A voice called over the battlements, “Hey! Do we shoot ’em?”
“No!” Shane grabbed Marguerite and hefted her back into the saddle. Since her options were to sit on the horse or fall off the other side, she chose to sit on the horse. “I will do anything to keep you safe,” he told her. “And right now, you have to leave. Wisdom’s coming.” He pressed the heel of his hand against his sternum as if it pained him.
“But—”
He gripped her calf and took a shuddering breath. “It means the world to me that you came back,”
he said. “I don’t know what I did to deserve such loyalty. From any of you.” His gaze swept the group, lingering briefly on Davith. “I’ll keep out of easy arrow shot. I’ll carry a shield. But you have to go. It isn’t safe here, and it’s about to be much worse.”
Marguerite would have kept arguing, but Judith leaned forward, caught her horse’s reins, and tugged on them. “Right,” the tall woman said. “We’re going.” She nodded down at Shane. “I can’t wish you luck, but I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I,” said Shane grimly. “So do I.”
SHE’D COME BACK for him. Shane could hardly believe it. She hadn’t abandoned him, even though it would have been the smartest thing she could possibly do. She’d come back to try to save him.
The thought made him giddy, made him want to run in circles and laugh and dance and weep and maybe punch something. It felt like falling in love for the first time, and even though it was hopeless and useless and he knew that he was going to die in the next few days and that she’d put herself in terrible danger, he couldn’t help but feel it.
If I’m going to die, at least I won’t die abandoned. Maybe it wouldn’t matter at all, once he was dead, but it mattered now.
“You’re in a good mood,” Wisdom said, as he entered the keep.
Much of his giddiness drained away. “Oh. Um.”
“Relax,” the demon said. “I have no intention of snatching your lady love and your friends back.
You’re the only one I wanted.”
“It was too dangerous for them to be here,” Shane said. “The Dreaming God’s people are coming.” He sighed, remembering what Marguerite had said. “And they’re planning on just shooting me from a distance if they can.”
“Well, then,” said Wisdom. “We’ll just have to make sure they won’t get the chance, won’t we?”
“THAT RESCUE COULD HAVE GONE BETTER,” Davith said.
“Davith,” said Marguerite, with marvelous calm, “if you say one more word, I am going to slap you off that horse.”
He held up his hands in surrender. Marguerite hunched down in the saddle, feeling as if there was a ball of ice in her gut. It wasn’t as if he was wrong. She’d made a mess of everything. Shane hadn’t wanted to be rescued. He’d rather stay with a demon than with her. Because of duty, no doubt. God forbid a paladin ever be happy when there’s duty about.
Worse, she’d dragged the others down with her. The Dreaming God’s people were going to be furious.
Well, Marguerite had her own sense of duty. She’d fall on that sword, say that she’d forced them.
Wren, at least, was sworn to her service and ought to get off lightly, and she could claim to have been blackmailing Davith. Judith…she wasn’t quite sure what to do about Judith. It would come to her, though. She’d come up with a story, and then the Dreaming God could bring her up on charges or have her thrown in the stockade or whatever they did. Whatever a stockade was. She supposed she’d find out.
These thoughts kept her company as far as the river, where she stopped and looked up, because there was a small army waiting on the far side.
THEY WERE, very politely, taken into custody. Jorge came up, accompanied by Sir, and Marguerite immediately said, “This is my fault.”
“Oh, we figured,” said Jorge. Sir snorted explosively.
The bearded priest that they had seen before, Burnet, looked closely in their eyes, then back at Jorge and Sir, and shrugged. “If I saw them on the street, I wouldn’t think they were possessed. But this is a very old and very subtle one, and if it went into one of them willingly, I can’t swear that I’d know. I’d suggest taking them back to the temple to be sure, assuming that we don’t find it lurking in someone else.”
“Mmm,” said Sir. “The two paladins, would you clear them to fight alongside us?”
Burnet considered this. “I would, actually. If they are possessed, better we find out when there’s a half-dozen paladins with drawn swords around them.”
“You make a very valid point.” Sir looked to Wren and Judith. “Will you help us winkle your brother out of this shell?”
“As long as you don’t mind if I hit him on the head instead of running him through,” said Judith.
“I’d consider that fair.” He gestured to the people around him--six paladins, two priests, four
crossbowmen and a half-dozen grooms, plus an inordinate number of horses. “Given how few we were able to field, I won’t turn down your help.”
“Then I won’t refuse it,” said Judith. Wren looked up from where she was picking nervously at her nails, gave a bare nod, and looked back down again.
“But how did you get here so fast?” asked Marguerite. “We rode as fast as we could and we didn’t spend more than ten minutes at the keep…”
“Remounts,” said Jorge, waving to the horses. “Three each. We picked up the bowmen on the way. But you say you’ve actually been to the keep?”
“I’m sorry,” said Marguerite, “but I had to try to get Shane away.”
“I take it you didn’t succeed?” asked Jorge.
“No. He wouldn’t come with us and he wouldn’t let us in. He said it was too dangerous to be there.”
“Either the demon’s smart, or he is,” said Sir, and walked away to shout at one of the grooms for something horse-related. Jorge shrugged.
“Err…you’re not mad?” asked Marguerite.
Jorge heaved a sigh. “Let’s say that I’m exasperated. But you haven’t taken holy orders and you’re civilians. You’ll have to stay with us long enough for the priests to be absolutely certain that a demon didn’t jump to you.” He grimaced. “Some of the others are pretty mad. I…well, I understand why you tried.”
“But we stole your horses!”
“It’s fine,” said Jorge, “Davith left a note.”
“See, I told her…”
Marguerite squared her shoulders. “Then I’m going into the fight with you.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Shane won’t hurt me.”
Jorge scowled at her. “Which, if we were just fighting Shane, might be important. But an arrow doesn’t care who it hits.”
“You’ll take Wren and Judith, though?”
“Wren and Judith are trained fighters. You’re a trained…” Jorge trailed off, apparently realizing that he had no idea what Marguerite did.
“Negotiator,” said Marguerite, which was only adjacent to a lie, not the real thing.
It was, unfortunately, the wrong thing to say. “We don’t negotiate with demons,” said Jorge stiffly.