great rent had been torn in the keep wall
between the ruined gate and the crumbled tower.
What in the name
of Chaos made those blasts?
It had frightened him beyond all
reason. It was as if Edon had summoned thunder out of nothing.

As he moved into the open, he began to
realize that what he’d taken for a refuse pile was in fact a
shallow mound of corpses. He came close to it. It did not smell
yet, but fat flies buzzed around, landing on the rivulets of drying
blood.

Liam recognized most of these men. The
Tarian guards all seemed to have their tabards on, still; the rest
were townsmen, folk he’d known for years. He walked around them,
keeping his distance. Not that there was any threat from the dead,
but he didn’t want to retch.

When he came to the other side of the pile,
he cried out. There he saw Asmus Tarian, with a huge straight gash
down from his shoulder to his stomach. Blood and fabric clogged the
wound. His eyes were open. Liam could not stand the idea of getting
near enough to close them.

He turned away and heaved up what little
remained in his stomach. After a while he went back to the pile. He
pushed some of the bodies out of the way, hoping beyond hope that
he would not find what he feared.

But neither Dardan nor Lady Amira were
there. Neither, oddly, was Old Ban. It had been near-impossible to
keep track of everyone in the dark. Edon had, it seemed, captured
only Calys and Katin. So where were Amira and Dardan?

There was no way he might track them now.
His horse was gone, and his ankle raged. He went into the keep and
found that all the rest of the food they’d brought with them was
missing. The soldiers must have taken it when they searched the
keep and found Calys. At least the cistern was still mostly full;
he cupped his hands and took several blessedly cool gulps of water.
That would sustain him for now.

He limped down to the Hedenham road, his
good leg aching and his bad ankle burning. It was barely over a
mile back to the manor, but he dreaded every step as his muscles
throbbed. He eyed the manor with blessed relief as he approached,
hoping old Gerald had stayed safe—had he come to the keep? He
didn’t remember seeing the man.

He came to the stone arch at the edge of the
Tarians’ estate where it met the Hedenham road. He had seen no one
since leaving Foxhill Keep. His desire to get inside and rest was
sidelined by a sudden burst of caution. He peered around the arch
and saw a small party of royal soldiers waiting at the top of the
long gravel path to the manor. They couldn’t see him, but if he
crossed the arch they might. He cursed quietly. How long would they
be there? Had Edon stationed them there in the hopes that Amira or
Dardan might foolishly return to the manor? It might be hours or
days before they left.

He had to find shelter somewhere. An
isolated farmhouse would do, if he could find one whose owner would
let him in… but then Edon might have men patrolling around here as
well. In the town there were far too many homes for Edon’s men to
watch. He’d have a better chance there. Maybe he could rest at the
inn.

Liam went back along the road and cut across
a potato field to reach a small stand of woods that led to more
fields, and then to the edge of Hedenham Town proper. His injured
ankle wasn’t getting any better, and his good leg was growing ever
more fatigued. He’d have to cross through the whole town from here
to get to the Copper Kettle, but it was too likely to be watched.
He’d have to find somewhere else.

His whole body felt beaten as he limped into
the town. The sun was high now, and growing hotter. Few people were
about, which suited him; the fewer who knew he was here, the
better. He went until he came to a high hedge on a narrow lane, and
followed it around to the manse that fronted it. He found himself
pounding on a door, barely able to stand. After a minute the door
cracked open a hair, and a gaunt eye peeked out at him.

“Please… I’m Lord Dardan’s
valo
… I
need…” He collapsed, sliding down onto the front stairs, banging
his ankle again and nearly passing out from the agony.

He sensed motion as he flickered in and out
of consciousness. Once he thought he was floating. His legs
dangled. He fell onto something soft. Water splashed on his face
and trickled into his throat, and then he slept.

———

Liam’s eyes opened in darkness. He was warm,
and all was still. He turned his head toward flickering
candlelight. There was a slight gasp, and a shape—a girl?—stood and
raced from the room. “He’s awake!” was all he heard.

He struggled to sit up a little. His ankle
still hurt, but not as badly. He saw that it was raised on a stack
of pillows, a cool cloth draped over it to help the swelling.
Someone had undressed him, he realized. He was in a bedchamber,
small and bare, a lone candelabrum providing the only light.

The shuffling of footsteps snapped him back
awake. Through the door came a woman with wrinkled, pale eyes
beneath a cap of silver hair. The Dowager Baroness Dyane Ulmic,
ancient and frail, settled into a velvet-upholstered chair not an
arm’s length from him. He blinked at her and vainly tried to sit up
a little more. “M’lady,” he muttered, his throat dry.

Dyane’s
vala
, Polly, who was equally
old but substantially taller, stood by. She held a cup of water out
to Liam, and he drank deep.

“Good evening, young sir,” the baroness
said. “You seem to have met with some difficulty.”

Liam coughed. “Yes, m’lady.”

“Rumors are flying now,” she said. “Tales
about what happened at the old keep.” She waited.

“I was there,” Liam said. “Count Asmus—this
may shock you, m’lady, but Count Asmus is dead.”

He thought her jaw set a little, but
otherwise her deeply lined face showed no reaction. “A tragedy,”
she murmured, glancing down at her hands. Her skin was like fine
parchment, white and translucent. “Tell me what you can.”

It took him the better part of an hour to
explain it all. He kept drowsing, and once fell asleep entirely,
mid-sentence. He had no reason to hide anything from her; Baroness
Dyane had been friends with the Tarians since before Liam was born.
And what worse could Edon do to them than what he had already
done?

The enormous explosions that had torn holes
in the keep’s wall were the hardest to explain. He likened them to
thunderclaps striking very nearby. He grew angry when describing
how Katin had been taken roughly away, and felt that deep rage
clawing at him again. Baroness Dyane showed little expression at
any of it, listening intently, her hands clasped on her lap.

“I remember Lady Amira’s
vala
,” she
said when he was done. “You love her, it is plain, and ache to go
to her.”

Liam was taken aback. “No—no such thing is
true, m’lady.”

“Hush, boy. I have seen more lovesick young
men in my lifetime than you can fathom. The way your eyes unfocused
when you spoke of her, how your cheeks reddened when you said she’d
been taken.” She flicked a finger, a tiny gesture dismissing a
thousand young men like him.

It peeved him. “Well what does it matter,
unless m’lady knows where she is?”

“If that disagreeable whelp Edon took her, I
imagine she’ll be accompanying him back to the capital.” She eyed
him. “You’re likely to do something rash when your strength is
returned, and I hope you will listen to sense before you do.”