Lion's Bride - Iris Johansen [32]
“Don’t be foolish. We’ll encounter people who are hurt. Jasmine is following with a wagon full of bandages, salves, and food.” She held up her arms for him to lift her onto his horse. When he made no motion to help her, she added, “And Lord Ware said I could go.”
“He did?” Kadar’s expression became thoughtful. “I wonder…” He bent down and lifted her onto his horse. “You are sure?” He galloped across the courtyard and reined in when he reached Ware. “Is this wise?”
“It may not make any difference. I’m leaving a force here, but it may be too small….” He shrugged. “She maybe safer outside the gates.”
“But if it’s a trap?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to go anyway. That’s my village that’s burning.” He waved his hand and galloped over the drawbridge with the column of soldiers thundering after him.
“What did he mean?” Thea asked as Kadar followed the soldiers. “A trap?”
“I don’t think it’s a trap,” Kadar said reassuringly. “Ware has made sure his army is stronger than the Knights Templars’. That’s why they haven’t attacked him yet. They’re waiting for an opportunity.”
He had mentioned the Knights Templars’ pursuit of Ware before, but it seemed impossible they would burn a village to draw him out. After all, they were monks, servants of God. “Fires start all the time. A careless mistake with a cooking flame…” He did not seem to be listening. “How far is it?”
“Over the next hill. We’ll be there soon.”
But would it be soon enough to help the villagers? she wondered desperately, her gaze on the red glare lighting the night sky.
The village was ablaze, every house an inferno.
Thea stared in horror at the flaming chaos before them.
Bodies…everywhere.
Men, women…Dear God, children…little children.
“I have to help them. I have to—” She slipped from the saddle.
“Thea!” Kadar called.
She ignored him and ran toward a little girl lying beside a burning hut. She carefully turned the body over. Blood. Dark eyes staring at the sky. Dead.
“You can’t help here.” Ware’s voice came from beside her. “Wait outside the village with Kadar. If there’s anyone alive, I’ll have them brought to you.”
She dazedly stared up at him, still mounted on his horse. “She’s dead.”
“It was a clean sword thrust,” he said quietly. “She didn’t suffer.”
“Sword…” She glanced at the other bodies. She had noticed only the death and devastation, not the means. An arrow protruded from the back of a man across the path. A woman was crumpled against a wall, clutching a wound in her stomach. She could not believe it. “They murdered them?”
“Wait outside the village.”
She shook her head. “Someone may be alive. I have to—”
“I gave my soldiers orders for all bodies to be checked for signs of life. This is their village, their people. They won’t make mistakes.”
Ignoring him, she stood up and moved to a man lying a few feet away. He was dead also. She moved to another lying next to the well in the center of the square. Dead.
Frozen expressions of fear and horror.
Blood.
A woman swollen with child with an arrow in her back.
The smoke from the burning cottages was now so thick, she could barely see.
Kadar was on his knees beside her. “Ware says you must leave this place.”
“I will not,” she said fiercely. “Someone must be alive. I have to—” Was that a movement? She leaped to her feet and ran toward the slumped figure on the other side of the well. “Haroun?”
The child opened his eyes. “Mama…”
“Shh…it’s all right.”
He shook his head and his lids closed again.
But he was still alive. She turned to Kadar. “Take him out of here.”
She found only one other survivor of the massacre. An old man who had hidden beneath a wagon. It didn’t seem possible that there could be no one else left alive. Perhaps the soldiers had discovered others…. She had to keep searching.
Ware jerked her to her feet. “Will you stay here until you burn to death with the corpses?” He lifted her in his arms and strode down the street.
“Let me go.” She started to struggle. “I found two alive. There may be more.”
“There are no more.” His face was completely without expression. “And