Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)(38)

A sentry leaned on the paddock fence, watching the progress of a longboat back to the ship anchored offshore. Unlike most of the others, he was bareheaded. He wore his hair in a long plait that extended nearly to his waist, though the top of his head was shaved clean. His beard was also braided and decorated. He wore light armor over loose-fitting clothing. More than anything, he resembled the horselords from the desert realms across the Indio.

Hal was still debating whether to kill him outright or to try to take him alive and risk giving himself away when the rattle of pebbles on stone behind him alerted him to danger. He dove sideways in time to avoid being beheaded by the curved blade of the horselord who’d crept up on him. Hal rolled to his feet, his sword in one hand, a fistful of sand in the other. He managed to block his attacker’s next swing, but the force of the blow all but rattled the teeth from his head.

Hal was no slouch, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that he was outmatched. The horselord was strong as an ox, and yet so quick on his feet that Hal could scarcely do more than dodge and feint, rarely getting in a blow of his own. The horselord’s next swing all but disarmed Hal, but the curved blade caught against his own, and Hal took that opportunity to come in close enough to fling the sand in the horselord’s eyes. When his blade dropped away, Hal drove his sword beneath his rib cage, all the way to the hilt.

The horselord smashed his gauntleted arm across Hal’s face, pitching him backward onto the sand. Then the other sentry was there, his blade at Hal’s throat, pinning him to the beach. Hal watched in horror as the man he’d skewered yanked the blade free and tossed it aside on the sand.

No, Hal thought, spitting out blood. That wound is not survivable, let alone ignorable. Not by any mortal man. I need to apologize to Talbot for questioning her description of the invading army.

The way things were going, he might never get the chance.

The two enemy soldiers were arguing now, in a language akin enough to Common that Hal realized that they were arguing over whether to kill him now or deliver him to the empress alive.

If they took him to the empress, would Lyssa Gray be there? Could he devise a way to rescue her and the busker?

“You know the empress will want this one alive,” one of the horselords said, pointing at Hal, and then toward the ship. “He is young and strong, and a good fighter.”

The skewered man fingered the hilt of his sword and scowled at Hal; the man’s jaw was set stubbornly, as if he took being skewered rather personally. “Celestine has many new recruits to choose from, Hoshua,” he said. “She can spare this one.”

“She will need many more bloodsworn in the coming days,” Hoshua said. “These wetlands have plenty of seasoned soldiers. They have been at war for years.”

Wetlands, Hal thought. That must mean that they are from the drylands across the sea. And what did that mean—bloodsworn? Was it simply the name used for the horselord fighters, or did it have something to do with their superhuman strength and stamina?

“I don’t want to have to keep watch on him all the way to Celesgarde,” the wounded man said.

Where is Celesgarde? Is that where they would have carried Lyssa Gray?

“Don’t worry, Enebish. We can chain him belowdecks. He won’t be any trouble.”

After a heated discussion, his captors finally agreed that maybe the empress could spare this one particular soldier.

“Take me to Celestine,” Hal said in Common, startling the two horselords, who looked down at him as if a rock on the beach had begun speaking. These bloodsworn might be relentless, but they were not particularly quick-witted.

Enebish, the skewered man, drew back his foot and kicked him. The movement caused the horselord to stagger a bit, as if his body was catching up to the fact that it was in serious trouble. That’s when Hal heard a familiar thwack. Now an arrow shaft was centered in Hoshua’s chest.

Hal rolled onto his side, gripped Enebish’s boot, and gave it a hard twist. Bone cracked and the horselord went down. Focus on breaking bones, Hal thought. That makes them less mobile.

Hal scrambled over the sand to where Enebish had dropped his sword, scooped it up, and turned to see Hoshua bearing down on him, as unconcerned about his arrow as Enebish had been about being run through. The bow sounded again, and the horselord stumbled as a second arrow hit him in the back. Hal took advantage of the distraction to behead his opponent with a two-handed swing. The head splashed into the water, but the body continued to stagger around, spraying blood from its severed neck until it tripped over a rock slab and went down.

“Matelon! Look out!” Hal turned, and Talbot was sprinting toward him, nocking an arrow as she ran. Between them, Enebish was crawling across the sand toward Hal, pulling with his arms, pushing with one leg and dragging the broken one, his dagger in his teeth. In desperation, Hal threw his shoulder against a slab of rock, toppling it over so Enebish was pinned underneath.

Breathing hard, Hal bent down, resting his hands on his knees, and tried not to spew sick all over the sand.

Talbot knelt next to Enebish’s head. She swore softly. “He’s dead,” she said, glaring at Hal. “I wanted to interrogate him.”

“Sorry,” Hal muttered. “But I . . . ah . . . questioned him before he died.”

Talbot eyed him suspiciously. “What do you mean? What did you find out?”

It was the first time he’d interrogated someone from the wrong end of a sword, but he knew more now than he had before.