AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nodded. “Stay alive, margrave. I carried you up this hill. You owe me a long, hard ride.” Their shared laughter eased the grimness, and she gave him a brief nod before leaping the bramble wall to sprint down the hill where she was soon swallowed by the heavy darkness.
He longed to go with her, to fight side by side, but his injuries prevented him. He was strong but at the moment too slow to be anything more to her than a burden. He served her and himself best by acting as the distraction for the hunters, focusing their attentions on him so that she might ambush them, one by one.
He built the fire from the kindling they'd gathered earlier, igniting it with the eating knife as his striker against a piece of flint, and bits of the tattered cloth as both char cloth and tinder. The fire provided welcome warmth, but more importantly it gave off light, a flickering, dancing luminescence he had no doubt those camped across the lake could clearly see, even through the battalion of firs covering the island. If things went as they planned, Chamtivos would mark the location of the light, assume his prey were foolish in their desire to stay warm, and head directly for the spot as soon as they landed the boats.
Pain exhausted him, and boredom made him sleepy as he waited alone for dawn to arrive. He was as armed as he could be with knife, sling, and two of the three spears he'd made. Anhuset had taken the third spear and her pair of throwing spikes.
The sling would serve him best, then the spears, and finally the knife. If he was fortunate, he'd kill any hunter who approached long before they got close enough for hand-to-hand combat.
Anhuset was right when she said they'd come at dawn. The sun had barely washed the sky a pale yellow when he heard her signal whistle in the distance. The boats were in sight.
Serovek dropped several stones into a pouch he'd made from the hem of his shirt and took up the sling. He slipped his index finger into the looped end to his knuckle and pinched the knotted end between that finger and his thumb, creating a loop. He'd wait to load the pouch until he spotted his quarry.
Time crawled in the forest's deceptive quiet. Even the birds remained silent, sensing the presence of predators. Only once was the quiet broken by a distant splash of water followed by screams for help and more splashing, then silence once again. For a moment Serovek's breath seized in his lungs and his nostrils until he heard the cries. A male voice, not Anhuset's. Whatever happened to the man who fell into the water, Serovek was certain the hunters now numbered one less.
Were he uneducated in the value of patience in battle, he might have abandoned his spot to seek out his enemies as Anhuset had done instead of letting them come to him. His patience, however, was finally rewarded as was his and Anhuset's planning the previous night. Three shadows, purposeful in their creeping ascent toward the bramble wall, solidified into a trio of men. Two carried swords and spears, the third a bow. Chamtivos's betrayer had warned Anhuset there'd be at least four skilled bowmen in their group. Serovek wondered if the traitor himself was among their number. It didn't matter if he was. A man who sneaked a knife to his opponent because he believed in the fairness of a fight was still an adversary, just a nobler one. To Serovek's way of thinking, Anhuset was his only true ally in this deadly game.
He eased two stones into his free hand, loaded one stone into the sling's pouch. The three hunters didn't hear him, and judging by their actions, they hadn't seen him yet either. The topography worked to his benefit for the moment but not for long. Soon they'd be high enough up the slope to spot him behind the bramble camouflage.
It had been some time since he'd hunted with a sling, but Serovek practiced regularly anyway. One never knew when they might have to fend off a pack of wolves, furred or human.
The rush of battle fever surged through his body, pushing aside the pain of his injuries. He stood, swung the sling overhead in a fast arc and released the knotted end. A soft thunk followed, and the archer fell wordlessly into the underbrush before rolling down the slope to rest against a tree. He didn't rise.
The remaining two hunters barely had time to leap for cover when Serovek hurled the second stone, this time taking down of the spearmen. His companion scuttled through the underbrush back down the slope, making a thrashing racket as he went. Serovek didn't bother taking aim or reaching for one of his spears. The fleeing hunter was too well-hidden and too distant now for a sure hit, and he didn't want to lose either of his spears in the attempt.
The second man he'd hit fell where he stood and didn't slide or roll down the slope as the archer had. Still armed with the sling and carrying one of his spears, Serovek made his way toward the dead spearman instead. “Better than falling down the hill,” he muttered.
He didn't have to worry about fighting or finishing off the second man. His had been a kill-shot. The rock had smashed one side of the man's face, caving in cheekbone and eye socket. The other eye stared sightless at the tree canopy.
Serovek made short work of stripping the corpse of its weaponry to arm himself with a more respectable arsenal: a less primitive spear, short sword, and two knives. He left the body for scavengers and turned his attention to the archer while keeping an ear open for any movement from the distant brush and wishing one of the three had thought to bring a shield.
Senses riding a blade's edge of anticipation at taking a volley of arrows in the gut and chest from a revived archer, he approached more cautiously. Reason told him that were the archer still alive, he would have shot Serovek several times as he stripped the weapons off his dead comrade, but reason wasn't always right and caution had its virtues.
The man was as dead as the other, though far less mangled. The sling stone had struck him in the temple. Serovek had aimed for his head and released the sling just as the archer turned to signal to his companion. His death was instant.
Serovek glanced behind him. His sanctuary looked far away, and any other hunter headed in this direction would know where he was, especially with two bodies sprawled in the brush and one survivor to warn the others not only of his location but that he was far from helpless prey. Still, it was a safer retreat than lingering here.
Once again, he took all available weapons, including the bow and quiver of arrows. Halfway back to the relative safety of the overhang and bramble wall, he suddenly pivoted, pushing his back against a stately conifer with a trunk wider than his shoulders. A thump sounded behind him, and he recognized the noise—an arrow striking the tree on the opposite side. A second archer, and if he wasn't misjudging the rustling behind him, the bowman wasn't alone.
“We should have beat you harder in camp, margrave, and you should have killed Anagan before he could find us and tell your whereabouts.” Chamtivos's voice silenced the emerging birdsong. “You can't hide behind that tree forever, and your sling won't do you any good now.”
The surviving spearman must have crossed paths with his master in his flight and wasted no time in telling him where to find his dead companions and Serovek. “It would take a lot more than the clumsy affections from the runt of a cur bitch's litter to break me, you piece of shit,” he told the warlord in a conversational tone, as if the two were friends discussing their day over a tankard of ale in a tavern.
Another thunk into the tree. Serovek wondered how many arrows the archer planned to waste turning the big conifer into a pin poppet. He glanced out of the corner of one eye, noting the gradual lengthening of a shadow only half a shade darker than all the others, easing toward him from the right.
Chamtivos's voice no longer held its gloating note. “Where's the gray whore?” he said in a guttural tones, the words hardly more than an incoherent snarl.
“Gone.” And with any luck alive and spilling the blood of this bastard's minions across the entire island.
The warlord's voice changed again, taking on a cajoling note. “I'm a reasonable man.”
Serovek snorted and regretted the action instantly as agony shot through his broken nose and into his skull.
“Bryzant paid me a small fortune to get rid of you, but I wager King Rodan would pay an even bigger one to have his valuable margrave returned to him,” Chamtivos said
Serovek might have laughed at so obvious a ploy had he not been reminded of his steward's murderous treachery. He watched the shadow coming closer, one silent step at a time. “I don't wish to indulge in another round of your hospitality while I wait for the king's ransom,” he replied. He turned perpendicular to the tree, bent, and scooped up a handful of dirt and brittle pine needles.
“I've no more reason to use suchpersuasionon you,” Chamtivos argued. “The Kai woman told us only the Khaskem can reverse Kai magic.”
