The Dowry Blade (42 page)

Chapter Forty-Six

As Ashe took Brede’s hand a strange sensation took hold with it. Dizziness held her still, so that Brede pulled against resistance. Ashe shook her head to clear the confusion and scrambled up.

She held on to Brede’s belt, but part of her wanted to put her arms around Brede’s waist. She sat more upright on the horse, and instinctively used her knees for balance and control; as though she had taught herself to ride.

She opened her mouth to say something to Brede, her silence forgotten in her excitement –
Silence
– Ashe listened to the deadened sound of the horse’s hooves on leaf mould and mud, and the occasional break of a twig – there was no birdsong, no movement from the small animals that had scurried away from them before. The horse’s ears swivelled and Brede slowed her, turning to one side then the other, listening, waiting; recognising the signs, trying to judge in which direction to run.

Ashe shuddered, feeling that there was another presence waiting with them, that if she were to turn her head she would see someone at her shoulder.

A flurry of motion and a ring of blades surrounded them. The horse shied and Ashe clutched Brede’s arm. She stared wildly – there were only seven swords, but that was more than enough.

For the first time Ashe looked death in the face, and wondered if this was the presence that had waited at her shoulder.

It was too late to run now; there was only a faint hope of talking their way out of trouble.

‘What do you want of us?’ Brede asked, looking for a weakness in that barrier of swords.

A woman near Guida’s head caught the reins and replied, ‘We want the witch.’

‘I know of no witch.’ Brede said firmly.

‘She rides at your shoulder, woman. We recognise her.’

Ice-cold heat ran through Ashe – a kind of terror she had never felt before in her life. The lurking presence at her shoulder reached out, and entered.
Death
, her heart whispered to her; and somewhere in the dark void of fear that engulfed her, she was glad.

‘This woman is mute, you must be mistaken.’

‘She wasn’t mute yesterday morning.’

The woman gestured with the knife, and one of the men grabbed Ashe, pulling her down from the horse. Her head spun and she staggered, backing away. Was this it? Was this her answer? She straightened quickly.
Atonement
– perhaps she had been fooling herself, perhaps this was what she deserved, perhaps she had no right to choose her own punishment. She shook her head, seeing double.

Brede drew her long knife.

The finest feather touch of hope brushed Ashe, painful in its slightness. She had not been forsaken. But it was pointless against so many and Brede knew it. Even so, she wasn’t giving up.

‘I will say it again: this woman is mute. I offered her my protection as we both go in search of a witch to heal us. And I mean to keep my word.’

‘We’ve been watching this one. We know who she is.’ The woman almost spat the words. Her cold, angry eyes fell on Ashe. ‘She may have chosen silence, but she is a witch for all that, and she owes us – so much, so many – an
army
. If she can’t raise our army from the death she sent them to, she’ll die – slowly.’

Ashe hadn’t dared hope for survivors.

‘You make a habit of keeping company with witches.’

Ashe couldn’t see the man, but memory supplied a face – not her memory. Brede’s breath escaped in a hiss: a sound of anger and pain.
Madoc
, again.

Madoc smiled.

‘I did not think to see you again. Devnet was convinced you had died, not the witch.’

Ashe strained her neck to see Brede, regardless of the knife a few inches from her face. All she could see was the hand that tightened round the hilt of Brede’s knife, knuckles whitening. Such beautiful hands – a scar starting just below Brede’s middle finger stood stark and sharp against her skin.

‘Last time we met I took a witch from you. I shall do it again,’ Madoc said.

Brede gathered herself for what must come – this time she
would
kill him.

Guida moved swiftly, pulling free of restraint, wheeling, front legs flailing. A hand grabbed Ashe away and held her still, as she tried to follow Brede, terrified that she was to be abandoned after all.

The horse staggered.

Brede threw herself awkwardly out from under the falling body, losing her knife, falling because her legs would not hold her. She landed heavily, knocking the breath out of her; one ankle pinned beneath Guida’s jerking body. She gritted her teeth against the pain and utter vulnerability. A long knife pressed against her throat, black with Guida’s blood.

Brede pulled her head back and squinted at the blade.

Assassin?
she thought in surprise, recognising the double-edged blade.

‘We want the witch, not you,’ the assassin said. ‘We want our blood price.’

‘On the other hand,’ Madoc said softly, ‘it would be a simple matter to kill you too.’

Brede stared up the length of metal at the woman, nursing a strange certainty that no blade would touch her this time.

Ashe tore the bag of gold from around her neck and threw it at the assassin’s feet. She didn’t move: it was scooped up by another woman and weighed in her hand.

‘Is that all it costs to buy you? You can’t buy us back our families, our loved ones. We want you.’

They closed around her, all but the woman standing over Brede. The assassin frowned at Brede, puzzled by her calm, then abruptly stepped away, wrenching the longsword from Brede’s pack, passing it to Madoc. Brede’s eyes followed that blade, knowing that Madoc would recognise it. The assassin picked up the fallen knife. Her sneer was eloquent.

‘Witch love,’ she spat.

Brede lay where she had fallen, the woman’s words finally filtering through the shock of seeing Madoc handling the Dowry blade.

Finally Brede realised that Ashe was the Songspinner hired for the battle, the witch hired to drag
her
back to the city to starve, all for the sake of a well forged sword, a sword now in Madoc’s grasp. Madoc still gazed at the blade, astonished, and said nothing to his comrades.

Ashe was hustled away held by each arm and forced to run. She stumbled, trying to turn, to see what had become of Brede.

Brede forced her foot out from under Guida, ignoring the spasm that seized her as she wrenched herself free. She contorted her reluctant body until she could reach the saddle pack, and her remaining knife. She didn’t think about whether what she did was wise, she only knew that she couldn’t live with the contempt of those rebels, who thought her so little threat they would turn their backs.

She felt better with the blade in her hand; the tremor of rage lessened. She pushed to her feet and shouted after them,

‘You’ve not finished with me yet.’

Ashe heard that shout, and recognised the insane anger behind it. So did the man who had her arm. He laughed, and took a step away, to give himself room to draw his sword.

Ashe swung round trying to loosen his hold on her and saw Brede staggering after them, her knife in her hand.

Madoc stepped back towards Brede, all too willing to finish her, but the woman who had taken the gold called him back.

‘No, we want them to know we have the witch, leave that mad woman to tell them,’ she said.

Madoc recognised the sense of that, and now that he stopped to think, he scorned to fight a cripple.

Brede called out, ‘Come on you bastard, let’s see you take another witch from me.’

Ashe cursed silently, knowing the cause of her persistence. That spell, still binding the sword to her.

You see what happens, clinging to power that you don’t deserve,
she told herself,
putting others in danger.

But Brede no longer had the sword, so why? Abruptly, Ashe saw double again. She saw a younger version of Brede, fuller, fresher, whole and sound; the longsword clasped in both hands and the same terrible look on her face.

Ashe’s lungs filled and a voice rang through the forest.

No Brede, no.

It came from Ashe’s mouth, but it was not her voice. A knife stroke of fear went through her.

Brede faltered. She slowed and that look slipped from her face. Half afraid to speak, she whispered, ‘Sorcha?’

Oh, sweet Goddess,
Ashe thought in despair.
No. Not Sorcha
;
I am Ashe
.

Brede stared at her. Ashe stared back.

Brede
. A wave of warmth and longing shook Ashe.

Stay back, this is not the way
, that voice called, taking her useless vocal chords and bending them to a stranger’s will. She sang: a small swift song and they were all motionless.

Ashe reached out and took back Brede’s weapons, took back her gold, then threw it on the ground in sudden fury, spilling yellow coin in the dirt.

Brede was as motionless as the others, lost in horror, confounded. Another song sprang unbidden to Ashe’s lips. There was crashing in the undergrowth and the attackers’ horses came to her. Ashe pushed the sword and knife into Brede’s arms and mounted one of the horses with a skill she didn’t truly possess.

Brede cradled the greatsword against her, obscurely relieved that it had not stayed in Madoc’s grasp after all. She glanced up at Ashe and her eyes were full of distrust.

‘You are not Sorcha.’

Ashe shook her head. Brede limped heavily away. She stripped her gear from the dead horse, pausing to caress the tattoo on her bloody neck. She skirted around Ashe to haul herself up onto the horse she chose to take Guida’s part, a stalwart black gelding with a trusting eye.

‘What about them?’ she asked, her thoughts on Madoc, held helpless, and the opportunity to kill him. Her heart curdled and she was relieved and furious in equal measure when Ashe shook her head. Ashe could not allow any more people to be cut down while she held them helpless. She sang briefly, setting the remaining horses loose, sending them far away from their riders.

Ashe turned her horse sharply, kicking his sides hard, and left them all as far behind as she could. Sorcha’s song would not hold them long. Brede followed. They rode hard until the horses tired. At last Ashe slowed her winded horse to a walk, and Brede asked, ‘What happened?’

Ashe sought for an answer, and found Sorcha. An incoherent jumble of thoughts battered her; she could make no more sense of it than one, overriding, desperate, un-thought-out need:
Keep her safe.

Ashe swayed on the horse, unsteady, reeling under the onslaught of Sorcha’s determination. More than a plea, more than a command. There was no question of choice. Brede reached out and touched her arm, seeking an explanation, seeking, half against her will, to touch Sorcha.

And Sorcha drifted away, and Ashe had no words, no hope of words. She squeezed Brede’s hand gently. She was herself again. Tired, sore, not entirely in control of the horse she rode, and shaking with ill-suppressed fear. Quickly, before she could change her mind, Ashe reached for the hilt of the sword, and laid her fingers against it, then pulled her hand back as though she held some invisible coating between her fingers. She could not allow Brede to put herself at risk again, the spell drawing the sword, and its bearer, to her must end. She formed the words in her mind, picturing the pattern of the notes, her throat involuntarily shaping what would have been the sounds. So nearly the song – she pulled that non-existent layer away again, and felt the spell lift away. She blinked, astonished that it had worked.

Brede sighed. ‘She’s gone?’ she asked, not daring to hope otherwise.

Ashe nodded. That was one thing of which she was certain. A germ of understanding was left behind in the dark place in her mind that Sorcha had briefly inhabited: Brede’s need for healing was no more physical than her own, and if she wished it, their healing could be mutual.

Ashe had not let go of Brede’s hand. Gently she raised it to her lips. She had no words for what she wanted to say, but she believed that Brede would understand.

Brede was too alarmed by what had happened to want to analyse it. They had made excellent time on their stolen horses. And how was it that in their headlong rush they had come the right way? A suspicion as to the answer stopped her thinking.

‘If you want to, we can push the horses and get you home by nightfall,’ she offered.

Ashe hesitated, not wanting to arrive exhausted when she was uncertain of her welcome. She shook her head.

Brede shrugged and encouraged the horse into a gentle walk. They would not get much further before nightfall at this pace, but at least it was the right direction.

Later, with a fire made and food eaten, Brede couldn’t pretend to herself that what had happened was normal. Every time she looked at Ashe, she expected her to speak with Sorcha’s voice, and dreaded it. Every time she asked herself why, she felt the burden of loss in her heart, felt the talisman she carried tied into her undershirt, its light weight bouncing against her ribs, a second heart beat. Her hand constantly strayed to the sword, remembering the look on Madoc’s face as he held that hilt – awe, and greed. Now that he knew she was still alive, that she still bore the sword, he would not turn away, he would follow. Brede couldn’t sleep.

Ashe was afraid to close her eyes. More than the horror of the battlefield stalked her now. She searched her mind compulsively, looking for traces of Sorcha. She stared at the faint glimmer of Brede’s wards and wanted, desperately, to talk to her, to tell her exactly what she had done, and why. What was the use? Even if she could tell her, would Brede understand, or care? Had she not made up her mind already? But if she had, why was she still here?

Ashe shifted again; the twisting horror running through her limbs, shaking her with disgust. Those generals had been glad at the violence of that uncontrolled, frightened, frightening rabble. But for all that, it was her fault; she gave them the opportunity. She was too distraught to cry, her guilt crushing even that comfort. She was sure that Brede would understand that at least, would recognise the grinding sense of loss.