The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [113]
Aspar felt happier than he ought to at Emfrith’s capitulation. It was the geos again.
Aspar knelt in the brush and looked down across the fields, gritting his teeth against the ache in his leg.
Leshya sighed almost silently and shook her head from side to side.
“I could have scouted alone,” she whispered.
Aspar didn’t answer. Fend and his monsters were just appearing over a low hill about ten bowshots away. He glanced at the sky, but he and the Sefry seemed to have been successful in sneaking away from the larger party without a winged escort.
There were more sedhmhari than ever. At this distance he couldn’t make out what all of them were, but it looked as if there were at least twenty.
“Well, that’s that,” Aspar said.
They made their way back over the ridge to their mounts and turned them south.
“That should convince Emfrith not to fight again,” Aspar said.
“Aspar, where are we going?” Leshya asked.
“A place in the Mountains of the Hare.”
“The Vhenkherdh?”
He nodded curtly.
“But you’ll lead Fend right to it.”
“If it’s really Fend back there. Anyway, Fend’s been there. He nearly murdered me there. It’s no secret to him.” He glanced over at her. “That’s where you wanted to go, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But…”
“What?”
“The child Winna carries is yours, yes?”
“Yah.”
“And Winna was waurm-poisoned. She nearly died of it, as I understand.”
“Yah.”
“Then you must know that what she carries probably isn’t human.”
“I cann that, too,” he snapped.
“But she doesn’t, does she? She doesn’t know what we know, and you haven’t told her.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t.”
Leshya’s eyes thinned to violet slits. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” he replied, hoping she would get it.
But she just blinked and took her horse to a trot. “We’d better catch them,” she said.
They caught up with Winna and the rest a few bells later.
“They’re half a day behind us,” Aspar told them. “They’ve also got reinforcements: twice as many beasties as before the bridge fight.”
“Sceat,” Emfrith said. “Where do they come from?”
“They’re everywhere now,” Leshya said. “He calls, and they come.”
“Why don’t we leave the road?” Emfrith suggested. “With those wagons of his, he’d have a hard time following us.”
“He’s already slower with the wagons,” Aspar said. “When we leave the road, he’ll abandon them, and then they’ll be a lot faster. So I think we stay between the ruts as long as we can.”
“Why hasn’t he already done that?” Winna asked. “The greffyns could catch us, murder us all, and be back at the wagons in a bell.”
Yes, but Fend doesn’t want all of us dead, Aspar thought. Me, maybe, but not you. If he sent the greffyns, they’d slaughter everyone.
“I can’t say what’s in Fend’s mind,” he said. “For whatever reason, he doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry. I reckon he doesn’t think we can get away.”
“My concern isn’t just for us,” Emfrith said. “There’s a village less than a league up ahead, Len-an-Wolth. We can’t lead an army of monsters through there.”
“He’s right, Aspar,” Winna said.
“Werlic,” he agreed. “We’ll go around, then. I’ll ride ahead and warn them, though. Fend’s booygshins will want to feed, and they’ll probably find the town, anyway.”
“Aspar,” Winna pleaded, “let Emfrith send someone. You just got back.”
“I’d better do it myself,” Aspar said, and kicked his horse into motion.
Every moment he spent away from Winna was a moment he didn’t have to lie to her.
As it turned out, they needn’t have worried about Len-an-Wolth; the little market town was already empty of human life, although he saw plenty of bones scattered about. What had killed them? Slinders, bandits, monsters? It didn’t matter to them, did it?
It had never been a big place. There was a smallish church, thirty or so houses, and a little tavern whose clapboard proclaimed it “Sa Plinseth Gaet.” Underneath the lettering was a picture of a goat dancing on its hind legs and holding a beer in one forehoof.
He looked inside and in a few of the houses, calling out as he did so, but there was no answer. The buildings were all fine except that