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While a horse will carry any fool—
“Shoot that wretched animal!” the youth said. The archers turned.
“Eliam! She’s getting away,” Thane Hammar shouted. He turned his head to the man heating the spear. “Drakossozh, your son’s a fool.”
The arrows flew again, striking Stog all about the shoulder point, neck, and withers. Stog stumbled but did not fall. Wistala saw his ribs against his skin as he took a deep gasping breath.
“If the going’s hard, you’ll want a mule . . . ,” Stog brayed, oblivious of the arrows. He staggered forward toward the archers.
“Again!” the man-boy shrieked, his voice breaking. “Will no one find that horse’s heart?”
Stog, still lumbering forward, may have understood the words, or at least that he’d been called a horse, for he turned toward the voice, eyes white and staring. The arrows cut air again and struck with wet smacks, and this time Stog’s front legs collapsed. The back pair pushed the body forward another nose-length or two, then sagged.
But Dsossa was at the wall, gathered self and horse, and went over a slight sag in its length in a flash of gray white. Wistala heard hooves pounding up the road toward Quarryness.
The three riders after her aimed for the spot, as well, but the first horse balked. It tried to turn, sliding on its hooves, and went over sideways, back crashing into the wall with rider pinned between. The second horse half-sat down as it skidded forward, and the rider, carried by momentum, slid forward up its neck and hit the wall at the knees. He spun feet-up as he went over. The third managed to turn his horse to run along the wall but got tangled in the legs of the mount who’d gone back-first into the bricks, and horse and rider tumbled.
“Get back, Wistala,” Rainfall said. “I have to delay them so Dsossa has time.”
To do what? Wistala wondered, staring wretchedly at Stog’s body, trying to will the old mule back to life. Warn the Inn—no, she’d turned north. Get to the circus? She shifted backwards into the hall.
Wistala counted heads. There were over a hundred riders to the front of the house, and she could hear others in back, probably a like number, though there were still no sounds of destruction to the house. What could anything but an army—?
“Who do I have the dubious pleasure of addressing?” Rainfall shouted from his balcony.
“Into the old wood dry-room behind the chimney,” she heard Forstrel saying as light feet ran down the stairs. “Then down. Quickly now.” Forstrel approached, the azure blue battle sash of Rainfall’s grandfather held as carefully as though it were woven from a morning mist.
The barbarians, who’d been poking around at the stable door and looking into rain barrels, moved to look at the tree-flanked balcony. Thane Hammar turned his horse, but kept to the other side of the fountain, perhaps fearing arrows. “Your Lord Hammar is paying a final call on Mossbell!” he shouted.
Wistala, her fire bladder pulsing, noted that he hadn’t had success with his beard, which was still thin and scraggly, for all he tried to shape it into a point below his chin. “It’s time for us to finally settle accounts, in a single night-of-blades.”
“Night-of-blades—tsk,” Rainfall said. “Barbaric phrases, from a Thane of the Hypatian Empire.”
The Dragonblade raised his spear; its tip glowed faintly red, like cooling metal from the furnace, but the steel couldn’t have been more than torch-hot.
Forstrel knelt beside Rainfall’s wheeled chair and tied the sash about his waist, as calmly as though ten-score armed barbarians didn’t surround the house. Rainfall raised his arms a little so Forstrel could work the knot after wrapping the silk twice about his waist.
“I appreciate the call, though not the companions. You keep strange and lowly company these days, Hammar.”
“Ha!” Hammar shouted. “This from an elf with a pet dragon!”
“You come bearing arms to this estate, do violence to my animals, and attempt to murder my wife,” Rainfall said. “I suppose you know your thaneship is now utterly forfeit.”
“Glad I am to be free of the title,” Hammar said. “You will wish, before the moon reaches its zenith, that you’d shown more loyalty to me. The barbarians have admirable methods for dealing with those who show disloyalty to their lords.”
“I’ve never claimed loyalty to Hammar, only to the office of thane,” Rainfall said. “If you had a jot of your father’s wisdom, you’d know that way is better.”
A rider with a knotted beard and heavy tattooing above his eyes grunted something at Hammar.
As they spoke, Rainfall turned to Forstrel. “Good work, Yeo Lessup,” he said quietly. “Now get to the tunnel with the others.”
“My mother stands in the hall with her laundry ladle, swearing to brain the first barbarian through the door,” Forstrel said.
“Drag her down by the ear if you must,” Rainfall said out of the side of his mouth. “I want you in the escape tunnel forthwith. Don’t stand there rooted—obey!”
“Master,” Forstrel said, bowing, and there were tears in his eyes.
“Watch out for him,” Forstrel whispered as he squeezed by Wistala.
