The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [20]
“I see.”
Muriele shifted in her saddle.
“Do you feel slighted, not being in her guard?” she asked.
That took him by surprise. “Milady?”
“Are you disappointed at being returned to my service?” she amplified.
He shook his head. “Majesty, I always considered myself in your service. When I was guarding Anne, I was following your orders. I am your man and do not hope to be anyone else’s.”
He didn’t add that he found Anne more than a little uncanny, and although he knew firsthand that some in the Church had turned to darkness, he was happy not to be directly involved in Anne’s vendetta against z’Irbina.
Muriele took in his speech without a hint of changed expression, then nodded slightly.
“Very well. Once we return to camp, pick the men who will accompany us. In the morning we’ll begin our journey to Hansa.”
Neil nodded and began thinking about who to take along.
More than ever, he felt like prey beneath a hunter sky.
CHAPTER THREE
THE END OF A REST
ASPAR WHITE tried to match his breath to the faint breeze through the forest fringe, to be as still as a stump as the monster approached. It was just a shape at the moment, about twice the size of a horse and slouching through the narrow white boles of the aspens. But he smelled autumn leaves although it was high summer, and when its eyes glittered like blue lightning through the branches, he felt the poison in its blood.
It wasn’t a surprise. The world was made of monsters now, and he had fought plenty. Sceat, he’d met their mother.
A few jays were shrieking at the thing, but most of the other bird sounds were gone, because most birds weren’t as blind, stupid, brave as jays.
Maybe it’ll just go by, he thought. Maybe it’ll just pass on by.
He was already tired; that was the damned thing. His leg ached, and his lungs hurt. His muscles were all soft, and his vision kept going blurry.
Half a bell he’d been out there, at the most, working himself no harder than a baby taking pap. Just looking across the meadow.
Pass, he thought. I don’t care what you are or where you’re going. Just pass.
But it didn’t, of course. Instead, he heard it pause and snuffle and then saw the actinic flash of its eyes. It stepped from the trees and into the field, moving toward Aspar as he waited in the cover of the trees on his side.
“Hello, luvileh,” he muttered, quickly thrusting four more arrows into the soft earth before him. No point imitating a stump anymore.
It was something new, not a monster he had seen before. From a distance, the thing resembled a bull crossed with a hedgehog. Bony spines bristled from it everywhere, and it was massively front-heavy, with colossal bunches of muscle above forelegs easily twice as long as the hind legs. Its head was blocky, with a single horn spearing forward so that it looked almost like an anvil. The eyes were set deep in bony plate.
He had no idea what to call it. Besides the eyes, he didn’t see anything that might be soft.
It bellowed, and he noticed sharp teeth. Were all sedhmhari carnivores? He hadn’t met one that wasn’t.
“You make pretty babies, Sarnwood witch,” he grunted.
And here it came.
His first shot skittered off the armored skull, as did the second. The third lodged in the eye socket—or he thought it did, but after a heartbeat it fell out, and the eye was still there.
It was fast and even bigger than he’d thought. It bellowed again, a sound so loud that it hurt his ears. He had time for one more arrow but knew even as he released it that it was going wide of the eye. The monster bounded even faster, hit the ground, and crouched for the final leap, its forelimbs lifted up almost like a man’s, reaching for him…
Then the ground collapsed beneath it, and this time it shrieked in surprise and anger as it fell hard onto the sharpened stakes four kingsyards below. A catch snapped above Aspar, releasing a sharpened beam that had been suspended above the pit. He couldn’t see it hit but heard a fleshy thud.
Aspar let out a long breath, but an instant later a massive paw—a thick-fingered hand, really