The trees were large and very close together, and Ashinji quickly decided that it would be pointless to ride in among them. The human boy would be able to evade him with ease. He halted and peered into the gloom, straining to detect any movement. The gelding whickered and looked off to the left, his black ears pointed forward. Turning his head ever so slightly, Ashinji looked out of the corner of his left eye in time to see a slight figure slip from the margin of the woods several yards upstream and start to run in the direction of the fords. He immediately gave chase.
The boy glanced over his shoulder and saw that he had been spotted. He began sprinting hard, his feet a blur on the pebbles, but Ashinji knew the young human could not outrun a galloping horse.
Please don’t make me hurt you, Ashinji thought grimly as he bore down on the fleeing boy.
Suddenly, the boy tripped and went down. Ashinji shouted out a curse as he pulled back hard on the running horse, but it was too late to avoid riding over the boy’s prone body. He heard a scream of pain as he threw himself from the saddle and ran to crouch beside the fallen human.
The boy lay very still, face down. His left arm was bent at an unnatural angle and blood soaked the torn cloth of his shirt over his ribcage. Ashinji could not see the boy’s face, only his shock of tightly coiled, mahogany locks. A shiver of recognition passed through him. Slowly, he reached out, gripped the boy’s shoulders, and gently rolled him over.
“ Ai, Goddess!” Ashinji exclaimed. The shock of seeing her face drained all of the sensation from his arms and legs, leaving him unable to move. He sat down hard on his backside, staring. It was the girl from his dream!
She moaned, and her eyes fluttered open, alighting on his face. They were bright with pain and fear. She opened her bloodstained mouth and tried to scream but could only manage a croak. She began groping weakly at the empty sheath fastened to her hip as if trying to draw a knife that no longer hung there.
The look in her eyes revitalized Ashinji’s enervated limbs. “You must lie still,” he said softly in Soldaran. “My horse trampled you, and I do not know the extent of your wounds. I will not hurt you anymore, I swear.” He unbuckled the strap of his helmet and pulled it from his head, tossing it to the ground.
If she can see my face, she might not feel so scared.
It seemed to work. The girl stopped moving and began to stare at him, as if transfixed. “I have some poppy juice in my saddlebag,” he said. “It will ease your pain. I will go get it now.”
Ashinji scrambled to his feet and spotted his horse a few paces away, head down, pulling at a tuft of grass growing among the stones. Quickly, he retrieved the poppy juice and returned to the girl’s side. He uncorked the vial and slipped his hand beneath her head. “Drink this,” he murmured, lifting her up so that she might sip more easily. Her eyes never left his face as she swallowed the drug. She appeared to be in a trance, with him as the focus. She took a final sip, shuddered, then was seized by a spasm of harsh coughing. A gout of bloody froth bubbled from her lips, and she clutched at her chest, sobbing. Abruptly, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went limp. Shaking, Ashinji lowered her head gently to the ground, sat back on his heels, and took a deep breath.
Her skin was a shade or two darker than his, and the wild mass of hair, though shorter, was as he remembered it from the dream. She was dressed in plain, well-made clothes-a man’s shirt, trousers, leather vest, and boots. Her features bore the unmistakable look of a hikui, one of mixed human-elf ancestry.
She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
At that moment, Ashinji felt the world shift beneath him, as if the mighty tidal forces shaping his life had suddenly changed, pulling him in an entirely new direction. He had no idea why, but he knew with the bone-deep certainty of a man of faith that this was meant to be, that he and this girl were meant for each other. He could not-would not-let her die.
He looked up at the sound of approaching hoof beats. Gendan had returned.
“ Lord Ashinji! Are you hurt?” the captain shouted in alarm at the sight of his young lord on his knees. He jumped down from his horse and ran over to where Ashinji knelt beside the injured, unconscious girl.
Ashinji waved his hand in reassurance. “No, Captain. I’m unhurt, but this girl here is, and badly. It’s my fault. She fell, and I rode over her. Gendan…look at her. She’s no bandit.”
Gendan squinted down at the girl’s drained, slack face and shrugged. “If you say so, my lord…We had to kill a few of the others,” he reported laconically.
Ashinji looked at the captain sharply. “Was there no other way, Gendan?” he questioned, dismayed.
“ I’m sorry, my lord, but I tried, I really did, but the miserable dogs wouldn’t listen!” Gendan replied, clearly exasperated with his young lord. “I told ‘em they could lay down their weapons, such as they were, and we’d let ‘em go, but their leader just spat at me and then he threw a knife at my face!”
“ Goddess’ tits,” Ashinji muttered.
“ Once the three biggest ones were down, the others gave up. We let ‘em go, and they all ran like rabbits back into the forest, all ‘cept one.” Gendan paused and looked thoughtfully at the unconscious girl. “He’s not a bandit, either, I reckon. Dressed too well. Says he and his cousin were set upon in the woods by the others. Think this one must be the cousin? He said it was a girl. Hikui, by the look of her. Fancy that!”
“ Help me with her, Gendan. Where is the man?”
“ We’ve got him a ways down river. Tied up, just in case he’s lying. I figured you’d want to question him yourself. Here, my lord, I’ll carry the girl.” Gendan stooped down and gathered the girl up into his arms. The jostling of her injured body stirred her partly awake, and she cried out in pain.
Ashinji felt a flare of anger. “Be careful with her, Gendan! She’s hurt, and I don’t know how badly yet.”
“ Your pardon, my lord,” Gendan apologized, a look of puzzlement on his face. He settled the semi-conscious girl more gently in his arms and began walking. Ashinji gathered up the reins of the two horses and followed. His stomach was a swirling pit of anxiety. The girl might be so hurt that she would die before he could get her back to Kerala Castle.
When did I make the decision to bring her back to Kerala? he thought. The moment I saw her face, of course.
A short walk past the bend in the river brought them within visual range of the rest of the company. Several of the troops stood in a cluster around a kneeling figure. They seemed loose-limbed and relaxed, as if they perceived no threat from their captive. They all snapped to attention when they caught sight of Ashinji and Gendan.
“ This is the human, my lord,” Gendan indicated the kneeling man with a lift of his chin. Someone had bound his hands securely behind him. An ugly bruise purpled the skin of his forehead just above the left eye, and a deep laceration had made a gory mask of his face.
The human’s eyes fastened on Gendan’s burden and widened in alarm. “My cousin! What have you done to her? Is she alive?” he cried, struggling against the leather cord that secured his hands. He attempted to regain his feet, but two of the soldiers roughly pushed him back and held him down.
“ Enough! Leave him be,” Ashinji snapped. The men obeyed immediately with murmured apologies, stepping back from the human, who ceased struggling and fixed his eyes upon Ashinji. Handing off the reins of the horses to a waiting soldier, Ashinji stepped up to the man and drew his knife. The human’s eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared; his entire body went rigid.