Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 9

  His companions on shore yelled indistinguishable words and an older burly man with a scar began the treacherous trip out to help him.

  “He’s making it worse,” Lance pronounced. Apparently having finished his prayers, he joined Sara at the temple wall.

  The current spun the deathboat’s far end into the rope as well, sending a shudder up its length. “Will it hold?” Sara asked worriedly. “Is there anything we can do?”

  Lance didn’t reply, the answer so clearly being no.

  The youth got one foot back on the bottom rope. Sara let out a sigh of relief, and then jumped as a small long-bodied refetti ran over her foot. The men must have scared it out onto the bridge, Sara decided after her heart calmed down. Poor thing. It cowered around her ankles, its wet fur tickling her skin. It was about a foot and a half long, but half of that was tail.

  Marcus stepped onto the temple slab, worry and dismay etched onto his face. “Lady Sarathena, you should go back to shore.”

  “Why?” Sara wanted to see how things ended.

  The boy’s older companion raised the top rope above his head. Sara shuddered at the danger he was putting himself in, but the tactic worked. The deathboat slipped through the widened space between the two ropes and vanished over the falls. Sara listened in vain for its impact at the bottom. It was as if Mek had eaten it.

  “Why? Because those are Qiph warriors,” Marcus said grimly in her ear.

  Qiph? Sara blinked. All of them wore green and white robes and had black hair braided in rows close to their heads, as Qiph did. Their arms were a shade browner than her own. But unlike the Qiph slaves and merchantmen she was accustomed to seeing at the market, all but one of these men had scabbards hanging by their sides and carried round shields slung across their backs. The exception was a priest, easily recognizable by his extra ‘eyes’—gems glued to his forehead.

  What was a group of Qiph warriors and a priest doing here so many days travel from the border? They couldn’t be coming to the shrine—Sara’s old math tutor had been a Qiph and he’d told her once that the Qiph didn’t worship gods, but followed something called The Path of the Holy Ones.

  Seeing the sense in caution, Sara moved back out onto the plank bridge, but glanced back after only a few steps.

  The Qiph hadn’t given up and returned to shore. There were now three of them on the ropes, crossing, their faces determined.

  Marcus drew his sword. He yelled at them to stay back, but either they didn’t understand or were ignoring him. They kept coming, first sliding one sandaled foot along the treacherous wet bottom rope, then changing their hand grips, then sliding the second foot.

  Sara counted nine Qiph in all. They looked fierce, angry, their faces as sharp as drawn swords and as eager for battle. The priest looked most furious of all, as if he might start frothing at the mouth soon. He exhorted the others.

  Lance joined her on the bridge. “Keep moving,” he urged her.

  Sara walked backward, her palms skimming the rails, unable to look away from the scene in front of her.

  The leadmost Qiph, a handsome youth with numerous braids but only one green bead in his hair, had unsheathed his sword despite the awkwardness of holding it at the same time as the top rope. Marcus started hacking at the rope with his sword.

  Legionnaires kept their swords hellishly sharp as a matter of pride—it should have sheared through the rope with a single blow—but this rope resisted, only a few strands parting.

  “Must be wire twisted into the cable,” Lance muttered.

  The Qiph youth reached the temple slab, stabbing out with his sword at the same moment that Marcus slashed down on the top cable. Both struck true. The sword pierced Marcus’s stomach. His scream was lost in the roar of the water. He sank to his knees, then fell forward into the water and vanished from sight.

  Sara’s breath caught, hard. She hadn’t known Marcus well, but he’d been a solid commander. Felicia had liked him. It had been Sara’s insistence that had brought them here. It was her fault—

  The Qiph youth, Marcus’s killer, made an amazing leap onto the temple slab just as the top cable parted. The three other Qiph clinging to the top rope fell backward. Two instantly tumbled over the falls. The older man clung to the end of the rope for a few seconds, but the pull of the water was too much. He went over, eyes bulging with horror.

  “Nabeel!” screamed the youth, reaching out helplessly.

  Sara felt sick. It had happened so suddenly. Marcus was dead—

  “Go!” Lance shouted. “Or he’ll have died for nothing!”

  Sara’s eyes refocused, and she saw that the Qiph youth had regained his feet. He still had his sword, and he was staring at her, the grief in his eyes driven out by the need for revenge. Marcus had cut the rope, Lance was surely a greater danger, but instinctively, Sara knew she was his focus, his prey.

  Sara turned and began to run. The little bridge shuddered with every step, making her stumble. She managed to catch herself on the rail, but involuntarily looked down andsaw the dizzying drop, the furious river, no longer exciting, but mighty and terrible—

  Sara wrenched her gaze away and took four careful steps toward shore, still twenty feet distant. The other outriders were already waiting there, hands held out, yelling at her to hurry, not daring to step on the bridge themselves for fear it would collapse under the weight.

  And then the bridge dipped suddenly lower. Fingers of water rushed over the planks in front of Sara’s feet. She gasped and grasped the rail harder, afraid of being swept away.

  There were now three people on the plank bridge. The Qiph youth stalked toward her and Lance with a naked sword in his hand.

  * * *

  “Get off the bridge!” Lance yelled. “You’ll kill us all!”

  He didn’t really expect the Qiph boy to understand him and was speaking only out of anger at the wasted deaths he’d just seen; four men going over the falls.

  “Move away and you will be safe,” the Qiph boy shouted from where he balanced eight feet away. “We seek only the Defiled.”

  Rage filled Lance. As if he would calmly step aside and let them kill Sara. He didn’t know why the Qiph wanted her dead—if they even had the right woman—and he didn’t care. Sara might be a useless noblewoman, might be trying to seduce him for information, but she wasn’t evil—Lance had seen evil as a boy and knew what it looked like. He didn’t know what the boy meant by Defiled, but it made him furious.

  And just how are you planning on stopping him? his back brain asked. This isn’t a fistfight you can win with intimidation and brute strength. He has a sword, one he’s probably trained with since he was five, and all you have is a belt knife.

  “Here.” Instead of going to safety, Sara took three steps back and thrust something at Lance’s left hand. He took it without taking his eyes off the Qiph boy and was momentarily dumbfounded to realize she’d given him her pearl necklace again. Did she want him to bribe the boy? The Qiph looked like he was steeling himself to rush them—a crazy thing to do on the swaying bridge. He might easily misstep and be swept away without Lance having to do anything.

  Ah. That was what she meant him to do. Clever. His big fingers easily broke the necklace’s cord. Large white pearls the width of his thumb fell and scattered over the planking. Most rolled off, of course, but a dozen were still in motion when the Qiph boy raised his sword and charged.

  It all happened in an instant. The boy’s face was contorted by anger into something demonic, his mouth open wide, screaming something incomprehensible. One step and the distance between Lance and the sharp point of the sword had shrunk by half. Lance brought his arm up, instinctively trying to sweep it aside—a move that would have resulted in his arm being cut off at the elbow except that the boy’s second step brought his foot down on a pearl.

  He slipped and fell against the left-hand rail. The wood cracked and broke under his weight. Both came crashing down. The boy’s sword left his hand and flashed over the falls. Lance was
certain the boy would follow, but one of his feet hooked over the upriver edge of the bridge, keeping him in place, while his head and arms flailed in the water. The shield on his back made him look like a turtle.

  Without a sword, the boy was no threat.

  Swearing, Lance took a step forward, grabbed two handfuls of striped fabric and heaved the boy, dripping, back onto the bridge. From the choked sounds he made, he’d swallowed half the falls.

  Lance was about to pound the boy on the back when Sara pulled on his arm. “Look!” She pointed at something beyond the temple.

  At first, Lance couldn’t make out anything in the dizzying rush of water, and then he saw it too. Three more Qiph were crossing the sole remaining rope, legs wrapped around it, pulling themselves hand over hand. They had to be almost drowning themselves.

  We seek only the Defiled.

  They had the sound of fanatics, whipped up by the priest still on shore until they cared nothing for their own lives. Chilled, Lance turned back to Sara. “They want to kill you,” he shouted.

  Sara’s face was pale, but she neither panicked nor wasted time protesting. She nodded, and together they waded into the water still overflowing the bridge, moving as fast as they dared. Lance fisted one hand in the fabric at the back of her dress to steady her if she stumbled. The cold water frothed over their feet, pulling, always pulling. With one guardrail broken, the slightest shift in balance could see them both going over the falls so Lance didn’t allow himself to make mistakes, taking small careful steps.

  On the shore, the outriders yelled encouragement and stretched their hands out to Sara and him. The sandy-haired one with the mustache had even thought far enough ahead to grab a stick to extend his reach. Two outriders with crossbows had scrambled a little distance upriver to allow them to take a shot without endangering Sara.

  They’d almost reached land, and Lance’s toes were numb inside his sandals, when the renewed wallowing of the bridge alerted him. Lance spun around in time to see the boy he’d saved coming after them again.

  He didn’t retreat until two crossbow bolts studded his shield. Madman.

  Sara made it to shore. Felicia enveloped her in a shawl, and Felicia and Julen hustled Sara toward the carriages.

  Lance disembarked onto blessed, firm ground. He landed right in the middle of an argument.

  “I’m telling you, we can hold them at the bridge,” a young hothead was saying. “They have to cross one at a time—”

  “Hold them for what, boy?” the older mustached man asked. “There ain’t no reinforcements coming. In a few hours, dark will fall, then what’re you going to do? Holding the bridge ain’t our job. Killing raiding Qiph scum ain’t neither. We have one job, and that’s bringing Lady Sarathena safe to the border of Slaveland. So what we’re going to do is outrun them. Their horses are on the other side of the river.”

  The younger man set his jaw. “I don’t think Primus Remillus would want us to leave Qiph bandits running—”

  “And have you spoken to Primus Remillus?” The older man brought his face very close to the younger one’s.

  The youth shook his head.

  “Neither have I, but I was there when he gave the captain our orders. What he said was that if his daughter came to any harm he’d see every man of us hung by the neck. Seems clear enough to me what he’d want us to be doing.” The mustached outrider gave one last glare, then growled, “Get the carriages going. The boy here can cover the bridge until we’re ready.”

  The chain of command clear again, the outriders fell to. Two of them chivvied Lance toward the second carriage.

  “Why in Nir’s name did you save that Qiph?” one of the outriders demanded, his face hot. “You should have kicked him over the falls.”

  Lance scowled back. “He’s just a boy.”

  “He’s an enemy,” the outrider said flatly.

  Lance refused to apologize—Kandrith and Qi were not enemies—but his conscience bit at him. He’d put Sara in more danger by increasing the number of their attackers by one. He wore the Brown, it was true. Killing wasn’t his job, it was the outriders’, that was also true.

  If the Qiph boy killed any of their number…

  Any more of their number. Lance winced, remembering Captain Marcus suddenly. The outriders had a reason to be out for blood.

  Sara was already inside their carriage with Felicia. She ordered Julen back to his own carriage, but refused to shut the door until Lance climbed on board. Her insistence warmed Lance, though he knew it shouldn’t. She wants to know about magic, Felicia had said.

  The outrider slammed the door behind Lance with excessive force. Before Lance could sit down, the carriage lurched into motion, the coachman whipping the poor horses down the road. The very steep road.

  On the forward-facing seat, Lance had to brace his legs to keep from falling into Sara’s lap. “Idiot,” he said. “Not you,” he told Sara when her perfect eyebrows drew together in offense. “The coachman. The Qiph aren’t the danger—he is.”

  Fortunately, the coachman seemed to realize this. The brake went on, slowing their mad descent somewhat.

  Lance tried to peer out the window to see what was up ahead, but caught only a swirl of legs and horses as the outriders thundered down the road in front of them. Rocks flew from hooves.

  The road switchbacked. They heard the coachman shouting, “Whoa! Whoa!” desperately to the horses. Lance felt the carriage start to lean and threw his considerable weight to the left side.

  The carriage teetered for a moment—then bumped back down onto all four wheels. Lance found himself kneeling at Sara’s feet, his hands braced on her shapely thighs. A spark of awareness jumped between them—

  Lance regained his seat while they careened down the next leg of the switchback. “Be ready to switch your weight at the next turn,” Lance told her.

  Sara nodded. She looked with concern at Felicia where she huddled against the seat, her eyes closed. Sara squeezed her slave’s shoulder.

  The shaking of the carriage rattled Lance’s teeth and jolted through his bones. It was like being pummeled by invisible fists. And here came another bloody corner. If one of the carriage horses stumbled on the loose gravel, the whole carriage would be doomed.

  “Raht-wee!” voices screamed suddenly outside. Lance looked out the window and saw six Qiph run screaming at the already half-maddened horses. They’d gotten ahead by ignoring the switchbacks and running down the steep hillside, causing a small landslide as they went. Swords flashed in the sunlight. One Qiph—the boy?—fell down the last third of the slope and hit his head on a boulder, but the rest miraculously stayed on their feet and attacked the outriders. He saw one Qiph duck beneath a sword-blow and neatly pull the legionnaire off his horse. Another Qiph vanished under rearing hooves.

  Lance saw a third Qiph jump onto Julen’s carriage and wrench open the door. They were definitely looking for Sara.

  Their own carriage slewed sideways then tipped up onto one wheel; all was confusion, shouting, the scream of horses in pain, the clash of swords. Lance threw himself against the opposite wall. Sara moved to join him. The carriage shuddered.

  The horses made it around the turn. The carriage didn’t. The outside wheels plunged over the edge of the road into nothingness. There was a loud snap, and the carriage box fell off the wheels and tumbled down the steep riverbank.

  Chapter Six

  Felicia screamed in Sara’s ear as the carriage crashed down onto its side.

  Both girls were flung on top of Lance. Felicia’s knee pushed into Sara’s side, and Sara tried to remove her own hand from Lance’s neck as the carriage whumped and shuddered and slid down the steep riverbank. The wooden frame skreeked so horribly Sara feared they would shake to pieces. Then they experienced one more awful jolt as the carriage went over a three-foot drop, splashed down and, at last, fell still.

  If the drop had been any farther, their bodies would have smashed against the insides of the carriage and broken like eggs
. Groaning and bruised, Sara sat up and realized she was lying on top of Lance, all but straddling him. She scrambled to one side and inadvertently stood on his calf, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

  “We’re in the river,” Lance said urgently. “We have to get out.”

  For a moment his words didn’t register, then cold water began to pour through the broken boards. Within seconds, the river water covered her ankles.

  She looked to Felicia—and saw her lying on the bottom of the carriage, eyes closed. Blood flowed from a cut above her eye.

  The carriage lay on its side, the door—praise Diwo, Goddess of Luck—the ceiling instead of the floor. Lance pushed on the warped wood while Sara tried to rouse her maid. Felicia seemed dazed; her eyes kept closing despite the growing pool of water.

  Wood creaked. Lance added his shoulder to the force he was exerting on the door, and it thumped open. She’d never have opened it by herself, Sara realized. She doubted a slighter man like Julen could have either.

  “Hurry,” Lance said.

  “Felicia first,” Sara said fiercely. “She’s hurt.”

  Lance didn’t argue. He scooped up Felicia, and Sara realized he’d never had any intention of saving Sara first. To him, Felicia was just as important. The realization disconcerted her, but she wanted Felicia out first so Sara shoved the feeling aside and helped push her maid up.

  Fortunately, Felicia recovered enough to help climb the last few feet out the door. By then the water had reached Sara’s knees. Despite its predominantly wooden frame the carriage was sinking fast.

  As soon as Felicia was clear, Lance put his arms around Sara’s waist. “Your turn.” He boosted her up and out in one smooth motion.

  Sara scrambled on top on her knees—and saw the falls. Was overwhelmed by them. Even in the peril of the moment, she got lost for a second, staring.