Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (25 page)

Dead. He had not seen a massacre like this in all his years as a soldier, although stories of early battles told of such fights, days when the Fey realized that their magicks did not always protect them.

The Fey had ridden down the Eccrasian Mountains, leaving death in their wake. But when they encountered the swords of the Ghitlus, the Fey learned how to die at someone else’s hand. They retreated up the mountains, fashioned their own swords, and thus the Infantry was born. The Infantry, and the Fey’s ability to absorb its enemies’ power and use it for good.

Rugar had brought a full contingent. It would take little to see how the liquid would work. All he had to do was find the time.

The Fey had retreated before. They could again.

The mud was drying on his hands. He scouted for Solanda, but couldn’t see her. He needed that bottle she had stolen. That bottle and time. Caseo had sent the Warders to the Shadowlands. It would take little to send the entire force there. Rugar had already made the Shadowlands big enough to hold the ships, and the ships had enough supplies to help them return. The Islanders would be confused about where the Fey had gone, and the Fey, when they learned the secret of the bottles, would once again have the element of surprise.

Anything. Anything to get them out of this mess.

He took a deep, shuddering breath to get control of himself. Then he reached across the destroyed body to Strongfist. Strongfist had burrowed his left side into the mud, his nose and right eye visible only to the most careful viewer. Rugar’s filthy hand hovered over Strongfist’s shoulder, but didn’t touch.

“They’re gone,” he said quietly.

Strongfist didn’t move.

“Strongfist,” Rugar said. “They’re gone.”

Then he did lower his hand and touch Strongfist, relieved to feel the warmth of a living man beneath the cloth of his jerkin. Strongfist opened his eye, his gaze as cold as the ground.

Rugar flinched. They would blame him, just as his father would blame him. But he had to be strong to turn this defeat into a victory. And the best way to do that was to keep the troops on his side.

“I have a plan,” he said. “But first we need to assemble our people in the Shadowlands.”

Strongfist sat up. Mud dripped off his hair onto his side. He made no attempt to wipe himself clean. “Retreat?”

“Until we learn the secret of their magick,” Rugar said. “And then we will kill them all.”

Strongfist snorted and looked away.

Rugar grabbed Strongfist’s chin and held it tightly, squeezing the jawbone. “You can die here if you want,” Rugar said. “But I shall note that you gave in after one battle and died a coward. And your name shall be evoked whenever Fey speak of dishonor.”

“None of us will live that long,” Strongfist said.

Rugar stared at Strongfist. The man’s mud-covered face was empty. He had served Rugar for years, faithful in all but this. And who could blame him? They sat in a field of death. If Rugar killed all who had lost faith on this day, he would destroy most of his remaining troop.

“We will live. And we will win.” He let go of Strongfist’s chin. “We need to call a retreat into the Shadowlands. I need your help spreading the word.”

“Fey do not retreat,” Strongfist said.

“Fey do not die meaningless deaths.” Rugar stood. The bodies spread before him in all directions. “We shall go to the Shadowlands and perfect our revenge.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Another knife poked his back. The Fey woman’s knife was against his throat. She held him, hard, her hand clutching the back of his head as a lover’s hand would. Nicholas stood at the base of the stairs. Around him swords flashed, people yelled, and blood spurted. Sweat ran down the side of his face like tears.

Nicholas waited to die.

The woman’s dark eyes held an odd kind of hurt. The fight went on around them, as if they were encased in glass.

Something smashed in the pantry, and a handful of Fey ran up the stairs. More Fey surged through the open door. A maid was passing torches made from sticks of wood and pieces of her skirt to any Islanders that passed her.

The unseen knife poked harder at the small of his back. Another hand gripped his shoulder—not her hand, one less friendly, one with more power. A male voice shouted above the melee, and Nicholas recognized the voice of the angry Fey male who held him.

The woman shook her head once.

The knife dug in deeper. The woman shouted, clearly an order, although Nicholas didn’t recognize the tongue. The knife’s point moved away from his back, although the pain remained, changing from a sharp, immediate threat to a dull ache.

His hands were tied, but if he got away, someone could cut him free. She hadn’t moved, her knife point still a heartbeat away from killing him.

“Get it over with,” he said in Nye.

Blades flashed. Someone screamed. The servants behind her were fighting with pots and knives. Most of the Fey were using swords.

Still she didn’t move. The male Fey’s grip on Nicholas’s shoulder grew tighter. He too spoke, and as he did, Nicholas felt his body shift. He was going to stick his knife through Nicholas’s back.

Nicholas brought his arms up as high as he could, catching the man behind him in the stomach. The blow wasn’t hard, just surprising, and the man let out a grunt of pain. Nicholas took one step back, ducked and twisted away, then tripped over a body lying on the floor. He stumbled, caught his balance, and backed into the chef.

“Cut me free,” Nicholas said in Islander.

The woman bent down and picked up Nicholas’s sword. She held it in her left hand, the knife in her right, the balance perfect, her legs apart, ready to fight. Other Fey had formed a half circle around her, fighting to keep the Islanders away. Nicholas glanced to his side. The Islanders beside him had done the same for him.

The pressure on Nicholas’s wrists suddenly eased. A man shoved a sword into Nicholas’s hand. The grip was slippery with sweat and blood. Nicholas held out his free hand, the sword before him like a shield. His shoulders ached, his arms tingled, and his hands hurt with the effort of movement.

“You should have killed me,” he said in Nye to the woman, “for I have no qualms about killing you.”

He swung as he spoke, seeing too late the threat from the side. The angry Fey shoved his knife in the opening left by Nicholas’s movement. The knife grazed his rib cage. Nicholas brought the sword back and slapped the Fey with the flat side of the blade.

“No, Burden!” she cried in Nye. “He is mine.”

“Then kill him,” Burden, the Fey, said in the same language, his breath coming in huge gasps. “Before he kills you.”

“He won’t kill me,” she said.

And as Nicholas glanced at her, standing tall and proud, her face glistening with sweat and her eyes sparkling with power, he knew it was true. He couldn’t kill her any more than she could kill him.

But she didn’t have to know she was right. And he didn’t have to kill her. It was clear that she was in charge of this group. She was as valuable to them as he was to his own people.

He thrust, and as he did, the Fey beside him screamed. The chef had shoved a knife into the Fey’s side. The woman parried Nicholas’s thrust, her gaze not on him, but on the boy.

The Fey sliced at the chef, cutting through the skin on his lower arm. Blood spurted on Nicholas, hot and searing, coating him. He stepped away, his feet slipping on the wet. The Fey man staggered, swinging wildly.

The woman swung again, and Nicholas caught her sword in a clang, keeping out of the range of her knife. The chef fell to his knees, ripping at his shirt and struggling to bandage his arm with one shaking hand.

A man screamed. Nicholas held the woman away from him, his muscles aching with strain. He had been fighting most of the day, using his body in ways he never had before, fear filling him. Exhaustion was clear in the trembling of his muscles.

She, however, didn’t seem to weaken at all. Her body was thin but strong. Her arms had visible biceps, unlike any woman he had ever seen. Through sheer endurance, she would defeat him. He had to outthink her.

Something crashed above them, and a body tumbled down the stairs, rolling too quickly for Nicholas to see if it was Fey or Islander. The distraction gave her a second’s advantage. She dived in with her knife, and he backed away only to feel the slap of a blade against his back. He held his sword out to deflect her, but turned to find Burden using a blade bloody from the wounded chef to try to stab Nicholas in the back.

Nicholas used his forearm as a shield, wincing as the bone deflected the blade. Then he grabbed Burden’s face and shoved him backward. Other Islanders turned on him, and Nicholas faced the woman, her knife inches from his belly.

“You won’t,” he said in Nye.

Before she had a chance to answer, he knocked the knife from her hand, then shoved his sword against her belly. She gasped, her own sword useless at that angle. He pushed her backward, through the crowd, her own people too involved in their own fights to see her predicament.

Finally her back hit the wall beside the pantry door, and she stopped. She glanced down at his blade, then back up at him. “You won’t either,” she said.

In one quick movement he dropped his sword and cupped his damaged hand around her small neck. “I don’t have to,” he said as he pressed his body against hers to hold her in place. “I have you and I can tell, from our very short acquaintance, that your people won’t like that.”

Her gaze met his, and again he was struck by her height, her strength. She didn’t flinch. Her body was warm beneath his.

His arm ached with pain. He longed to switch, but couldn’t. He called for help from some of the servants around him, but it took a moment for anyone to respond.

As he waited, he studied her. The upswept eyebrows, the nut-brown skin, the small bones that gave her face a delicate air, marked her as different. She was breathing as hard as he was. They were inhaling and exhaling in unison.

“Your back is unprotected,” she said.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take to hold you,” he said, and meant it.

TWENTY-FIVE

She was covered in so much dirt and blood that she felt like a Red Cap. Shima fought by rote, maiming and killing and struggling as if she were alone on the field. The fight had moved into the organized chaos that was the middle of all battles, and even if she wanted to give instructions, no one would be able to hear them.

The sun felt warm on her back. She was still in the courtyard. Most of her troops had gone inside, but she remained out, waiting for the reinforcements. Dozens of Fey remained in the yard, fighting the Islanders that could still stand. The Islanders were inept fighters, their technique poor. Most didn’t even use swords, preferring wooden clubs or makeshift weapons that broke when Shima hit them with force.

Perhaps she had been wrong. Perhaps Jewel was right. Perhaps the Vision had been false. The attack certainly seemed easy enough. A day’s worth of effort and these Islanders would be subdued.