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“Go,” he said to the mother, nearly shouting in frustration as she hesitated on the window, asking, “Who are you?”
“No one of consequence. Now jump.”
The woman leaped. Otis was too entangled with her daughter to catch her, but the woman landed well enough, rolling over the dirt.
Climbing onto the sill, Keris winced as the heat hit him in the face, flames reaching up to singe his boots. It was an easy jump for him, or would be, if they’d get out of his way.
“Move!” Coughing, he bent his knees. Then timber cracked and the building fell out from under him.
18
ZARRAH
Her horse labored beneath her as she galloped through the Maridrinian countryside, Yrina and her group of soldiers in hot pursuit. They were in enemy territory, which meant an attack could come from all sides, but Zarrah found herself not caring. All that mattered was stopping the raid. She told herself it was to protect her cousin from the Empress’s wrath, but in her heart, she knew it was something deeper.
She didn’t want to be a villain.
Bermin’s party left clear tracks in the damp earth, but they had over an hour’s head start. More than enough for him to enact slaughter upon whatever farm he selected, though he’d be smart enough to attempt to avoid Maridrinian patrols. For all his talk of honor, he wouldn’t be looking to lose his life in exchange for avenging a farmer’s death.
The faint smell of smoke tickled her nostrils, and Zarrah slowed her horse, searching the horizon.
There.
A black column reached up to the sky, growing taller by the second. Far too large to be burning debris and the wrong color for a grassfire. This was undoubtedly her cousin’s work.
Twisting in her saddle, she said, “We’re going to force Bermin to retreat, on the orders of the Empress. You will not engage or harm the Maridrinians unless your own life stands in the balance, understood? I want scouts in the surrounding terrain—Maridrinian patrols will come to investigate the smoke, and I want to be gone before they arrive. Now move!”
Cracking her reins against her horse’s haunches, she raced in the direction of the smoke, Yrina and the rest on her heels.
She burst from a copse of trees, her horse galloping through wheat nearly up to her knees as she headed in the direction of a burning barn, flames flickering up the side of the neighboring farmhouse. Her eyes danced over the familiar faces of her cousin’s soldiers, not seeing Bermin among them. Then the low bellow of a Maridrinian horn filled the air.
“Shit!” Yrina shouted from behind. “It’s one of their patrols! Has to be!”
Which meant this might not be a matter of forcing her cousin to retreat but rescuing his ass from this poorly laid plan.
Bermin’s soldiers abruptly sprinted toward the far side of the farmhouse, the air filling with their shouts of alarm.
Pulling free her staff, Zarrah circled her horse around the burning home, her gaze recoiling from the dozen corpses of men and women littering the yard—farmers that Bermin and his soldiers had massacred, their eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. How many of them had children hiding in the woods or in cellars, stifling their sobs while they watched on?
How many children were among the dead?
This wasn’t war; it was coldblooded murder. Fury raged through her, and part of Zarrah wanted to turn her horse around and leave Bermin and his men to be slaughtered by the incoming patrol.
But the thought fell away as she rounded the building and found Bermin’s men fighting not a Maridrinian patrol, but a single man, his sword blade flashing in the sunlight. He felled one of Bermin’s soldiers, then another, but he was deeply outnumbered. Which meant it was only a matter of time until they cut him down.
“Zar!” Yrina shouted, and she followed her lieutenant’s pointing finger to where Bermin writhed on the ground, clutching at his throat.
“Get him out of here,” she ordered, then flung herself off her horse and into the fray.
“Fall back,” she shouted at the soldiers, their eyes widening as they recognized her. “That’s a fucking order, you fools! Fall back!”
Four of them listened. Three did not.
Cursing, she tripped one of them with her staff, sending him toppling out of the way, then jabbed another in the ribs before she was forced to block a blow from the Maridrinian. And then another. He was big for one of them, tall and broad of shoulders, with dark hair and eyes, his skin tanned brown from the sun.
“We’re done here,” Zarrah hissed. “Back down and we’ll leave you alive.”
His eyes flashed, and he wiped away the blood threatening to drip into one of them. “You’re still alive,” he snarled. “Which meansIam not done.”
