Divided (30 page)

The man hoisted his sword up into the air, and she quickly
rolled out of the way.  The blade impacted the mud where she had just been
lying, and she scrambled backwards.  At last, the wetness of her body alerted
her to the fact that it was raining.  It was raining, and the moon was in its
middle shift.

The man pursued her with a haughty grin on his face.  She
could just make it out behind his red and black helmet.  He drove his sword
towards her again, and she deflected it with her bow.  Then, though, the man
raised a foot and caught her in the face.  She whimpered and gasped as the man
drew his sword back another time.

Her mind told her to try and get her bow ready again, but
the pain in her face was making it hard to focus.  Just as the man prepared to
plummet the sword into her body, which would certainly not have the speed to
get away this time, another clash of metal sounded, and the man was forced to
face another opponent.  Leif.

To her horror, though, she could see a jagged cut running
along Leif’s eye.  He wasn’t going to be able to defeat many more if things
kept going at this rate.  She wondered where the others were and glanced across
to see the man who had shared a tent with her lying dead on the ground.  Not
Patea, but the other man, and then she frantically began readying her bow.

The soldier hit Leif across the face, procuring a shocked
cry, then with a slash of his sword, there was a bloody gash just below Leif’s
shoulder and neck.  Sending a knee into Leif’s abdomen, the man caught the boy
by the hair and moved the tip of his sword to Leif’s throat.  “Not him, you
bastard!” Aela snarled, and this time when she shot the arrow, her aim was
perfect. 

The arrow slid between the slits in the man’s helmet and
chest piece, and he crumpled as the arrow in his throat caused him to gurgle. 
His sword dropped, and Aela felt relief in her chest when Leif fell away from
the sword.  She wondered how many men were left, and she found herself getting
back to her feet despite the pain that the blow to her face had caused. 
“Leif!” she cried.  He pulled himself up and grabbed the sword that he’d
dropped.

Without pausing to glance at Aela, Leif moved towards the
remaining few soldiers.  There only seemed to be a few left, but now Leif, Aela
and Patea were the only three members of the troupe that were alive—or well
enough to move, Aela told herself.  She readied another arrow, aiming at one of
the men that was fighting Patea again.  Patea drew his sword across the throat
of one of the other men, which meant only four guards remained.

Aela had to reconstruct her shot, as the man she’d been
about to shoot fell to the ground without as much as a groan.  Then, though,
Aela fired at a man behind Patea, who had moved the blade so that it would
slice directly through the back of the Cathalari’s head.  The man staggered,
clawing at the arrow in the side of his throat.  Patea grabbed the arrow and
forced it from the man’s throat, ending the kill.  Aela changed her aim to one
of the last men, still standing near Patea, but an impact to her right forced
her to the ground.  A sword cut along her collarbone, and she threw her bow
into the man’s face before he could strike again. 

Aela kicked into the man’s crotch, and he choked.  She used
the momentary lapse to force him to the ground, and she grabbed his own dagger
from his belt and slammed it into his neck.  Nausea twisted at her as blood
soaked her hands.  She closed her eyes, and then glanced across to see another
soldier stab through the back of Patea’s chest.  Patea fell without sound, and
Aela felt tears blurring her own vision. 

Leif was there in an instant, and the man who had killed
Patea gasped in shock as Leif’s short swords both dug into the man’s heart. 
Leif let out a low growl, sounding more than a little pained.  One of the
remaining two grabbed Leif from behind, yanking him back so that the second man
could land a punch squarely across his jaw.  “Bloody spies,” the man snarled. 
Leif aimed a kick at the man’s stomach, but it did little with the padding of
the armor.

Aela managed to fire an arrow at the man holding Leif, and
though he was forced to let go, Leif was soon locked into a fight with the man
across from him.  As a result, the soldier that Aela had shot started towards
her.  She pulled another arrow from her quiver and fired, but the shot flew
past the man and stuck into the ground nearby.  “Damn,” she cursed softly.  She
kept moving backwards, not wanting to have to fight another man at close range.

Unfortunately, the man seemed to know that she needed range,
so he started moving forward much more briskly.  His sword caught her arm, and
she stumbled back and into one of the destroyed tents.  The body of one of the
men that she’d been traveling with lay against her, and an unwilling choke
pulled itself from her mouth. 

Working with another arrow, she tried to pull it onto the string. 
She didn’t think she was going to get it there in time until a sword was
suddenly protruding from her enemy’s chest.  The man slumped as Leif delivered
a final slice to end the man’s life.  Naturally, the other soldier, who’d been
left unattended as Leif tried to save Aela, caught Leif by the shoulder and
spun him around.  A slash cut along Leif’s stomach, then stabbed through his
shoulder as the man forced the weakened spy to the ground.

Leif collapsed, groaning, as he worked to try and move
himself into a position so that he could defend.  The man yanked both swords
from Leif’s hands, though, and flung him to the ground, planting a foot onto
the weakened fighter’s chest with a twisted grin on his face.  The soldier
raised his leg, clearly to slam his foot into Leif’s face, and Aela let her
arrow fly so that it hit the man squarely in the chest.

This seemed to make the soldier realize that he was not
alone.  Her next arrow caught him in the side.  She pulled angrily at the third,
readying it as the man began frantically retreating.  For a moment, she
considered letting him go—but no, they’d be compromised.  She let the arrow fly
and it hit the man in the back of the head, as he no longer had his helmet.  He
collapsed at once.

Not thinking about the other men, Aela darted to kneel
beside Leif Firenz.  The stab wound in his shoulder was by far the most serious
injury he’d sustained.  “Leif, Leif, answer me! 
Leif
!”  When he looked
at her, her body began to relax.  “Don’t move too much, are you alright?”

“Aela,” he said weakly.  Blood appeared on his lips, and he
writhed against the ground momentarily with a soft whimper.  “That was
impressive.  Thank you.”

“You saved my life first,” she said gently.  “And it’s Aelic,”
she pointed out worriedly.

With a pained expression, Leif shook his head, spitting some
of the blood that bubbled into his mouth to the side.  “There’s no point.  No
one is around to hear it anymore…”

She realized he was right.  When she did, nausea slammed
into her so thoroughly that she nearly fell in the mud next to Leif.  How could
they all be dead?  They were alive before she went to bed.  No, Leif could not
be right—one of them had to be alive.  Unfortunately, she didn’t want to leave
Leif lying on the ground to go check.  “Are you alright?  Can you stand?”  Her
voice sounded more hollow than she would have liked for it to.

With a groan, Leif pushed himself up onto the arm that
wasn’t attached to his bleeding shoulder.  “Go check the wagon,” he said
purposefully.  “Even if some of the men are still alive, we’ll need bandages to
help them.  Keep your eyes open—take your bow.”

Aela nodded at once and headed towards the wagon.  She
notched another arrow as she walked.  Her feet were careful, trying to adapt
Taeru’s way of walking.  She had thought back in the city that she understood
how he did it so profoundly, but now that she didn’t know the terrain—she found
that she didn’t come close.

With careful observation, she moved herself into view of the
wagon.  There didn’t seem to be any people surrounding it.  They had parked the
wagon near a small oasis of water so that the horses could drink.  The soldiers
had gotten there first, it appeared, as the wagon was in disarray.  One of the
wheels had been torn from the wagon and floated in the water from which the
horses drank. 

Easing herself into the clearing, she kept her bow ready,
pointing it at every sound that she knew didn’t come from the pelting of the
rain.  Her body was soaked, but she was glad of it, as the heat that the panic
had caused in her may have been uncomfortable otherwise.  Not to mention, the
rainwater was doing a fair job of washing away the blood on her.  Taking a few
more steps, she eased through the mud and to the wagon.

The covering of the wagon was torn, as if the soldiers hadn’t
been able to figure out where the entrance was so they’d just ripped the thing
open.  Aela felt anger well up within her.  She didn’t understand—why were they
so destructive?  They had no reason to suspect that she and the others were
from Cathalar, and yet they had still caused so much damage.

Father was entirely right about Telandus.  And Taeru—poor
Taeru—he really is so naïve.  Does he really believe that people who create
soldiers so destructive and mindless deserve to live?  No, he does think that. 
That is one of the many reasons I love him so dearly. 

Though the situation certainly didn’t merit it, a small
smile made its way onto her face.  She tried not to consider that Taeru’s
overly trusting nature may have been what killed him on his trip out into the
wilderness.  No, Taeru was kind—not stupid—and he was well aware that others
were not that interested in helping him.

Aela made her way into the lopsided wagon and used her foot
to ease back the covering so she could ensure that there weren’t any soldiers
within, waiting with an ambush.  When she found no one, she entered the wagon. 
There had not been a need to unpack everything, but the soldiers had been sure
to tear through every belonging that they had.  In fact, next to nothing was
left in the wagon—only a few scraps of cloth of which Aela couldn’t hope to
know the source.

Giving up the search inside the wagon, she hopped back out
of it.  She was a little less careful with her steps, and she didn’t worry so
much with her bow.  The area seemed deserted enough, but a voice in the back of
her mind said that they might wait for he to drop her guard to spring.  She was
relieved to see the two horses stomping about restlessly.  They had been tied
to the one tree in the area, and the rope had held. 

Aela was surprised that the soldiers hadn’t released the
horses, or killed them, but then, she thought they might want to steal the
creatures for themselves.  That was the way of Telandus, as she’d been taught. 
Near the wagon, she saw one of the bags that had held their provisions.  The
first bag was mostly soggy bread and other food that they hadn’t gotten out. 
The area was littered with debris that had been flung from the wagon.

After some searching, she managed to locate a few of the
bandages and medical herbs that they had packed for emergencies.  Contented
that this would be enough to help Leif, and hopefully a few of the others, she
moved to the horses to try and soothe them.  They were restless, and with good
reason.  Thankfully, after a few calming words, they began to relax, staring at
her with eyes that seemed to ask what was the matter.

“We’ll be back, okay?  You’re going to be okay,” she cooed. 
She stroked the brown and white horse’s nose gently and the horse snorted, as
though it had been waiting for the touch for a long time.  “Easy, now.”

Giving the black horse much the same treatment, she spent a
few more moments with them both.  They would need them, she thought, if they
were going to continue.  Once she was satisfied that they wouldn’t die of
shock, she headed back towards Leif.  He had already gotten up and was checking
one of the men by the tent.  His expression was desperate, though she couldn’t
make out what he was saying.  “Leif!” she called shortly.

He looked up, dark blue eyes relieved.  She offered a smile
and held up the medical supplies that she’d gathered.  “Most of the food is
ruined,” she informed him woefully.  She tried not to look at the bodies that
littered the area. 

“We need to get out of here,” Leif replied circumspectly. 
If there were any other guards in the area, they might notice the carnage.  She
supposed Leif had a point, if they were able to get away—then anyone who came
by might assume that everyone had been killed in the battle.

However, Aela wasn’t about to let Leif act without caring
for his numerous injuries.  “First, I’m going to patch you up,” she said
instructionally.  “Did you check the other men?  Everyone?”

“I didn’t check the ones by the third tent, but Patea and
the men over here are dead,” he said weakly.  Despite the appearance that he
was taking it well, Leif’s voice was hoarse, and the princess doubted that it
was coming solely from his physical injuries.  “There has been no movement over
there, either.”

“Alright, then,” she said.  There wasn’t any need to waste
time when the odds that anyone would still be breathing over there were this
small.  Leif was very much alive, and he needed her attention immediately. 
“I’ll take care of you.”

There was a flash of uncertainty, and Aela wasn’t sure what
Leif could possibly be considering, but then he nodded his head.  “What about
you?” he asked quietly.

“Just a few minor cuts and bruises.  I’ll worry about them
later.  Now come on.” 

She removed what was left of Leif’s sleeping shirt to assess
the injuries.  To her surprise, a feeling of excitement struck her as she
lifted his shirt to see his exposed body.  She wasn’t sure that she’d ever seen
him without his shirt on, and the rain certainly wasn’t detracting from his
muscular form.