Firebrand

When Zachary regained his breath and looked up, Karigan and her captors had disappeared and his fellow slaves had erupted into fist fights with the remaining guards. A big man named Merth punched Smurn in the jaw, and the lay priest flew onto his back and skidded across the floor, robes billowing about his legs.

Zachary looked for Fiori, but he, too, had vanished. He rose to his feet to make a run for it when Binning grabbed his arm.

“What you doing, Dav?”

Zachary didn’t answer. A couple dozen soldiers ran into the great hall straight toward the fighting slaves. His chance to run now quashed, he dragged Binning against a wall to lie low while the soldiers dove in among the fighters swinging their cudgels with merciless ferocity.

“Keep calm and put your hands over your head,” Zachary told Binning. He hoped the soldiers would see that they were not participating in the fight and spare them the beating the others were receiving.

“Why’d that fellow slug you?” Binning asked.

Zachary shrugged and winced as a cudgel cracked against Merth’s skull. The big man fell hard.

“And why aren’t you fighting?” Binning asked.

“Look at Merth,” he replied. “Don’t need that.” No, if he was going to free himself so he could help Karigan, he would not risk injury.

The thralls were soon subdued and Zachary’s plan had worked for the most part. A cudgel had grazed his shoulders, but it was a minor blow compared to what had happened to Merth and a few of the others.

Those who could work were sent back to the passage. Zachary moved stones, cursing himself for not having acted more quickly to help Karigan. Then he reminded himself he could not have gotten far, which would not have helped either of them. His rational mind warred with his need to protect, and he was so agitated that he slammed rocks into his basket and hurried up and down the passage in record time.

Where were they holding her? What would they do to her? How was it she had been caught? He emptied his basket of rocks and made the return trip into the passage. He had sent her north to find the p’ehdrose, guided by the Eletian and accompanied by Estral Andovian. Where were Estral and Enver? Were they, too, being held by Second Empire? Had they come to the Lone Forest because they had traced Fiori here?

At the end of the passage, he knelt on one knee and hurled the rocks into his basket. A hand grabbed his wrist and he nearly flung a rock at whoever it was, but stopped himself. It was Lorilie Dorran.

“What’s eating you, Dav?” she demanded. “The guards are noticing. You might want to calm down.”

How could he? But he took a deep breath and instead of hurling the next rock into the basket, he let it roll off his hand.

“That’s better,” Lorilie said. She picked up a stone for her own basket. “Save your strength for when you truly need it.”

When would that be? He felt so helpless.

“Is it the Greenie who has you so riled up?” Lorilie asked in a low voice. “Heard they were taking her to Nyssa.”

Nyssa. The name chilled him. He forced himself to shake his head and rise calmly with his full basket. Inside he raged, raged as hot as the firebrand the Eletians named him. He’d learned enough to know that Nyssa was the resident torturer, that she took delight in her role. Having a Green Rider in her clutches would please her. He wore the cloak of one she had flogged to death.

If she hurt Karigan, he would destroy her. Her, and all of Second Empire, and he’d do it single-handedly if he had to. But alas, for all his plotting, he could not yet see a clear path. He had to calm himself again when he dumped his rocks.

Slow down, slow down.

He could not help it. It infuriated him that the woman he loved was at the mercy of one such as Nyssa, and he a captive, too, and so impotent. He paused before reentering the passage. Plotting and planning were not what were needed, perhaps . . .

“Keep moving, idiot,” a nearby guard said.

Zachary trembled, the rage rising to the surface. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear the thought of her being hurt. He closed his eyes, recalling the scene of the sword’s pommel coming down on her head.

The guard closed in with his cudgel. “I said, keep moving.”

Zachary dropped his basket and launched at the guard, who gaped in surprise before he was knocked down. Zachary pummeled him, loosed himself upon his captor. While some guards menaced the watching slaves and pushed them back into the passage to prevent them from joining the fray, others rushed to the aid of their comrade. Zachary met them, taking fierce joy in releasing his rage. Bones crunched beneath his fists. He did not hold back this time. He used his training to its full extent, disarming a guard and using his cudgel as though it were a sword. He was wild; he was the burning fire.

He smashed skulls and sent guards flying, but in the end, there were many of them and just one of him, and they all had cudgels, too.

NYSSA’S WORKSHOP

The guards flung Karigan onto the straw-strewn floor, at Estral’s feet. She was barely conscious, and Estral thought the cords binding Karigan’s hands behind her back excessive, for she looked far from capable of doing much harm at the moment.

Estral dropped to her knees beside her. “Karigan,” she whispered, and shook her shoulder. “Wake up. Please.”

Karigan did not respond.

At some point, the guards had parted Karigan from her greatcoat and waistcoat, and now searched through the pockets. They turned up wadded handkerchiefs, a few coppers, some hair ribbons, and a hoofpick.

“Nothing of importance,” one of the guards said in disgust as he tossed Karigan’s greatcoat onto a table next to her weapons.