Daughter of Fire (47 page)

“How many men rode with Stephen?”

“They were your own men,” Tarek replied as if he should know the answer and have no need to ask it. “Four score rode north.”

“Aye,” Rorke said thoughtfully, stirring the flames of the fire with a stick as though hoping to see something there. “Half that number returned to London. The tracks we saw were at least twice that many, made afterward.”

Tarek’s gaze narrowed as he began to see the direction of Rorke’s thoughts. “The attackers were astride.”

“Horses brought in ships?”

“William brought horses from Normandy.” Tarek gestured to their own mounts, tethered nearby.

“Across a narrow channel. The Danes had to cross hundreds of miles of open sea. Yet no boats were seen by Stephen’s men.”

“He is young. He might have been mistaken.”

“He is young, but I would ride with him sooner than any hundred other men I could name except for yourself,” Rorke answered, and then said with certainty, “No, he missed nothing. These attackers were astride, yet the Danes are not known for their horsemanship nor for mounted warriors. And then there is this.” He seized the blade from his belt and threw it to the ground near where Tarek sat. The ornately carved handle gleamed in the firelight. Tarek retrieved the blade and turned it over in his hands.

“A fine blade.”

Rorke nodded. “What soldier leaves behind his weapons? Especially one so finely made. And the war ax that Stephen found as well?”

“No soldier leaves his weapons as long as he draws breath, for they may mean the difference between life and death another day,” Tarek replied.  “I know your thoughts. That it was no accident this blade was left behind.”

“Aye.”

Tarek studied the blade. “What is to be done?”

Rorke frowned. “An army this size is too easily seen. You must leave before first light. You will have to trade in those flowing robes for simple leather garments that are not easily recognized. Take Gavin with you.

“My sense of it is that we are being watched even now. You must find the watchers. Only then may we know the truth of these
invaders with horses
, who are so careless with their weapons that they leave them behind like a guidepost.”

Across the fire, Tarek grinned, teeth flashing in the golden bronze features. “I will do anything if it means we may leave this cold, forbidding place sooner. I will be one with the wind. I will find them, before they find me.”

Tarek left before first light with Sir Gavin. Rorke said nothing to William. Two men missing, one of whom traveled at will, was not likely to raise questions and for the time Rorke didn’t want asked by the rest of the men, or the King.

~ ~ ~

They rode through craggy rock outcroppings, glens, and deep glades which would have hidden anyone who chose to be hidden. These places never failed to amaze him.

Tarek had thought this a cold, forbidding land but like the desert, which yields the pleasure of an occasional oasis, the north country too had its sweet secrets. The morning of the second day, he discovered just such a place after he and Gavin separated, each to follow a split in the mountain trail.

At midday he still had found no sign of the Danish raiders. If they had taken shelter in this valley he had not yet found any sign of them. He stopped to water his horse at a small lake.

The valley was sheltered from the bite of the wind up on the slopes. Thirsty, Tarek waited until the mare had drunk her fill, then sprawled at the water’s edge after first removing the knife he carried at his boot and laying it just under his hand. If anyone approached him, the mare would immediately sense it.

It was late afternoon and the sun had broken through the clouds. The water was smooth as glass, broken by only the ripples made by the mare as she drank. The warmth of the sun on the cool surface of the water caused a mist to rise. It spread across the water and up the embankment.

She came out of nowhere, slender and graceful as a doe. If she had sprung from an opening in the earth, he could not have been more surprised.

His first instinct was to grab the blade and it was immediately in his hand. His second was that the mare had not sensed her. The Arabian’s ears merely flicked back and forth as she picked up other sounds, but she had not sensed the young woman.

Her face was heart-shaped with flawless skin flushed pink across the slight angle of her cheekbones. Her nose was small and slender above a delicate curved mouth. Her chin was also small but firm, and above all was the stunning green of her eyes, as green as the velvet moss that clung to the water-splashed rocks.

At first she seemed no more than a child, small and slender. But she turned and glanced back, and in her profile Tarek saw the thrust of firm, full breasts beneath the folds of the fine woolen mantle.

The hood of her mantle had fallen back to her shoulders, revealing green satin lining as rich as the wool and startling as her eyes, and also revealed a thick cascade of hair the color of sunlight through mist. It was like spun gold threaded through with pale silvery light and even across the expanse that separated them, it beckoned a man’s hand.

Wild, improbable thoughts filled his head, as he wondered if the rest of her was as pale and perfect as the features of her face and the slender hands that clutched at the folds of the mantle. What would it take to possess such a creature, who seemed as if she were no earthbound mortal at all, but a creature of sunlight and mist?

Still more improbable, if he did possess such a creature, what would it be like to feel her slender body beneath his, to watch her pale, slender hands caress his darker flesh, to discover if there were other colors in those emerald eyes as he discovered all her passions.

She would be as elusive as the sunlight and the mist he decided, as he took a step toward her, for the first time in his life experiencing the need of the Norse blood as it hammered through his veins, to abduct her, throw her over the saddle before him, and be willing to spill the blood of all in the name of the Prophet to make her his own.

A slender hand came up in warning as he approached. She glanced over her shoulder at the hillside above the lake.

“You must leave this place. It is not safe.”

Her voice was as light as the mist, almost breathless with fear, the words were oddly accented yet spoken in English. Tarek took another step toward her.

“Who are you?”

“There is no time. They will be here soon.”

“Who will be here?”

That emerald gaze swung back to his. He saw none of the fear that a maid alone in the forest should have felt in the company of a strange warrior. Instead he saw a mixture of curiosity and fascination as she made as thorough an assessment of him as he had of her.

There was no coyness about her, only a shyness like the startled creature he had first imagined her to be. Then she stunned him with the answer she gave.

“The men you seek. They are close by and there is grave danger. You must warn the others or they will all be killed.”

“How do you know this?”

“They are on the high trail above. They have been waiting for you. If you do not leave now, you will be trapped and unable to escape.”

“If they wait above,” he pointed out, still not certain that he believed her. “I cannot leave by way of the trail.”

“There is another way, through the rocks.” She pointed across the small lake to a cluster of steep, craggy rocks over which water spilled in a tumbling water fall.

“There is a way behind the water, and through the rocks behind. You cannot ride through, you must walk through it.”

“What do you know of these men?”

“They were the ones who attacked and murdered the soldiers.” Her gaze fastened on the hillside above.

“You must go now!”

“What about you?”

“These hills are my home. I know them well. They will not find me.”

“Shouldn’t you come this way as well? If these men are as you say. “ He held out his hand. “You must not remain behind.”

Her gaze fastened on his with surprise. “You fear for my safety?”

“As I would any rare jewel,” he replied softly.

That green gaze darkened until it was the blue-green of the water. “You have a strange way about you. Your words are strange. You are not like the others.”

“I am Tarek al Sharif. My home is very far away.” He was only a few feet away from her now, so close he could have touched her.

“By what name are you called, mistress?”

A sound from the hillside above drew her attention. She turned, a new urgency in her slender body.

“Please, dark warrior,” she implored him. “You must go!”

Tarek swung astride the mare. Leaning from the saddle, he seized her slender hand. As he knew it would, her skin was like the finest pale satin against his and stirred an ache of longing unlike any he had ever experienced for a woman.

She stared at his hand closed over hers, her fingers curled against the palm like the cool, pale petals of a rare blossom. Her expression was stunned, her voice breathless.

Then, she pulled free of his grasp, as easily as if she was a slender, silken reed. “You must go, now!  Behind the water and through the rocks,” she repeated, then slapped the mare’s rump sending her forward into the water.

The mare stopped as Tarek hauled back on the reins. But when he turned in the saddle and looked back, the girl was gone. There was no trace of her at the water’s edge, on the embankment, nor on the slope of the hillside. She was gone, the air shimmering where she had stood only moments before as if she was no more than sunshine and mist as he had first imagined her to be.

A shout from the hillside drew his attention.

With a curse at his misfortune at having found such a beauty only to lose her, Tarek sent the mare plunging through the shallow water toward the waterfall. The opening in the rocks was just where she said it would be, just wide enough for a man to lead a horse. Through the silvery veil of tumbling water, Tarek glanced back once more at the pool.

The surface was once more calm, except for faint ripples of water that spread across the surface. Then he saw what had caused them. A graceful falcon slowly glided above the water. It was sleek, with silvery feathers that made it seem as if it floated on the mist. As he watched, it turned its head toward him and for a moment he would have sworn on the book of the Prophet that it knew he was there.

Across the lake, riders descended the hillside. And when he glanced back to the silver creature, it was gone. He searched skyward, but there was no sign of it. With a new urgency as the riders reached the water’s edge, he turned and led the mare through the rocks.

It was a steep climb, but he eventually emerged to discover that he was now above the pool and the riders who had hoped to trap him there. Mounting the mare, he thought of the beautiful girl he had seen there and hoped she was safe.

He was late in returning to the agreed upon meeting place. Sir Gavin waited for him.

“There are riders no more than half a league from here,” Tarek informed him.

“How do you know this?”

“I was warned by woman who spoke of it.  And I have seen them.”

“What manner of woman in such a place?”

Sir Gavin would not have believed it if Tarek told him the truth , so instead he told him a simple lie, keeping the memory for himself.

“An old crone in the hills. She warned me. She saw the attack on Stephen’s men.”

“Then we must warn the others.”

~ ~ ~

Rorke spun the warhorse about hard as he rode to meet one of his men who had just ridden in. Still there was no sign of Tarek al Sharif or Gavin de Marte. Four other men had failed to return, and the king’s men were far afield to be of any good to one another in the event of a surprise attack by a larger force. He was beginning to feel uneasy about all of this.

“What news?” he snapped.

The soldier’s face was grim. He had been with Rorke many years and was a seasoned veteran of many campaigns.

“Champlain and Dulonges are dead, milord.”

Rorke knew the men well. They were two of the four he had sent out the previous afternoon.

“We found them just beyond yesterday’s encampment. Their throats were cut.”

Rorke swore. “They never even made it beyond camp! By God, I will have answers, and no more dead men. Rejoin the others.”

“What of Sir Gavin?”

“They will have to find us. We cannot stay here.” Rorke glanced around and felt a tingling of uneasiness at something his friend had complained of more than once. They were spread out in the forest, an easy target for an attack. Better to be on open ground.

Tarek and Gavin found them some hours later.

“Soldiers lie in wait just ahead at a place called Brecon,” he told Rorke. “The same who attacked Stephen’s men.”

“You’re certain of this?” Rorke asked.

Tarek thought again of the girl who had warned him, and vowed that if he lived through this, he would find her.

“I am certain. I saw them gathered only two hours ride from here.”

“Aye,” Rorke grimly acknowledged with a new urgency.

The battle came on a lowland beyond the forest. The warning had given them enough time to send word to William and prepare.

It was fiercely fought. Steel rang out against steel. Horses screamed and fell, taking their riders with them. The hard, cold, ground ran with blood.

The raiders rallied twice, both times striking against William’s heavily armed knights. Both times they were beaten back, until the last man fell beneath Rorke’s blade.

With a savage cry, he leapt from the back of the warhorse and descended on the fallen warrior. The heavy woolen hood that concealed the man’s features was jerked back to reveal a familiar face.

Rorke had refused to believe it even as he had sensed something familiar in the way the man fought. Now he saw what he had not wanted to believe. The dead warrior was no Dane. It was Vachel de Marque.

“By God! What is the meaning of this!” William demanded as he pulled his lathered horse to a trembling stop.

“The meaning of this,” Rorke said, his heart cold as stone, “was to be your death, milord. And I fear this may not be the worst of it.”