Hweilan kept her eyes fixed on Maaqua as she renewed her charge, but from the edge of her vision she saw the archers aiming. No help for it. She dodged slightly to the left to put Maaqua in between her and one of the archers.
She heard the thwut of a bowstring being released. Something slammed into her right arm, just below the shoulder, hard enough to knock her off her stride. But she kept going.
Maaqua raised her staff, her other hand already twirling the preparation of a spell. “Fool! I’ll-!”
And then Hweilan leaped. Despite her pain-Ashiin’s training had hardened her muscles, and she also suspected Nendawen’s blood had changed her in other ways-that one jump cleared the distance between Hweilan and the old hobgoblin while the nearest soldier was still yards away. Hweilan tackled Maaqua and rolled. She heard a snap and fresh pain shot up her arm, going all the way to the roots of her scalp. Her vision blurred for a moment, but when she came up, she had one arm tight around the old hobgoblin’s torso and the other held the point of her whistle knife at Maaqua’s temple, just behind her right eye. Maaqua’s staff lay in the dirt just behind Hweilan.
“Everyone back or she dies!” Hweilan shouted at the onrushing hobgoblins.
Maaqua stiffened under her grip but did not resist. “Do as she says.”
The guards obeyed, though they kept their weapons ready. The soldier with the scars of rank was only a couple of paces away, and he had both axe and sword in hand now. The archers held their bows taut, the points of their arrows aimed in her direction. But Hweilan knew they’d have to be fools to risk it with their queen in the way.
“Back up!” Hweilan ordered the hobgoblin officer.
He looked to Maaqua.
“Do it,” said the old crone.
He backed up three steps.
“More,” said Hweilan.
He took another three.
The Damarans were still shouting from the hole, but Hweilan could make out no words.
“Rhan!” Maaqua called out. “Rhan, do not kill them! Yet!”
Hweilan heard a smack that sounded very much like a fist striking flesh, then the screams stopped.
“You flood that hole, and your champion dies, too,” Hweilan told Maaqua.
Maaqua chuckled. “Clever girl.”
Hweilan risked a quick glance down at her right arm. Just as she’d feared. The hobgoblin’s arrow had hit her in the arm, and she knew it had gone at least to the bone, perhaps even cracking it and lodging inside. It hurt like damnation. Her tackle of Maaqua had broken the shaft just over an inch outside Hweilan’s shirt and caused it to tear enough of her flesh that she already had a thick clot of blood freezing on her sleeve. She could feel a warm trickle running off her elbow.
“Where’s my wolf?” she asked.
“Wolf?”
“You know who I mean.”
“He’s behaving himself,” said Maaqua, “which is more than I can say for you.”
“And Mandan? The big Damaran with the club?”
“We have other plans for him.”
“Not anymore,” said Hweilan, and pressed the point of the bone until it dimpled the old hobgoblin’s flesh. “Your soldiers are going to put down their weapons and get those three halfwits out of the hole. Your champion can stay for a while. Then you’re going to have Mandan and my wolf brought to us. And then we’re all going to leave. Once we’re safely away, I’ll let you go.”
“Or we could stand here jawing until you swoon from all that blood leaking out of your arm,” said Maaqua. “I’d wager that’ll happen long before your three friends are out of the hole, much less the big one and your”-she snorted-“wolf.”
Hweilan considered that a moment. She thought she’d probably last a good deal longer than that. But not forever. Her right sleeve was already heavy with blood.
“Listen, girl,” said Maaqua. “I have no desire to tempt the ire of your master. And your friends-”
“They aren’t my friends,” said Hweilan. “I just met them.”
“Yet you’re standing here bleeding while bargaining for their lives.”
Hweilan heard footsteps and the rattle of armor. Someone must have sounded an alarm or gone for help. More hobgoblins topped the rise and began working their way down. All wore armor and carried weapons. On the cliff tops behind her she heard more.
“This is all unnecessary, you idiot girl,” said Maaqua. “I have no desire to hurt you.”
“So you knocked me unconscious and threw me in a hole as a way to show your hospitality?”
Hweilan could feel her right arm-the one holding Maaqua and leaking blood-beginning to tremble. She could no longer feel her fingers on that hand. She had to end this quickly, one way or the other.
“Let me go,” said Maaqua, “and we can discuss this in a more courteous fashion.”
Hweilan pressed the point of her whistle knife a bit harder, just enough to break the skin. “Talk now or you can explain it all in the Hells.”
A bit of steel entered Maaqua’s tone. “You’ll be right there with me.”
“Talk.”
“I am Maaqua, queen of the Razor Heart and disciple of Soneillon. Do you really think I bow to the threats of that upstart fiend sitting in Highwatch?”
Hweilan had no idea how long she’d been out. Had the attack from the thing wearing her mother’s body been yesterday or today? She had no idea. But she remembered the thing’s words to Maaqua all too clearly.
We know where you are. Bring us the girl, and we’ll let you live.
Hweilan did her best to tighten her grip around the old hobgoblin, but she could feel her strength waning by the moment. “Explain your actions then, old crone,” she said.
“You left me no choice. Had you and that big oaf with the club surrendered-like any person would when surrounded by an army!-had you come nicely, you’d probably all be sitting by a fire now. Instead we had to … subdue you. Think, girl. If I really wanted you dead, you’d be dead already.”
“Then why-?”
“I said think! That, that … thing managed to apparate on my doorstep. Mine! This entire valley has more spells and wards on it than your grandfather’s hounds had fleas, yet that walking mound of goat dung managed to get through them. Even after it left, I had no idea if we were being watched or if it was about to come back with forty of its brothers. I had to make it look like we were capturing you and your friends until I could figure out how that thing got past my wards, past the … chink in my armor.”
“And …?”
“And I found the chink and … unchinked it.”
“So you came to get me out and apologize? You really expect me to believe that?”
Maaqua gave a low chuckle. “Can you smell it yet?”
“Smell?” Hweilan’s tongue felt oddly thick, and now that she thought about it, her head was filled with a new scent. Strong enough that she could taste it on the back of her tongue. Almost like …
“A bit like pine smoke, yes?” said Maaqua. “Only sweeter.”
Pine smoke … it set off a flood of memory. Midwinter celebrations in Highwatch. The servants spent a day decking the feast hall with pine boughs and holly from the mountains and knotted wreaths of sweetgrass from the steppe. The ladies twined mistletoe in their hair, and the knights drank to the health of the High Warden over goblets of bilberry wine. At midnight, the darkest time of the darkest night of the year, the priests would hurl the pine boughs into the sacred hearth. The flames caught in the green pine and flared in tiny, very bright flames, which the priests said burned in defiance of the cold and dark. In the warm light of the hall, Hweilan had always thought the thick smoke seemed more blue than gray, and she could smell it in her hair for days afterward. It was that smell filling her head now. With every breath the scent filled her head more and more.
“The arrow,” said Maaqua. “Poison.”
Hweilan was looking up at the old hobgoblin, her wispy mane turned dark by the sky. Looking up? When …?