Part 30 (1/2)
Anna rubbed her nose as dust rose around them in the still and warm air.
On the bare ground above the orchard on the next hill- the one less than a dek away-were a handful of figures. Some bore items-violins, horns? Anna squinted. Were some of them players?
Her stomach twisted at the thought of sorcerers preparing that sort of unwelcome welcome for her.
Something was anch.o.r.ed-or attached-to a squat pole set in the ground, and two men struggled with a lever or crank. As they did, the sounds of a faint melody drifted downhill.
Anna watched as a figure turned the triangular shape toward them, her mind spinning. What was the gadget, and why was she so fearful? She should know or recognize what was happening. Why couldn't she think quickly?
Farinelli sidestepped, whuffing.
”Some sort of crossbow. Too far to be accurate, but we'd better hold up.” Jecks turned. ”Alvar! Send a troop after them.” Then his eyes went to Anna. ”Best we ride back.”
”Green company! Forward!”
As the lancers trotted past them, Anna could sense Fhurgen easing his squad around her and Jecks and Jim-bob. One of the newer guards-Rickel---stood slightly in the saddle, looking toward the mound.
His thick bowl-cut hair resembled a strawberry-blond helmet.
Fhurgen stood in his stirrups for a moment. ”Don't like this none, Lady Anna,” rumbled the black- bearded chief of her guard.
Anna glanced back, but she couldn't move Farinelli, not with her guards so close around her.
The strains of the distant music crescendoed, almost drowned out by the sound of the lancers' mounts.
Through the dust, Anna could see the two men fall away from the crossbow.
Her stomach twisted, and her right hand darted for the blade at her waist yanking it out and up.
A knife against an arrow? Anna wanted to laugh but didn't have time or breath. She only knew she had to get the knife out and up, and there wasn't time to think about it.
Her tight hand jolted. Fire slashed along her arm, and a hammer smashed into the light breastplate Jecks had insisted she wear. As in a dream, she felt herself being lifted from the saddle by the power of that hammer.
What... ? How could an arrow...?
She could sense Farinelli's scream, and her back bouncing against another mount, and then the compacted clay of the road.
For a time, she lay on her back, feeling pressure on her chest. Pressure and fire welling out from her wounds.
Jecks was beside her, kneeling.
”Alcohol...elixir...bathe the wounds...” she gasped.
”Frigging quarrel.”
”Get it out,” Anna said slowly, forcing each word. ”Use the alcohol.”
She could sense his puzzlement, but each word was an effort. ”Get Liende, pour... the alcohol over the wounds.... Clean it...”
She was getting dizzier. Lord, why... why...
”Went partway through the metal. Shouldn't have done that.” Jecks fumbled with the breast plate. ”Went across...”
”Get it out” Anna clamped her mouth shut as Jecks worked the black shaft free. Her eyes were having trouble focusing.
”There.”
”Alcohol. In my saddlebags.”
The splash of the liquid burned worse than the arrow had.
”Arm...too.”
The second line of fire was too much, even as Anna fought the combination of dizziness and blackness.
34 PAMR, DEFALK.
”Good morning.” The dark-haired young man in brown nods to the two older and full-bearded men who enter the chandlery.
”Good morning, Fa.r.s.enn. Rastr said we ought to stop by... Something about wanting... You know, I don't remember.” The taller and ginger-bearded man who has led the way into the building bobs his head.
”I think I know,” Ea.r.s.enn says quietly. ”It's in the back room. Let me check.” He smiles politely, and steps through the doorway out of the dimly lit main room.
The ginger-bearded man picks up one of the leather saddlebags on the table. ”Better stuff than old Forse.
He was more interested in what woman he could get out back. Fa.r.s.enn looks after the stock more than his father did.”
”He liked the women, Forse did, all kinds,” answers the other brown-haired farmer. ”Till that sorceress turned him into a bonfire.”
”b.i.t.c.h... Don't like uppity women like that. Next thing you know, Mostan, she and that Lady Gatrune be telling us how to wear our trousers.” A raucous laugh follows.
The sound of a low drum rumbles from the back room, getting louder as Fa.r.s.enn returns, leaving the door open.
”Deurn, Mostan...I'd like to show you what Rastr was talking about,”
As the three enter the small windowless room and Fa.r.s.enn closes the door, the young drummer in the corner beats his drum slowly . . thurwnmnm thurumm thurummm . . thurumm...
On the pedestal is a life-sized statue of a slender blonde woman, breathtakingly beaufiful and so lifelike that the spun golden hair seems to move in the faint movement of air caused by the door's closing, and the open blue eyes seem to follow the men. The statue-or the woman-totally naked, does not move.
”Real pretty, Fa.r.s.enn.”
”...like it better were she real.. .. Ha!”
”That's the way sorceresses should be.” Fa.r.s.enn's voice remains warm and friendly. ”Now. . . if you'd listen for a moment...”
”Sure. . . . Let me look...”