Heroes at Odds (40 page)

“We’re each going to take a handful of crystals. We’re all going to return to our homes, planting the crystals along the way. I trust you all brought glass and yarn.” Almost everyone nodded. Hefez wrinkled his nose. He had clearly forgotten. “Get each crystal ringing before you leave it. Keep your last crystal for your home. Hopefully, by the time everyone’s done, almost all of Her Grace’s land will be protected.”

“But that will keep everyone inside,” I pointed out.

“That’s why we’ll have to wait until we think everyone who is going with Her Ladyship is beyond the border before we start planting the crystals.”

And hope no one needed to be sent back.

“I think you should stick to the perimeter of the manor,” Browne said to me. “Don’t bother with the attic.”

“I’m not staying here,” I objected. “I’m going with Her Ladyship.”

“You’re needed to guard the manor.”

“My Source is going with the Duchess.” I had no doubt of that. “I go where my Source goes.”

She scowled at me, but she made no further protest. “Fine. Penelope, the manor is yours. Here.” She opened her sack. “Take as much as you can carry. You as well, Shield. We might need them.”

I put a small handful in my purse. I didn’t want the purse to be too full. I needed to be able to grab things quickly.

Fiona stormed out of the manor, addressing the tenants, who were pale and nervous as they fiddled with their implements. “You, you, you, you, you and you. We have mounts for you. You and everyone who has brought a horse, we will be riding to Kent manor.”

Three servants were handing to the people who would ride head spades, fishing gaffs, and mallets. I didn’t like contemplating what I was supposed to do with the fishing gaff I’d been given. The hook at the end of it looked vicious.

“The rest of you,” said Fiona, “follow as quickly as you can. I don’t want you to fight anyone if it can be avoided. I am hoping your mere presence will be intimidating. You outnumber Kent’s tenants. Do only what is necessary to get by them. I don’t want you to endanger yourselves needlessly, or injure anyone if it can be avoided. I just want you to get to the manor. Are there any questions?”

“What are we supposed to do when we get there?” a man called out.

“Just watch.”

Witnesses, perhaps?

To prevent Kent’s tenants from interfering?

To brag about how many loyal tenants she had?

Horses were being brought out. Fiona mounted one immediately.

“Give us a candle mark before you start,” Browne told the other casters. I followed her to the horses. Taro had emerged from the manor and climbed onto a horse. I scrambled up after him.

I wasn’t sure whether any of the things we could do would be useful. That was unpredictable. I only knew that there was no way I was going to wait at the manor where I would have no means of knowing what was going on. Clearly, Taro felt the same.

It didn’t surprise me at all that my brothers came out to join us. They seemed the sort. What astonished me was Marcus’s appearance.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Fiona told him.

“This is completely insane,” he said. “I didn’t know this sort of thing still happened.”

Fiona didn’t dispute that. “Then one would think you’d refrain from participating.”

“I can’t just cower in a corner, or slither away, when people I know are doing something this mad.”

He glanced at Taro, then glanced quickly away. I wondered if pride was a factor here. Taro was doing it, so Marcus must.

Fiona shrugged. “If you wish. It’ll be dangerous.”

“I understand.”

“Up behind me, Trader Pride,” Browne offered.

“Thank you, but I came here with my own horse.” He jogged over to the stable.

My mother was standing near the door, looking annoyed, her arms crossed. Cars stood beside her, looking equally unimpressed.

After every horse had acquired a rider, Fiona kicked hers into movement and the rest of us followed.

My arms tightened around Taro’s waist, my cheek resting between his shoulder blades. Did Kent know we were coming? If Browne and her group could communicate over a distance, so might the Kent casters. Perhaps they’d come up with a better way. There might be a legion of more violently inclined casters waiting for us on Kent’s property. We should have brought more of the circle with us.

The Triple S had never trained us to do anything like this. They would have been horrified to know what we were doing. I wondered if I could get away with not reporting this. When the inevitable rumors reached their ears, I could claim ignorance. Or, at least, lack of participation. Of course, Source Karish and I hadn’t been involved in some anachronistic battle between two insane titleholders. What could that possibly have to do with us?

If we didn’t end up dead. I closed my eyes briefly. This was so, so stupid.

There was no one waiting for us at the border between Fiona’s land and Kent’s. As we rode farther into Kent territory, in daylight, it was unnerving to see that there were no tenants working. They had gathered somewhere. They were waiting for us, in some unexpected place.

At this point, I realized none of us had thought to ask what we were going to do once we reached the manor. And Fiona hadn’t thought to tell us. Unless we, too, were just supposed to stand around as witnesses.

None of us knew what the hell we were doing.

And then I saw what might have been the first line of Kent’s defense. A wide, deep ditch had been cut into the soil. Looking either way didn’t bring the end of the ditch into sight. It would have taken ages to create. There had to be an easy way to cross, or the tenants would have been barred from the manor, but I couldn’t see any kind of bridge.

This had not been there when Taro, my brothers and I had sneaked over. Had it been dug by hand or created by a cast?

“I could jump this,” said Taro.

“Not with me on the horse, you won’t,” I objected. “And don’t even contemplate leaving me behind.”

“I doubt any of the rest of us could manage it,” Fiona admitted.

A squeeze to my forearm was all the warning Taro gave me before lowering his shields. I swallowed back an oath before erecting mine.

Still, Taro was getting ever more willing to create events. I found that disturbing.

The horses went crazy, bucking and jerking at their bits. Three tenants lost their seat and the horses ran off. Fiona swore as she ruthlessly pulled on her reins, drawing her mount’s head too far in to allow it to move much.

The ground shook only slightly, but soil dropped down from the sides of the ditch. Taro didn’t push the sides of the ditch together, which I would have expected. He just let the dirt fall in, the result being a low, flattened area that looked much easier to traverse.

Fiona looked at Taro, one eyebrow raised.

“Earthquake,” he said.

“Very convenient.”

“No, not really.”

Fiona didn’t look convinced, but she chose not to question it further. She spent a few moments looking at the indentation and prodded the horse to step into it. The horse’s hooves sunk a little into the dirt, but not enough to either hamper or spook it. She crossed to the other side easily. Those of us who had been able to hold on to our mounts followed, the others left behind to chase after their horses.

The next barrier was the jagged outcrop of rock that surrounded the manor. The gap was filled with, I would guess, farmers. Kent had had the same idea as Fiona. Tenants were standing ready to fight with nothing more than hoes and pitchforks. It was disgusting.

Fiona charged ahead. The gap was small; I wasn’t sure one could actually ride through it safely at anything faster than a trot. But either Fiona hadn’t realized that, or she didn’t care. Four of the tenants ran away. I didn’t blame them at all. It was what I would do in the same circumstances.

Fiona swung her head spade. She hit the first man she came to right in the face and I saw blood spurt from his nose. I couldn’t help wincing, couldn’t help imagining what that would feel like.

More farmers ran away.

Then Taro and I were upon them, followed by most of the others. I refused to swing my gaff at anyone. Taro, I was pleased to see, didn’t use his, either. This didn’t seem to be a liability for our side. The rest of Kent’s tenants ran away.

Thank gods. They weren’t complete idiots.

And so we cleared the second barrier.

It wasn’t long before I could see the manor. There didn’t appear to be anyone outside it.

Wouldn’t this have been a better place to dig that ditch? It would have been much easier; they could have surrounded the whole manor.

Maybe he’d thought the ditch unsightly, which it was, and he hadn’t wanted to have to look at it.

Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing, either. I had no reason to believe he had any experience in this sort of behavior. Maybe he was just making things up as he went along.

So that would be all of us, then.

Fiona’s horse squealed. Its head was pushed to the side by something invisible, a painful looking angle. This didn’t stop its forward motion. The poor animal seemed to bend in on itself, pushing Fiona forward. And then Fiona slammed against something invisible, too, sliding to the ground.

Fortunately, sort of, we had been letting Fiona ride ahead—she was the titleholder—so the rest of us had some warning. Not a whole lot. Two tenants ran into the barrier before everyone managed to stop.

Browne was off her horse the instant she could stop it. She ran the few steps to Fiona and knelt beside her.

“I’m all right,” Fiona said.

There was blood gushing from her nose.

Browne touched Fiona’s nose.

Fiona slapped her hand away.

“It doesn’t look broken.”

“Of course, it’s not broken. Go check on the others.”

I dismounted and, hand out, walked slowly to where the invisible barrier seemed to be. At first, I felt nothing more than a faint brushing against my fingertips, but as I pushed in, the barrier solidified into something hard. When I knocked on it, there was actual sound.

A disturbing thing, to feel and hear from something I couldn’t see. Even worse, I could place my hand against the barrier, and lean on it, and it supported my weight. That was just bizarre.

Most alarming of all, Kent’s casters had come up with their own kind of barrier. One that seemed to be more effective than ours.

One of the tenants who had run into the barrier had knocked himself unconscious. The other appeared unharmed. The horses were another matter. Fiona’s was slumped on the ground. Another was kind of meandering around nonsensically.

I had heard nothing to indicate Browne knew the first thing about healing animals.

Kent sauntered out of the manor, and he didn’t have to take many steps before his smirk became obvious.

Fiona carefully moved forward until she could touch the barrier.

Kent strolled over to her, halting when there was only a body’s length between them. He crossed his arms. “You’ve come uninvited on my land,” he said. “You may leave now.”

“After all you’ve done? Try again.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She didn’t respond to that. I approved.

“I do know you are completely unable to care for your people, Westsea. When I go back to the Emperor with news of how you’ve let thieves and bandits overrun your lands, he will make the appropriate order. Why, I’ve heard that your own brother was badly beaten right under your nose. Tell me, is he dead, yet?”

Bastard.

“We know you’re behind all of our difficulties, Kent,” Fiona told him. “Your people have admitted it.”

He shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “I have no control over what others say. You may not have noticed this, but most people aren’t very smart.”

So he was just going to deny everything. Interesting choice.

Taro dismounted and walked up to Fiona. “What will stop you?” he asked Kent.

“This is none of your business, Source.”

“This involves my family’s land.”

“You have no family. You had all bonds severed by the Empress.”

Taro couldn’t refute that. “All right, then. I love the color of Fiona’s eyes. The sky calls to me. That’s all I need. I’m flighty. Ask anyone.”

Kent frowned at him in confusion. That was possibly the first genuine expression I’d seen on him.

“You attacked my people,” Fiona accused him in a low voice. “You have killed them.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“Your casters came on my land and used spells against my tenants.”

He widened his eyes in an insincere mockery of shock. “Tell me you don’t believe in such fancies. Tell me you’re not so foolish.”

“We know they belonged to you.”

“If any of my tenants have been claiming to dabble in casting, I will of course expect you to bring the law to bear on them.”

So he really was prepared to throw them away. I would have wagered they hadn’t known that. Were any of them within earshot? Were they listening to this?

“And what about this?” Fiona pressed against the barrier.

“I see nothing.”

He was interesting, in an aggravating sort of way. Deny deny deny. There was a sort of power in refusing to concede to any point. There was really no reasoning with a person like that. You could only keep talking, with him calmly refusing to admit to the value of your words, until you hit him or walked away. And with the barrier, Fiona couldn’t hit him.

“No matter how the Emperor feels about me, he’s not going to give you control over the very people you have been terrorizing.”

He just smiled. “You’ve left your people all alone. How irresponsible, at a time like this.”

Had he sent his tenants to attack Flown Raven? Would they be stopped by Fiona’s people? Were farmers now stabbing each other with pitchforks?