Part 6: Now You That Have Your Liberty
The yard was deserted. She stood still on its western edge and waited. Listened. All she could hear was the fussy clucking of chickens; each bird seemed to be holding a disapproving monologue on the quality of the seed as it pecked at the gaps between the cobbles. The nest of house martins in the eaves looked empty, and the tortoiseshell cat had gone from the window. The yellow irises in their vase were already wilting.
Lila hesitated by the porch. Should she...? But no – she'd stick to her original plan. Get the horse first. She owed it to Eyepatch and Luan.
The barn and the stable-block faced each other across the yard. Remembering the two big farm workers she'd seen, she pressed her lips together. Definitely didn't want them creeping up behind her as got the tack ready.
She wiped the sweat off her brow with a sleeve that still smelled faintly of pine oil and sheep before taking small, cautious steps to the open barndoor. A chicken pecked at her foot. She glared at it, then peered into the interior.
A collection of farming tools hung on the wall: spades, shears, measuring rods, pitchforks and hoes. The tiny loft was jammed with hay and barrels of what was most likely animal feed. No sign of the men.
At the back, behind a rickety partition fence, a canvas had been spread over a large pile of – something. After scanning the yard again in case she was being encircled, she walked into the barn, took hold of the edges of the canvas, and pulled.
In all, she counted seven bodies. A girl, two women, an old man, a half-orc, and two young human men. In life they had been strong, bull-necked like Lorne Starling. And very like the local lads, the "help" whom she had glimpsed watching her an hour ago. Yet the bodies heaped in front of her had all been dead for at least a day. There were no marks of violence on them; they had the same drained, shocked look as the corpses in West Harbour.
"Rest now," she told them. That was the closest she felt she could come to a ritual prayer for the souls of the dead. Hopefully one day there would be rites and incense and sad words recited over their graves, and peace of mind for their relatives, if they had any left.
To limit the opportunities for carrion eaters, she pushed the barndoor closed behind her. Though even as the simple latch clicked into place, she realised it was in all probability unnecessary: if this area was merging with the Claimed Lands, then foxes and other beasts would no longer roam the hills, nor would red kites circle high on the upland air currents.
Quickly she crossed the yard. Inside the stable-block, the first room contained all the gear that she needed: a simple riding saddle, stirrups, bridle and reins. Everything looked well-used, but solid enough. She hoped the same could be said of the horse.
The next part she was not looking forward to – she would have to stand in the yard in full view of the house and barn. And however much she misliked the idea, there was no other way to go about it. Piling the tack into her arms, she trudged back out and dumped it on top of the mounting block. Now came the tricky part...
She shivered as she turned her back on the house. She felt as if she was being observed from every single one of its windows. Standing in his stable, dapple-grey head and neck still leaning out inquiringly over the door, the horse watched her in a much friendlier manner.
"Greetings from Crossroad Keep, horse," she whispered, approaching slowly. "I'm not equipped with carrots right now, but if you do what I ask you to, you can have as many carrots as you like. Apples too. And sugared apricots, if you want to drive a hard bargain."
The horse licked his lips with a large pink tongue, and flicked his ear at her. She held her hand out to him, arm extended, and kept moving towards him. Or her. But she reckoned it was a him.
"I don't know your name, horse. I hope you don't mind. You don't seem to." While her eyes stayed fixed on the horse, she strained to hear any stray noise behind her that could indicate another presence.
At last, after one more step forward, the horse stretched out and nuzzled her palm with a soft, whiskery muzzle.
"You're a nice horse, aren't you?" she said. "Not like Sir Nevalle's nightmare beast." Poor Sorrel. Her own black mare had been so terrified in the ambush, and she'd been a gentle thing – like this one. Lila hoped she hadn't suffered for long. She stroked the grey's nose and cheeks. His smell was warm and oaty and alive; till this moment, she wouldn't have considered horse to be at the top of her list of favourite scents.
He was a he, it turned out. A big-boned gelding with thick feathering round his hooves. Soon she had the bridle on, and led him over to the mounting block to add the saddle. Apart from a pause to take a determined drink from a scummy-looking water trough, he followed her placidly, apparently happy to be out of his stall.
She was adjusting the length of the stirrups, almost ready to mount and go, when the interruption she'd always half-expected happened.
The windows of the house shattered. Cold white light flooded the yard. The horse whinnied and reared; Lila clung to his bridle, stroking his neck and muttering a string of soothing words.
As soon as he was calmer, she clipped a rope halter onto his bridle, and tied it to a ring on the stable wall.
That light could only have originated from Elanee. The druid was alive after all – for now. That could change in a snap of the fingers. A snap of the neck.
"Back soon," she told the horse. Yes, it could be a trap. It almost certainly was some kind of trap. Yet if there was a chance to save Elanee...
The door of the farmhouse was well-oiled, and opened without a creak. Once again, a cool draught dried the sweat on her forehead, and the pebbles set into the floor pressed their round surfaces into the soles of her feet. Still, there seemed to be a cold edge to the air that she hadn't noticed before.
Her eyes needed a few moments to adjust to the gloom. Along the central corridor, doors were all closed. If she hadn't been alone, she'd have searched each room systematically to prevent her enemies swarming behind her to block her exit. Being alone, it was better to move quietly and fast. If she had to, she could get out through one of the windows, as she had once done in Neverwinter, throwing herself from the upper storey of the Moonstone Mask. It had taken Sand three hours to extract all the shards of glass from her flesh. Not a fun evening.
She held her sabre out in front of her. The corridor was large enough for two slender people to walk abreast, which meant that it was too narrow for the long, sharp-edged sword to be brought properly into play. Again, she regretted her knife.
Any moment, she expected a side-door to slam open, and a wave of shadows to flood out. But nothing. And why had there been no further signs of combat? Was she too late?
The final door in the corridor was slightly ajar. She padded past it, not turning her head to the right or left. Nothing sprang at her.
As she rounded the corner by the staircase, she found the kitchen door closed. It definitely hadn't been when she'd left earlier with Luan and Eyepatch.
Heartrate accelerating, she put her hand on the old wooden panels, and pushed.
There was one person in the kitchen. She was standing by the hearth, a kitchen knife in her hand. Smashed glass from the broken windows lay thick around the edges of the room, hard and glittering, like a summoning circle.
"Elanee!"
"Lila!"
The druid looked too pale to be entirely well, but her eyes were as bright as the glass. There were dark smudges near her feet, and on the table. Still, Lila didn't dare relax her grip on the sabre.
"Tell me," she said, "you once said you'd lived more than one life in the Merdelain. What did you mean by that?"
Elanee's expression never flickered. "As a child, the orc tribes came down on a morning when fog lay thick on the marshes. They killed my father. The mere claimed his body, and the bodies of all his friends and family. That was what I meant when we spoke together that winter's day beside the Skymirror."
Lila breathed out. Let the tip of her sabre fall. "I'm sorry. I had to make sure."
"I know. Your caution is wise."
As she moved so that her back was to the wall instead of the doorway in a spot free of broken glass, her nostrils twitched. She sniffed. There was something...
"What's that smell?" she asked. It was acrid, musty, as if a cat had urinated into a barrel of pickled eggs.
"Meadefloss. I threw the plants I gathered into the pot of water on the fire, both roots and leaves." She lowered her head. "I think it saved my life. To us the smell is merely uninviting. But diffused into the air, it can weaken shadows to the point of dissolution." She gestured with the kitchen knife to the black stains on the floor. Her lips twitched. "With some help from a spell of pure light. My powers began to return. And not before time."
"Silvanus must have been watching out for you." A pity he couldn't have done the same for Katriona as well. But that was the narrowness of the big gods for you. No point holding it against them. If she started, she'd only spend her whole life being enraged.
Elanee brought her fingers to her lips, then her heart. Nach e welen a toda bei viw. The dead have been seen alive. Lila, I fear Katriona is dead."
"The dead have indeed been seen alive. Their laughter a mist in my ear," she replied, adding another old line from the same old poem that she'd learned from Tarmas as a child alongside Amie. He certainly hadn't envisaged her irregular education being shown off in such straits. "What happened here?"
There were no signs of stress on Elanee's face, but she hesitated more than usual – it seemed to pain her to force the words out.
"For a while after you left everything went pleasantly. We sat, and talked. Katriona spoke a little about growing up in the dales, and she and our host seemed to find that they had much in common.
"I was uneasy, and the uneasiness grew. Though still – there was no feeling of a taint or shadow. But I felt that I was occupying two different places at the same time. In one, our host existed, and talked, and smiled. In another, there was no one there at all.
"Then, as the beams of light became more distinct in the air, the lady stood, and said she'd fetch some cold meats and cheese from the pantry. She seemed to cease...existing...almost as soon as she left the kitchen, in the same way her husband had. There were no footsteps, no sounds of life, nothing.
"I tried to explain my experiences to Katriona, but I'm not sure the sergeant believed me. She is – was – even more human in that way than most of your kind. She had met a woman she liked, and was not inclined to inquire much beyond that...
"We waited again, just the two of us. Katriona became restless. She decided to go and look for our host. She thought she might need help in carrying the food. I had a – presentiment – of what was to come as she left the room. For the first time since we arrived on Deramoor, I thought I sensed the presence of our enemy...
"I did not try to call her back. I thought she would not listen."
Elanee's tone stayed level, cool. Not, Lila realised, unlike Zhjaeve's manner of speaking. But where Zhjaeve's calm seemed to stem from confidence in the mystic doctrines of her people, Elanee's was the reverse: the calm was layered above something else, more turbulent, difficult.
"The sense of – darkness – grew stronger. That was when I threw all the Meadefloss I had into the boiling water, and picked up the knife.
"Just after that there was a sound – a very horrible sound – from somewhere nearby. There was no scream – just – a noise.
"I stayed in the kitchen. I did not want to look for the source of the sound. Sometimes I thought I heard booted feet moving about in the corridor. I did not know what to do." Elanee met Lila's gaze. Her pupils looked very wide, even from across the room.
"When the shadows appeared, I think I was glad. They took the need to make a decision out of my hands.
"There were four of them. Human-shaped. The smoked as the Meadefloss weakened them, and when Silvanus answered my prayer, they —" she pointed to the dark smears, which needed no further explanation. "And then you found me."
Lila closed her eyes – spent a few moments absorbing Elanee's account. It was a grim one, though not unexpected.
"Do you think your powers are fully returned?" That could make the next few hours almost easy and improve Eyepatch's chances of not bleeding to death immensely.
"I do not know," said Elanee. "For now, Lila, I would rather rely on this knife than on my prayers being answered. The force of nature has been dimmed here in any case."
Lila quickly described the accident that had befallen Eyepatch in the dry ditch. "The horse is outside. We need to collect him, get the men, and go."
Elanee nodded, her slender frame as tense as a bowstring.
Before stepping out of the kitchen, Lila paused. "Can you hear anything?"
Elanee's eyes focused on a crack in the door lintel as she listened. "No. In the house all is quiet. In the yard two chickens are quarrelling over a grub, and the horse is chewing loose pieces of hay."
"Good. Stay close." Lila advanced into the corridor. The staircase was a black, silent mass ahead of her. In the light from the kitchen, her shadow stretched across the patterned floor.
Cautiously, she turned the corner. The main hallway lay before them, the porch at its far end. All the doors along its length save the one nearest her were closed, just as they had been on the way in. She gulped. If Khelgar had been here, he'd have kicked down each one and destroyed whatever was behind them.
She was ready to continue when her eye was caught involuntarily by a red stain beside the door that lay ajar. It opened inwards rather than outwards. Barely visible at its edge, almost hidden from view, was – something.
"Wait here." When she tried to open the door further, it wouldn't move. Inhaling, she stepped sideways through the gap, and into a large pantry lit by a mullioned window.
She had been prepared for what she found, but that didn't make it easier to bear. It just meant that she didn't scream. On one side of the room, all the shelves were flecked with blood. Blood had pooled over the floor. The smell of it filled her nostrils.
The body at her feet was wearing a coat of light mail. A sword was still in a scabbard at its side. The arms were stretched out in front of it, sleeves rolled up to show forearms that were a little pink from sunburn and on which blonde hairs glinted in the afternoon light. A steel torque shone on one wrist.
Of course, the body was a trunk, headless, unless one counted the large granite head of a statue that had been discarded in one corner of the room.
Katriona's attacker must have crept up behind her. Perhaps killed her before she even realised what was happening, before she could even reach for her sword, as she stood and admired the homely ranks of labelled preserves and bottles. Trusting. Maybe thinking of her own home in the eastern dales.
Goosebumps ran up Lila's neck. She swung round in time to see Elanee slash the kitchen knife at the jugular of one of the local lads, the humans whose bodies were lying slack-limbed in the barn. His face rippled. Tendrils of dark space broke out of his mouth and eyes, as if his skull had become a nest of black snakes.
Lila covered the distance in a few quick steps. Her sabre pierced the area where his heart was supposed to be only a few moments after a reddened billhook had fallen from his grip, and he had raised his hands to his neck. No blood spurted from his wounds – only shadow. She ran her sabre through the body from shoulder to hip, encountering no resistance. The form, in both its human and shadow elements, flickered once and faded.
Elanee smiled, and opened her mouth to say something. That was when the second of the humans appeared behind her. He – it – held a cudgel raised above her head. The druid might have seen Lila's expression freeze, or she might have felt the presence behind her. She turned on her heel, and was in time to grab the massive forearm as it descended.
Lila didn't wait to see if the cudgel found its target. She threw herself past Elanee, and slammed her shoulder into the creature's stomach. When shadows took solid form for the sake of the strength it gave them, they had to accept the disadvantages too.
The man bent double. When he straightened, most of the human features in his face had gone. He lunged at her, mouth open far wider than would have been possible for real sinew and bone.
"Bad luck," Lila hissed at it. "Next time make things a bit harder for me, why don't you?"
The shadow-man arrested its lunge for long enough to register the sabre buried up to the hilt in its front. Before its essence dissipated into the air, a black coil unfurled from one outstretched hand, and wrapped around her arm. There was a sensation of burning cold, and she shuddered, but held onto her sabre. Her legs shook. Then the shadow was gone, and the cudgel clattered onto the stone floor of the corridor.
Lila leant her back against the wall. Were more coming? She couldn't see any, but that was no guarantee. There had been seven bodies in the barn. Seven shadows were accounted for. Perhaps they had a measure of breathing space.
Elanee was lying in the doorway. She moaned, and twitched. Signs of life, at least.
Gritting her teeth and ignoring the threads of cold in her legs and arms, Lila staggered across the corridor to crouch next to the delicate elf woman.
"Elanee?"
"I need to...get up – need to..." she gasped.
"No – stay there. You've had a knock on the head. I just need to take a look at it." The world really had turned upside-down. How many times had Elanee sat by her, gently probing injuries to her ribs – face – back?
The hair on the side of Elanee's head was matted and sticky with fresh blood. Head injuries were too subtle for an amateur like her to deal with. She supposed she should try and clean away the worst of the mess, but there was nothing to do that with – nothing here she trusted, for sure.
"What should I do? Elanee? Should I bandage your head?"
The druid looked at her blearily. "Elder Naevan? Elder Naevan, I saw a door...a door in the ruins..."
"When we get back to the Keep," said Lila, "you're going to apologise for mixing me up with a thousand-year-old white elf druid."
She wondered why she didn't feel more horrified. Could she have used up her stores of misery beside the apple tree? Perhaps her mind had decided that this was a nightmare, and unworthy of further emotional expenditure. That could be for the best. Sometimes terror was an excellent bodyguard; here, it could be an assassin. Or open the gate to despair.
So there were four of them now, assuming Luan and Eyepatch were alive. Between them they had seven eyes, two fully mobile pairs of legs, and – she cut of the sleeves of her shirt with the kitchen knife – it was covered in charcoal grease, but what could you do? – a diminishing quantity of clothes. At this rate, she'd reach the Keep naked.
She bound Elanee's head. The neatness of the effect pleased her, even if it did not help the would itself. At least she wouldn't have to watch the blood clotting and darkening in the thick auburn hair – or worse, not clotting at all.
"They're waiting by the lake," Elanee murmured. "I'll fly there..."
"That's right. You do that. Give me a minute to get something, and I'll fly right along with you."
The threads of cold pulled tight inside her as she rose to her feet. They seemed no worse though. They weren't going to kill her. It was as Amie had once remarked about a bottle of wine they'd won in their last Harvest Fair: you could look on it as the worst excuse for wine you've ever tasted, or as a very promising grape vinegar.
"I'll be out soon," said Lila. She slipped back into the pantry. Approached the sprawling remains of her sergeant-in-chief. Trying not to think of what she was doing, she slipped the steel torque off the pale wrist, and pressed its arms closed around her own. The metal still felt a little warm from the body heat of its owner.
She had expected a sense of power, or a surge of energy to run through all her muscles, but there was nothing. Her haversack felt a little lighter; that was it. She had a few leaves of Meadefloss left in her pockets. They were wilted now, and torn; still, she pressed them into Katriona's palm, and closed the fingers round them.
"Goodbye," she said. "I've already tried to say goodbye once. I don't know if I did that very well. But that's the wonderful thing about beheading, isn't it? You get two goes.
"If your spirit is still around here somewhere, and listening – well, first I'd try and go if I were you. But also – I'll tell Casavir how brave you were. I'll tell him how you got us all out of the ambush and kept us going. He'll know what you did for him, I promise."
She turned away. The head of the statue that Katriona had carried with her from the Great East Road until her death was untouched, sitting on the granite stump of its neck with an expression of smiling serenity. If she'd been wearing boots, she'd have kicked it.
Instead, she reached out and picked it up in one hand. It felt as if the granite were merely painted wood. So the torque did work. Her enchanted gloves could have helped her lift it, but the difference they made was trifling in comparison.
In the corridor Elanee lay where she'd been left. The linen wrapped round her hair showed some red staining, but it wasn't soaked through. There was hope.
"Can you stand up?" Lila asked, not really expecting to be understood.
"...Yes. I think so." Elanee – slowly and painfully like the oldest of the mongrel dogs who came for scraps at the rear of the Sunken Flagon – started to push herself up.
Lila hurried to support her. Awkwardly, she pulled Elanee's arm around her shoulders, then wrapped her own left-arm around the elf's waist to hold her upright. With one arm full of elf, another of stone, and her own haversack still resting on the small of her back, she was ready to move. The downside of the arrangement was that her sabre would have to stay in its sheath. If more shadows burst out of the side-rooms, she'd just have to lob a statue head at them.
"Naloch...let's go..." Elanee was struggling to hold her head up.
"Not a badger, either," said Lila. Or maybe she could lob a druid at them instead? Though she thought that being mistaken for Elanee's late badger companion was an improvement on Elder Naevan.
It took a long time to reach the yard. She kept having to remind Elanee to lift her feet. "That's it – left, right, now left and right again. And left – no, that's your right foot. You'll fall over if you try and lift – oh, you have. Well, never mind...
The heat in the yard was even more overpowering than it had been before. She dropped Elanee and the statue head on the mounting block, and shook out her arms. No enemies in sight. Only the chickens, and the dapple-grey horse lapping at the water trough again. Apart from them, the farm felt deserted. What had happened to the mistress of the house, and her archer husband? Had they been among the shadows that attacked Elanee? The druid hadn't said she'd recognised them, not even their shapes.
She stalked across the yard to the stables. Nothing lay in wait within the tack room. She grabbed the most solid saddle bag she could see from a wall-rack, and left. As she fixed the ties to the saddle, the grey turned to sniff her and nuzzle her cheek.
"There're buckets of oats waiting for you at Fort Revier, mate." There probably were too. But she wasn't going to be the one seeing him brushed down and tended to. She had decided, as she tested the strength of the straps and slipped the salvaged head of the ritual statue into the saddle bag, that she would not be going to Fort Revier.
"Time to go home," said Lila. She pulled Elanee up, and half-walked half-carried her to the horse's side, and pressed her hands onto the saddle pommel. "Grip hard."
She lifted the druid's left foot, and shoved it in the stirrup. "Right – I'm going to lift you up. You'll need to swing your leg over the saddle as I push. Got that?" The druid nodded faintly. "Now."
She gripped Elanee's waist and lifted, and the elf – thankfully – flung her leg across the horse's back, and sat slumping forward, steadied by Lila's hand on her belt.
When she was sure that Elanee wasn't simply going to topple off the other side, she took the horse's bridle and led him with his cargo across the yard. The path wound down the hill before them. As they passed the ancient apple tree, she avoided looking at the haversack she'd laid underneath it. But she reminded herself of her promise.
The grey knew the path well and kept trying to hurry down it to reach the open fields. She pulled him back. "Easy!"
"Don't take me back. I do not want to return to the mere..." Elanee was muttering into the horse's mane.
"We'll stop well before we get that far." Lila knee'd the gate in the fence open, and led the horse through it. Sheep scattered in all directions.
She kept her eyes fixed on the northern end of the field. Luan should be visible – unless – had they been caught? Were she and Elanee the last ones?
An arm waved. Soon the arm was followed by the rest of Luan, as he climbed into view from the ditch. She gave the horse its head, and they covered the rest of the field at a trot. Luan stared at Elanee's bandaged head as they approached.
"Is she alright?"
"She will be. What about Eyepatch?"
"The blood has stopped. And he's still, you know, awake." He paused. "He was talking about women." That relieved any worries she had about Luan's identity. No shadow could blush like that. This was the real soldier boy, alright.
She left Luan with the horse, and peered over the edge of the ditch. The wrapping round Eyepatch's leg was red and brown from end to end – no hint of the original cream colour of the fabric showed through. Still, the man himself was looking a bit better, sitting with his back against the ditch's southern bank.
"All fine down there?"
"Couldn't be better, chief."
She scrambled down to crouch next to him. His skin was still clammy, and he still looked not far off needing the services of a priest of Kelemvor rather than a healer. Yet his left eye focused on her; a clearness and measure of shrewdness had returned to it. Good. Her plan could work.
"See?" said Eyepatch. "Still breathing, Captain."
Lila smiled. "Keep up the good work then, soldier. And tell me – who's the better horseman, you or Luan?"
Eyepatch scoffed. "My old man ran a stud-farm for the Uskevrens of Selgaunt. I know horses. I've raced the best. Ask Luan if you want to lead a team of nags in front of a plough. That's all they learn to do in this country."
She wasn't ready to put total faith in his protestations of competence; still, it was good to know that unlike many of the Greycloaks, he was at least confident on horseback.
Her knife lay near him. She slid it back into its sheath on her thigh, feeling somewhat safer just for having it back. Above the ditch, Luan was stroking the horse's nose. It appeared that the farm-boy and farm-nag had discovered a certain rapport. Elanee remained slumped in the saddle.
"Keep a good hold on his bridle," said Lila.
Luan nodded. "Yes, Captain."
"Elanee, I'm going to help you get down now." The druid didn't reacted. She lifted her hands from the pommel, which they had still been clutching, and took her feet out of the stirrups. Helping Elanee dismount meant, in reality, pulling her off the horse and lying her down on the grass a safe distance from the horse's hooves.
Luan watched her with a look of mild surprise. He didn't seem to have noticed the torque on her arm. That reminded her...she removed her gloves.
"See if these fit."
"But aren't those magic gloves?" Luan asked, hesitaing.
"Yes. They give you some extra strength. Not a lot, but some. They may come in useful."
Still looking reluctant, Luan pulled them on, and flexed his fingers. They fitted him, just, though for a fine-featured boy he had rather large, bony hands.
"Now, this bit's important. We're going to have to get Eyepatch onto the horse without making his leg any worse that already is. Then you'll mount up behind him – there should be enough room for both of you. Then you need to head for Fort Revier, Sir Darmon's tower house.
"It's maybe five miles north-west of here, across the valley of the Dardeel and on the western side of the next range of hills. Start by heading west – the sides of Deramoor won't be as steep there as they are to the north, though you may still have to dismount and lead the horse down.
"When you reach the Dardeel, follow it upstream until you find a good fording place. After that, head west – once you're on the summit of the hills, you should be able to see the tower house. If not, don't worry. Keep west and you'll land on the Neverwinter Road.
"After that, it's up to you. You can head north to Neverwinter or south to the Keep. The distance will be more or less the same. And if you're attacked – cut the saddle bag loose, and kick your heels to the horse's sides. Don't try and make a fight of it."
She made Luan repeat her instructions back to her, then point to the directions of the compass.
"And what aren't you going to do if you're attacked?"
"I'm not going to fight. I'll get Eyepatch and me away."
"Good." She turned to go and fetch the invalided soldier.
"Captain? What are you going to do? Wait here for the sergeant?"
Lila stopped, and looked back at the recruit. He might as well find out now. "I'm afraid she's dead, Luan. She made her voice gentle, but there wasn't a way to break the news in easy stages. Tell him the sergeant had lost a finger, and go from there? "I'll be taking Elanee on foot in a different direction. We'd just slow you down if we tried to keep pace with you. Besides, it may be safer if we split up."
She wasn't sure about that, but it was possible that dividing their group could confuse anyone watching them or give pause to the pursuit. And, naturally, if they walked straight into another army of shadows, it wouldn't matter if there were two humans with swords, or just one.
"The sergeant's...dead?" said Luan.
"Yes. I'm sorry." There was no time to explain it to him, and the explanation itself could hardly bring much in the way of comfort. They needed to be gone from Deramoor. She turned away.
"Back to front-line duty," she told Eyepatch.
"Leave's over already?" he said, grimacing.
"Hope you made the most out of it." She scrambled down next to him, and put his right arm over her shoulders. He stank of sweat. They must all do by now, except Elanee, who only ever seemed to share the smell of the landscape surrounding her. "You'll be going on a little excursion on horse-back."
He snorted. "Got to get me on the ruddy horse first, Captain. But I'll do my best."
"Push up with your left leg, and put your weight on me."
Together they struggled upright. Eyepatch kept his right leg raised. "Alright so far, chief. You think I should bring the morning-star?" She shot a glance at him to see if he was serious, and couldn't tell. "We'll leave it where it is. It can be an offering to Tyr."
"Long may he reign."
"Oh, completely."
In the end, Eyepatch almost managed to mount the horse himself. With Lila briefly taking all the weight of his torso, he got his left foot into the stirrup, then swung himself into place. He yelped and swore as his right calf made contact with the side of the horse, and sat hunched and pale. Still, considering the state she'd left him in, it was a miracle that he was conscious at all.
"Now you, Luan," she said, taking the bridle from him. She eyed the horse. Lucky that he was so big, and the young soldier so skinny. Despite that, the two men and the statue would be no small burden.
"Er – how?"
"Try using the free stirrup. Watch out for Eyepatch's bad leg."
A few ungainly hops, and Luan was on. Eyepatch held the reins, but if he couldn't cope, Luan would be able to reach round him, and had enough height to be able to see over his comrade's shoulder.
She walked round them once more, checking their positions, checking the distribution of weight. Then she looked up and met Luan's eyes. They were blue, wide, and scared.
"Good luck. We'll all see each other again at the Keep soon. But – if you happen to meet Sir Casavir after this, and I'm not around, remember to tell him that Katriona was brave – that she saved Elanee from the ambush, and tried to keep her safe. And us too, of course"
Luan nodded shakily.
"Take care of yourself, Captain," said Eyepatch.
"And you. You're heading down the western slope of the plateau," she told him. "Luan will fill you in on the rest. Go well."
Eyepatch clicked his tongue. The horse pricked up its ears, and started to walk. A little further, and it moved into a steady trot. They started by heading southwards.
Lila watched them until they swerved to the right, and horse and men vanished into a stand of trees.
It was a relief to see them ride away. A relief – they were heading along the fastest route to a safe location – and yet, she wished they were still with her. It was so much easier to pretend to be brave when she had an audience. A lucid audience, anyway.
She crouched down by Elanee. "Unconscious again? You keep missing all the fun."
"Khelgar...the wolves..." The elf shook her head as if trying to escape a bad dream.
"No, not Khelgar. I'll give you twenty-five more guesses." She slid her hand under Elanee's back, and pulled her upright. "We're going for a stroll now. Alright?"
The druid nodded, inasmuch as her chin fell forward towards her breast.
They followed the tracks of the horse south. As they reached the place where horse and riders had turned west, Lila stopped. It had taken them about ten times as long to cover the same distance. Elanee could barely move her legs, and staggered on every third step. This wouldn't work.
So she picked Elanee up, positioning her arms under the druid's knees and back. With the help of the steel torque, she felt light enough, though it was the kind of weight that makes itself felt more and more over time. She had no idea how long she would be able to carry her. Where was a proper knight when you needed one? Sir Darmon would have looked very picturesque doing this. Casavir might even have enjoyed it.
The walk south along the length of Deramoor seemed to last an age. At no point were they hidden from the view of the upper windows of the farmhouse. And on top of that, the sun was determined to burn her into the ground. She didn't dare walk in the shade of the trees, and there was no other form of shelter from the bullying heat.
Every step was taking her closer to Crossroad Keep. She had to remember that. No more running blindly to the north.
