Now, in the still moments before dawn, when the whole world seemed to hold its breath in anticipation of the day to come, Inza walked quietly through the sleeping camp. Alexi nodded a somber greeting to her from his station at the low-banked fire. She stifled the urge to laugh. Whether keeping watch over the vardos or celebrating a well-run scam on some giorgio, the man maintained the same comically grim expression. It was as if he'd just eaten something so sour he couldn't open his mouth again to spit it out.
Inza knew the man feared her, so perhaps the expression was one he reserved only for her. It didn't matter. Alexi did what she ordered, without question, without hesitation. If he was lucky, he might still be around to help her put her final plans into motion, but she wasn't counting on it. Better, she knew, to rely only upon herself.
Still musing on the value of self-reliance, Inza made her way down a winding path to a spring-fed pool she had discovered two days ago. It was one of the things that made the site so attractive for a camp. When she came to the cool, clear water, Inza neither drank nor washed her face. Instead, she sat on the mossy bank and waited.
Just after the sun topped the Fumewood's twisted trees, a shout of alarm startled the raunie to her feet. She drew Novgor from the special sheath in her boot and took a step toward the vardos. She paused as the single shout was echoed by a second and a third cry of alarm. Finally, when the screams of horses and the clash of steel sounded from the camp, she set off at a run.
Inza surveyed the cramped battlefield from the edge of the clearing. A group of ogres stormed through the camp. Instead of the usual flea-ridden furs and tattered rags, these brutes were clad in plate armor or chain mail. Decorated helms hid their warty faces and greasy locks, and they carried weapons of a fine enough forge to satisfy any soldier. Though they wore no insignia and carried no standard, the colors of their cloaks-purple and black- declared their allegiance to Malocchio Aderre.
A quick count totaled the number of ogres at twenty. The Vistani were outnumbered, even if all of them were included as worthwhile fighters. Many of the older men and women simply were not. Still, the Wanderers seemed to be holding their own. Ten bodies lay bleeding into the dirt; the casualties were split evenly between the Vistani and the ogres.
Alexi in particular seemed to be acquitting himself well. At the moment he was driving not one, but two of the brutes into retreat. Whoever had shown the Vistana how to wield a sword, they'd taught him well.
"Regroup with me," Alexi shouted. Inza and the remaining Vistani retreated to his position, placing the arc of vardos at their backs. The ogres formed a semicircle of their own. Slowly they began to close in on the cornered gypsies.
"They were separating us," Alexi explained breathlessly. "We can hold off their charge, but only if we stay together." He gave Inza that familiar sour-faced look. "If there's some fey magic at your disposal, raunie, now would be the time to use it."
Inza didn't get a chance to answer. One of the wagons that the Wanderers had been counting on to keep the ogres from encircling them suddenly flipped over. Two Vistani were caught beneath the vardo, killed instantly. A second wagon toppled, then a third. The ogres surrounded them. With a cry of "Invidia!" they charged.
Greta, a blonde beauty who had promised to wed Piotr come spring, was trapped between two of the brutes. She fought valiantly. One blow from her staff and the shorter of her attackers dropped to the ground, broken nose gushing blood. The other snatched her from the ground even as she raised her staff to strike again. With a swiftness startling for his size, the ogre brought one knee up to waist height and cracked the girl over it like a bundle of dry firewood.
From across the camp, Piotr howled his anguish. He brought his sword down with such force that it bit into an ogre's armored shoulder and stuck there. The brute spun away, clutching at the weapon. In doing so, he dropped the pike he'd been carrying. Piotr grabbed it and charged the ogre that had killed his beloved Greta.
The pike's spiked tip lodged in the ogre's gut. The force of the blow knocked him from his feet. But the brute would not die. Even as Piotr twisted the polearm and jammed it deeper into his stomach, the ogre struggled to free himself. He was either too stupid or too tough to realize the severity of his wounds.
When it was clear that the pike was not going to finish the job, Piotr seized a large piece of firewood. As the brute wrestled with the blood-slicked weapon protruding from his stomach, the Vistana tore off his helmet and caved in his skull.
The screams, blood, and chaos set Inza's heart aflutter. She hung back from the brawl, Novgor clutched before her. The ogres left her alone. Time and again they ran right past her, as if she were invisible.
The rest of the Wanderers were not so lucky. Before long, Inza could see only four men standing. Alexi and Piotr were holding their own, but Katan, the troupe's youngest, was staggering from a nasty leg wound. Nikolas flanked him, offering some meager protection as the two tried to find some suitable place to make their final stand.
Inza smiled. It was time.
"On my mother's soul, upon your sacred oath, I call to you, Lord Soth! Defend me!"
The sound of the battle and the cries of the dying all but drowned out Inza's words. She knew, though, that Soth would hear them, wherever he was. If her mother had been telling the truth in all those dreadfully boring tales she used to tell over the campfire, Soth would uphold the oath he'd sworn to her. He would come to poor little Inza's rescue, if only to show how hollow and meaningless such noble actions were. After all, if a thing of darkness such as Soth could take on a guise of honor, who was to say that all men who appeared honorable might not secretly share his heart of darkness?
Just as some women who feign helplessness might share his warrior's spirit, Inza noted silently.
As if to prove that statement's truth, she lunged at a passing ogre. Needle-pointed Novgor bit through the plate mail covering his chest, through the flesh and bone beneath. The blade finally came to rest in the brute's massive heart. He was dead before the startled gasp left his snaggletoothed mouth and the iron-spiked club slipped from his thick fingers.
As the club struck the ground, Lord Soth emerged from the shadow of a shattered vardo. The cold of the grave rolled out of the darkness with him, washing over the camp like some icy tide. Orange eyes ablaze, he surveyed the carnage. There was no need for Inza to say anything. The situation was plain enough.
An unsuspecting ogre, startled by the sudden blast of cold, literally stumbled into the death knight's grasp. Soth clamped one gauntleted hand around the soldier's throat. No blow, no gasp for mercy could make him slacken that grip. He squeezed until the ogre's eyes bulged and his mottled tongue lolled from his mouth. Satisfied the brute was dead, Soth dropped him like a child bored with his toy and waded into the fray.
The battle turned immediately. Inza could see the astonishment register on the ogres' faces. "Betrayed!" some of them cried as they fled into the Fumewood. Others tried to reach Inza, their faces florid with anger. Novgor decapitated the first who rushed her. The rest turned back.
Like Death itself, Lord Soth strode across the camp toward Inza. Every Invidian in his path fell before him. At first he did not draw his sword. His fists were weapons enough. When two ogres charged him, he smashed their heads together with such force that the skulls split open like old melons. The two sank down in a heap, purple brains and gore staining the ground.