“Be very careful, Corvyn,” King Tiras warned softly, and he pressed his gloved hand to my chest. “Your daughter’s heart is pounding beneath my fist. She knows you lie. I know you lie.”
“She knows nothing. She is . . . simple. Like a child. She has not spoken a single word since her mother was murdered before her eyes. Your father killed my wife. Will you now kill my daughter too?”
I felt the king stiffen at my back, and I knew he remembered her. I could feel her name in his mind, Meshara. Her name winked out like he’d flung it away. There then gone.
Suddenly, Boojohni pushed through the crowd, shoving people aside, tunneling through legs and skirts. My heart rose to my throat as he fell to his knees on the cobblestones in front of the king.
“I am the servant of the lady, Your Majesty,” he cried, breathless. “Please! Don’t harm her. Take me instead.”
Laughter rose up among the king’s guard, and I shook my head adamantly. Boojohni growled at my denial and repeated his request.
“Take me instead!”
“Why?” the king asked, his eyes on Boojohni. “Why should I take you?”
“I have no loyalty to Lord Corvyn. My loyalty is to her. Only to her.”
“Your loyalty should be to your king, Troll,” Kjell barked, and Boojohni touched his forehead to the dirt in total surrender.
“I am at His Majesty’s service,” he said humbly. I felt tears prick my eyes. His fear for me was palpable, and my love for him had me shaking my head once more.
“The lady does not want you to do this,” the king said, taking note of my refusal.
“The lady is more concerned for me than she is for herself,” Boojohni rejoined.
“You hold no value to me, Troll, though I admire your courage,” King Tiras replied, then added, “I remember you.” I felt my mother’s name flicker in the air again, a whisper from the king’s thoughts that only I could hear. I wanted to hate him for it, but instead it gave me hope.
Boojohni’s eyes found mine, and his expression was desperate.
“Then let me come with her. Take me too,” he implored.
The king was silent for a heartbeat, considering. “So be it,” he acquiesced suddenly, and called out to someone in the back of the procession.
“Jerick! The troll will ride with you.”
A warrior rode forward and pulled Boojohni up behind him. Boojohni looked equal parts relieved and distraught. He had never been able to ride without getting motion sickness. The trip did not bode well for my little friend. I predicted he would be running alongside the warrior before long.
“Your daughter will be returned when the enemy is defeated, Corvyn. But if I die, she dies.”
I almost laughed. How ironic. I was convinced if the king knew the curse my mother had lain on my father’s head, he would make me suffer terribly.
“None of this is necessary, Majesty,” my father protested weakly. “I give you my word.” He’d taken on a grey pallor, as though he believed his days were numbered.
“And I will take it, and your daughter,” the king replied smoothly. “Just so I am assured of your fealty.” He took up the reins and Kjell raised his arm, signaling their retreat.
“I left an army at the border of Kilmorda. We’ve beaten back the Volgar. For now. But I will expect you to send five hundred men to assist.”
“Five hundred?” my father gasped.
“You are welcome to send more. The sooner the Volgar are destroyed, the sooner your daughter returns to Corvyn. It is all up to you, Milord.”
We rode toward Jeru City for three hours at a steady pace, and I held myself stiff and straight, refusing to touch the man at my back. The bony ridge of the stallion’s spine was impossible to avoid, and though he seemed impervious to my weight, an occasional word escaped his master’s thoughts, letting me know he wasn’t entirely comfortable either. He yanked me against him once and barked that I was going to fall if I didn’t relax.
I gritted my teeth and held firm, ignoring the ache in my hips and the burning down my spine. If spite was the only weapon at my disposal, I would continue to wield it. Boojohni, just like I’d predicted, had grown ill after the first hour and pled to be let down. The man named Jerick had refused. We were moving too quickly, and Boojohni could not keep pace with the horses for miles on end. Boojohni had lost the contents of his stomach and was now moaning miserably from his perch. He’d been tied to Jerick to keep him from tumbling off when he vomited, and Jerick looked as peevish as I felt.
Darkness was falling when the rear watch warned of Volgar in the skies. A murmur rose in the ranks and the king called a halt as Kjell peeled away from the formation to confer with the watchmen. He was back within seconds.
“King Tiras! Volgar approaching from the rear. Hundreds of them,” he cried.
We were in a wide clearing with open fields to the right and to the left and a wooded grove a ways ahead. It was the only cover available, and the king directed his men to head for the trees. I was instructed to hold on, and I obeyed, abandoning the perch of a noblewoman for my safety, kicking my left leg over the stallion and lying flat against his neck, my fingers twisted in his mane. I felt the king pressed against my back, his gloved hands tightening over the reins, leaning into the stallion, into me, urging haste. We flew across the clearing, eyes clinging to the cluster of trees. I turned my head, peering up at the sky, unable to resist the lure of the lurid. I wanted to see what was coming.
I heard them before I saw them.
Horses scream. Men scream too, though they never admit it. But the Volgar shrieked, a cross between man and gull, amplified by ten, and the sound was piercing, ear-splitting, and I almost fell in my desperation to cover my ears.
Then there was no more separation, no more distance between earth and sky, and the birdmen began to drop, plucking warriors from their mounts with curled talons and powerful legs. They rose, straight up, clutching their dangling prey only to release them to plummet to their deaths.
King Tiras slid from his horse, pulling me with him, dragging me back as he swung his sword at a birdman with tattered wings, pointed ears, and skin the color of dead grass. The king shoved me beneath the low branches of a huge evergreen, the trunk at my back, and lunged into the fray, his blade already wet and dripping. I could only watch as death descended in droves. The now rider-less horses screamed and reared, trampling a felled warrior and creating a stampede in the midst of the melee.
Through the branches and the crush of man and beast, I saw Boojohni running toward me, his legs pumping and his eyes wide with terror. A shadow swooped over him and dropped, claws extended, to carry him away.
I didn’t stop to think. I only ran, scooping up the hilt of the trampled warrior’s enormous sword as I raced toward my only friend. Boojohni screamed, his back arching in panic and protest as the claws of the Volgar latched in his tunic, lifting him off the ground. I wouldn’t reach him in time to do anything but watch him rise. The sword wobbled in my arms, too heavy to throw, too awkward to swing.
Release him! My head shrieked, my frozen voice trapped in my throat.
RELEASE HIM!
The birdman paused mid-air, his eyes locked on mine, and like a chastised child, his claws snapped open and Boojohni fell from his grasp, falling to the earth in a scrambling heap. Boojohni had hardly touched down before he was up again, running, screaming my name. The birdman retreated dizzily, as if he’d forgotten how to fly. An arrow slid through his chest, and he cartwheeled toward the earth, slain.