The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades (8 page)

“I don’t see—” Suddenly she did see. It was like a shutter being thrown open to let daylight into a cellar. “
Bait
? Spirits! You set me up as
bait
!”

Wart muttered, “Oh, vomit!” under his breath.

“Arrogance!” she said. “Cold-blooded arrogance! You worked out that if the conspirators’ masking spells are good enough to fool their own White Sisters but not all the Sisters at the palace, then what they need is more Sisters to help them. And the best place to find White Sisters is Oakendown, so you guessed that they would be snooping around there.
Snake
!” she shouted. “Sir Snake! You mentioned that you’d met him, but you made it sound like a long time ago. I bet the last time you saw
Sir
Snake wasn’t any longer ago than the day you met me or the day before—was it?”

Wart stared straight ahead, not speaking. His face looked ready to burst into flames.

“And you got Mother Superior to—No,
Sir Snake
got Mother Superior to expel me! That was the only reason for the spider, wasn’t it? You provided a sorcerer to create that spider and frighten me and six children out of their wits. I was trapped, wasn’t I? Used! You had me thrown out with no money. Shamed, humiliated. You left me hanging around the gatehouse for days, hoping the traitors would be on the lookout for vulnerable White Sisters. I suppose you even spread rumors of my disgrace around town.” She was so indignant she could hardly speak. “
Bait
! You used me as bait!”

Wart glanced at her miserably. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“But you helped. You’re guilty too. You sold your soul to that precious Sir Snake and his Old Blades.” Mother Superior was another and must have been helped in the deception by a fair number of senior Sisters. “How much did they pay you? Just the archlute? Is that your reward? And that gold you were flashing around so freely at the inn, I expect. I hope you enjoy your ill-gotten wealth, because it would choke me if I’d earned a penny than way. So Murther and Skuldigger are the first nibble? What happens now? If I’m the bait, then where’s the hook?”

Wart stood up to peer over the horse and then look back over the barrels.

“Speak up!” Emerald shouted. “You’ve told me enough that you can’t stop now. I don’t have a baby to protect. I know not to try and lie to a White Sister—if they do have traitor Sisters on their team, which I don’t believe. Tell me. I’ll keep quiet.”

Wart looked down at her. “Keep quiet? Will you keep quiet if they nail your hand to a bench and start cracking your fingers with a hammer?”

She shuddered. “I’ll think of you when they do it. Come on! You wouldn’t just trail bait without a net or a hook of some kind.” Magic? No, if Wart had any magic up his sleeve she would have detected it right away. “Tell me! What happens now?”

“What happens now,” Wart said harshly, “is that the armed men up ahead stop us and keep us there until the coach coming behind us arrives. Then you get carried off, I expect. You’re valuable. You’re what they want. If you behave yourself you should be all right, at least for a while. I’m no use to anyone, so the odds are that I get my throat cut. That’s what happens now.”

I
T WAS A BEAUTIFUL SITE FOR AN AMBUSH. THE trail ran along a very gentle ridge, a stony swell on the landscape; and the dips on either hand were marshy, with reeds and bulrushes. Saxon could not haul the wagon across a swamp, no matter how narrow. Furthermore, the next ridge to the east was slightly higher and the one to the west bore a mane of thorny scrub along its crest, so the site was hidden from any distant onlookers. Perfect.

Wart hauled on the reins; the wagon rattled to a halt.

About a hundred paces ahead, a line of men-at-arms blocked the road. Five of them were busily moving their arms as if working a pump or a bellows, but Emerald realized that they were actually winding up crossbows, the bows standing upright in front of them, each steadied by a stirrup. Another man in the background held the horses. The seventh was obviously the leader, standing on the verge with folded arms.

About the same distance to the north—back the way they had come—a large coach was approaching. The trap was closed.

The bowmen finished spanning their bows and lifted them to the horizontal. On the leader’s command, each one pulled a steel-tipped quarrel from his quiver and laid it in the firing groove. The sight of loaded weapons pointed at her made Emerald’s skin try to crawl right off her.

“What’s the range of those things?”

“Farther than us, but they’re only accurate close up.” Wart’s voice sounded very thin. His blush had totally gone now. He was pale to the lips.

Another command and the men raised their bows, laying the stocks against their cheeks, ready to shoot. They wore swords, steel breastplates, helmets shaped like hats with wide brims. They began to advance in line abreast, and Emerald could not help but imagine one of them stumbling in a rut and accidentally pulling the trigger of his bow. Their leader swaggered close behind, staying out of their line of fire. His red cloak was bright and grand; his helmet was more elaborate than theirs, with cheek pieces and a flange covering the back of his neck. He was a very large man, bushily bearded, armed with only a sword and dagger.

“Thrusk,” Wart said hoarsely. He turned and reached under the bench.

“Oh, no!” Emerald muttered. Then she saw that Wart had found the sword and repeated, much louder, “
No
!”

He was staring at the advancing enemy with hate in his eyes and teeth bared like a dog. At least he had enough sense to hold the sword out of sight behind him—so far.

“Wart, you’re crazy! Throw it away right now!
Now
, before they get here. You show that thing and they’ll put five bolts through you in an instant.” Her protest produced no result at all, as if he had become completely deaf.
Men! Why did men always think violence could solve anything
? “Wart, please! They’re in armor—you’re not! Even if they didn’t have bows, they’re trained men-at-arms! You wouldn’t have a hope against one of them, let alone six!” She could hear the coach in the distance behind her, coming slowly. Thrusk and his bowmen were going to arrive first.

“Run, Wart! Leave me and the wagon. Just run! See those bushes up—”

“
Run
? Run from bowmen? Run from horsemen?” He did not add,
Run through a swamp
? as he might have done.

“At least throw that wretched old sword away. Be polite, don’t annoy them, then maybe Thrusk won’t remember you, maybe they’ll just leave you here and take me. And I’ll be all right—you said so yourself. Then you can go and…and…”

It wasn’t working. Wart still snarled, never taking his eyes off his old enemy approaching. “
Now
do you see why I didn’t want to tell you?
Now
do you understand why I was strictly ordered
not
to tell you anything
at all
? If you breathe one word, one hint that you were staked out for them to find, then we’re both cold meat.”

“Yes, Wart. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

“At least you have a chance.”

“So do you, if you’ll just throw away that sword. Now, please let go of it and get down from the wagon.
Don’t
make them see you as a threat, Wart! Be humble, Wart, please.” She had a sudden clear image of him sitting there nailed to the garlic barrel by a bolt through his head. And the shot might hit her by mistake.

“As far as Thrusk is concerned, I’m already under sentence of death.” His voice had dropped to a growl.

She had never seen real hate on a man’s face before—she could no longer think of Wart as a boy when he looked like that. Yet his only hope of survival lay in seeming harmless to the brigands.

The shrill wailing of that awful sorcery was back, but it was coming from the Marshal and his men—all of them, as far as she could tell.

“Halt!” Thrusk barked.

His little troop halted. They were only a few feet in front of Saxon’s nose now—two on the left and three on the right, placed to shoot past the horse at the passengers. The squeaks and hoofbeats in the rear died away as the coach stopped. Horses whinnied greetings. Emerald risked a glance behind her and was not at all surprised to see Murther’s purple monster and its four beautiful chestnuts. One of the grooms was opening the door and pulling down the steps, and the armed guards were clambering down from the rooftop seat. Wart with his rusty sword was seriously outnumbered.

Thrusk walked along the verge, staying clear of his men’s line of fire, on Wart’s side of the wagon. “Get down, both of you.”

As Emerald began to move, Wart said, “Stay where you are! By what right do you contest our passage on the King’s highway, fat man?”

Thrusk showed yellow teeth in his black jungle of beard. “By right of might, shrimp. Now get down or I’ll have my men—Huh?” He took one step closer, peering harder at Wart. So tall was he and so low the wagon that he was looking down, rather than up. “By the eight! It’s the minstrel brat, the sneak thief! Well, well, well!” His roar of laughter sent avalanches of ice down Emerald’s backbone.

Wart glanced back. So did Emerald.

And so did Thrusk.

Doctor Skuldigger was just emerging from the coach.

Taking advantage of that momentary distraction, Wart made a flying leap from the wagon, swinging the rusty sword in a murderous slash. What he might have achieved with it against a man wearing breastplate and helmet was never established, because he caught a toe on the wheel. His war cry became a howl of despair and he pitched headlong, sprawling in the dirt like a wagonload of firewood. He rolled and his sword rattled away across the gravel.

Emerald ducked, but no crossbow bolts flashed through the air.

“
Flames
!” Thrusk roared. “Try to kill me, would you?” He grabbed the front of Wart’s jerkin and hoisted him up bodily with one hand, as if he weighed no more than a blanket.

Wart sagged in his grasp like a rag doll, half stunned by his fall, eyes wobbling, but evidently undaunted. “Killing’s too good for you, stinkard!”

Thrusk roared in fury and slammed a fist the size of a loaf of bread against Wart’s jaw.

Emerald screamed at such brutality. Wart hit the ground again, flat on his back. But Thrusk then drew his sword as if to chop off his opponent’s head and the time for screaming was past. “
Leave him alone
!” She was down on the road between the two of them with no clear recollection of hitching up her skirts and completing the sort of mad leap that Wart had attempted, even in her ill-fitting shoes. “You get back!” she yelled, spreading her arms.

Thrusk snarled and drew back his free hand to swat her aside. An instant before he would have spread her as flat as he had spread Wart, a sepulchral voice spoke at her back.

“Stop!”

At that soft moan, the giant froze.

“Incompetent oaf!” Doctor Skuldigger came mincing forward, followed a few paces behind by Mistress Murther and another woman. “Aw? What are you doing, Marshal? Tell your men to unload those bows at once.”

Thrusk barked an order at his troop. “This trash tried to kill me.” He gestured with his sword at the unconscious Wart, the move being close enough to Emerald’s knee that she jumped aside. His attitude to the Doctor was one of sulky deference.

Skuldigger was in charge. He sighed. “Aw? I instructed you that there was to be no bloodshed.”

Blood was still being shed. Emerald knelt to examine Wart. He was out cold and bleeding badly from the mouth. Whether he had lost teeth or simply split his lips she could not tell, but his jaw was swelling up like a red cabbage. Perhaps this experience would cure some of his tricky habits. Having seen him do midair somersaults off the wagon, she could not believe he could fall flat on his face like that. He must have been faking, although she could not guess why.

“Doctor!” she shouted. “This man has been injured and needs attention.”

“I know that brat of old,” Thrusk growled. “He’s a felon! He was sentenced to hang years ago. Now he tried to kill me. Let me have him, master, and—”

The Doctor moaned. “Must I always be served by idiots? He is half your size, ninny.”

The giant growled defiantly. “He attacked me with a sword. You told us we could defend ourselves.”

“Bah! He could not hurt you if you had both hands tied behind your back.” Skuldigger seemed moved close to tears. He turned to the two women. “Well?”

Murther stayed silent, regarding the world with her inevitable pout. The other woman was younger and might have been judged beautiful if she had made an effort to dress better, comb her hair, stand up straight. Her gown and cloak had originally been of good quality but looked old and abused, as if handed down from a mistress to a servant. She herself was strangely hunched, arms tightly folded across her breast like someone freezing, although the day was warming rapidly. She might be seriously ill. She shook her head and mumbled something Emerald did not catch.

“Stand back!” Skuldigger commanded. “Go, Murther!”

“Back to the horses!” Thrusk roared. He marched off with his bowmen. Mistress Murther stalked back to the coach with her nose in the air. The sorcerous whistling faded almost to nothing.

“Well?” the Doctor demanded again.

The woman looked Emerald over without ever meeting her eyes. She gazed down at Wart, then shuffled over to lay a hand on the wagon. “Nothing,” she muttered.

Skuldigger moaned. “You are quite sure of that, Sister? You do remember that any carelessness on your part will have terrible consequences?”

For a moment fire glinted in her eyes, and she bared her teeth at him in fury or hatred. Then the former hopelessness fell over her face like a veil. “Yes, Doctor, I remember.”

For a moment the horrible old man seemed almost about to smile. “Then you do not need to worry about being rescued, do you? Sir Snake has outsmarted himself again. Go back to the carriage.”

She obeyed, shuffling away as if she carried all the sorrows of the world on her shoulders. Thrusk returned.

Skuldigger sighed heavily, scowling down at the unconscious Wart. “Your mindless brutality has put a serious hitch in my plans. This boy cannot ride, and I will not have him bleeding all over my coach.”

“Tie him across a saddle,” Thrusk suggested.

“And if we are seen, idiot?”

“He was condemned to hang years ago, little vermin. Let me hang him, or chop his head off, master. Please?”

Skuldigger sighed mournfully. “No, he will be of use in our experiments. Here is what we shall do. Bring him in the wagon. Lay him face-down so he does not choke on his own blood, aw? You will escort us to the turnoff and wait there for the wagon, as previously planned. If you are quite sure that there is no pursuit, you will bring the boy to the boat.”

“And if there is?” the Marshal demanded, his eyes narrowing to shadowed slits inside his helmet.

“I already ordered you to slay as many of them as you can, did I not? But in that case you may kill the boy first. Will that satisfy your blood lust, brute?”

“If I have time to do it properly.”

“And see there is not one spot of blood left on the road here—you understand?”

“Yes, master. Not a drop.”

“Now we must hurry or we shall miss the tide.” The old man turned his agonized, droopy eyes on Emerald. “Give me your bonnet.”

“I certainly will not! And I’ll thank you to explain by what right you behave like a common brigand on the King’s—”

“Hit her.”

Thrusk raised a huge fist.

“No!” Emerald cried, stumbling back.

“If you are hurt,” the Doctor moaned, “you will have only yourself to blame. Now, the bonnet.”

Emerald hauled off her bonnet without ever taking her gaze away from the leering Thrusk; she handed it to the Doctor.

“Now get in the carriage.”

“I will not! Are these highwaymen yours, Doctor, because—”

She did not see Thrusk move. One minute he was two paces away from her and the next he was standing over her, chuckling, and she was flat in the dirt. Her head rang. The shock of it left her gasping like a landed fish.

“Aw? I said, ‘Get in the carriage.’ Now you will force me to have the Marshal kick you in the ribs until you obey. One…”

Emerald scrambled giddily to her feet and lurched along the road to the coach. She might not know for certain who headed the conspiracy against the King, but she could name a convincing suspect. The other woman was obviously the kidnapped Sister whom Wart had mentioned, the one whose child had been taken hostage. Now Emerald was in the same boat. The bait had been taken, but where was the hook?