Jackal went to the edge of the nearest field and looked upstream for a moment before gesturing to Styke. “Come, come.” Styke joined him and followed a pointed finger. He could see a couple of cuirassiers milling about at the edge of the wood some ways off. “They’ve found where we camped,” Jackal said. “If they find our tracks in the stream, they will follow. We should keep moving.” He paused, then pointed to the nearby road. “South.”
South meant back toward Landfall. “That’s toward the governor’s mansion.”
“We’ll head west before long. I know a path that will take us well around.”
Styke considered his options. He’d meant to deliver Prost’s body parts to the governor and then hide out as Sirod went mad with grief and fury. The rumors spreading about Fernhollow would cause local unrest, while the confusion of everything going on up in Redstone would force Sirod to act – either to head north himself, or to send his personal troops. Styke would follow, and when Sirod was the most vulnerable, Styke would strike.
It had seemed like a sound plan at the time. But with this fever, Styke did not trust himself to be able to sneak and kill with any skill. It would be best to head back to Landfall, where he could hide and wait out this illness. Sirod would die for what he’d done to Rezi. But Styke would be a patient man.
“South is good,” he said, sagging in the saddle.
They left the streambed and took to the road heading south. Styke kept Deshnar at a trot while Jackal jogged along beside.
“Do you know how to ride?” Styke asked.
“I’ve only ridden once. It was terrifying.” Jackal spoke without breaking stride, no evidence that he was in any way out of breath.
“We get back to Landfall, and I’ll teach you to ride. It’s the least I can do,” Styke said.
“I’d rather not.”
Styke snorted. “And I’d rather not ride while you run alongside like some kind of slave.”
The word “slave” had barely left his mouth when they crested a steep rise in the road and found themselves looking down on a small group of cuirassiers. There were four of them, their breastplates and horsehair-plumed helms polished, their green and tan uniforms decorated with the red feather of the governor’s personal guard. The four blinked back at Styke, mouths open in the middle of conversation, as if they were just as surprised to see him as he was them.
In the instant it took for their sergeant to cry out, Styke forced himself to sit up straight and snatch up his lance. He dug in his heels and felt Deshnar leap beneath him, nearly throwing him from the saddle. Deshnar reached a gallop as they closed the distance, and Styke’s lance sliced cleanly through the throat of a cuirassier, causing a fount of blood that covered them all in fine, crimson droplets.
The lance punched through the center of the cuirass of the second man and into his ribs, spinning him out of the saddle and jerking the lance out of Styke’s weakened hand.
The sergeant managed to draw his curved cavalry sword and slash it across Styke’s brow as he fumbled with his lance. Styke reeled in the saddle as he shot past the cuirassiers, half blinded by his own blood. He tugged at the reins, turning Deshnar to face the two remaining soldiers as they did the same with their own horses.
There was a moment of calm, Styke wiping the blood from his eyes, feeling the flap of skin falling loose from his forehead while the sergeant and his companion took their stock of him.
The moment was broken as Jackal, having rushed to the fallen cuirassiers and stolen one of their swords, took the weapon in two hands and ran at the sergeant. The sergeant looked down on Jackal with a curled lip, digging his heels in to charge. Styke did the same, drawing his own cavalry sword and ready to watch Jackal get ridden down like a dog.
At the very last second, as the sergeant’s horse bore down on him, Jackal ducked in front of the animal and dodged to the sergeant’s off-hand side. Before the sergeant could move his sword from one hand to the other, Jackal brought his own weapon up and rammed it beneath the sergeant’s cuirass.
The final cuirassier, head turning as her sergeant went down, didn’t even see Styke’s sword as it slashed her throat.
The whole fight lasted less than thirty seconds. Styke gasped for breath, every bone and muscle on fire as he clung to Deshnar. The sergeant, mortally wounded and half-thrown from the saddle, stared at Styke in confusion until Jackal pulled him to the ground and finished the job with a savage flash of steel. Styke pressed a handkerchief to his forehead to stop the bleeding and drank deeply from his water skin as he watched the man die.
“That was well done,” Styke told Jackal. It was very risky to time a jump across the chest of a charging horse.
Jackal just nodded, making sure the other three cuirassiers were dead.
“You should take one of those horses,” Styke told him. He wiped the blood away from his face, then pressed the handkerchief to the wound once again. It stung badly, but he could tell by feel that it felt far worse than it was. The flap of skin would stitch easily, though he would need to keep pressure on it for now.
“I don’t want a horse,” Jackal responded.
Styke eyed the four horses. One had been hurt when its master fell to Styke’s lance. Another currently fled across the tobacco fields. The third and fourth were both halfway decent mounts. He pointed at the black one. “I don’t care. Take that one.”
“I don’t know how to ride.”
“Walk it, then. I’ll teach you later.”
He turned away without waiting for an answer, urging Deshnar down the road, eager to be gone from this place. Miles of cotton fields stretched in every direction, with few places to hide. He needed to get away from the plantations and find some rough terrain where he could hide out until he’d purged this poison from his body. Four cuirassiers wouldn’t stay missing for long. Someone would come looking.
A few hundred yards later, he glanced over his shoulder to see Jackal catching up, a glum look on his face, leading the black horse. Jackal had almost caught up when Styke’s feverish thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of a whinny. He looked up sharply, seeing riders about a half mile away, blocking the road. They stared at him from the distance.
There were a lot. He could see fifteen of them, and that there were more behind.
“Jackal,” he said, nodding to the riders.
“I see them.”
“You sure you want to hang around? They probably won’t give a shit if you flee right now.”
Jackal considered the offer. “You’re good luck.”
“I’m still not sure how the pit you got that idea.” Styke reached for his lance, nearly tumbling from his saddle with weakness. He kept his eyes on the distant riders. They remained where they were, and after a moment he looked down at Jackal to find the Palo’s face serious.
“I went back to the assassin’s corpse while you slept,” Jackal said. “She had fallow root. You should have been dead this morning.”
Styke didn’t have time to wonder about the fallow root. He eyed the distant riders. Maybe they weren’t members of the governor’s household. They could be travelers or mercenaries or colonials. Maybe one of them had seen him dispatch the cuirassiers and the whole group hesitated. He peered at them, trying to focus his eyes.
After a few tense moments, one of the group finally broke off and trotted down the road. Styke summoned the strength to sit up straight in the saddle and lower his lance. By the time he looked back at the rider, he did let out a laugh.