One largish group made directly for the draw where Gonwyn and the others hid. He heard the soft creak, as Danilla drew her light bow from its case and strung it. There was a soft tap as she nocked an arrow.
He drew his sword from its saddle scabbard. The weapon slid free in his hand, a shorter blade than most, thicker and double edged. The sword was an infantry weapon, honed for killing, with none of the daintiness of the cavalry saber. He held it back against his leg, where it was least likely to reflect some stray bit of moonlight.
“If it comes to it,” he whispered, “stay in the draw. I will draw them away, and we will link up later.”
“I will NOT,” she whispered back. “I am a Herald, and I will fight.”
There was no point to an argument, and the Tedrels were too close.
The group stopped to camp, barely thirty feet from the draw. There was some argument, then one began to desultorily make a pile for a fire. The others spread out to gnaw on what food they had. One made directly for the draw. Gonwyn heard the soft, collective inhalation from the group in the draw as the Tedrel came to the mouth of the vee, adjusted his crude cloth armor, and began to relieve himself.
Gonwyn held himself ready, a bare dozen feet from the Tedrel. He could visualize the Tedrel standing there, staring into the darkness, seeing white shapes begin to resolve against the deeper black until . . .
The man’s mouth opened in a soundless O.
:NOW!:
Rath launched herself, powerful withers throwing them a body’s length forward. Gonwyn whipped the sword across the man’s face, slashing brutally as he passed. The Tedrel screamed as Rath exploded into the moonlight.
Rath broke left, staying in the well-spread trees, in order to make a harder crossbow shot. The Companion took the distance to the sprawled Tedrels in a couple of strides, riding a second down and whirling between two thick oaks. Gonwyn pressed low against her flank, more for protection from low branches than from the Tedrel. He held the blade flat back against his boot, his left hand wrapped around the saddle-bow.
Rath whipped around the larger oak, changing direction to throw off the crossbowman who stumbled toward them. Gonwyn needed no force, only aim to slash the blade outward, taking the crossbowman in the throat. Rath took another, shattering his spine with a single kick as the man tried to flee back. Four dead in as many seconds. As Rath dodged back between the pair of trees, Gonwyn killed another with a stab backed by half a ton of charging equine. Five, quickly now.
Time slowed for Gonwyn. He felt the simple fierce joy, the power that coursed through him as his enemies seemed to slow and his senses sped. He felt the man to his right grasp the claw from his belt to load his crossbow. Gonwyn killed him with a leaning slash that took his throat. Another Tedrel bent to grab his spear, and Rath, in the same parlous state, smashed his chest with a kick that stove in his ribs. Other Tedrels, armed with spears and crossbows, emerged from behind trees as the Companion stormed among them. Gonwyn slipped from Rath’s back, and in perfect dance passed under her legs to stab a spearman as she lashed out with her rear hooves to dash out another’s brains.
He rushed two on foot. The rightmost raised a battered sword. Gonwyn lopped his sword hand at the wrist, whirled to stab the left-side Tedrel, who was still raising his short spear, and disabled the first with single backhanded slash to the face. He sprang back up and remounted, in perfect choreography as Rath turned again to strike out with forehooves.
A single odd image stood out afterward to Gonwyn . . . the dropped-pot sound as the Companion’s iron-hard hooves shattered a skull and destroyed a life.
The moment frozen flashed into action again. Another crossbowman emerged ahead, fumbling to bring the weapon to bear. Gonwyn hurled his sword. It struck hilt first, smashing the man’s nose and knocking him backward. Gonwyn drew his saddle-ax, a wicked single blade with a reverse spike.
He chopped down on another Tedrel, killing the last standing in this group with the spike, driven deep into his shoulder along the neck. Rath charged forward to where the man lay screaming as he clutched his face. Rath trampled him. Gonwyn leaned down, both palms brushing the dirt as he recovered his sword and rolled back into his saddle.
He turned the blowing mare toward the next group, dropping the bloody ax back into its sheath. A second quick grab, this time at a small shield leaning against a tree. He pulled it free and armed himself with it as Rath danced back, using the trees as cover against crossbows. Rath gathered herself to charge again as Gonwyn finished his arming.
He glanced quickly to the right and saw Danilla just emerging from the draw, with bow in hand. A string of dead or dying Tedrals lay behind him. One he had missed scrambled from between two trees and fled across the open area of the valley floor.
Danilla whipped her bow up, tracked him, and coolly released. The arrow glowed red and burst into flame as it crossed halfway to the Tedrel. It caught the man in the back as he fled. He fell to his knees, the fire spreading across him as he burned and screamed. Danilla’s second arrow took him as he writhed on the ground, ending his life.
There was a moment’s perfect silence, then Danilla’s shout of exultation.
And Rath charged. Together, they slew, as Danilla rode about the fringes burning down those who escaped iron hoof and wicked blade.
It was done when the last Tedrel lay dead. Gonwyn, spattered with blood and exhausted, slumped as he waited for Danilla to join him. Rath stood, her legs splayed out, blowing heavily. Somewhere in the fight the stitches had broken open, but that was of little concern.
Dannila and Enara rode slowly to them. She looked around the carnage. Over thirty Tedrals had entered the campsite. None survived.
“I think you do have a Talent, Gonwyn,” she said in voice that shook only a little, “and may the gods have mercy on you.”
Chapter 12 - Heart’s Peril - Kate Paulk
Ree stretched and sighed, feeling comfortable and lazy on the roof of the barn belonging to the farm where he’d lived for the last ten years. His family farm, in a way. Certainly the place where his family lived.
With the summer sun warm against his back, the warm roof shingles beneath him and the air full of the scent of growing things and farm animals, it was difficult to concentrate on something as painstaking as checking the barn roof for rotting shingles, much less the careful effort needed for replacing them.
His rattail twitched in his breeches, and his claws wanted to relax all the way out. But he must work. It had to be done before winter came, and Ree was the best person to do it—a hobgoblin who was part rat and part cat as well as part human, he had better balance than humans, and keener eyesight. That the wild part of him longed to take a nap right here or to head out, exploring the cool shade of the forest, was something he’d grown used to over the years.
The forest was dangerous, a place where the animal hobgoblins had taken over from more normal predators. It was also as familiar to Ree as the farm he called home. In the years since he’d come here, he’d watched the forest slowly return to a kind of balance after the hellish Change-winter and the magic circles: the same magic circles that had changed him from a human street rat to the hobgoblin he was.
His mind wandered into times long past, from the desperate days when he’d saved Jem’s life on the streets of Jacona and Jem, in turn, had saved Ree’s humanity and perhaps his life. If Ree had gone on the way he’d been, he’d soon have stopped knowing how to talk, and from there to forgetting he was human at all was but a step. When all you can do is run and hide, you start forgetting you’re not a small, hunted animal. And then . . .And then you start attacking humans, as animals do.