Queen's Hunt (7 page)

Károvín. But that was impossible.

Galena stopped in surprise, her gaze yanked outward to sea. The storm had leapt closer to shore, driving the ships before it. Then she hurried to catch up with her file. But she had not missed that hideous rending noise she knew too well. It took a master navigator to clear the shoals off Osterling’s shores, and these ships …

Like a bubble burst, the storm vanished. The clouds faded into gray wisps, and the towering waves rolled outward until their force died away. Beneath the roar of the surf, Galena heard three strange tones, like midnight bells.

“March, you idiots!” Falco shouted. “Faster, keep time, turn about. Halt!”

From months and years of practice, the two files in his patrol swung about as one.

“Weapons ready!”

Galena and her companions drew their swords.

“Watch and wait!”

The clouds had vanished. The sun’s rays now beat against Galena’s back and shoulders. Only a damp wind, rising from the south, and the clear scent of pine, reminded her of the storm. From her position in the file, she could not see much except the sky and the thin line of ocean horizon.

“Pirates?” she whispered to Lanzo.

He shook his head. “You heard them. Károvín.”

She’d heard but not believed. “All that fuss for three ships.”

He grinned, as though he saw beyond her indifference. “It’s not just the three ships. Last week, the king’s patrol sighted twenty ships with Károvín flags off the northern coast. They were sailing east. If they followed the current ’round, these could be the point of that entire fleet.”

Twenty ships. Galena’s mouth went dry at the thought.

“What happened to the others?” she asked.

“We don’t know. I’m worried they decided to double back and take us by surprise—”

“Hush,” whispered Tallo, their file leader.

Muttering died away at once. This was no drill, Galena thought as she examined her blade’s edge. Her sword was sharp. Her other hand rested on her dagger hilt. She was as ready as she knew. But would they fight? And why? Oh, sure, she’d heard rumors about tensions along the border between Veraene and Károví, and her father had muttered about how Armand of Angersee wanted any excuse to launch a war. But Armand hadn’t declared war, and neither had Leos of Károví done anything to provoke one.

She strained onto her toes to see more. All three ships were closer now. She could see dozens of figures hurrying over the decks. The glint of sunlight on metal. The masts broken and trailing in the water, dragging the ship to one side. There, they’d cut the mast free. The ship righted itself momentarily. She could see some of their faces. Definitely Károvín.

Several boats launched from the nearest ship. Soldiers and sailors dived from the railing into the water.

“What do we do after they land?” Lanzo whispered to Tallo.

“Wait for orders,” Tallo said. “What else?”

Two of the leading boats skimmed over the waves to shore. The Károvín tumbled out and dragged their craft up the sands. As Galena watched, five more shot from behind the other two ships, which tilted heavily to one side. By now, fifty or sixty Károvín had landed. Soldiers, all of them armed and clad in heavy armor. One of them was a tall man. He carried in his arms a young woman clad in layers upon layers of soaking wet robes, which dragged in the receding waves.

The man deposited the woman on the shore above the water line. She struggled, then jerked around to vomit onto the sands. The man placed a hand on her forehead. The air around them shimmered.

Next to Galena, Lanzo uttered a soft exclamation.
Magic.

Her skin prickled with remembrance of that unnatural storm, the scent that could not possibly be land-borne, riding the sea wind. She watched intently as the Károvín soldiers gathered on the flat sands. Over a hundred had reached shore. More were landing from the second and third ships. They matched the Veraenen soldier for soldier. And, she noticed, they all wore armor, as though they expected a battle. Or as though they’d come from one.

The man she’d noticed before spoke briefly with his companions. Then he addressed the Veraenen, first in Károvín, next in Veraenen. Galena could not quite make out his words, but they sounded soft and conciliatory. A dissatisfied murmur rose behind the officer. He barked out a command. His soldiers subsided, but she could tell they were unhappy. She wished her file and patrol stood closer, but Falco had mentioned something about not provoking the enemy.

But if they
were
the enemy, why bother about provoking them? Why not attack?

Commander Zinsar stepped into the clearing between the two parties. Galena had never liked his manner, and she disliked it now. He smirked and smiled and spoke in oily tones. The privates all called him the king’s worm. Galena’s mother, living outside the barracks and working as a scribe, spoke of the man in blunter terms.

The Károvín officer shook his head at something Zinsar said. He made his own reply. Galena could tell by his gestures, and how quickly he spoke, that the Károvín officer wanted something. No, demanded something. Zinsar shrugged. Next came a swift negotiation. She wished she knew what it was about. Her skin itched from sweat and the chafing of her leather guards.

The Károvín soldiers looked no happier than she felt. All of them were sodden from the storm and seas and dragging their boats to shore. Worse. Their eyes were hollow pits in dark lined faces. Many were bruised or bandaged. Underneath the weariness, she sensed a bright tension.

“They look like pirates,” Ranier murmured to Lanzo.

“More like pirates who lost their treasure,” Lanzo murmured back.

“… five hundred gold denier…”

The Károvín’s voice carried across the sands. Galena choked back an exclamation. Was that a bribe?

“A thousand,” Zinsar said. “Provisions extra.”

“For the hire of a single ship?”

“We don’t run a service for marooned foreigners,” Zinsar said. “Pay us, or send word to your king to supply your needs.”

Ugly murmurs broke out among the Károvín soldiers. The officer gestured sharply toward another woman, who rapped out orders in their own language. Galena stirred uneasily. She glanced up toward the fort, wondering if they would send reinforcements down the side roads. Or had they decided to set up their defenses in the fort and the city be damned?

Falco eased back along the files, speaking softly to each soldier. “Did you bring your flask?” he said to Galena when he reached her. “Good. Drink all your water.”

“Do you think we’ll fight?”

He glared at her. “Don’t sound so happy about it. Fighting isn’t—”

He broke off and spun around. The Károvín had crowded forward, their voices raised in angry protests. That officer shouted back, but their voices drowned his out. Galena was about to ask Lanzo if he understood their language, when sunlight glinted off a swiftly drawn sword among the Károvín.

“’Ware!” cried out a soldier from the front.

A feathered shaft hissed through the air—an arrow shot from the city walls.

“No, you fools!” Zinsar shouted.

Too late. A patrol leader from the wing opposite waved his arm. Soldiers surged forward from both sides. Back in the rear of her file, Galena could see nothing as she marched forward, but she heard the thundering crash as the front patrols met up with the leading Károvín.
“Move, move, move,”
she chanted under her breath, trying to see her way clear to the enemy.

And then, almost before she realized it, the first Károvín broke through. Automatically she swung up her sword to parry and strike. It was just like the drill and nothing like it at all. She deflected a sword that grazed her forearm, brought the flat of her blade against another’s helmet, barely escaped a dagger thrust. Her head rang from the noise, and sand dust choked her throat. There was no time for terror, and yet she could feel it pulsing, just beneath her consciousness.

She killed her first opponent with a stab into his belly. Blood spilled onto the ground, bright and red in the sunlight. For a moment, her vision wavered. Then she gasped, pulled her blade free.

Just in time. Another Károvín stepped over the dead man and swung his sword around in a short deadly arc. Galena beat away his first attack, but though she made a thrust or two, he was much faster and stronger, and she could not break through his defense. For every time she pressed forward, he drove her back twice as far. Soon they were beyond the mass of fighting. Behind her lay the narrow spur of the highway leading west and north.

The Károvín swung at her neck. She leaped back and crouched, waiting for his next attack.

He hefted his sword and approached. “Let me pass,” he said in Veraenen.

“No.” She swallowed back the bile in her throat. Surely the fort would send reinforcements, but they had to battle through the enemy before anyone could reach her.

The man lunged toward her. Galena brought up her sword barely in time. Their blades met in a jarring crash. With a wrenching twist, the Károvín bent her wrist to the side. Galena jumped away before he could thrust against her undefended body. She turned his attack—just—but the next one nearly gutted her. He was faster than any of her drill partners. Stronger. He would kill her—

Again he swung his blade under her defense. Again she twisted hers around in time. Before she could jump away, he hooked his hilt with hers and pressed forward until her sword touched her own throat.

She had all the time to memorize that face—the swift sharp angles of cheek and jaw, the black eyes with the faintest cast of blue, a full mouth drawn tight in what might pass for anger, but what she knew was a soldier’s grim expression in the face of war. This close, too, she caught the rich scent on his clothes. It was the same green scent the wind had carried in from the storm. Magic.

“You should have let me past,” he said.

“Why?” she whispered. “You would have killed me anyway.”

His expression went blank, as if her words had struck a wound. With a grimace, he thrust her to one side. Galena fell hard against a rock. Stunned, she lay breathless and motionless, waiting for him to run her through with his sword.

The blow never came. With a gasp, she rolled over to see the man’s shadow as he rounded the highway leading north.

Galena staggered upright.
Follow him. Stop him from getting away.

Her feet refused to move.

He’s too good a fighter. I don’t want to die.

A scream yanked her attention back to the fighting. She twisted around in time to see Piero falling to the sand. Lanzo rushed to Piero’s defense. Another Károvín intercepted him; a second one stood over Piero with his knife raised. Galena snatched up her sword and sprinted toward the battle. Her indecision had vanished: she felt reckless, invincible, as if she could live forever or die that same instant. Either would be perfect.

CHAPTER FIVE

LATER, MANY HOURS
after she watched the soldiers march from the garrison, Ilse bent over her desk, hard at work on her quarterly report for Mistress Andeliess. She wrote steadily, rows and rows of numbers, in the neat hand she had learned as a merchant’s child. Light from the dying sunset streamed through her open windows, casting long sharp shadows across her desk.

A woman’s voice sounded loudly in the corridor outside. Another woman answered—one of the courtesans. It was a busy evening in the pleasure house. From the rooms beside and below hers, she heard murmurs, faint laughter, and the more intimate sounds of lovemaking. Usually she could shut these out—they reminded her too strongly of Raul’s pleasure house in Tiralien—but not today.

Ilse laid down her pen and rubbed her eyes.
I’m tired. That’s all.

Tired and distracted by the day’s extraordinary events. In between her duties as steward, she had gathered details—the three Károvín ships, the storm which drove them onto the rocks, the outbreak of violence and the bloody skirmish that followed. Rumors flowed through the corridors and bedrooms, delivered from visitors to courtesans in private, then dispersed throughout in murmured exchanges. Even better, Falco had visited the common room that afternoon. Ilse had stationed herself close by his chair, and overheard his comments about the fighting. The captains and commanders were still dissecting what happened, he said.

Ilse thought she knew. Last summer, she and Raul Kosenmark had received word from their Károvín spies about strange maneuvers on land and in ships. Today’s events had to be connected. Would the regional governor see that? Would he send word to Raul?

A year ago, she would have said
yes
with assurance. Now, she wasn’t quite as certain. Lord Nicol Joannis had once been a member of Raul’s shadow court. He had served as a conduit for information from Fortezzien and the southeast. Well before she left Tiralien, however, Joannis had withdrawn from their regular correspondence. A matter of precaution, Raul had said in passing, though whether the caution came from Raul or Joannis, she had never learned. Nevertheless, Raul had trusted Joannis enough to suggest that Ilse come here for her temporary exile.

In case Markus Khandarr did not believe our fiction.

In case of other eventualities she and Raul could not foresee.

Their plan had been a good one, a sensible one. But those dispassionate discussions last autumn seemed far removed from today, and this crisis. She had not dared to approach Lord Joannis since her arrival. Why should she? She was nothing more than a commoner, a discarded lover who now earned her wages as a steward.

Useless, useless second thoughts.

Ilse wrote the last sum, blotted the page, and set the sheet aside. She was still sifting through the details she’d learned when she heard a scratching at her door. Ilse paused, almost certain she’d imagined the soft noise, when there came a tentative knock. One of the courtesans with gossip? A runner from Mistress Andeliess?

But it was Galena Alighero who stood outside, a tall pale ghost. “A few minutes,” she said quickly. “That’s all I want.”