Cursors's Fury

She wanted to scream in frustration and terror, in helpless protest that this scum, this, this… creature was going to kill her, kill her husband, kill everyone in the coach, and drag Alera into total chaos. She turned to Bernard, eyes searching for his. She wanted to be looking at him when Kalare’s blade took her life. Not at the animal who had killed her.

Bernard’s face was pale, but his eyes held no trace of defeat, no hint of surrender. He looked down at Amara, a single, fleeting glance-and winked at her.

Then he set his last arrow to string and loosed it as Kalare closed to within ten feet of the coach. Once more, Kalare sneered, blade moving with sinuous grace to strike the arrow before it could reach him. Its shaft shattered into splinters.

But the arrow’s head, a shaped, translucent crystal of rock salt like the ones he’d loosed against the windmanes in Calderon, exploded into powder.

It tore into Kalarus’s wind furies, blanketing him, ripping his windstream to shreds, murdering the power that kept him aloft.

Kalarus had time for one brief, mystified expression of shock and disbelief.

And then he screamed as he fell like a stone into the trees below.

Then there was silence, but for the surf-thunder of steady wind.

Bernard lowered his bow slowly and let out a long breath. He nodded his head pensively, and said, “I think I’ll write Tavi and thank him for that idea.”

Amara stared at her husband, speechless.

She needed to tell the bearers to keep going for as long as they could before setting down to rest beneath the canopy of the forest, somewhere near a large stream or small river, so that she could send word to the First Lord. But that could come in a moment. For now, the need to look at his face, to realize that they were alive, that they were together, was far more important than mere realms.

Bernard slung his bow over his shoulder and knelt beside Amara, reaching gently for her arm. “Easy. Let’s see what you’ve done to it.”

“One of your salt arrows,” she said quietly, shaking her head.

He smiled at her, his eyes alight with green, brown, and flecks of gold; colors of life and growth and warmth. “It’s always the little things that are important,” he said. “Isn’t it.”

“Yes,” she said, and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Excellent,” said the water figure of Gaius, a translucent form that lacked the solid-color enhancement the First Lord used to favor. “Well done, Countess. What is the status of the rescuees?”

She stood beside a large, swift stream that rolled down from the hills many miles from Kalare. The forest here was particularly thick, and they’d barely managed to get the coach down through it in one piece. The bearers had all but collapsed into sleep, without even unhooking their flight harnesses. Bernard went around to each man, gently freeing them from the coach and letting them stretch out on the ground. The High Ladies were in a similar state, though Lady Aquitaine managed to seat herself primly at the base of a tree before leaning her head back against it and watching Odiana help Aldrick to the stream to tend to his wound.

Lady Placida hardly seemed strong enough to keep her head held up, but she insisted on staying with Atticus Elania, who had been injured during the flight-not by a weapon, but when the wounded Aldrick had half fallen back into the coach. He’d fallen hard against one of the crowded seats and broken the girl’s ankle. Lady Placida had managed to ease Elania’s pain, then promptly fallen back onto the grass to sleep.

Rook stepped out of the coach with her eyes closed, holding her daughter’s hand. She found a patch of ground near the stream bank, where the sunlight reached the warm earth. She sat in the light, holding her daughter, her face weary and sagging with something rather like shock.

“Countess?” prodded Gaius gently.

Amara looked back to the water-image. “My apologies, sire.” She took a deep breath, and said, “Atticus Elania Minora was injured during the escape, but not seriously. A broken ankle. Well have it crafted well again soon.”

Gaius nodded. “And Lady Placida?”

“Exhausted but otherwise well, sire.”

Gaius raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

Amara explained. “She and Lady Aquitaine spent themselves in an effort to speed our escape and hinder the pursuit. Only a bit more than a score of nearly a hundred Knights Aeris managed to catch up to us, and without the ladies’ efforts I am certain we would have been overpowered and killed.”

“Where are you now?” Gaius asked. Then immediately raised a hand. “No, best not say. This communication could be observed by others. In general, what is your situation?”

“We pressed on for as long as we could after Kalarus fell, sire, but we didn’t make it terribly far. It’s possible that a follow-up search could find us, so we’ll only rest here for an hour or two, then move on.”

Gaius lifted both eyebrows. “Kalarus fell?”