Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [175]
Behind her she had felt the shock as Alain’s spearmen met the line of the enemy, pushing and shoving with their clumsy weapons, but surely they had to be exulting too, knowing that they were in the right. Surely the very vileness of the brigands’ cause had hindered the defenders. There was justice left in the Commonweal, and the bandits had discovered it at last.
Arrows constantly sought her, even in the midst of the fray, the best of the enemy bowmen trying desperately to find a way to kill her that did not involve coming within reach of her fatal sword. Her father stayed with her, guiding her left and right, letting the lethal shafts fall short or find other targets; or she would snip them from the air, her blade slicing swifter than they flew. Then she would go in search of the archers themselves, hunt them down, cut a red path towards them.
There had been one, she particularly recalled. She remembered him from before, and clearly he knew her also. She had tried again and again to reach him, but his wings had carried him clear, and he had shifted the defence with him, his followers keeping pace. Only then, for a moment, had she hungered for the greatbow that her father sometimes used, finding all her speed and skill not quite enough to bring her close to him.
But I will take you, she had silently promised him. I will bring you in chains before Alain, and he will love me for it.
Now, the conflict over and the bulk of the bandits fled, the survivors of Alain’s followers had rejoined the larger force, alongside the soldiers of Lowre Cean and Salme Elass and of the other leading nobles, camping between the trees in a great, sprawling network of fires and tents and hammocks. Tynisa strode through it all with her head held high, feeling their envious eyes upon her.
While in the midst of a conference with Lowre and some others, Alain saw her, and smiled. She could read fondness there, and admiration, and it lit her like a brand, and warmed her as she settled down to sleep.
She did not dream these days. She had not dreamt since the hunt, as though that energy within her that fed her dreams was being somehow siphoned away to feed something else. When she awoke in the forest with everyone gone from around her, then she was unsure for a moment whether it was all real or imaginary.
Her sword was in her hand, of course; whether in reality or dream it was her constant companion.
‘Who’s there?’ she demanded. She could tell that she was being watched, though she could not see another living soul.
The woman who appeared there suddenly, a dozen feet away, between the trees, was a stranger to her. She was a mongrel halfbreed with enough Moth in her for her eyes to lack irises, and dark hair with pale streaks running through it. She looked wary and harrowed, and abruptly something rose up inside Tynisa, something sharp-edged and unfamiliar that she took too long to recognize: fear! In the dismal surroundings of this empty forest, the sudden arrival of this robed figure could only signify a magician about to practise some evil on her. Tynisa remembered . . .
I remember . . .
In Jerez, when we had the Shadow Box, and Achaeos opened it . . . there was a terrible forest of thorns, and a dark figure in robes, and I . . . and I . . .
And she had stabbed Achaeos, although not realizing it at the time, and he had died of that wound afterwards, so she was a murderer, the slayer of her sister’s lover, and she had not been able to live with that, and had fled . . .
Here . . .
Tynisa screamed and lunged at the robed woman, again and again, but each time she seemed to miscalculate the distance, for no matter how far she reached, the stranger was still a foot beyond the rapier’s dancing point. At the same time the blade felt heavy and sluggish, and fear was building and building inside her at this blatant magic . . . and fighting