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He’s gone raiding.
Leaping to her feet, Zarrah broke into a sprint, heading toward the stables.
17
KERIS
“Raiders.” Otis was already shoving his sword back in its sheath and moving toward the horses. “We need to go. We need to get you back to the safety of Nerastis.”
Keris to safety, while his people were slaughtered by raiders. The screams grew louder, shrill and terrified and desperate. “No.”
Snatching his sword up from the ground, Keris flung himself into the saddle and dug in his heels, galloping toward the attack. Tree branches scraped and caught at his clothes, but he ignored the stinging pain just as he did Otis’s shouts for him to stop.
He burst out of the copse, reining in his horse to take in the scene before him.
It was a farmhouse and barn, the latter already engulfed with flames. Animals ran this way and that, as did field workers, the Valcottans shooting them in their backs as they tried to flee. The few who tried to fight were cut down, blood spraying and bodies falling, the air suddenly absent of screams.
“Keris, there’s nothing we can do,” Otis hissed. “It’s too late! We’ll warn a patrol on our way back to the city, but we must go before they see us.”
There was blood everywhere, the Valcottans laughing as they kicked at bodies. Then an enormous man wearing leather armor that strained across his chest picked up a burning piece of timber and started toward the house. He lit the front door on fire before circling around to light the rear exit, then stepped back and looked upward.
And that’s when Keris saw the faces in the window. A woman and two children, eyes wide with terror. Without thinking, he dug his heels into his mount’s side and galloped toward the home.
Through the smoke, the Valcottans caught sight of him and shouted their alarm, and Keris vaguely heard Otis blowing on a signal horn to alert patrols in the area. But there wasn’t time to wait for them. The house, made entirely of timber, would be an inferno long before the patrols could reach them.
An arrow flew past his face, catching at his hair, but Keris only bent low over the horse’s neck. The Valcottans were moving to intercept, but his animal had been bred for speed, and only the big man stood in his way.
Eyes stinging from the smoke, Keris watched as the Valcottan man hefted a staff longer than he was tall, knees bending as he readied to swing it at the horse’s legs.
The animal tensed beneath him but didn’t falter, galloping straight toward the soldier.
Steady,Keris willed it.Steady.
The Valcottan swung, the staff a blur.
But as the horse shied away from the weapon, Keris dove off the side, shoulder taking the man just below the chin. They hit the ground together, the Valcottan choking and clutching at his throat. Keris ignored him, racing to the door, only to stumble back from the heat.
There was no way inside. But over the crackle of flames, he could hear the screams from the family trapped within.
Think.
The other soldiers converged on Otis, the sound of blades crashing against blades loud as he fought them back. But he was only one man against a dozen, and if he were killed… Keris twisted, hand going to the sword at his waist, but Otis shouted at him, “Get them out!”
Keris’s instincts took over, pulling him down the length of the house. There were no windows on the ground floor, but there was a rain barrel resting against the wall. Keris leapt onto it and jumped as high as he could, catching the edge of the window frame on the second level, his injured shoulder screaming. Boots scrambling against the side of the building, he heaved himself up, then kicked in the glass, shards tearing at his clothes as he slipped into the smoke-filled home.
A fit of coughing immediately took control of him. Keris ripped off his coat, holding it over his mouth and nose as he felt around in the darkness for a door, finding it open to the hall beyond.
Tears flooded down his face, vision entirely obscured, but he followed the screams for help and found the stairs. Rising them swiftly, he opened the door to the attic, slamming it shut behind him before turning to face the terrified family. “Help is coming,” he gasped out, praying that was true, because he had no idea how he was going to get them out of this mess. Heroics were not one of his competencies.
The boy, who looked no more than six or seven, said, “One of them followed you in!”
The words barely had a chance to register before the door burst open, a coughing Valcottan rushing through, weapon raised.
Keris jerked free his own sword, the blades meeting with a crash, all the apathy he’d displayed with Otis vanquished by the adrenaline racing through his veins.
The other man was bigger, but Keris had always been fast, his speed making up for his lack of skill as they fought in the small space, the family screaming and diving out of the way even as smoke billowed through the open door.
He coughed with every other breath, his eyes streaming tears, but he kept between the Valcottan and the family, knowing the man would kill them if given the chance. Blocking a downstroke that made his injured shoulder shudder, he kicked the door shut and shouted at the mother, “Get the window open!”
