Crimes

Paske was weakened, there was no escaping it. It was going to slow them down. If she kept him with her.

He'd lost a lot of blood, far more than she had realized, and it meant he was weak, dehydrated and cold. All potentially fatal under the circumstances. But she'd freed his hands. She'd let him sleep. She'd let him drink. She'd let him wrap both capes around his nakedness.

The sun was high, but she'd tucked him back into shadows while she watched the road far below. If riders were coming as he said, they would be this far along the road soon. Above her was a bare expanse of mountainside, windblown grass, and frost bitten rocks for as far as the eye could see. The only shelter on the climb was the scrubby gully where they rested.

So his needs had not come at a cost. She was safest sitting still until the riders had passed, or until nightfall covered their progress. She chewed at salt beef and watched him sleeping.

Men always shed their masks when they slept; it was something that had fascinated her for many years. The vilest face softened and the child a mother had once loved was revealed when thick lashes pressed dark against a cheek. It made her no more inclined to credit them with virtue, but it interested her none the less.

She'd stitched his wounds with horsehair. It meant peeling the theyn away from his thigh and taking down the suede breeches that had clotted inside and out with shed blood. And she'd unbuckled the armor he wore like it mattered. It did nothing more than announce to the world that he was higher in the kicking order than she was, as did his theyn and segmented leather kilt, and she tossed them over the scuffing rocks. And the scale-armored hauberk, with ring-tasseled shoulder caps. And even the soft linen tunic he wore under the rub of steel mesh. There was a helplessness in nakedness that answered for some of his sins.

His body had surprised her, as much for its hard lines and well-proportioned form as for the smooth perfection of skin that had never been defiled by warfare. He was fit; much fitter than she would have thought. And he was higher born than a position as administrative officer of the military allowed; it was written everywhere in the vanity of the man, and she wondered again how far he had fallen and what had been his sin. At some time he had been cast out by his own, thrown down among the lesser mortals for some unknown crime.

Being born into nobility was crime enough.

Freya had been born in an alleyway in Koldem City: lying in their filth, feeding off their waste, covered by their muck, and squelching their shit between her fingers and her toes. They were the first enemy she had needed to survive, hating them as she crawled across their lavatory floors to collect their piss pots for the fullers, or scraped the shit from their pampered pets into bowls to sell to the tannery, or ducked a blow, or fled a sheriff, or hid while her family and friends were hunted and killed.

They weren't alone, of course. They were simply the worst, the top of a top heavy system of brutality that taught its least to fight and kill from the day they first drew breath.

Below them were the merchants who would pay in copper for stolen treasure, then call for a sheriff as she fled into the shadows, or the tradesmen who would pay in coppers for her hand or her mouth or her ass, or pay with a smack across the head and a kick to the stomach. She hated them all, and she had hated needing them even more.

At least as she grew she had learned to fight. She had been twelve the first time she was caught in a raid by young noblemen on horseback who carried off women as a prize to share, and she had killed the man who caught her. She had held a rock, too small to be much of a weapon, but she had hit him square in the Adam's apple and run away.

And she'd kept running until she'd escaped. Here, the things she knew had value and her strength earned respect and her skill had earned her fame. In the army she had found a home at last.

In her tin mug she had soaked two bits of dry bread, and she moved to where he lay and nudged him awake. His jaw was swollen, and now his right eye was blackening and his smooth cheeks were abraded, but he'd be able to chew some soft bread. "Wake up. You need to eat." Freya was pleased with the overall effect of his injuries. She liked the edge they took off his arrogance. And she liked the fact that she had given him every single mark.

"Why aren't you moving while there's light?" he mumbled. "Leave me here; you can make better time over the mountain without me."

Freya laughed. "Yes, but I don't want to leave you here alive. You want me to end it for you? No, you don't. Times are changing. Big changes. And you want a chance to tell all my brothers-in-arms about it. Remember? So you eat your bread and be ready to ride come nightfall."

* * * * *

It was not hard to follow the riders; they were moving fast and the horses had dug their toes deep into the dust clawing their way like coursing hounds. Dragan followed. His horse was tired. He'd jogged from the farm and now he was running, but for generations his sires had been chosen for endurance. His legs were as thick as a man's arms, his fetlocks as heavy as clubs, and he pulled his box-head in against his chest filling his great lungs with heaving air, and he ran.

Foam was running up the reins, and sweat was freezing on Dragan's lip by the time he gained the rise above the mere. His mount blew like a bellows, and he stepped down watching men moving below. They had found a camp and were scouring the area around it making too much noise and tramping any useful information beneath their inexperienced feet. They were clearly only part of the original team of riders. There were only four of them.

Dragan checked the sky. He had maybe two or three hours of good light left. To pass the searchers he would need to go further into the treeline and ride wide around the bottom edge of the mere. It made for a long ride, but on the high side of the road, there was almost nothing: occasional scrub, some rocky outcrops, but nothing substantial enough to depend on for cover.

From where he sat, it seemed the only choice. Above him the mountains pushed into the clouds, steep and almost bare. Nature had long since stripped them of any verdure and even the rocks were chipped and blown. There was no alternative hope there. Entering the trees, he moved on foot hoping to get close enough to the searchers to hear something, anything of use.

When he rounded the last curve in the road to where the meadow opened before him, he froze. The men had gone from the opposite side of the water. He watched and waited. Nothing. As he straightened, about to shift his position to try for a better view of the road, a shout went up.

They were on the opposite side of the road at the base of the high slope and he shuffled to the edge of the shade, watching them, trying to judge the cause of their excitement. They had found spoor. Every move and yelp of celebration painted them more clearly as dogs on a scent. They were circling now, excited and slobbering, readying themselves for the chase.

He felt for the hilt at his hip. One small hunting knife, it was the only weapon he carried. When he'd left the farm he had no cause to arm himself and now he swore at the lack. They were armed, all of them. Three of the four had drawn their swords and were waving them dangerously; young men not yet comfortable with the instruments of war.

He stood back from the light and walked a short circle looking for a club, anything solid with enough length and weight would do. His targets had remounted and were driving their horses upward over slippery scree and around the stones of a crowded gully. He could see no benefit in riding. It was only the churn of his gut and the rising hair at his nape that said they meant Freya harm. But that was enough. Slapping the horse affectionately on the neck, he turned him off onto the grass and jogged to the road and across in pursuit.

When he reached the place they had circled, his heartbeat charged into a gallop. There was blood. Not just a trace, a speckle or two spattered over the stone, but enough to have pooled and run over the pebbles. It was dark and dry, but it had fallen from a wound deep enough to matter. He dropped to the stones touching the darkness. If Freya was hurt, she would have turned back along the road she had followed; she was nearer the Orlik citadel than the far distant fortress of Aporta. Unless she feared pursuit. She would never try to outrun followers over three days going onward, so she had to have gone up, just as the track suggested.

To his eye there was no reasonable route upward. Any way she went, she would run out of cover before she could get out of sight. That meant she would have to go to ground, and if she was already hurt….

Using his makeshift club as a staff, he started to run.

The way was difficult but passable, steep and unstable, but he made as good time on foot as those he followed made on horses that skidded and shied. The muscles in his thighs were burning, and he pulled his shoulders back, deliberately making himself breathe more deeply. Already, he was in constant sight of the rearmost rider, making tiny gains with every step. Frustration burned all the more acutely for the sense that the path stretched endlessly before them.

If he had not slewed to the side, he might have toppled as the horse ahead backed onto its haunches and its rider dropped from the saddle, awkward but gaining his feet. The pursuers he followed had stopped, abandoning their wheeling horses as they grouped in the narrow gully in defensive positions. But they defended to the front, and he rose from behind.

The men were crowded onto a small plateau, their quarry backed in against a rock wall and he swung, not for the head, but for the base of the skull where it met the spine. The first soldier dropped before his comrades had noticed their danger. The second turned, yelping with surprise but biting onto his shock enough to rally with a well-aimed swing of his broad-bladed sword. Steel bit into Dragan's only weapon, catching deep in the wood and twisting it roughly in his grip.

In the half-seconds of battle, the instants that dragged apart into slow-motion clarity, Dragan spied the sword of the fallen soldier, released his club with a violent thrust to the side, and ducked to grasp the discarded weapon for himself. The weight of the wooden club caught the young soldier in an unwieldy turn, dragging the arc of his sword off to the side and sharply down. Dragan stood into the wake of the swing, directly in front of his adversary, with nothing between them but air and a sudden look of horror. The young soldier glared at him, his scarred face testament to a life of violence and his eyes bright with recognition. He died as his mouth snarled around a war cry, and his shoulders bunched to draw the overbalanced sword back up into play.

The third was not a raw recruit. Dragan knew his face and his reputation. He was one of the training officers, Jan, and his reputation glowed. Beside him, taking the small advantage of hard rock and slight elevation, Freya ducked a wild swing from her immediate opponent.

If he had stood still one moment more watching her, he would have fallen. Jan launched into the fight with a vicious backhand that knocked Dragan back two steps followed by a heavy downward blow that he could do naught but block and try to hunker down and under. He vaulted upward throwing all of his strength against the blade and, twisting as he did, drove his enemy's sword up and away. Freya turned, plunging her red-stained steel into Jan's unguarded side, and as quickly as it had started, the battle was over.

Editing, with thanks to Essie Holton.

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