Well of Sorrows (23 page)

9

OM TORE THROUGH THE BRANCHES of the line of trees over the river, his heart thundering in his chest, his breath harsh, his lungs aching. Something raked across his face, slicing open his cheek, the pain stinging; but he didn’t stop, didn’t even stumble. All he could think about was Ana.

And the corpses of the previous expedition, lying discarded on the plains, forgotten.

He leaped over a bent sapling, heard Arten and the rest plowing through the trees on either side. As soon as they’d heard the scream, Arten and Tom had bolted for the tree line, Aeren and the Alvritshai spinning in that direction, their arrows suddenly nocked and raised. Colin and Karen had stood stunned, Walter and Jackson as well, but then both the Proprietor and the Company man had kicked their horses into motion, surging toward the trees, outdistancing Tom and Arten in a heartbeat. Tom had heard Colin shout, knew that he and Karen were charging after them and silently willed Colin to stay with the burned out wagons. But he knew Colin wouldn’t, knew Karen wouldn’t stay behind either. Part of him cursed them for their youth, but another part surged with pride.

He crashed through the edge of the trees and stumbled out into the brush and grass at its edge, his breath tearing at his lungs. Arten spilled from the trees to the right, his sword already drawn, the Alvritshai emerging smoothly farther away. Clutching the sudden sharp pain in his side, Tom swallowed and spun to the left.

Walter and Jackson were galloping toward their wagons, their horses’ hooves throwing up clods of dirt in their wake. And beyond them—

Tom’s heart faltered in his chest. From fear, but also from startled shock.

The wagon train was under attack. A group of the short, vicious-looking men that Aeren had called the dwarren launched a rain of arrows and spears toward where the wagons had tried to circle for protection, maybe twenty of the dwarren in all. But it took a moment for Tom to grasp what was actually happening, for him to sort out the chaos.

Because the dwarren weren’t attacking on foot. They were riding the gaezels. As if they were horses.

He turned to see Arten gazing toward the scene with wild eyes. Before either of them shook themselves out of it, Colin and Karen burst from the tree line.

“What’s happening?” Colin shouted. “What’s going on?”

“The dwarren are attacking the wagon train,” Arten said, Colin’s appearance snapping him out of his shock. He strode toward Tom, reached down and drew a knife from a sheath in his boot and handed it to him. “Here. I don’t have another one for you, Colin.”

Colin—breath rasping in his chest, eyes fixed on the group of dwarren astride their gaezels—fumbled in a pocket, drawing out the tightly wound sling Tom had given him what seemed like an eternity ago. “That’s all right,” he said. “I have this.”

“And I have this,” Karen said, opening her hand to reveal a small but sharp knife used for eating.

Behind them all, the Alvritshai had halted, were hesitating, Aeren watching Tom, Arten, and Colin, waiting to see what they would do. Aeren’s escort kept their eyes on the fight at the wagons, faces taut. Their bodies strained forward, but they held themselves in check.

A man cried out, and Tom spun back, saw someone fall to the ground, a spear jutting from his chest.

He took Arten’s knife grimly. “Karen, stay close to Colin. And Colin, for Diermani’s sake, and your mother’s, stay as far back from the fighting as you can.”

Without waiting for a response, he and Arten ran forward, toward the front of the fighting. The dwarren had made another pass and were now circling back, pulling their gaezels sharply to the left, using the beasts’ horns as reins, the deer snorting. They were fast, turned tight, tighter than horses. Tom saw Walter and Jackson lunging after them with the much larger horses, swords gleaming in the sunlight. They were joined by three other men on horseback, Armory it looked like. Two women had rushed out to the grass in front of the haphazardly circled wagons as soon as the dwarren banked away, were dragging the man Tom had seen fall back behind the wagons, one on each arm, the spear jutting from his chest rocking back and forth as they moved the body. He could see Lyda gazing out of the back of one of the wagons, eyes wide in terror, hand on her swollen stomach, her other arm around one of the children, three more terrified faces cowering behind her—

And then he saw Paul, the bulky smith roaring something unintelligible after the dwarren’s backs, a heavy ax thrust into the air.

“Paul!” Tom shouted, veering toward the smith.

Three more men took up the roar on either side of him, one of them bellowing, “Come back, you bloody bastards!”

“Paul!”

The smith turned, his face red with rage. “Tom! We thought—”

“What happened?” Tom gasped, coming to a halt.

“They came out of nowhere, as if they just popped up out of the grass, like fucking prairie dogs. We didn’t have any warning at all. Thank Diermani we’d already begun to draw the wagons into a circle to make camp. Sam saw them just before they hit us with the first pass. They’re riding those fucking deer!”

“I saw.” Tom swallowed, trying to catch his breath. He scanned the men nearest, the rest of the Armory, others from Lean-to with swords or pikes or knives. A few were brandishing hoes and spades, one an ax like Paul’s.

“They’re fast,” one of the men said. “Those deer can outrun our horses.”

He motioned to the plains, where Tom could see that the dwarren had outdistanced Walter and his cavalry.

He frowned. Walter had led the horses too far out.

Even as he thought it, the dwarren suddenly turned, swinging around, heading back toward the wagons, leaving Walter and his men behind as their gaezels picked up speed.

Someone swore, the words bitter.

“They’re coming back,” Arten barked. He spun. “Get as many of the horses behind the wagons as possible! Find cover! We can’t fight them with swords, not when they’re using spears and arrows.”

Men scrambled, a few breaking away to unhitch the exposed horses, not bothering to undo the harness, simply cutting it free, trying to calm the horses as they worked. One of the horses panicked and bolted as it was freed, men yelling and cursing, one of the younger men racing after it. Tom shoved the nearest men toward the wagons, including the priest Domonic, yelled at those inside who were leaning out to see to get back. He saw Colin and Karen duck behind the closest wagon, Colin scooping something up from the ground, and felt a surge of relief, but he had yet to see Ana. Heart in his throat, the sound of the gaezels’ hooves growing louder, he waved the rest of the men behind the wagons as well, then turned.

In time to see the horse that had bolted and the man who’d raced after it fall, both riddled with dwarren arrows. The ground shook as the dwarren converged. Tom watched the lead dwarren as he brought the gaezel in for a sweep across the length of the wagons, parallel to the trees above the river, saw the man’s face contorted with rage, the braided locks of his black and gray beard bouncing against his chest as he raised his spear. His eyes were gray in color but black with hate. Three chains fell across his cheek from pierced nose to ear, gold in the light, and he wore armor, a leather vest across his thick chest, scored with marks from previous battles.

The dwarren saw Tom. He kicked the gaezel he rode hard, driving it forward. Tom stepped back, felt the shadow of the wagon at his side fall across him. The dwarren warrior’s face twisted into a sneer and he leaned back, spear arm extended, the muscles in his arm flexing—

Then he threw.

Tom felt hands grab his shirt and haul him behind the wagon, the spear whistling as it cut through the air and sank into the ground just inside the makeshift camp, near where a group of men who’d rescued the horses were trying to tether them to one of the wagons closest to the trees. And then the dwarren were thundering past. A rough shout rang out, the voice deep, almost a growl, in a language that was not Andovan nor Alvritshai, but more guttural and harsh, and Tom heard the gaezels being pulled to a halt.

“They’re dismounting!” Domonic barked, pointing beneath the wagon.

Tom crouched down, saw the lithe legs of the gaezels milling about thirty paces from the wagons. “Wait!” Tom barked to the men who were already readying to charge out onto the grass. “They aren’t all dismounting, only a few of them.”

Low murmurs arose, tight with fear.

Tom glanced over toward the next wagon and saw Arten huddled with another group of men, looked over his shoulder and saw Colin and Karen with a few others on the other side. He didn’t see the Alvritshai anywhere, wasn’t even certain they’d followed them in their mad dash for the wagons.

“What are they doing?” Domonic whispered.

Tom ducked back down to peer under the wagon. The few dwarren who’d dismounted were walking around near the edge of the rest of the gaezels. He couldn’t see above the men’s waists, but occasionally a box on a chain swung into view, sort of like a lantern, then was raised, as if those still astride the gaezels were taking something from it.

Tom frowned. A breeze gusted beneath the wagon, and he caught the faint scent of smoke.

He thought suddenly of the wagons that Aeren had shown them, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

Before he could turn, he heard a crack as something struck the side of a wagon and shattered. Liquid splattered down from the bottom of the wagon—

Followed by the unmistakable whomph of flames catching in oil.

“ They’re firing the wagons!” he shouted, stepping back from the edge of the wagon he huddled against, thinking of Lyda’s face and all of the children huddled around her as he’d charged toward the wagons earlier. “Get out of the wagons! Get ever yone out now!”

He began working frantically at the ties that held the hides to the strakes, using the knife Arten had given him. He could hear those inside begin to move around restlessly, crying out. The scent of smoke became suddenly sharper, a thin trail marring the blue sky overhead.

More cracks and thuds as more arrows struck, and Tom swore, cursing the leather thongs that held the hides tight, so tight his blade couldn’t get up underneath them. His fingers cramped and he licked his lips, tasted blood from the slash across his cheek. Sweat broke out across his chest, his back.

Inside the wagon, someone screamed, and the suddenly restless sounds became a panic. The wagon shook. Someone cried out, trying to keep the children calm, a woman’s voice.

“Don’t come out the back!” Tom barked. “They’re waiting—” But someone leaned out of the back of the wagon. Tom felt the wagon shift as they moved, heard the sickening chunk of an arrow hitting flesh. A body—a woman’s body, Clara, her face stark, eyes dead, facing Tom almost accusingly—hit the ground with a horrifying rustling sound, and the wagon shifted back.

Fresh screams escaped from the wagon, and everyone inside rushed away from the back entrance. Tom’s dagger slid beneath the first set of ties, cut through them with a jerk, and he cried out as wisps of smoke escaped through the opening.

“Arten!” he bellowed, his voice cracking. He gasped in desperation as he moved frantically to the next set of ties. All around, understanding dawned and men leaped forward with their own knives, began sawing at the hide, not bothering with the ties. “Arten! Sam! Anyone!”

“Those of you with weapons,” Arten bellowed, “come with me! We’ll have to charge them, give those inside the wagons a chance to get out.”

Tom didn’t turn, heard feet gathering behind him, heard Arten barking orders, dividing the men up, and then he heard all of them roar, saw them charging out from behind the wagons out of the corner of his eyes, an acrid taste filling his mouth as he heard the sudden twang of more than a few bowstrings, the screams that followed, breaking the roar of the charge—

Followed instantly by another roar coming from the other direction and the thundering of horses’ hooves.

Walter
, he thought, grinning in spite of himself, in spite of all the pain that Walter had put him and his family through.

The hide was tough. As he sliced through it, a small hand suddenly emerged through the hole and grabbed his wrist. He cried out, startled, then gasped, “We’re coming!” and shook the hand free. He continued to whisper, “We’re coming, we’re coming,” under his breath as he worked. To his right, men shouted in triumph, and he risked a quick glance, saw children spilling out of a hole in the nearest wagon along with white-gray smoke. The women inside practically threw them out, motions controlled but still frantic.

And then the last of the hide succumbed to his knife and he ripped the flap aside, a small boy already half outside, his face streaked with tears, eyes wide open in terror. His shirt rucked up to his arm as it caught on the edge of the wagon, tore as he slid free and fell to the ground, and then a girl’s face appeared, coughing harshly. Domonic was suddenly at Tom’s side, reaching forward to haul the girl out and the next, more openings appearing on either side, the smoke coming out thicker and blacker as they worked. Tom shot a glance under the wagon, saw a scramble of feet—men, dwarren, horses, and gaezels—heard shouts and commands, roars of pain. Someone fell, hand clutching an arrow embedded in his shoulder, and then Tom grabbed the nearest man and hauled him close. “Take the hide! Hold it!”