Warrior's Moon A Love Story (21 page)

Suddenly, her horse shied violently to the right as a rider lunged out of the trees on the left.  Chantaya fought both her fear and her horse’s head as she veered around the rider and slapped her heels to the loyal steed under her.  He’d been toiling along willingly in this miserable weather and was obviously tired, but he put on a burst of speed when she asked him anyway.

Wiping her eyes again, she tried desperately to see what was ahead and failed.  ‘Twas simply too dark.  She steeled herself, half expecting to run into something if the trail turned without her being able to see it.  The horse under her seemed to be able to sense where the road went and she let it have its head as she turned to see how close the other rider was behind her. 

She could hear hoof beats above the rustle of the storm and with a sinking heart, she realized it wasn’t a single rider, but two that followed her.  Two riders.  How was she ever going to handle two?  She leaned forward and shouted encouragement to the horse as she thought about Peyton.  In her head, she asked,
What should I do, Peyton?  You’re wise.  Help me be brave enough to get safely through this.

As willing as her horse was, she knew it was tiring and the riders behind her were nearly upon her.  The horse suddenly stumbled beneath her and went
to its knees and she knew she was going over its head.  Kicking her feet from the stirrups, she tucked her head and rolled, her hand never leaving the hilt of her sword and as she landed with a jar that near drove the breath from her, she came to her feet, drawing the sword as she did so.   

The two riders’ horses had passed her and they spun them to return.  As the first one passed by her, she slashed with her blade across the breadth of his thigh and then turned to the other one
who sprang lightly from his horse.  While she focused on the man afoot in front of her, she heard the other groan.  She had no idea how injured he was and she continued her non-stop prayer, hoping he was at least out of it enough to give her a moment to disarm this one.

The man in front of her circled her warily in the darkness and then said, “
'Tis a little man we have here, Morley.  Feisty, but slender. ‘Tis but a boy, he is.  Have you any gold, boy?  Give it to me now and perchance, Morley and me will let ye get back on your steed and ride away on this lovely night for travelin’.”  He gave a sickening laugh that completely belied his words and then lunged toward her with his own blade.

She parried and thrust and grew slightly more hopeful when she saw he was clumsy as he came round to face her again.  Chancing a glance at his companion, she looked back just in time to ward off another thrust and cautioned herself not to take either of them lightly. 

Countering his moves, their blades rang in the night and the meager light bounced off the dripping steel with an eerie gleam.  She circled away from the injured rider and settled into fighting the way Sir Mordecai and Peyton had trained her and focused on using every bit of force she could muster to make up for her much smaller size.  This was no carefree spar in the grass of Mordecai’s meadow.  ‘Twas even more than a fight for her life.  Her survival and possibly that of the crown depended on her and she thrust and spun with an intensity born of that.

She fought the one, trying always to tell where the other was and then suddenly a shadow moved on the other side.  For a sickening moment, she thought there were now three until she saw the face of her own horse materialize out of the misty blackness.  She gulped her relief, feinted left, then slashed and finally connected as she cut deeply into the man’s shoulder and chest.  At that, the slash only seemed to anger him and he came back at her more viciously than ever and she felt the bite of his steel against her own ribs along her side and to her back and drew in a gasping breath.

His blow as well made her bear down more surely.  She turned back on him in near desperation and began to drive him backward with a strong series of parries and thrusts.  For a long moment, she fought like a fiend and then, finally, he left himself open. 

She shuddered as she drove her blade deep into the thief’s chest.  She felt it penetrate and even felt
his body cringe as he knew she’d dealt him a killing blow.  She felt her own pang deep in her belly at the realization, but then had to turn from him almost instantly to face the other who had dismounted his horse to challenge her as well.

This man limped markedly from her earlier slash, but he was far the more skilled with a blade and she needed every bit of her training to hold him at bay.  They fought there in the dark for several minutes, swinging, countering, thrusting and slashing.  Once, she stumbled over the other fallen man who had only the life left in him to grasp at her ankle as she fenced and he nearly caused her demise when he did it.  Once more she felt the pain of steel piercing her skin, this time on the point of her shoulder.  Again it served to bring her to a
more intense focus and she jerked her foot free of the fallen thief’s hand in time to counter the limping swordsman.

She was tired.  Tired to the soul and cold to the bone and when she again heard hoof beats bearing down upo
n them from the trail ahead, ‘twas nearly more than she could face.  With a sense of desperate discouragement, she breathed another silent prayer, “Please God, help me.  Please.  Don’t let these evil men triumph.  Nor Rosskeene.”  She spun and stabbed as hard as she could, but the other man was prepared and countered and she went on silently, “Please.  Preserve us a kingdom.  Most are righteous.  Please help us.  Help me.”

As the approaching horseman closed in upon them, she thrust one more time, fighting with everything she had, but was once again parried.  Frightened beyond belief, she tried desperately to hear Peyton’s voice of encouragement in her head and then, miraculously, she heard Mordecai’s instead as he leaped from the piebald with the white shoulder and drew his own sword. 

With a single, mighty slash, he stilled the wounded man forever and then wrapped an arm round Chantaya’s shoulder as she dissolved into tears against him, shuddering to think how close she had just come to failing in her quest.  She took a huge, relieved breath.  Mordecai would help her warn the crown.  It was an immense relief to be able to share that responsibility.

For a moment, he patted her back, and then, when the first thief moaned, Mordecai urged her back to her horse saying, “Come, young Chantaya.  There might be others along anytime.  Let us get back off the road.  Are you well?  Were you hurt?”

She caught her horse, leapt into the saddle and followed him into the blackness of the trees, honestly not sure how badly she had been hurt in the swordfight.  That she had been cut, she knew, but she’d had no time to even question how deeply. 

When they were far into the wood, Mordecai pulled up in the lee of a huge old tree and helped her down.   In the dark and the rain, as she told him of the impending attack on the great council and royal family they tried to determine how badly she was hurt.  Although,
with no light and the storm ‘twas impossible to tell.  She was wounded, but honestly, she was far more uncomfortable from the cold than the slashes.  Mordecai listened gravely as she told of why she’d come and then he paused for a long moment to consider their course of action.

She knew just what he was thinking.  She needed to get home, but they had only a matter of hours to get the message back to Valais to the other knights, and she could almost see Mordecai struggling to decide if he had the time to get her home safely and still return to Valais in time.  As the old knight wiped at the water that dripped from his white hair, she knew as well that he also had to gauge whether he was physically up to the grueling hours in the saddle in the cold rain.  This ride had been incredibly taxing to her and she was young.  At least he had an oilskin cloak that shed the water.  She hadn’t been able to find one in the stable. 

Making a sudden decision, she moved once more to her horse and asked Mordecai, “Are you able to make it still to Valais?  Is there yet time?  How long before morning?”

He nodded, but then added, “There’s time enough to go to Valais.  It’s going to Rosskeene Manor and back to Valais that I question.  But we must get you home.”

Climbing back aboard her streaming horse, she shook her head.  “No.  I shall be fine.  You must away to Valais.  The knights must be warned.  That is most important.”  She could see him vacillating and went on pleadingly, “Sir Mordecai, this has been a difficult night for me.  Truly.  Please don’t let it be for naught.  Go to Valais.  The kingdom is far the more important.  Please.  I beg of you.”

The old man looked at her for a long, long moment there in the sodden darkness.  Finally, he nodded gravely and stepped into his own saddle.  Turning back to her, he said, “I’ll see you safely past those men.”  She nodded, unbelievably grateful for his understanding.  This ride was going to be hard enough as it was just fighting the weather.  More fear was the last thing she needed.

Once they were well past where she had been attacked and the bodies still lay in the road, they pulled up and there was another moment as he struggled once more with leaving her alone.  Finally, she leaned across and gave him a one armed hug and said, “I must go.  Thank you once again for coming to see about me.”  He merely dipped his head and then, as they went to turn from each other, she paused once more and pleaded, “Don’t tell him.  About the sword fight.  ‘Twould kill him.  It couldn’t be helped, but he needn’t know.  Just give him my love.”  Again, he merely nodded and, at length, turned his horse and trotted away.

Her horse seemed to know they were headed home and it perked up, in spite of the storm and the hours it had traveled.  She wished desperately for a bit of that perkiness herself as she shivered violently and the wounds on her ribs and shoulder began to ache with the miles.  At least the cold kept the fatigue that made her feel heavy and incredibly clumsy at bay.

There were times when she wondered if she was going to be able to make it.  Her hands were so cold she could hardly hold the reins and her feet were numb in the stirrups.  Still, the rain beat down, pummeled by the wind, and the fear that rode with her ramped up with every strange sound the gusts carried. 

For miles, she kept hearing someone behind her.  Over and over she wondered if more highwaymen were coming.  Finally, when she got a glimpse in a flash of lightning, she realized the two thieves’ horses had followed her horse. 
‘Twas a great measure of relief to know she wasn’t being followed by more murdering thieves.  She looked up into the unrelenting storm, wondering if the moon was up there somewhere above it, and if it was raining where Peyton was.  She hoped and prayed he was somewhere warm and safe tonight. 

By the time she made it to the manor, she was nearly past worrying about Peyton, or highwaymen, or even about whether anyone at the manor would detect her return.  By then, her mind had all but ceased to function.  At that point, all she cared for was that she didn’t fall off her horse and freeze to death in the middle of the road.

When she got there, she rode right into the alleyway of the stable and leaned over the neck of her horse, truly wondering if she could dismount by herself.  At length, she concluded she couldn’t and was just about to call out to Conrad for help when his room door opened. 

At first, he growled, “Who goes there?”  When she tried to answer him from her nearly frozen mouth, he realized it was her and rushed to catch her as she literally fell off the exhausted horse.
  Speechless with surprise, he carried her clear to the room she shared with her mother before he was able to exclaim over her sodden and bloody state.

When her mother opened the door at his knock, wide eyed and not yet awake enough to eve
n realize Chantaya wasn’t in their bed, the only thing that kept her from crying out was Conrad’s gruff whisper for quiet.  They helped her inside and her mother struck the light as Conrad laid her on the bed and instantly began to build a fire in their little fire place while her mother began to peel off the dripping layers of her clothing.

She had to give her mother credit for durability.  Finding her daughter half drowned, mostly frozen, wounded, and dressed as a boy didn’t shake Isabella’s nerves unduly.  Even finding that her daughter had spent the entirety of the night riding through the robber wood in the rain carrying military secrets didn’t seem to rattle her as Chantaya worried it would. 

They listened gravely as she attempted to explain through chattering teeth what she’d been doing.  As they took her hat and cloak, the wounds to her ribs and shoulder became more obvious and Isabella inhaled a quick breath as Conrad asked, “What happened here, Chantaya?  These are deep cuts.” 

The two of them stood looking at her in concern and for a single moment, she considered telling her mother an untruth, but she couldn’t do it.  As Conrad put pressure on her shoulder, she sighed and tried for lightness as she admitted, “I uh, I had a bit of trouble with a sword wielding highwayman.”  As her mother gasped out loud, the knowledge that she had had to kill one of the men brought tears to Chantaya’s eyes and she looked away as she wiped at them.

Conrad put a calming hand upon both of their shoulders, and said mildly, “‘Twould seem you triumphed.  Here, hold this pressure, Isabella.  I’ll bring bandages.”  He went out the door and Chantaya met her mother’s eyes, pleading that she not ask any more questions of a night that had already been more than she could bear. 

Turning away to bring a damp cloth to clean her up with, her mother looked saddened as Conrad returned with bandages to patch her up from those he used on the horses.  When Conrad left at length to care for the thieves’ horses as well as hers, and begin his morning chores as the sky slightly lightened in the east, Isabella finally sighed and laid a gentle hand on Chantaya’s forehead for a moment before helping her the rest of the way out of her wet things.