As Andri was laid beside his brothers and sisters on the burgeoning pyre, she thought Hadriax el Fex had better be worth it.
Breckett, her lieutenant, appeared at her elbow. Blood streamed down his temple, but he paid it no heed. The wound would be just one more scar among many others.
“How long do you think we’ve got?” he asked.
“Not long enough. I stabbed him three times, but it will slow him down very little.”
“Aye, he is an unnatural bastard, that Lord Varadgrim. He’s got the magic of the Black One on him, he does.”
“Next time I’ll just take his head.”
“He’d probably grow it back.” Breckett made the gruff chortle that was his laugh. “Nay, that one won’t die.”
“Hollin and Dane will gain us some time with the wards,” Lil mused. “But we dare not linger here.”
“Agreed.”
“I want you to lead everyone back toward the king’s position. Alex will bear el Fex. This will be more a contest of stealth than speed, hey?”
“I understand. Where will you be?”
“Bringing up the rear.”
Breckett gazed suspiciously at her with those dark piercing eyes of his. “And what would you be planning?”
Lil patted her horn, which always rode at her hip. “A slight diversion.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to obey your captain.”
Breckett grumbled. “Then we best make good use of our time.”
They gathered together all the Riders, wounded and unwounded, and linked hands in a circle beside the pyre. By the grace of the gods, the breeze carried the smoke and stench away from the summit of the mor.
Lil turned her face to the moon and began a litany all too familiar, one that was the Green Riders’ own: “Aeryc, receive these souls into the heavens, may they walk beside you among the stars. They’ve fought the Dark One who would usurp your eminence with his one demon god, and murder all your children on this Earth. These souls fought bravely in your name, and were loyal.
“Even as you embrace these souls, please look down upon our circle and watch and protect us so we may fight on.”
“Fight on,” the Riders repeated in unison.
Lil turned her face from the moon and looked over each of her Riders in turn. Born in war, born for war. None of them cried, for there were no longer enough tears in the world to be shed for the fallen. Nearly a hundred years of war had devastated their people, destroyed their way of life. No one, not the smallest of children, was left untouched.
Children were quickly orphaned, as Lil had been herself, as both her parents marched off to war. Young orphans and children went to work at smithies and fletcher shops, to make the tools of war. Older children bore the tools they made to the battlefield. No, this was not a world for children.
Disease and starvation had wracked the Sacoridians, and Lil was convinced it was only by pure tenacity to survive that the clans had not given in to Mornhavon the Black. Of all the lands, besides Argenthyne, Sacoridia had been the most devastated.
She glanced at Hadriax el Fex. He had done much of the work himself as Mornhavon’s right hand. She saw him lead the slaughter of thousands, his own blade dripping with blood. He spared not the young or the old, the infirm or the simple. He ordered prisoners to be tortured at will, even knowing they possessed no useful information. If he was not the key to turning the tide of the war, she’d take him apart layer by layer, piece by piece, rubbing salt crystals into his wounds as she went. Oddly, the fates had now made her his protector.
He didn’t look so mighty just now, bent over and bleeding, sandy hair hanging in his eyes.
Turning back to her Riders, she said, “It is time for remembrance. I remember Andri.”
“Andri,” they responded.
As they went around the circle, each named a fallen Rider, and as a group they repeated his or her name. The lack of tears did not mean each death didn’t hurt like a spear hurled into one’s chest. Each Rider would handle each death in his or her own way.
“I remember Telan,” Breckett said.
“Telan.”
Breckett’s back was to the pyre, and it seemed to Lil that someone walked behind him and into its light, and watched. It was a shadow figure, like an apparition, more night than substance. She kept her eye on it, warily, fearing it might be a trick of Varadgrim’s.
The flames flared, and she had the impression of a woman’s form.
Daron squeezed her hand. “Your turn,” she whispered.
Lil blinked. She’d been so intent on the apparition, she hadn’t realized they’d gone full circle with the remembrances.
She cleared her throat. “Riders, remember the names, for they are names of honor. Let us carry our fallen comrades in our hearts forever.”
“Forever.”
“Remember, Riders, so long as a few of us stand together, our circle shall never break.”
“Never.”
They raised their clasped hands above their heads.
“Aeryc, be our witness! We serve you, and so long as a few of us stand, our circle shall not break!”
They all whooped and yelled deprecations off the mor, all intended for the ears of Varadgrim and his warriors.
Even when the Riders went back to work preparing for their escape down the mor, Lil kept an eye on the apparition. No one else was aware of her.
The apparition watched all that went on around her, and when Lil strode toward her, a startled expression crossed her face.