Chapter Twenty-one

6th day, Month of the Dragon, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Princes’ Road East, Erumvirine

When the Soth Gloon and the one-armed boy first sought to join the caravan of refugees my warriors were shadowing, voices had been raised against them. Their addition did bring the group’s number to twenty-seven, which should have been seen as auspicious. But those who feared the Gloon said that he should not be counted and that the boy wasn’t even half a man. Urardsa made hopeful pronouncements, and he even sounded sincere-though I was not certain if he believed what he was saying or if he was trying to command me to make it come true.

Moraven had known Pavynti Syolsar before, but her new name, Ranai Ameryne, suited her much better. Her time at Serrian Istor had given her a direction and purpose, and Dunos’ presence had reinforced it. He had remembered her, and she distantly recalled him. She had set about training him to be a swordsman, though a long knife was all he could wield at the moment. Despite that, he’d done much damage in the skirmishes we’d fought, and was able to creep about silently enough to be vrilridin.

Swordsmanship’s loss would be a gain to the art of assassins.

The other person I’d rescued from the hill had immediately prostrated himself before me when he learned who I was. He’d called himself Deshiel Tolo and told others he was a cousin of mine. He begged forgiveness and I granted it-he was a very skilled swordsman and welcome to the name. When not on his belly, he stood as tall as I did, though he was lighter. His long black hair and grey eyes contributed to our similarity, and it was easy enough to believe we could be mistaken as cousins or brothers. The crest he wore, the leopard hunting, and his penchant for the southern dialect, marked him as someone from the Five Princes.

Given his skill with a sword and our needs, I forgave him.

The knot of refugees did find themselves very lucky. Though they made as much haste as they could, the Princes’ Road was not meant for speed. Most commercial traffic passed up the river because the road twisted a scenic path between the capital and the coast. The Virine Princes traveled to the coast on it each year before the monsoon season, so they had beautified it. In places they had hills created, streambeds shifted, and even forests planted for shade. It had been an ambitious project, which had killed many of the peasantry in its making, and now was killing more.

As fast as the refugees tried to travel, they could not outpace the enemy. This suited us well, for we used them as bait. The enemy would send out scouts to locate stragglers-though they attacked them more out of hunger than any apparent desire to halt word of their advance.

Along the Princes’ Road, their scouts disappeared.

The three of us were not alone, and before the fight at the Singing Creek, we actually outnumbered the refugees. My scouts gathered the hale and hearty regardless of their combat experience. I did not bother to learn their names, which saved me the bother of forgetting them when they died, but a couple of our number were worth the effort.

As dusk fell on the sixth day I knew the balance of things had begun to shift. Four people fleeing east joined the group, numbering them at thirty-one. Try as I might, I could not manipulate numbers to discover any sign of good fortune. Then came the first reports from my scouts that a group of the vhangxi approached. They appeared more numerous than the other scouting cadres and in better order, leading me to believe they had become more intelligent or cautious. I wanted to believe the latter, but any commander who bases plans on his enemy’s stupidity is himself a fool.

We watched and waited in a grove of flame-leafed trees as our party made camp. The refugees who had joined them had reported no sign of the enemy to the west, and our bait took that as a good sign. So instead of taking up defensive positions, they all gathered to gossip and exchange news.

If we could not hold back the vhangxi, they would all be slaughtered. And as much as I detested their foolishness, I still needed them. I briefed Deshiel and Ranai, then took command of a dozen men who, prior to our meeting, had only threshed grain and gigged toads. The two of them took their squads out into the darkness, and we waited as we had so many nights before.

This night, though, we did do one thing that we had not done before. In the past, I would block the road as a highwayman might by felling a tree across it. The vhangxi would stop to move it. While they were thus engaged, we would fall upon them from the front and both sides of the road, slaughtering them mercilessly.

This time we set up a bit differently. My group hid on the north side of the road just past a thicket of thorned-berry bushes. Ranai positioned her people, including the handful of archers we had, twenty yards down on the south side. Deshiel set up further to the east and back, ready to circle around north to cut the road behind the scouts. Since Ranai’s people would launch the attack and thus be most vulnerable, we had sharpened stakes and driven them into the ground before her position, in the hopes that rampaging vhangxi would impale themselves as they attacked.

The enemy crept up the road, taking great care as they went. In the past, they had jostled each other like boys at play, but now they came with flat eyes wide, watching the forest. With such huge eyes I assumed they could see well at night, but how well I could not guess. In the past it had not mattered much and, as we would engage them closely, I didn’t think it would matter to us, either.

Ranai let a half dozen get past her position, then black arrows sped from darkness and scythed through the vhangxi. Four went down, stuck through their chests. A half dozen sprang off the road toward Ranai’s position, but an equal number leaped the other way. Attacking an ambushing force head-on was the only way to defeat it, but the vhangxi had never done that before. Moreover, their action suggested they had analyzed our tactics and, anticipating a trap, planned a counter.

More arrows flew, dropping another pair of vhangxi. Those who had been following loped forward. Some cut into the woods almost immediately, but others came past the point of ambush, then drove in, looking to encircle Ranai’s force. This revealed tactical thinking on a level unseen before. They knew what we did and had figured out how to counter it.

Which meant it was time to do something else.

Without even bothering to draw my swords, I broke from cover and sprinted down the road. A heartbeat later-or a half-dozen, given how their hearts were pounding-my troopers followed me. They came as quiet as death and when I pointed south, they poured into the woods and hit the vhangxi in the flank.

Further east, from the darkness, someone shouted a command, and more of the hulking beasts came running.

I had no time to consider what I had heard. The enemy who had gone north now emerged from the woods to attack south-only to find me in their way. My first draw-cut opened a vhangxi from hip to shoulder. His guts gushed out in a wet rush, and he collapsed atop the steaming heap. Drawing my second sword, I bisected a skull before spinning away from slashing claws which, with one circular cut, I amputated at the wrist.

A quick thrust finished that one, then crosscut slashes beheaded the next. Dropping to a knee, I allowed a leaper to pass above me. His claws raked through air while my right blade raked through his stomach. He landed hard, bounced and rolled, entangling himself in his entrails.

Coming up, I stepped back. Claws passed within an inch of my face, but concerned me no more than the touch of a spring breeze. The missed blow twisted the creature, exposing his back to me. I whipped the sword in my left hand up and snapped it flat against his body. The tip bent, spending its energy against a vertebra just below the juncture of neck and shoulders. Without breaking the skin or even loosening a single scale, the blade shattered that bone, severing his spinal cord.