Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) (18 page)

It was her own tooth. She was the predator now.

“There he is,” said Sun Eagle, pointing.

Daylily shaded her eyes with her free hand, and she saw the black shadow
at a distance, moving swiftly across the clear country. It disappeared into a valley, then reappeared, now near enough that she could make out its form and even, she imagined, its face.

Tocho stopped in his tracks. He saw them: two small, solitary figures standing in the middle of a field of grass and weeds, the one brown and strong, the other white and frail but crowned with hair like fire.

He saw the stones in their hands.

His courage, which he had convinced himself was live and strong and bloodthirsty, proved itself the fleeting ghost it was and fled his body in a rush so painful that he roared again, his voice slashing at the wind. The sound rolled over Daylily like nothing she had ever heard, and it terrified her.

She smiled. Without a command from Sun Eagle, her feet started moving, the thin remnants of her wedding slippers falling away at last so that she ran barefoot.

She chased Tocho.

He saw her coming and he fled. Back the way he had come mere moments before, he ran with the great galloping pace of a panther, silent but pulsing with dread. He knew she followed, and he knew that she could not hope, in her own strength, to outpace him.

But he also knew that she did not move of her own strength. Not anymore.

Though her heart beat with mad terror, Daylily ran, her teeth set in a snarl and her hair flying behind her. Sun Eagle came after, but he could not catch her, for the thrill of the hunt was not so new in him. He shouted warnings that he knew she would not hear, then stopped wasting his breath. They pursued the panther all the way back across the fields of his little demesne, and the villagers, after one glimpse of their oppressor thus pursued by the red girl and her dark companion, hid in their homes and caves, shielding their faces from the sight.

Tocho’s eyes fixed only upon the peak of Skymount Watch, his totem, his haven. If he could only reach it, he lied to himself, he would be safe. They’d not touch him there!

Already he could feel the bite of the Bronze in his flesh. No! He was Tocho the Panther! He could
not
die!

Up the incline he raced, on all fours now as he scrabbled up the rocks, sending many larger stones hurtling down at his hunters. Daylily was struck in the cheek by one small stone and narrowly put up her hand to protect herself from another, which bounced off the Bronze and shattered into tiny pieces behind her. She was so close, she could feel the pound of his heart, and she wanted him gone from her country like she had wanted nothing before in her life.

She wanted him dead. By her hand, not Sun Eagle’s.

Tocho leapt. He caught the top of the carved likeness, and he pulled himself up, up to that stone watch from which he had ruled and feasted for years he did not count. Whirling to face his enemies at last, he crouched, his hands clutching the stone, his feet braced, all his claws out and gleaming. He snarled, his face splitting with teeth and a great pink tongue.

Daylily saw him and screamed inside, but she could not have said whether it was a scream of fear or of hunger now, so strong was the drive to kill. Her feet slipped on the stones shifting beneath her, but she caught herself, tearing her hands, and crawled the last few paces to the base of the stone.

Tocho looked down at her and snarled again.

But it wasn’t Tocho.

I will fight you!
roared the red wolf. For it was she whom Daylily saw upon the stone, the heavy bindings about her neck and limbs dangling, for the moment, uselessly.

Daylily went white in a wash of freezing cold. “How did you get free?” she whispered in a breath.

I will fight you!
roared the wolf, saliva dripping from her jaws.
You will never
be rid of me!

“No!” Daylily screamed.

Tocho, standing above, forgot his own fear as he stared down at her, this vicious warrior woman screaming and collapsing to her knees below him. She feared him after all! His big cat’s leer turned to a smile, and his tail lashed a moment as he caught his balance.

Then he leapt.

He landed atop Daylily, wrapping his mighty limbs about her, and she
felt the heat of his breath upon her face, her neck, in her hair. But it was the wolf, not Tocho, who fought her in her addled mind, and she shrieked and dropped the Bronze as they grappled together down the stony hill. She caught the cat by the throat, and for a moment, when they reached a flat place and paused in their tumble, she was on top, her hands at the beast’s throat, her knee pressed into his heart.

The wolf in her mind, whom she believed she held in her grasp, gagged:
You
are not a killer!

“You are!” Daylily screamed. “You’ll kill us all!”

Tocho, not understanding what was being shouted in his face by this wild creature, tried to smack her off with a swipe of his claws. But she was empowered by a force far stronger than any he had ever known, and somehow he could not land a hit, though his claws tore through her hair and tangled there. He managed to overbalance them, however, and once more they fell down the incline.

Sun Eagle, watching all as he advanced from below, yelled a feral battle cry from the days of his youth long ages ago. Even as the girl and the Faerie beast rolled in brutal embrace toward him, he leapt as swiftly as his own long-dead fighting dog had once leapt into the fray at his command. And his Bronze fang sank home, deadly and accurate.

Tocho screamed. Then he went limp in a heap of silky fur, Daylily’s arm pinned beneath him.

Sun Eagle stood, withdrew the Bronze stone, and quietly retied it, stained and dripping, about his neck. Only then did he kneel and push the heavy bulk of the dead Faerie beast off the girl. Daylily lay wide-eyed, struggling to gasp a breath. Sun Eagle felt her for wounds and broken bones but found nothing.

“Get up, Crescent Woman,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment and therefore angry. “Get up. Why do you tremble so?”

Daylily could not move. Her head and neck quivered as she tried to speak, to swallow. Shaking his head, Sun Eagle took her in his arms and hauled her upright. But her limbs would not support her, and she fell again, landing on the dead hulk of her so-recent prey.

Sun Eagle narrowed his eyes.

This land is good. This land is fair
. This land is rich.

Gather the tithe! Gather the tithe
!

He rubbed his face with one hand, the same hand warmed by the killing stroke. Then he bent and picked up Daylily, cradling her in his strong arms. She clung to him, and he thought she wept.

“I have no time for this,” he growled, but his voice was gentler now. Against the instinct pounding in his head, he carried her back down the incline and on across the country, making for the gorge.

Tocho lay at the base of his totem stone, never to move again.

L
IONHEART
STOOD
, heart pounding, upon the winding stair, the Baron of Middlecrescent powerless in his grasp with a knife pressed to his throat. He stared at the bolt on the door, heard the pound of weapons and hands without.

But the bolt held, for the moment.

“You fool!” gasped the baron, his voice strangely gurgling against the cold blade. “I’ll stretch your neck for—”

Lionheart did not let him finish. With a strength that belied the trembling in his limbs and the sickness in his gut, he hauled the baron around to face the winding stair, shifting the blade to point into the side of his neck. “Move,” he said, his voice husky with fear. Recognizing the threat of death when he heard it, the baron started climbing.

The shouts of guardsmen and the uproar of all those gathered in the hall below faded as they wound their way up. The North Tower had once been used as a prison for high-ranking captives. More than one traitorous
noble had spent his last weeks in comfort there. Its lofty height offered a fine view for a man awaiting his execution. He might even be able to watch the scaffold being built.

That was a few generations ago now. But while the chains had long since been cleared away, the iron rings remained in testimony to this former practice.

Lionheart propelled the baron up to the very summit of the tower, where a landing made a sort of hallway and three doorways led to three chambers. What had the baroness told him? The one on the right? Did she actually know her right from her left?

There was no time to investigate. A crash below told Lionheart that they had breached the lower door.

He pushed the baron before him to the right-hand door, which proved to be unlocked as the baroness had promised. He slammed the door shut and gasped, “Silent Lady bless us!” in desperate relief.

For although this chamber was a prison and all the locks were meant to be on the outside, just as the baroness had promised, the lock on the right-hand chamber had been reversed.

Lionheart turned the key, withdrew it, and dropped the first of three bolts in place with a finger-crushing thud, only just removing his hand in time. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he saw a shadow fall across the door. He dropped to his knees as a knife embedded itself in the wood where his head had been, driven by the powerful fist of the baron.

Lionheart twisted and kicked; his foot connected with the baron’s knee and sent him sprawling. He should have known the baron would not go unarmed to his coronation, despite the ancient protocol!

The baron, his eyes bugging from his face with pain, rolled up to a crouch and lunged at Lionheart, both hands reaching for his throat. Lionheart, being younger and spryer, dodged and brought an elbow down hard into the small of the baron’s back, knocking him flat. “How many other blades, Middlecrescent?” he growled, grabbing the baron’s right arm and twisting it behind him. The baron rasped out a curse and struggled, but Lionheart tightened his grip and twisted harder. “How many other blades on your person?”

“None!” barked the baron. A lie, and Lionheart knew it. He could see the baron’s free hand scrambling for his boot.

Lionheart, his knee pressed into the baron’s back, kicked with his other foot, knocking that searching hand away. Pressing more of his weight painfully down, he grabbed the baron’s arm and twisted it to join its mate. The baron groaned, agonized, and Lionheart felt a dart of guilt. But he daren’t back down now.

The door of the chamber thunked with the cleaving weapons of guardsmen beyond. “My lord! My lord!” muffled voices cried. As the baroness had promised, however, this prison door was so thick that those beyond could scarcely be heard.

The baron, his face pressed into the stone floor, grinned suddenly. “You will pay, Lionheart!” he spat. “They’ll have you out of here like a rat from its hole, and I won’t stop the dogs from worrying you as a rat deserves!”

Lionheart did not answer but dragged the baron to his feet and across the chamber. The chains had been removed, but the baroness, as promised, had seen to it that a stout rope was provided, tucked away secretly under the sumptuous bed.

Indeed, the whole room was the last word in lavish comfort, Lionheart noted as he bound the baron’s hands and secured him to an iron ring in the wall. Those awaiting death in this chamber would certainly do so in a state of ease. Lionheart’s own chambers as crown prince had hardly been more luxurious.

Somehow, it seemed cruel.

The baron stared up at Lionheart. He did not glare and he did not frown. His face was an icy mask, save for the blood and spittle flecking his mouth. This gave him a rabid appearance even in his kingly garb.

The men-at-arms pounded and shouted at the door.

“They’ll be through within moments,” said the baron. He winced and spat out a tooth, then grinned bloodily. “This is a prison, not a bastion.”

Lionheart stood back, hoping his trembling fingers had secured the knot well enough, at least for now. His breath wasn’t coming quite naturally, but he did not think he’d disgrace himself. Not yet anyway. Another thud on the door signaled the breaking of some poor guardsman’s shoulder. In
the narrow landing without, there was no room for a battering ram of any size such as they must have used on the door below.

Lionheart returned to the door and pulled free the baron’s embedded knife. He retrieved his own blade and the key, which he’d dropped in the scuffle, and secured them in his belt. Then, shaking his head at his near forgetfulness, he returned to the baron and pulled off his boots, his cloak, and his outer tunic, discovering quite a number of delicate little instruments in the process. He could only hope he’d found them all.

“You’d better kill me,” the baron said as Lionheart tore the fibula of the rampant panther—the Eldest’s insignia—from his shoulder. “It’s your only option. If you don’t want to see me on your father’s throne, my death is your one hope. So why not add murder to your other crimes. It’ll take the hangman longer to read out your wrongs to the crowd at your execution; buy you a few more breaths.”

The door boomed again. But it held. Its hinges were iron and its frame was stone two feet thick. The door itself was many layers of dense mango wood, seasoned with salt and kiln-dried, made fast with iron fixtures. It did not so much as shudder when struck.

Lionheart sank to the floor, his back to the door, and stared dully across at the baron. He forced himself to draw several long breaths, hoping to ease the bubbling sickness in his belly. He watched the baron’s gaze rove the room and saw it at last fix upon the lock.

It should have been impossible for those enormous eyes to widen. But they did.

“You forgot,” said Lionheart grimly. “You forgot that the Eldest long ago had this chamber transformed into a bolt hole. A supplied man can fend off all assailants from here.”

The baron’s face drained of color. But then he smiled and spat more blood and foam. “For how long, Lionheart? Until the Council of Barons decides to reinstate you? To crown you Eldest?”

Lionheart shook his head. “I’m not so patient as that, baron,” he said wryly. “We have only to wait for Foxbrush’s return.”

“Foxbrush?”
The baron laughed mirthlessly. “You’ll risk your neck for the sake of that dullard?”

“He is my father’s chosen heir.”

The baron laughed again, his voice nearly drowning out the shouts of the assailants behind the door. “A poison-addled choice, and well you know it. And a choice that means nothing now. He’s dead.”

Once more they struck the door without. Lionheart held the baron’s gaze for longer than he would ever have believed possible. In the end, however, he broke first and buried his tired face in his hands.

I vowed to follow you,
his heart whispered desperately.
Is this right? Is this what you would have
of me?

But he heard no answer beyond the shouts of those who would kill him the moment they broke through.