Even Thorst was snarling oaths and groaning in pain as the wagon raced along. The shadows were growing ever longer around them, as the sun sank no more slowly for all their haste, but Voldovan was like a bellowing madman, storming up and down the hurtling line of wagons with his whip cracking like a never-sleeping thunderbolt.
They had to make Face Crag by nightfall, camp in the defensible, stream-split cleft in its eastern face, and get their torches lit in the outer ring of braziers-massive tripods of blackened iron erected there decades ago by a coster now gone yet still praised almost daily-so brigands and beasts alike would be left trying to stare at the unknown strength of the camped caravan past a wall of flickering flames.
Any brigands who hadn't already thrown a rope or a few tree trunks across the road as a barrier, that is. If the racing wagons struck any real obstacle now, the carnage of splintered wood and crashings and screaming beasts would be "The crag!" a big, ragged-bearded lout, Duramagar, shouted from ahead, standing in his stirrups exultantly and waving a war-axe dangerously in one hand. "The crag!"
Shandril's wagon rumbled up over a rise and swept around a bend with its wheels shrieking and a snapped rein slashing across her face like a burning brand. In front of her, what could only be Face Crag loomed up out of the gathering dusk like a castle wall.
"hi there!" Shandril heard Orthil Voldovan roaring, from somewhere in the dust and racing wagons up ahead. "Get in there!"
From the fore, there were screams, wails, and crashings- the very things she'd been expecting since this ride had become a wild rout.
Someone had hit something, a wheel had collapsed, an axle had shattered-or a beast had simply stumbled and fallen, dragging its wagon over or down… but no! Crossbow bolts were humming out of the dust in an angry storm, and unfamiliar riders with thrusting lances and stabbing blades were wheeling and darting in the chaos ahead, too. They were under attack by foes who'd been waiting in the cleft!
"Thorst!" Shandril shouted, bending low over the drover. "Shall I-?"
"No!" he roared, thrusting an unloaded but still eloquent bowgun up at her face, his eyes wild. "No! I'll yell to ye, if-"
A wagon sideswiped their own in a sickening squealing of rending wood, as its wheels spun their way to torn and clawing oblivion along the ready-wagon's old and battered sides, shedding daggerlike splinters in all directions, and fell away behind, lurching over onto its side. A horse reared, hooves lashing the air. Another wagon smashed into it with a thud that made Shandril's jaw rattle, spraying the air with reins, tumbling men, and more splinters.
Their foes were racing past-those who weren't skewered or swept from their saddles by flying splinters-and a hostile lance missed Shandril but tore open Thorst's shoulder, spinning him around with a snarl of pain and sending their own reins up in a wild cloud.
Shandril snatched at them, grabbing her rail again just in time to avoid being plucked from her perch by the one rein she had managed to snag-then realized it was futile. The horses were screaming and plunging in terror, and she'd have to be stronger and heavier than they to haul back their heads and be noticed at all. They were on a wild ride that wouldn't end until they smashed into something, tipped over, or the horses calmed, fell, or faltered in exhaustion.
"Shandril!" Thorst shouted. "Help me!"
Ruined shoulder, jouncing ride, and all, the guard was still trying to get his bowgun loaded and aimed at something- and something else was banging against his knee: a full-sized crossbow that he'd unstrapped from its stowage but now lacked the strength to do anything with. Its windlass was clinking wildly in his lap as he struggled with his bowgun, teeth clenched in pain.
Shandril bent to help him and nearly pitched facefirst onto the churning hooves of the horses. Clawing at the perch and the rails and Thorst for support, she sat down hastily beside the drover.
There were shoulder-straps, she saw now-and not surprisingly, Thorst, like every other drover Shandril could remember seeing, disdained their use. Getting one arm through a strap, she threw her other around Thorst's shoulders and cradled him, steadying him as he gasped and whimpered and fought with the bow. Sweat was running down his pale face in streams, and his eyes stared around at the world wildly, barely seeing her.
A lancetip bit into wood right beside Thorst's head, and Shandril glimpsed the rider who'd put it there reeling in his saddle, letting go of his weapon to avoid being dragged from his mount as the snorting horse plunged past, tossing its head in fear.
Somewhere behind them, a man and a horse screamed in unison, raw and loud, as if each was trying to drown out the other.
"This is madness!" Shandril shouted to the wounded guard. "We've got to get the horses stopped, before we-"
Fire burst into being off to the left-Narm's doing? — and by its light the ready-wagon's horses saw the rugged stone wall of the cleft rising up in front of them, very near and growing nearer as each plunging hoof came down. They swerved away from the fire, almost spilling Thorst and Shandril from the perch and dragging a raw roar of pain from the drover that rose almost into a shriek as the wagon tipped alarmingly… then crashed back to earth with bone-numbing force.
Along the widening cleft and out into the gathering night the horses ran, the wagon rumbling more slowly and heavily now. It felt as if something had half-fallen from it and was being dragged. Perhaps that, or perhaps simply training and long habit, made the horses turn again to stay on the road rather than running across it to plunge into the trees.
They were past the cleft, and-as the horses swerved around a smashed and splintered wagon that had overturned, then been dragged until its harness broke and its beasts had fled-out beyond the fray, into the deepening night.
Crossbow bolts came humming out of the trees at them. Thorst gasped as one smashed his fingers and drove his bowgun right out of his hand. Others slammed into the boards around him with loud thocking sounds.
Shandril crouched low and brought one hand up under her breasts to drive her collection of rusting armor plates up in front of her nose like a wall. She ducked her head just as a bolt shattered against the boards and showered her with its tumbling splinters.
Another glanced off the perch beside her boots and numbed her arm from fingertips to shoulder, and she heard one of the horses scream.
They were going to die here, shot down like cart-targets paraded slowly before archers, unless-unless she Shandril Shessair sprang to her feet and slashed out into the night with spellfire, scorching trees on one side of the road, then the other. A bolt speeding toward her exploded in flames, came snarling on-and fell away into ashes in the air right in front of her as she frantically poured flame at it.
Panting, she sent spellfire streaking the way it had come, wondering just when Toril would run out of men trying to slay her… and knowing the answer was: never.
Well, at least she could thin their ranks a bit. Flames kindling in her eyes, Shandril leaned low over the perch as the wagon slowed still more, and fed spellfire into the night.
Dark Deeds By Night
'Tis something no warrior ever forgets: that satisfying moment when your sword slides deep in.
Yelling a stream of obscenities that often dipped into repetitive nonsense, a brigand bounded out of the night onto the perch of a bouncing wagon in the heart of Voldovan's caravan. With a wordless roar of glee he slashed his sword viciously through the belly of a fat merchant who was still scrambling to his feet in a confusion of reins.