Three Coins for Confession (30 page)

“She’s not… Her parentage won’t ever be an issue, Kath. Aerach’s
titles go father to son…”

“So glad you worked all that out beforehand, then.”

As she shifted toward the front of the tent, he tried to hold
her. Kathlan drove her fist into the stitches at his bare shoulder in response,
Chriani crumbling beneath a storm of pain that flared white-hot in his mind.

“Don’t touch me…” Kathlan whispered. She fumbled at the door
flap, tearing the pegs free. “Don’t ever…” Then she was outside and gone.

Chriani lay there for a long while, waiting for the pain to
subside before he could push himself to his feet. He stared at the candle,
still burning. Its light was shimmering where the walls of the tent rippled in
the wind.

From what seemed a lifetime ago, he remembered Barien telling him
that Kathlan was the best thing that would ever happen to him. He remembered
ignoring the warrior. He might even have laughed. Turning so that Barien
wouldn’t see the flush at his face to tell him Chriani already knew he was
right.

He remembered Barien singing with Kathlan at that harvest fest
that was the first night for her and Chriani. An emptiness rooted deep inside him,
reminding him that another piece of Barien’s memory had been broken off
tonight. A kind of living thread that ran from him to Kathlan to the warrior,
vanished into shadow.

“Sergeant Chriani.”

Jeradien’s voice came from outside the tent. Chriani felt the
breeze cold at his bare back.

The door flap was still unsealed. The Aerachi ranger should have
waited for his response, asked his permission to enter. Proper protocol when
seeking out a superior.

She pulled the flap wide instead. “I am to offer apology for
striking you, lord.” Angrily stated, making it clear she was doing so only
because Venry must have ordered it. She had pulled the tent open without asking
leave for the same reason, leading with her sense of sullen defiance.

Her eyes were downcast to counter the insolence, giving Chriani
time to stumble backward, grab his cloak to hide himself. Almost quick enough.

Jeradien looked up. She saw the war-mark at Chriani’s shoulder an
instant before he covered it. A thing they would kill him for one day.

From her crouch at the entrance to the tent, she shot forward in
a rising charge. Chriani had never moved faster in his life as he rolled out of
her way. It wasn’t enough.

He fell beneath the weight of her as she struck like a mule’s
kick, taking him into the back wall of the tent and tearing it from its
moorings. She was locked tight to him, the two of them trapped in shadow as the
tent wrapped around them. Then she’d torn it free with one hand, Chriani
gasping cold air as her other arm wrapped around his throat.

“Treason!” she screamed. “Aerachi rangers! All on me!”

Chriani put everything he had into the elbow he drove into
Jeradien’s face. Part of it was caught by the mail she was still wearing at her
shoulder, but he felt her stagger back, managed to slip out of her chokehold.

As he twisted away from her, she spun for a side kick. Her boot
struck him squarely in the shoulder, dead center in the Uissa warrior’s knife
wound.

The world flared white around him for an endless moment. Then it
was done.

Chriani was on the ground and on his knees, Jeradien kneeling in
front of him with her dagger at his throat. Two other Aerachi were at his side,
pinning his arms behind him. He couldn’t move, could barely breathe through the
pain. He heard footsteps, voices shouting.

Jeradien had blood at her lip where Chriani had tagged her.
“Treason,” she whispered, like it was all she could say.

Chriani looked past it all, over Jeradien’s shoulder toward
Kathlan and Dargana’s tent. He saw no sign of Kathlan, but the exile was there,
escorted between Daellyn and Wilric. The expressions of the Brandishear rangers
told Chriani they had no idea what was going on.

Dargana saw it, though. She drew her axe and her dagger, launched
herself toward Chriani through the crowd of rangers gathering. He wanted to
shout for her, tell her to stop. Wanted to tell her to run, but he knew she
wouldn’t.

She tried to fight her way through to him, but the Aerachi were
alert, ready for her. Steel on steel rang out, Chriani seeing a flash of blood
where the dagger slashed a glancing blow against someone’s hand. Then Dargana
was down beneath a wall of blades, arms behind her and held to the ground.

“Hold her!” Venry’s voice sounded out as he approached at a run.
He had a bow in hand, must have come in from perimeter watch. He took in the
scene before him with a single glance, his expression freezing to
well-controlled rage. He stepped close, knelt to inspect the mark at Chriani’s
shoulder.

A deeper fear twisted through Chriani. Kathlan’s name was part of
that mark now, set down there on his long winter ride to Rheran. Chriani didn’t
know who among the Aerachi could read the Ilvani, but he trusted that someone
would. He forced himself to look down, his heart hammering in his chest. The
four names were obscured, though, a dried crust of red-black blood shrouding
them.

Venry didn’t touch the mark. He shuddered as he stood, as if even
being in its proximity was too much to bear. “Bind them and set a guard,” he
said. “One Aerachi. One from the Brandishear squad, master Kathlan.”

The lieutenant turned to look behind him. Kathlan was there,
standing with the Brandishear rangers around her. She was Chriani’s second. Was
in charge now.

She wasn’t looking at Chriani. She nodded deep. “Understood,
lord,” she said.

It was good, Chriani knew. The Brandishear rangers needed to
protect themselves now. Make sure the Aerachi, pushed to the edge of battle
madness in a heartbeat, knew that they’d known nothing of Chriani’s secret.

“The Ilvani tried to get to him,” Jeradien hissed. “They’re
working together…”

Venry cut her off. “I said bind and guard them. We’ll settle this
in Teillai.”

The Aerachi dragged Chriani and Dargana to their feet. The exile
tried to break free, managed to strike someone, so they forced her to the
ground, then bound and carried her. Two of the Brandishear rangers stepped up
to help.

Kathlan had disappeared but Chriani hadn’t seen her go. Venry was
talking to Jeradien, both of them watching him coldly as he was dragged away.
He made no attempt to resist.

His hands were tied but they let him walk to the watchfire where
the Uissa prisoner was still bound and on the ground. In the assassin’s dark
eyes as he and Dargana were dragged up, Chriani saw no surprise. She nodded to
him as he was pushed to the dirt face first. One of the rangers was looping
rope around his feet.

“Be ready,” the Uissa assassin said.

Her voice was slight, carrying an impression of someone younger
than she looked. Barely a whisper against the wind.

The other rangers made no response, as if only Chriani had heard
her. They made no response either as the hiss of the wind shifted, something
faster moving within it. A sound he recognized.

“Arrows!” Chriani shouted. “Get down!”

A moment of confusion and cold looks. Then the space around the
watchfire was shredded by a hail of grey shafts from the darkness.

The Ilvani arrows tore up the ground where they struck, the
rangers scattering with shouts of alarm as they dropped and rolled clear.
Venry’s voice and Kathlan’s both rang out from somewhere far away, screaming
for the rangers to get to cover, return fire. Chriani’s hands were behind him,
his shoulder in agony as he rolled into the shadows, tried to get out of direct
sight. But as he did, he felt his understanding shift. Sensing something
beneath the frantic fear scouring his mind.

The rangers were returning fire now, but whatever force of Ilvani
was attacking stayed well out of sight in the darkness. Another flight of
arrows arced in, striking across the hillside. Three of them landed within an
arm’s length of Chriani, quivering with the force of impact.

There were no bodies. The rangers had all fallen back behind
cover. Dargana had twisted to her knees, trying desperately to slip her bonds.
The Uissa assassin was still on her side, smiling. She hadn’t moved.

The Ilvani were missing with every shot. Pushing the rangers to
behind cover, away from the watchfire where the three prisoners had been left
alone. Three arrows within easy reach.

The pain at Chriani’s shoulder tugged him toward darkness again but
he fought it off, stifling the scream that tore through him as he pulled his
legs up tight, forced his arms down and under. He grabbed the closest arrow,
awkwardly wrenched it from the ground. A hunting shaft, its serrated steel head
gleaming in the firelight.

He had to kneel on it to hold it, thrusting his bound hands
against the blade and sawing hard. He felt his hands cut more than once, blood
flowing freely as the ropes finally parted.

The Ilvani fusillade shifted. The sound of steel on stone rang out
across the hillside as shaft after shaft shattered against the tumbled
foundations behind which the rangers were sniping. They were pinned down
suddenly, no way to return fire.

“To the horses!” Venry’s voice was fear and raw fury, sounding
out against the wind and the endless Ilvani assault. “Torches up! On my mark,
ride!”

The order to flee. They would leave the tents and most of their
gear behind, only their weapons going with them. A desperate move, but Venry
had no way of knowing what was out there.

Chriani fumbled the black ring from the pocket at his belt. He
almost dropped it as he scrambled toward Dargana, grabbed another arrow from
the ground. He saw her look of surprise as he vanished from sight, the view
around him fading to a deeper shadow.

“Don’t move,” he whispered as he dropped to Dargana’s side.

“You’re full of surprises, half-blood,” she murmured back. But
she stayed still and low as Chriani sliced through the bonds at her hands.

The sound of hoofbeats rose. The rangers were mounted and moving,
holding on the far side of the hill. The horses were in soft harness and
unsaddled, the sign of an emergency retreat. Venry and one of the Brandishear
rangers broke off, racing toward them.

Dargana’s hands were free, but Chriani hissed in her ear to keep
her down. “They’ll see you. Don’t move.” He shifted to her feet.

Venry swung down from horseback to hack through the stake rope
holding the assassin down. The ranger leaned over, grabbing the Uissa prisoner
and throwing her over his saddle as if she weighed nothing. He looked around,
though, frantic as Venry regained his horse.

“He’s gone! Bastard Ilvani traitor!”

Venry swiveled in the saddle to scan the hillside. “Leave him to
his war-band, then. If it’s him they want, they’ll let us go.”

“What about the bastard exile…”

Venry’s face twisted to a grim smile as he turned his horse,
charged toward Dargana.

Her feet were free. Chriani grabbed her, tried to pull her with
him as he rolled away, but she shrugged him off. Dargana shot to her feet, the
horse balking as she sidestepped. She had the arrow in hand that Chriani had
used to free her, punched it straight into Venry’s thigh as she pulled him off
the horse and to the ground.

A shout rang out from behind Chriani. Even without being able to
see him, Jeradien almost accidentally rode him down. He struck at her horse by
instinct as he rolled away, felt the world around him shimmer to tell him he
had broken the dweomer of the ring in doing so.

The Aerachi ranger saw him this time. She turned her horse hard, tearing
up the turf as she cut around, a dagger in her hand. Moving at speed, twisting
awkwardly with no saddle, she was still good enough to catch Chriani on the run
as she threw. A bright point of pain flared at the back of his leg as he went
down.

Jeradien was off her horse, sword in hand. Chriani hadn’t seen
her leap off, must have blacked out. He tried to rise but his leg, his
shoulder, were agony. The hatred he saw in the Aerachi warrior’s eyes was
all-consuming, all-final.

A horse came in fast from behind her, a booted foot lashing out
to catch Jeradien in the side of the head. The warrior convulsed once, then
slumped to the ground, the sword spilling from her hand.

Kathlan pulled to a frantic stop, leaped from her horse and
dropped to Jeradien’s side. Chriani managed to get to his feet, found a
fast-bleeding wound at his leg. Kathlan was checking the blood at Jeradien’s
neck as she fumbled in her jacket, pulled something out that she threw to
Chriani. The healing salve.

“Go,” she said quietly. She wouldn’t look at him. Raising her
voice, she called out, “Jeradien’s down! Chriani’s headed for the trees!”

Other horses were racing in behind her now, pushing toward Venry
where he’d fallen. The lieutenant was moving, though, trying to calm his horse.
The Ilvani arrows had stopped, but no one seemed to notice.

Venry’s saddlebags had been torn open, Chriani saw. Then he saw
Dargana running toward him, her bloodblade in hand. Kathlan was lifting
Jeradien from the ground, the Aerachi ranger’s eyes flitting open.

“Go,” Kathlan said again, louder this time.

Chriani turned and ran.

Dargana was close behind him, the hail of arrows starting up
again as they cleared the firelight. A screen of bowshot fell behind them,
blocking any pursuit. Chriani was limping, fighting darkness with each step as
he fumbled his fingers to the jar, took the last dose of the salve as he ran.
Healing magic filled him with its empty warmth, the pain at his leg and
shoulder fading as he let the jar drop.

A sharper pain was at his chest now. He ignored it as he ran.

At the point where even Chriani’s eyes lost the last haze of
light from the watchfires, he heard horses. But from ahead, not behind. Grey
shapes loomed, starlight seeming to shimmer on their flanks. He was still
running, felt light hands reach to grab him under the arms. Then he was in the
air, frantic as he found himself dragged up and suddenly sitting a white horse,
a slender figure in front of him.