Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1)(65)
Their attacker fell away only to be replaced by another and another who swarmed out of the underbrush like insects from a disturbed mound. Anhuset’s mount joined in the fight, kicking and rearing. One attacker slammed into a nearby tree and curled into the fetal position, clutching his belly.
Anhuset shoved the reins into Ildiko’s hands. “Guide the horse!”
Ildiko grabbed the reins, lost the dagger and kicked the gelding hard in the sides. He leapt into a gallop, dragging someone beside him. Behind Ildiko, Anhuset twisted one way and then the other, her arms stretched out on either side, swords in hand as she swung at their attackers. She slammed hard into Ildiko’s back twice with a grunt but held her seat to slash their way free.
They plunged through the wood, Ildiko as blind as a Kai at noon and praying she hadn’t turned them around and ridden straight for the ravine and a fast descent to their death. Escaping the last raider, they rounded a copse of trees and raced into a clearing.
Wide open and ablaze in moonlight, the clearing left them more exposed. Ildiko turned the gelding back toward the tree line. They couldn’t go back the way they came, but if they hugged the border that traveled an eastern path, the low-hanging branches of some of the trees would shield them. She had, at least, led them away from the ravine instead of toward it.
Her companion was ominously silent behind her. Ildiko glanced over her shoulder. “Anhuset?”
The other woman answered with a slow exhalation and promptly slid out of the saddle, taking a startled Ildiko with her. They both hit the ground, Ildiko’s fall partially cushioned by Anhuset’s arm. The horse tossed his head and pranced to the side before trotting a small distance away, reins dragging behind him.
Ildiko stumbled to her feet and gasped.
Anhuset lay on her side, facing Ildiko. An arrow shaft protruded from her left shoulder, another just above her left hip. She inhaled and exhaled slow breaths, and her gold-coin eyes were dull.
Ildiko crouched before her, bloodied hands drifting over, but not touching the places where the arrows had embedded themselves in armor and flesh. “Anhuset! Why didn’t you say something?”
The woman tried to shrug but only managed a twitch of one shoulder. “Because there was nothing to say. I think the arrows are dipped in marseret sap.” Her voice was as dull as her eyes, the words oozing off a thickened tongue.
Ildiko closed her eyes. If the arrowheads were dipped in marseret as Anhuset predicted, she’d be numb from her shoulders to her feet in moments, unable to move. Even if she weren’t dead weight from the poison, she was far too heavy for Ildiko to lift and hoist onto the horse. They were doomed, stranded here while whatever surviving raiders lurked in the woods caught up to them.
A gust of hot air, thick with the green scent of grass, flooded her neck and the side of her face. She opened her eyes to find Anhuset’s horse had ambled back to them, one liquid-dark eye trained on her as if to ask how long they planned to sit there. Ildiko might have laughed if she didn’t so badly want to scream.
Anhuset’s head lolled. “I can’t feel my arms or legs.”
A dog’s triumphant howl followed her declaration and sent Ildiko’s heart drumming in her chest. “Oh gods, more magefinders.”
“Run.” Anhuset’s eyes gave a slow owl’s blink. “They’re scenting me, not you. Take the horse. Run,” she repeated.
Ildiko sprang to her feet. “I’m not leaving you here.” The glimmer of moonlit steel caught her eye, and she found the two sabers Anhuset had wielded against their attackers during the wild ride through the woods. They lay in the grass, one behind Anhuset, the other near her outstretched fingers. Blood, made black in silver light, streaked the blades.
Ildiko retrieved the one closest to her, surprised by its overall lightness in her hand and the weighted tilt toward the tip of the blade.
“Stupid human woman.” Anhuset’s words slurred together. “You’ll die if you stay.”
“Silence.” Ildiko scowled but kept her eyes trained on the stretch of tree line from where the canine sounds originated. “Obviously the sap doesn’t work on your disrespectful tongue.”
Stupid or not, she had no intention of abandoning a helpless Anhuset on the cold ground to be torn apart by a pack of magefinders. The sword no longer felt light in her grasp, and she gripped it with both hands.
Her stomach plummeted to her feet when the first magefinder shot out of the tree line, a fur-clad lightning bolt built of long legs, glistening fangs, and eyes as yellow and fierce as any Kai’s, but far more bestial. It was followed by another and then a third, and they loped across the clearing, their bays muted to snarls as they closed the distance between them and Ildiko.
“Bend your knees and swing as hard as you can.” Anhuset’s voice sounded far away in Ildiko’s ears, but she did as the other bid and braced herself. Her lungs felt starved for air though she breathed harder than an exhausted horse. Rivulets of sweat streamed down her sides under her clothes and made her gore-sticky hands slippery on the sword grip. She forced herself not to flinch and close her eyes when the first dog leapt at her.
She screamed and swung just as a blurred dark line flew past her vision, followed by a meaty thunk. The dog’s legs snapped together in midstride before it hit the ground and skidded to a stop, an arrow sunk deep in its neck. Another whine of air teased her ear before the second dog met a similar fate.