Petrodor: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 2 (71 page)

Jaryd sheathed his sword fast, took several running steps as she slowed alongside, and ignored her arm entirely, not wanting to pull her slight weight from the saddle. He leaped, and grabbed the saddle horn between her legs, and the rear side, and somehow managed to drag himself half onto the galloping animal's back. A further struggle, his face buried against Sofy's waist, and he got a leg over, grabbing Sofy and the saddle horn to pull himself
into position behind, as they cut downhill alongside the orchard. And here ahead, another rider was coming past them on the left, sword ready for a backhand cut that would take both their heads off with one stroke.

“Down!” Jaryd roared, shoving her forward onto her horse's neck with his left hand, drawing with his right and smashing the stroke away just in time. Sofy recovered, steering them around as Jaryd held her about the middle with his left arm, his right free to ward off anyone else who tried to kill them. A glance back showed the man who'd nearly decapitated them was slow in recovering, holding his jarred right arm.

“Where the hells is Teriyan?” He shouted, trying to keep Sofy's hair from his face. “He was supposed to look after you!” It angered him that she should risk herself so. It angered him worse that he was the cause of it.

“We…” Sofy seemed breathless. Jaryd realised that that would be the first time anyone had swung a blade at her. “Another two men chased us!” she replied, finally, when she had enough breath. “We separated from Ryssin and Byorn, but then these two chased us…Teriyan killed one, but the other was persistent…I thought you might be in trouble, so I thought I'd come back!”

“You stupid girl, you're worse than your sister! You're a princess, you can't risk yourself for me! What were you thinking?!”

“Hey listen,
boy
,” she retorted, “if I hadn't, you'd be dead! I'd quit while I'm ahead if I were you!” Jaryd blinked. He hadn't exactly been expecting her to burst into tears at his rebuke, but he hadn't expected
that.

Abruptly he laughed, hysterically, and gave a whoop. It was good to be alive. He hugged her close with his left arm, for which he had plenty of excuse, because balance was hardly easy on the back of her saddle.

A glance over his shoulder showed at least four riders in pursuit, though none was terrifyingly close. Well ahead, beyond the wall of the next field, he saw the small figure of another rider. This one had long red hair and a drawn blade. Jaryd waved him on harshly, shouting at him to move on—no doubt the big warrior was mortified at having lost the princess, whatever the threat to his own life. (Though it seemed the second man pursuing him had met an ill fate as well. Perhaps, Jaryd thought, he'd underestimated Teriyan's skill on horseback.)

Teriyan took off, though Jaryd doubted he'd go far—probably just to clear the way ahead. But he was heading too far along…Jaryd was pretty sure he knew a better way.

“Down here,” he said, pointing with his sword down toward the stream on their right. “There's a shallow crossing here, I think, and then a trail beyond it.”

“Don't point that thing everywhere around me,” Sofy retorted, turning them right. “It's unnerving.”

Jaryd grinned. “Listen, Princess Cavalryman, the next time you come in for a fast pickup, leave me a stirrup, huh? How the hells am I supposed to get into the saddle without a stirrup?”

“Damn!” Sofy exclaimed. “I was certain I'd missed something…I've only seen them do it a few times!” She tugged at her dress about the saddle horn—it was riding rather high up one leg, Jaryd noticed. “One thing's for certain, I'll never make fun of Sasha's fashion choices ever again! This dress is trying to get me killed!”

As they approached the stream, Jaryd grasped her more tightly. “Ease up! Ease up!” As Sofy tugged back on the reins. “Not too much, don't walk or they'll catch us! Just there, now…” The horse cantered into the stream and spray went everywhere. Then they were coming out the other side. “Good, now go!” Sofy kicked with her heels.

“Left!” said Jaryd in her ear. “Stay on the bank. Now, see the break in the trees past this big vertyn?”

“I see it!”

“Turn right there, there's a trail!”

Sofy turned and then they were galloping up a narrow path through the trees. Already, the land was beginning to rise. Jaryd looked around but saw nothing behind…the pursuers had fallen back. Probably their horses were the more tired—to have made that intersection in such rapid time from Algery would have required a flat-out gallop. “Slow down a little, there's some sharper corners here!”

Their own horse was tiring and frothing wet with sweat, but it wasn't far now. After a time on the winding trail, the path dipped and Sofy slowed further to take them down into a little fold in the forested hillside. Here ran a stream.

“Straight ahead!” said Jaryd, pointing up the stream. Sofy kicked the horse to a canter along the stream bed, water erupting in their wake. It was rocky in places, but Sofy steered them onto the bank, and, further up, took them skilfully over a fallen, mossy tree trunk. Then, on the left, there was flat bedrock along the stream bank.

“This one?” Sofy asked. She'd heard enough tales of pursuits and hunts, Jaryd reckoned, to know what was up.

“No, there's plenty more,” said Jaryd. “Let's confuse them.” Sure enough, they passed several more spots where bedrock met the stream bank. At one such, Jaryd finally directed them left and out of the stream. The horse's hooves left no trace on the rock that any but an expert tracker would see.
Then they were riding uphill, twisting through the dense forest. After a long period of climbing, Jaryd was finally convinced that their pursuers were no longer on their trail.

They rested the horse for a moment by a small stream, allowing the tired beast a long drink while Jaryd checked it for injury. Sofy watched, standing close behind, curious to learn more.

“How far do you think we are from Teriyan and the others?” she asked, tugging at her dress in some discomfort.

“Not far. They'll be heading up one of these ridges too. Hopefully we'll find them ahead.” He replaced the horse's right foreleg to the ground, content that the shoe fit well and no stones were caught beneath. “Why did you come back for me? Seriously?”

“Seriously?” Sofy repeated, with some incredulity. “How can you ask ‘seriously’? All of you heroic young men with delusions of grandeur, taking ridiculous risks whenever there's a woman around…I thought you were going to get yourself killed, and I was right!”

Jaryd straightened and stretched an aching shoulder. And he almost surprised himself when he smiled, a little cockily, and said, “In my case, Your Highness, they're not delusions.”

Sofy half gaped at him. From the old Jaryd Nyvar, such a statement would have been expected. But from the new, the humour had been rare. Something had changed. Jaryd was not entirely sure what. Well, he had a journey back to Baerlyn to think about it. With Sofy.

“The biggest annoyance with this whole thing,” Sofy remarked, her eyes lively, “is that I'm not going to be able to tell anyone about how I saved your life! Probably I'm going to have to deny I was ever here!”

“Half the Falcon Guard know you were there,” Jaryd replied. “No stopping those rumours once soldiers start them.”

“True.” Sofy seemed pleased at that.

“And you'll have this vicious red scar to explain,” said Jaryd, indicating her cheek.

“Is it really that bad?” she asked in dismay. “I thought it just stung a little.” She felt at it with her fingers.

“Let me look.” Jaryd peered close. Very close. He was half aware of what he was doing, the old, reckless reflexes kicking in. He knew it was stupid, but he had to test the reaction. He had to see…had to see if what she felt was like…

As he peered, he could feel Sofy's breath on his face. She smelled sweet. Her eyes were fixed on him, her breath tight, her body suddenly rigid. He hadn't really expected that. Or maybe he had. Or maybe…somewhere in
the midst of his indecision, their lips touched. She tasted sweet too. The force of it stunned him. She was just a girl, really, and not even his type anyway. And he'd had women who were…well, who were…but it was no good, he couldn't think straight, and his heart was thudding like a wild thing.

His hands went to her back, and he kissed her more deeply and passionately than he'd ever kissed any woman before. Sofy's hands were against him, clutching as if in indecision. She made a low moan, that might have been protest, and might have been something else entirely. But her body pressed close, and then her hands were at his back, clutching his shirt, pulling him closer. It seemed to go on forever. The way it felt, that would have suited Jaryd fine. Only now, his hands were wanting more, a reflex slide on the back of her dress, searching for a lace. Wondering what the smooth white skin beneath would feel like, bare beneath his hand. Wondering what her body would feel like, pressed skin to skin with his own.

They parted. And stared at each other, clutching to each other's arms. Sofy's lovely eyes were big and dark, wide with hungry disbelief. Slowly, her fingertips went to her lips, as if savouring the memory of the kiss. And, perhaps, in a gesture of simple shock. Sofy, who was betrothed to the heir of Larosa. Sofy, upon whose marriage a great war hung, and the fate of multiple civilisations. Sofy, who was staring at him now in the realisation that all of these things, however difficult they'd been before, had just become enormously more complicated still.

“Oh dear lords,” she murmured. “We're really in trouble now, aren't we?”

R
HILLIAN STRODE THE DOCK
as a cold wind gusted off the ocean and the boats heaved and tossed at their moorings. Grey clouds hung low, foretelling an end to summer. Halrhen and Shathi walked at her sides, serrin from the three Saalshen trading ships at anchor in the harbour, the last refuge of Saalshen on this bleak, forsaken shore. Halrhen cradled Aisha, half conscious and in pain, barely larger than a child in the big man's arms.

Smoke swirled across the debris-strewn and puddled pavings, and the stink of burning flesh. Pyres lined the dockside, at least fifteen, with several more under construction, piled high with the wood from half-demolished buildings. What little oil Dockside possessed was being spent to dispose of thousands of corpses, before disease set in. Raggedy men and women worked in groups, piling bricks to form a retaining wall, then hauling bodies by the cartload. Men wrapped themselves in dirty old cloth and leather to ward the blistering flames, wrestling stiff bodies onto the blaze. Priests and caratsa blessed the cartloads of stiffening corpses with holy water and prayers, mouths and noses covered with cloth to ward the smoke and smell.

They needed pits, but there were none on Dockside—the dead were normally disposed of at Angel Bay, but passage across Sharptooth remained treacherous as some of the Riverside mob continued to haunt the alleyways. There had been some suggestion that fishermen could haul boatloads of corpses out to sea and dump them, but the boats were needed for fishing, spare men to sail them were few and far between, and the winds now prevailed onshore, not only making sailing difficult but threatening to blow the terrible cargo back onto the docks regardless, all bloated and floating.

The uniform line of Dockside buildings was broken in places, where a blackened hole appeared, and a pile of collapsed masonry and charred wooden beams. Men and women climbed amongst the ruins, collecting valuables or anything salvageable. The dock markets had reappeared, stalls hawking wares amidst the carnage and smoke. People needed to eat and life went on. Rhillian knew that they would rebuild—humans had been killing and destroying each other's civilisations for as long as serrin had been recording
their history, and yet the sum total of humanity never ceased its upward march. Once, she might have found some admiration for their tenacity. Now, she saw only bleak futility. They regenerated like rabbits, or like weeds. They
needed
to destroy each other, it was how they progressed, from one era to the next, in successive waves of creative obliteration. Serrin had thought to try to restrain this impulse in humans, to control it, to teach them better. Now, she saw it was pointless. This was what they were, and to wish it otherwise was to teach wolves to eat cabbage, or deer to lust red meat. She'd come to Petrodor three years ago, with dreams of finding a symmetry between humans and serrin. But humans and serrin, as Kiel had always warned, were fundamentally incompatible. Now, there was only survival.

They turned onto a pier as frothing waves rushed against the pylons below. Masts waved back and forth, and rigging whipped and clacked against the sail arms. Then Rhillian heard footsteps thumping on the pier planks behind. She turned.

“Errollyn,” she announced to the others, for warning. They kept walking. Rhillian fell several steps back, but did not stop.

“Rhillian.” Errollyn seemed out of breath. “Where are you taking Aisha?”

“Out to a ship, where else?” Rhillian said coldly. She did not look at him.

“You can't just grab her without telling anyone!” He was upset. “I didn't know where she was! I thought she'd been kidnapped, or—”