The Coming Storm (63 page)

Ailith’s voice also broke the hold the glimpse of the dark wizard had on Jareth.

Neither needed to be told, as one they ran for the doors.

Guards were trying to lead their horses away.

Laes, instructed to stay, fought the Guard trying to lead her while Smoke kicked. Ailith and Jalila sprinted, leaped and vaulted onto their horses, reached to wrench the reins free. Zo reared, pulling his reins out of the hands that held them, striking out with his hooves. Jareth scrambled awkwardly into the saddle no sooner than Zo’s hooves hit the ground. The Guards on the parapets turned, realizing something was wrong.

“Stay close to the walls,” Ailith shouted and sent Smoke flying toward the gate.

Someone thought quickly, the portcullis began to drop.

Even at the speed they were going, Ailith knew she might make it but Jareth and Jalila never would. She saw figures moving up in the murder hole as she passed beneath it. She could do nothing about them save pray but she knew stone and iron. Her foot didn’t quite touch the wall. She leaned a little, let her fingers scrape across rough stone.

Jareth saw the portcullis falling and judged the distance. They wouldn’t make it.

The thought that they might be trapped in this place chilled him, knowing as he did that the woman who sat on that throne was very likely a blood or soul wizard. If they were caught within these stone walls, escape would be unlikely. He knew his skills but they were untried against a wizard with a ready source of power other than that drawn from within or from the natural world, as he did. As good as he was, he wasn’t certain he could win.

He feared falling into the hands of just such a wizard even more. As with the Elves as a source of power he would be far more valuable. Worse still, remembering what the sight of her had done to him, was what he might do, all too willingly. The woman didn’t need a soul-eater, she was one.

Then he felt the brush of magic. The portcullis stopped falling with a screech of iron on stone. He saw movement inside the murder hole in the ceiling above as Jalila approached and sent a mage-bolt through it. Perhaps some of those above didn’t want to be in thrall, some might even have been innocent but there was no time to sort the innocent from the guilty.

They pounded through the streets, their horses’s hooves skittering over the wet cobbles and bricks.

Ailith dropped her longsword harness over her shoulders as Jalila unlimbered her bow. Giving Smoke his head, Ailith buckled the longsword in place. Just in time. A group of Hunters came around a corner. If the gates hadn’t been so open, she might have been relieved to see them but they had been. Spider to fly open, an invitation to the unwary. The Hunters would call challenge if they were righteous.

They didn’t. They drew their weapons. As did she.

Jalila saw the first bow lift and took the man out of his saddle with an arrow of her own. Seeing the look of them, Jareth sent a mage bolt between them as Ailith put her swords to good use, and they were past.

With a roar the rain suddenly came down in sheets, torrents, to drench them nearly instantly as they passed through the gate and out into the open country. Jareth, familiar with this kingdom from his and their earlier trip, took the lead, with Ailith and Jalila falling in slightly behind him.

“Keep going,” Ailith shouted, when he started to slow, “we’re pursued.”

The Hunters hadn’t given up.

Swearing softly, Jareth urged Zo on. Would Elven culls serve those folk? Many Hunters had bought them. He didn’t know or even if those they’d fought rode them. Nor was now the time to find out. Time and distance were their only allies.

It was miserable riding.

As cold as it was, drenched and soaked, they were all chilled to the bone. Even the sure-footed Elven horses slipped in the slick mud. After a while Ailith called them to slow. What light there was had waned, darkness increased the risk of injury to horse and rider. Their pursuit was now far behind and hampered by the mud as well. The temperature was dropping fast. They needed to find defensible shelter and soon.

In the blowing rain it was hard to see but a regular square shape against the bulk of a hillside was enough. Nature abhorred straight lines. A homestead, then. One of a landowner, like her grandmother Delae, although not quite as substantial. Walled, with stables along one side and quarters for the folk who cared for the homestead along another. A smith. The house in the center. It was dark. All dark. No lights showed through the cracks of the narrow shuttered windows.

The gates were open.

A shudder went through Ailith, a premonition. She knew what they would find within but not what else might wait for them there.

The wind blew the open gate as they rode toward it, and the hinge groaned.

“Jareth,” she said.

He nodded. With a gesture, he tossed a mage-bolt ahead to clear the yard. It flashed, lighting up the yard but it encountered nothing. The force of it splattered against a far wall, lighting it brilliantly. The yard was empty. Nothing moved or cried out.

The gate was open. Whoever or whatever had come here had been welcomed.

A terrible certainty moved through Ailith. Like dreaming true. She could almost see it in her mind’s eye. That beautiful woman from Donkellen castle as she rode up to the gate with her outriders. Trackers of her own. She had smiled and the gates had opened.

Ailith closed her eyes against that vision. They needed the shelter.

As well, the door to the homestead itself was open, swinging in the breeze with an eerie creak of the hinges. There would have been no need to close it. Not after. She could almost feel the blood spilled here.

“Jareth, another mage-bolt if you please.”

A flash as it went off inside the house. There was no outcry of any kind.

Still, they all kept their swords in hand as they entered.

The main room was large, the hearth for cooking and heat took up all of one wall. A shattered table and broken chairs were scattered across the floor. Along the back there were two smaller rooms and a loft above.

Elf and mage lights went up in the air, illuminating the shallow loft. Empty.

Jalila took one room, Ailith the other while Jareth watched their backs. The rooms were vacant but not undisturbed.

“Close and bar the door, please, Jareth,” Ailith said.

Her own elf-light joined the others, adding a brilliance they didn’t need.

Brownish stains marred the white walls.

Jareth’s stomach churned. He’d sensed it but seeing it somehow made a difference. 

“Blood magic.”

On a sigh, Ailith said, “Yes.”

There were no bodies and for that she was grateful, although she had a guess what had happened to them. For herself, she didn’t need to know.

None of them wanted the horses out of sight, so they brought them inside the house. They built a fire in the grate with the shattered remains of the tables, chairs and beds, most of which had been battered to kindling.

“That woman in the Hall, the Queen,” Jareth said. “Another Tolan.”

Just the memory made his skin crawl.

Ailith nodded. “She had the feel of him, although not the mesmeric voice.”

Remembering his brief glimpse of that flawless face, those clear blue eyes and lush red mouth, her high full breasts, slender waist and rounded hips and the hard tug of desire he’d felt, Jareth shook his head.

“No, that was in her face and body.”

Lifting her eyes, Ailith glanced at him. There was no censure in them and for that he was grateful. She’d seen it, too.

Jalila asked, “How far are our pursuers?”

“Too far,” Ailith said, “of those that are closest. There will be ice tonight. That will slow them further.”

There seemed no reason not to make use of what was there but not in those closed off rooms. They dragged the mattresses from the beds close to the fire but not too close. With the horses in as well, the space was tight but it was warmer. They fed the horses with fodder from the stables but for them there was only travel bread and water. Everything else was gone.

Jareth took the first watch since he’d gotten the most sleep the night before.

Ailith stretched out on a borrowed mattress. At least it wasn’t the rocky ground in icy rain beneath a travel tent. Even so from the look in Jalila’s eyes, she felt the same, a little disturbed at their environs.

Tension and fear dropped away as she searched their back trail. The pursuers had dropped away, their progress slow. Farther away, the trackers had slowed as well. They had some little time.

She hoped the rain had washed up from the south and west, to cover the scent of that other trail. Elon and Colath were still, their lights bright in her internal sky. Somewhere they had found shelter and rested, too.

Still, she searched their back trail, looking for gray. She found them, far back. She studied the masses of stars in her mind, the constellations that marked cities and towns. Doncerric, the King’s city, would be along the coast, while beyond it would be nothing but the ocean and few signs of life, fishermen and such. She thought she found it and estimated distances. Elon and Colath would make it before the trackers with some time to spare.

With one worry eased, if only a little, she closed her eyes and slept.

Firelight and bleeding walls but not that aching dread. The pull wasn’t so great either.

Tolan’s voice and he was in a right fury. She couldn’t help the sudden leap of bitter satisfaction.

“They had them,” he screamed, “they had them. So close, so close. They were there, right there, at the very doors. Everything in place. She slips through my fingers once again. How could they lose them? How?” The sing-song voice was in abeyance. “The trackers have the trail. They’ll find them or the others will. How could they lose them? So close. So close. I will have her. I will have her and make her bleed. I’ll have her and I will hurt her. I’ll hurt them and I will hurt her. I’ll make them pay. I’ll make them suffer and bleed.”

He hadn’t yet noticed her…

Leave now
, she told herself,
there’s nothing to be gained here
. Gently, so as not to wake them if she could, she found her lifelines and pulled.

She awoke with a start to stare into the darkness and the bright embers of the fire.

The feel of the bonds had the touch of him, of them, reawakening the ache within her. She missed Elon, his familiar calm presence, and Colath with his steadiness.

Jareth looked at Ailith, seeing her jolt awake. He didn’t speak but his eyes were eloquent. She shook her head.

“Nothing. The trap was in the Hall, they meant to take us there.”

It had been close, almost too close.

Elon, sitting guard, felt that small pull, a tug at the bond. Shifting a little, Colath stirred in his sleep and then settled again.

So gentle.

He smiled a little into the night where none could see. She’d needed to escape but tried not to disturb them. A shake of his head.

So, Ailith had dreamed true but had escaped it on her own. For that he was grateful.

As always, there was Colath at his right but now there was an absence at his left.

He put it aside as he must. They would be in Doncerric soon and he needed to marshal his arguments for the High King and Council.

It was good to know she was safe, but he missed her presence sharply, as did Colath.

In the morning they rode out into a world of glittering ice, the horses stepping carefully. The sun shone warmly, though, and already much of it was melting. Still, it made Jareth worry. A glance at Ailith saw the same feeling mirrored there.

Such weather didn’t bode well, promising an early winter. That wouldn’t suit them either, there was a risk of being caught, trapped up here when the snows began to fall.

The next Kingdom and the one beyond it were echoes of Crag’s Head, although the walls were stouter and the towns better fortified. The rulers of those places had already seen enough to take her warning seriously. As they passed through towns and villages, they warned the folk of them as well. Would it be enough? It would slow the tide perhaps, only a little but some would flee and with warning some might survive.