The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(41)

“Stop!” her voice boomed out.

Caught off guard, their pursuers reined up hard: two figures wearing hoods, so she could not make out their faces. One of them jerked a crossbow up and leveled it at her. She hardly noticed; she was staring at their mounts. Not horses. Two shaggy brown war elk.

Hu soldiers.

Trust no one, not even your own men.

“Is this how you cowards would dispatch of your future empress?” Lu demanded, forcing the quaver from her voice. “With a crossbow bolt to the back? If you wish to kill me, show me your faces and come fight me as men.”

“I told you not to shoot,” hissed the soldier without the crossbow. “Idiot! It’s supposed to look like an accident, remember?”

His voice was that of a boy’s, cracking like a hinge in want of greasing. They were both boys, she realized with a start—young and slight upon their massive elk.

The one with the crossbow hesitated, his weapon dipping. He quickly drew it back up. “They can messy her up afterward—maybe a boulder fell on her, who’s to say?” There was the lilt of a smile in his excited voice.

“We shouldn’t do anything without the others.”

“Well, where are the others?” the one with the crossbow demanded, glancing behind them.

“They split off at the ridge,” responded the other, sounding very much as though he regretted the fact. “I don’t know what happened, but half the dogs broke off . . . I can’t hear them anymore. Wait, I know! I’ll blow my horn.”

“Do that,” said the one with the crossbow, sounding a little nervous now, the thrill of the moment worn thin. He turned back toward Lu. “You need to come with us, Princess. Dismount your elk and drop your weapons to the ground.”

He saw the Ashina boy at her back for the first time. His weapon dipped. “Who the—”

It was enough; Lu seized Yaksun’s reins and the bull elk charged. She raised her sword.

There was a twang as the boy with the crossbow fired. Panic shattered his concentration and the bolt flew low, whizzing past her thigh and planting itself deep in Yaksun’s flank. The elk screamed, rearing into the air.

The Ashina boy’s hands slipped from about her waist. Lu reached out instinctively to grab him, and then they were both falling. She caught a glimpse of tangled black tree branches overhead, the sun peeking bright white from between them. Motes of pollen and dust drifted in the light, lazy and scintillating.

They landed hard, in a tangle. The ground punched the breath from both their bodies. Everything was upside down, and the air rung with a cold, dead, gray sound, as if she were trapped in some great metal drum. In this strange new world, Yaksun thundered away from her through the trees.

Lu sat up and a hound lunged at her—only to fall limp, impaled on the end of the sword she had thrust forth in sheer instinct.

She pulled the blade free, wiping the dog’s blood upon the grass. The smell of it drove the others back in a frenzy.

There was a twang and a flitting sound; another crossbow bolt flew at her, but this time she merely tilted her head away to avoid the clumsy shot. She felt calm, her heartbeat steady and even. The world seemed to slow, as though each moment were awaiting her permission before it passed.

Lu stood and advanced, the edges of her world pulled tight around the boy rider upon his elk, and the weapon in his grip. Three steps; the Hu boy was loading a new bolt and cranking, cranking . . .

The crossbow was on the ground and he was screaming. There was blood upon her blade and blood spraying from the end of his arm where his hand had been, drenching his tunic, his saddle, his elk. The animal caught the scent, reared, and the boy fell, clawing at the air as though to call back the fleeing beast. He was screaming still, high-pitched and unrestrained, but he went quiet when she put her blade through his chest.

The other boy reined up and charged his elk at her, his sword raised. She leaped to the side easily and met his blade with a crashing blow of her own. His sword flew from inexperienced hands and speared itself somewhere deep in the brush.

He reined up and came back at her, pulling his bow from his back and nocking an arrow.

He should have run.

She could see his fear—in his halting approach, the way he clenched his knees tighter around his mount. He was not without skill, and he was brave—she would give him that much.

It would not save him.

She thrust her sword back into its scabbard and grabbed the throwing ax from her hip. The boy scarcely had time to register the movement before she had drawn back her arm and flung the ax in a horizontal arc across his path.

The elk realized its doom first and shrieked—an awful sound that shattered the air around them. A sheet of blood like red silk poured from the slash her ax had opened. The rider tumbled from the creature’s back, tried to roll. Too slow. The elk’s front knees crumpled, and it went down with all the weight in the world, crushing the boy beneath it.

He threw his arms out instinctively, pointlessly, and as he did so, his hood fell back. Lu saw his face for the first time: wide-set, honest eyes that were now filled with fear. A brown birthmark on his chin.

Her mind froze as Wonin of Family Cui let out an awful cry that rose over the crunching of his bones, his bravery finally broken.

The wood fell eerily still, as though the whole of the world were sucking in a breath. The quiet was punctuated by the violence of Wonin’s terrible sobbing.