The Last Sacrifice Page 7

  They were wealthy, every last one of them, and they were wise enough to hide that wealth away, in some cases packed into hidden pockets, or small coin pouches, in others tucked into boots, vests, and places on the saddles of their horses.

  For eight days and nights they traveled and mostly the group got along fine. It was on the ninth day that Sallos would not stop looking over his shoulder, until finally, as they climbed into the foothills that marked the start of the Broken Swords Mountains, Brogan looked over his own shoulder to make sure that they were not being followed.

  Most times the approach to the mountains stopped people from looking behind them. The crystalline formations that broke through the earth’s crust and reflected the sun in a thousand brilliant spectacles was enough to ensure that. Not so with Sallos.

  “What?” His voice was sharper than he meant, but not enough that he corrected himself. “What is it, Sallos? Are we being followed? Because I don’t see anyone.”

  The younger man looked at him and scratched at the growth of beard he hadn’t shaved since they’d started on their way. His blond hair was tightly braided and stayed away from his face, but his beard was like moss on a stone surface: patchy.

  As with many of the westerners, Sallos Redcliff was often introspective. Getting him to offer information was a challenge. Hazel eyes regarded Brogan for a long moment and finally Sallos pointed to the distant horizon. “The storms aren’t going away.”

  Brogan looked back and stared at the gathered clouds. They’d gone a goodly distance and passed several small towns along their way. The land was mostly flat across the Plains of Arthorne and from their current height it was easy to see Saramond, Hollum well to the south and a scattering of villages. The silvery threads of the Three Serpent Rivers spread across the plains from their origin point in the foothills of the very area they had just invaded in an effort to save Brogan’s family. It was also too easy to see the great black veil of clouds that hid away most of the horizon to their north. The clouds were towering affairs and their shadow loomed ahead of them, half obscuring Saramond. “Storms along the ocean are not unusual. What of it?”

  Sallos shook his head. The lad was younger, true enough, but he was also a seasoned fighter and experienced enough to pay attention to his environment. “They haven’t broken up or scattered away since we were in that damned place. Not at all. But they’re coming this way. Moving steadily. I’ve never seen storms do that before.”

  Brogan stared at the distant bank of dark clouds. While he looked he could see strobes of white and blue flashing through their black depths.

  He chewed at his lip. Those clouds were serious business. They were days and days away and yet he could see them. Somewhere beyond them the coastline he’d left behind was buried in darkness and lost in raging storms.

  “All the better that we’ve finished our business, then, lad.”

  Sallos looked at the storms again and slowly nodded his head. He’d lost his father to the Grakhul when he was five years younger and had never forgiven them. Like most of the men who’d joined in the fight, he’d have gone without promise of money.

  It was Harper that added to the worries. He was toward the end of the group riding for home and he’d listened in on the conversation long enough. He stopped and joined them in looking back toward the black cloudbank slowly swallowing the distance.

  That damnable half-smile of his remained on his face as he turned to look at Brogan. “What do you suppose would happen if they were right all along and the sacrifices were the only thing that kept us safe from the anger of the gods?”

  Brogan tried to ignore his words. Rather than replying, he turned back toward the west and started riding again. Home was still a few days away at the least.

  Still, despite a silent vow not to, Brogan found he kept looking back at the slowly gathering storms and in the back of his mind Harper’s question echoed again and again.

  Another five days’ ride got them through the mountain paths and heading toward their homeland, Stennis Brae. The mountains did not so much go away as become more level and less maddening. The Broken Swords were behind them, and the great outcroppings of crystals that made the area so treacherous were to their backs as well. Ahead were low hills and farmland, and the forests and rivers that had marked the best possible place in Brogan’s eyes.

  Most every time he’d gone away he’d come back and stared at the rolling hills and felt his heart swell. This was where he would normally be riding harder, eager to take the last day’s ride at speed, the better to see his wife.

  He could almost imagine the sounds of his children calling for their father.

  Instead of moving faster, he scowled a bit and rode on at the same speed.

  There was no wife to lie with. There were no children to sweep into his arms and swing in great circles while they giggled. There was no one he could entertain while he talked of the great merchant trains that he’d guided past the worst areas. He would not tell Nora about his adventures or about how so many of the women in Saramond dressed in clothes that made less sense than a sunset in the middle of the day. They wore sensible garments in Stennis Brae, pants and tunics and kilts and cloaks. In Saramond they wore clothes that showed off their bodies in the oddest ways and offered little by way of protection. Every time he told his family of the latest odd garments in Saramond they’d laugh and he’d draw images, or describe the stuff while demonstrating with gestures.

  None of that would happen again.

  The slow, dark rage grew in his chest. He had wealth, to be sure. He could live where he pleased and how he pleased, but he would not be able to bring his family back and that fact fed the growing hatred in his being.

  There were five of them and only Harper seemed in a good mood as they moved past the great cairns at the edge of Brundage and continued on for Kinnett.

  Home.

  Mosely had stopped singing and instead whistled softly between his teeth. For Mosely that was as close as the man usually came to agitated unless there was bloodshed to be done.

  They came to a fork in the road and Laram looked to the others, slapping his hands against his thick thighs.

  “That’s it. I’m heading for Brixleigh. I’d say it’s been a pleasure, boys, but we know that would be a lie. Profitable? Yes. Pleasurable? I fear not.”

  No one climbed down from their horses, but Brogan looked his way and let out a great breath. One heavy hand rested on his friend’s shoulder and he smiled. “I can never thank you enough, Laram.”

  Laram jingled the edge of his cloak, where a small portion of his vast fortune lay tucked safely away. “You already have. I expect I’ll be buying myself a castle somewhere soon.” He paused a moment and a smile lit his face as surely as if the scattered clouds had decided to let the sunlight through. “And I do believe I’ll ask Old Slattery for his daughter’s hand again. I believe his answer might just change this time around.”

  He waved once then turned away, heading for the town where he lived and where he preferred to stay. It was only for Brogan’s sake that he had left and that fact weighed heavily on Brogan. Laram had killed and traded in slaves, two things the man did not want to do. He had tried and failed to be Brogan’s conscience and that, too, now stood between them. They had been friends a long time and he feared that time was now passing.

  The world he’d known was gone. He was going to have to face that knowledge.

  They rode again but not very far. Half a league down the Brundage Highway the road cut through a narrow passage between two large mounds of earth. The road tapered down to half the regular width. If Brogan were planning an ambush it would have been in exactly that sort of spot. He wasn’t too shocked by the horsemen that blocked the way.

  It could have been twelve men, or a good twenty. Either way, armed men were coming their way, sporting the colors of the king. Bron McNar was a good king. He kept the peace better than most and worked to ensure prosperity. He was, in short, what Brogan thought a king should
be: sensible. That was not the case with all of the Five Kingdoms to be sure. The king’s men rode steadily forward, and as was tradition Brogan and the others moved off the main path to let them go past.

  Brogan frowned a bit, not used to seeing the king’s men heading for the Broken Swords.

  The man at the head of the column was familiar to him. He didn’t know a name, but he recognized the face. Dark, braided hair, a thick beard and a heavy build. The man was strong, he had authority and he knew in his heart that he was better than those he addressed.

  Brogan had never liked him much, even when they’d fought together against the Mentath.

  The same was apparently true in the opposite. The man looked at him for a moment and nodded. “You’d be Brogan McTyre?”

  Brogan nodded and paused a moment when the men behind the speaker reached for their scabbards. They did not draw blades, but they prepared themselves.

  His hand touched the haft of his axe. One loop of leather was all that prevented him from pulling the blade free and he knew exactly how to handle that loop with his thumb.

  “And who am I speaking with?” He kept his voice civil but it wasn’t easy. He was tired and the man was asking questions with an authority that he took too easily.

  The man spoke again. “Have you been away from Stennis Brae?”

  “I have.” He didn’t like the tension in the air, and knew without looking that the others with him felt the same way. He was also annoyed by the lack of an answer to his simple question. It showed a level of disrespect he did not want or need.

  “And have you been far to the north, perhaps taking yourself into territories that are forbidden?”

  He thumbed the leather strap aside.

  “In what ways forbidden? And where are you talking about?” Harper’s voice carried clearly and the man leading those facing them looked his way.

  “There are few lands forbidden by the whole of the Five Kingdoms.” The man leaned back in his saddle and crossed his thick arms. They were heavy with muscle. “Last I heard they were called ‘up north, where it’s forbidden to go’.”

  “Well, we’ve only just come back from Saramond, where we had dealings.” He had to give that to Harper: the man was calm and friendly and it didn’t seem a ruse. Of course, he had seen Harper looking exactly that calm when he slipped a dagger into a man’s neck.

  Brogan looked at the others with him. Mosely and Sallos were both tensing already. They knew the situation as well as he did. They would be “escorted” to see the King or one of his men. Along the way they would be searched for weapons, and in the process, if it were discovered that they had secreted a fortune on their persons, the question of to whom, exactly, that fortune belonged would arise. Four men versus a dozen or more. The odds were not good.

  Each of the four carried enough money to make the soldiers with them wealthy in the extreme.

  Harper’s words brought Brogan back to the situation and out of his considerations of strategy.

  “We cannot go immediately. Perhaps in a day?” Harper’s voice continued on smoothly.

  “Don’t confuse my polite tones with a request.” The man was annoying. When he smiled, as he did now, it was a baring of teeth that had nothing to do with friendliness.

  “If that’s your polite tone, you need a lesson in manners.” Brogan rested his hand on the haft of his axe. Enough.

  The man turned his head sharply toward Brogan and prepared to speak. The thin blade of Harper’s sword sprouted from the roof of his head like a hard steel sapling.

  An instant later Harper was charging forward even as the man started to slump.

  Brogan didn’t wait for an invitation to join the fray. His knees urged his horse under him forward and it obeyed. There was much to be said for a well-trained warhorse.

  The brute pushed past the dead man’s horse even as the animal started adjusting for the weight of a corpse falling from its back. It was too much for the animal and it reared up, dropping its dead rider and separating Sallos and Mosely for a moment.

  After that Brogan didn’t have time to think about his friends. There was death to be taken care of and no time for much else.

  The axe came up and swept in a hard arc, cleaving the air between him and the first man facing him. The fellow had been focusing on Harper and did not live to regret it. His lower jaw and his neck split in a wash of red as Brogan continued forward.

  The sounds of an animal screaming behind him became just another noise. The next man in line was armed and ready, prepared for the axe. He raised his sword and blocked the first swing from Brogan, but lost his balance in the saddle in the process. Brogan took advantage of that, clenched his knees on the horse between them and used his free hand to shove the man in the chest. The swordsman went down hard even as Brogan and his horse were pushing against his mount. Brogan’s leg was crushed for a moment then the horses shifted and he was past, knowing he was lucky not to have been injured by the impact.

  And then the axe was up again, swinging for a man’s face. The man leaned back in his seat, narrowly avoiding the blade. Brogan swept the weapon around his head and slapped the man’s horse in the flank, opening a painful but not fatal wound. The horse panicked, exactly as he’d expected, and bolted toward the road ahead, taking his opponent along for the ride.

  Either Sallos or Mosely would take it from there with any luck.

  A sword came up fast. Brogan barely blocked it with the heavy haft of the axe. Had it been mere wood his weapon would have been lost, but metal bands and studs saved both the weapon and his life. The impact ran up his entire arm and nearly unseated him. These were trained fighters and he’d been lucky so far. He knew better than to expect luck alone to keep him alive.

  Harper’s hooked blade caught a rider at the back of his neck even as the man was starting a hard charge for Brogan. The soldier didn’t have a chance to scream before he was dropping his sword and trying to pull the bloodied barb from the back of his skull. Brogan hacked into the man’s stomach and pulled back. Likely he wasn’t dead, but wishing for the pain to end. Brogan pushed on and watched as Harper released the sword. It would be there when they were done.

  Three more men before him, so he rose up in the stirrups and roared a challenge. A goodly number of men would have turned and fled from the sight of him. Only one of these looked panicked.

  He took aim and hurled the axe at that one, reaching for his sword a moment later. He did not see the axe hit, but he heard the man’s scream. The sword was free and by the time he was looking at the men again, they were in front of him, swords at the ready.

  Two swords to his one and the men were prepared.

  He charged harder, lowering over the horse and making them seek a target to hit. The men were expecting him to continue his mad bellowing and by the looks on their faces they were surprised that he did not.

  On his left the sword rose high and the rider charged forward. Brogan cursed, as the sword was in his enemy’s left hand.

  A hard nudge and the horse under him moved right and smashed into the piebald mount of the other swordsman. The blade on his left hit his arm, cut into the meat of his shoulder, but not deep enough to stop him.

  Damned lucky.

  The man on his right was properly staggered by the impact and desperate to keep his seating. While the rider waved his arms and pushed his body where it belonged, Brogan hacked a deep slash into his thigh, then swept the sword into his stomach and chest.

  The sword rammed between two ribs and refused to move from where it was. Brogan either had to let it go or lose his own seating.

  The sword stayed put and Brogan moved on, pushing through the end of the gap that narrowed the road and coming out on the other side, where once again there was room to maneuver easily.

  No axe. No sword.

  He turned the horse around as the only warrior who had hurt him so far came back around from the other direction. Harper was already there and he was grinning like a wolf. Without a word he
unsheathed a dagger that was nearly as long as Brogan’s forearm and tossed it in his direction. Brogan would catch it or go weaponless. He managed to catch the blade by the hilt and only scrape a few layers from his palm in the process.

  Three of the riders were coming toward them now, and they were coming hard, furious at the attack that had already killed several of their fellows.

  One of them turned his horse for Brogan immediately. The one who had cut him across his shoulder. He wanted to finish his kill.

  Brogan lowered over his horse and charged, not thinking about the chances of failure. The man rode just as hard, holding the blade across the front of his saddle, to brace it. At a guess, he intended to ram the blade clear through Brogan.

  Brogan rose up in the stirrups and thought about the dagger in his hand. The sword was coming at him at a serious clip.

  Sometimes being crazy is the only way.

  He kept the boot closest to his enemy in the stirrup and then raised his other leg to the top of the saddle. He could see his enemy’s face well enough to know that he was puzzled.

  Good.

  As they came closer Brogan jumped from his horse, throwing his entire body mass at the rider. The sword tip stayed where it was, rather than rising up to impale Brogan. As he’d hoped, the man was too shocked by his desperately stupid move to retaliate.

  The horse took one look at the maniac leaping for it and swerved hard, sending its rider sailing through the air, sword and all.

  Brogan did his best to roll as he hit the ground, bouncing and flopping wildly before he slowed down. His chest hurt and he felt as if he’d been kicked in the guts, but he managed to stand up.

  His right hand still held the long dagger.

  The other rider was already picking himself up. The sword was no longer in his hands.

  Brogan charged again, on foot this time, and drove the blade through the top of the man’s head.