One step at a time, she told herself. First, she had to get out of the cage.
Over the uproar of shouting voices, trampling feet, and rattling weapons, Linsha heard the heavy tread of the dragon go by. She could not see him from her position in the wagon, but she listened as he passed and realized he was being unnaturally quiet. He no longer growled or roared or argued. Was he seething or had Lanther found a way to control him beyond the barb in his back? She craned her neck as far as it would go and finally found a way to see the hillside. She just caught a glimpse of Crucible escorted by Lanther and his bodyguards. Her worry grew more desperate.
Still on her knees, she lashed out at the door of the cage with her booted heel, but the door didn’t budge, and the two guards shouted at her. One slammed his shield on the cage to make her back away. They did not look very pleased to be left behind to guard a woman. Linsha responded with a Tarmak phrase she had heard the guards shout at slaves and was rewarded with a loud barrage of words and a second slam by the shield.
Suddenly the Tarmak’s war horns blared across the lines of waiting warriors, and a thunderous shout shook the camp. The guards turned around to watch as the long lines of blue-skinned Brutes broke into a trot and moved up the hill. In loose groups of a hundred, they moved past the camp, up the long slope of the hill, and down the crest out of sight. Several troops of heavy cavalry cantered by and veered north to move up the valley in a flanking maneuver.
Linsha’s fingers tightened around the bars of the cage as she watched them go. They were so tall, so strong and graceful that she could not help but fear for the people she knew and liked on the other side. Did they stand a chance? What were they doing at this moment as the Tarmaks appeared on the hilltop and swarmed down into the valley in seemingly endless thousands? She had seen Sir Hugh and Falaius, but was Leonidas there? Where was the healer Danian and his red-haired apprentice? She hoped they were close by, for she knew they would be needed before this day was over. And what would they do about Crucible? She knew Falaius had explained to the chiefs and tribal leaders about the dragon’s predicament, but what if they were forced to kill him to prevent him from destroying their men in his throes under the spell?
She glanced at the guards again and moved surreptitiously over to the door. The small door that opened into the wooden cage was firmly tied with a thick rope. The Tarmaks hadn’t bothered with a lock, since anyone inside the cage who wished to get out needed a very sharp knife or an axe—neither one of which she had—to get through the thick bindings. She studied the guards, but they were too far away, and they were more likely to jab her with their spears or swords than get close enough to be conveniently strangled. She sat back on her heels, taut with frustration.
In the distance, from the other side of the hill, came the music of horns and drums, then a vast, ringing roar of war cries overlaying a thunder of pounding hooves and trampling feet. There was a great crash as the armies collided, and abruptly the sounds disintegrated into a cacophony of shouts, screams, clashing weapons, and a dragon’s roar.
Linsha’s guards took an involuntary step toward the noise.
She glared at their backs, wishing she had a handy supply of knives, when she caught a slight movement in the farthest edge of her vision. Somewhere, off to her left, something had moved in the trees down by the river. She turned slightly to get a better look. There were a few trees and only a little ground cover between the Tarmak camp and the riverbank, but she was sure something had moved down there where a clump of young willows had taken root in a depression about halfway between the edge of the camp and the river. She looked harder, and then she saw them—a dozen men or maybe more creeping through the high grass toward the camp. They were well camouflaged with mud and grasses and could barely be seen against the browns, greens, and reds of the landscape.
Linsha whipped around to check the guards, but they were still engrossed with the sounds of battle. Nearby, other Tarmak servants, a few slaves, and more guards moved about the tents and the wagons, unaware of the enemy stalking their camp.
She heard the soft, unmistakable sound of arrows whizzing by and saw both Tarmak guards pitch forward with arrows protruding from their necks. The men in the grass sprang to their feet and sprinted up the slope toward a rough line of brush just as two centaurs galloped out of the trees. A small brown shape flew with them and winged directly to Linsha’s cage.
“She’s here! She’s here!” Varia screeched to the centaurs.
A young buckskin and an older chestnut the color of polished cedar raced past the men and galloped through the outskirts of the camp to the wagon where Linsha was caged. Both carried bows that they nocked, drew, and loosed as they ran.
Shouts erupted in the camp, and Tarmak guards came running only to die in a barrage of well aimed arrows from the men hidden in the brush.
“Where are the others?” shouted the red horseman, whom Linsha recognized as Horemheb. “Where is the other Knight?”
“Dead,” said Linsha. “It’s just me.”
The buckskin Leonidas sliced through the ropes on the door of the cage and yanked it open. Linsha shot through it like an arrow and jumped from the wagon onto Leonidas’s back. The two centaurs wheeled and charged back the way they had come, firing their bows as fast as they could. The few guards left in that part of the camp fell back before them.
Linsha held onto Leonidas with her hands and knees as he ran down the slope into the trees. Once into the copse of young cottonwoods the two stallions turned and used their bows to cover the retreat of the men. A few Tarmaks tried to chase them and died on the grassy slope.
As soon as the last man was in the trees, the entire group ran for the river to a denser stand of willows. There, behind the cover of the trees, they splashed into the water and waded across the Red Rose to the opposite bank where horses waited patiently in the shade. Linsha watched, impressed, while the men waded out of the river and mounted their horses. They were Plains barbarians, locals probably, who knew the twists and turns of the river and where to find crossings among the dangerous mudflats and shoals. They grinned at her through their mud masks and congratulated each other in their own tongue.
“How long have you been here?” she asked Leonidas. She knew they would have been spotted by the Tarmaks if they had tried to cross in daylight.
“Since last night. We left the horses here and crossed over before dawn.”
She heard a flutter of wings and held out an arm. A delighted owl dropped from the sky, landed on her wrist, and scooted up to her shoulder.
“Varia told us you were still alive and where you were,” Horemheb said. “It made it much easier to strike fast and get out. But what happened to the other Knight and the captain? We thought they were with you?”
Linsha leaned her face against Varia’s soft feathers and took a deep breath. “Lanther killed Sir Remmik this morning. He sent the body on horseback to your lines. Mariana was killed by the Akkad-Ur four days ago.”
A sudden silence surrounded her, and she closed her eyes so she would not have to see the shock and sadness on his face that so deeply mirrored her own feelings.
“Oh no, not Mariana,” Leonidas whispered. “And Lanther? He is the traitor you and Falaius tried so hard to find? He killed Sir Remmik?”