Standing outside herself, Sophia felt her heart speed up. She knew that her stomach was clenching and churning and that her throat was tight, but she observed all of that as another process, this one with her body as the crucible. None of those things mattered, regardless. “Harry,” she said. “What washisname? Valerius’s, before…before he changed it?”
“What? Why does it matter?” Gilleis was all action, grabbing Sophia’s cloak and wrapping it around her while she stood waiting for an answer, shoving loaves of bread into a sack, and all the time looking toward the door. “Go, for Christ’s sake.”
“Alfred. Or Albert.” Harry closed his eyes, and a moment passed while Sophia grasped the sack of bread. “Albert. Da’ used to call him ‘Little Bert’ when he was in a bitter mood, when he thought his lordship wouldn’t know of it. Albert de Percy.”
“Thank you,” said Sophia. “Thank you both so very much, and I hope…I pray you’ll not suffer for this. I—”
“Window,” Harry said and grabbed her by the waist, hoisting her up without any effort at all. “Closer to the way out. Luck to you, girl.”
After that, there were no more words, only speed and the growing night.
Thirty-four
A short time after sunset, it started to rain. Mud sucked at Cathal’s feet as he ran, and his clothing was soaked before long. The wind picked up too; a storm was coming out of the northeast. He could only be glad that it was too early in the year for lightning.
Wind, rain, and distance meant he saw the men before anything else. Three guards on horseback, they were large enough to catch the eye even with the storm, and they were galloping fast enough to get attention. A second later Cathal saw their quarry.
The figure was wrapped in a heavy cloak and running, dodging between the trees on the side of the road with desperate speed but the clumsiness of one not at all used to fleeing.
A hood obscured the figure’s face, the cloak its body, and Cathal wouldn’t have put it past Valerius or his men to send out a decoy, yet he was moving half a moment after he saw the traveler, and there was no doubt in his mind. Whether it was the way she moved, the scent of her, or another factor that he couldn’t shape in human form, he knew Sophia.
As Cathal recognized her, one of the guards wheeled his horse to outflank her, leaned down, and grabbed her by the arm. She screamed, clear even through the wind.
Cathal’s leap was more than human legs could have managed, more even than he’d equaled on any battlefield. He struck as he landed, sweeping his sword down across the horse’s haunches. The beast screamed and reared, throwing its rider clear of the saddle and breaking his grip on Sophia’s arm.
Freed, she scrambled for the tree line again, wisely distancing herself from both the panicked horse and its former rider, though the man was on the ground and writhing. Cathal would have wagered he had a broken leg, if not worse. He wasn’t disposed to care, not with the other two fast approaching.
A few quick steps brought him to Sophia. He grabbed the rope harness from off his shoulder and pushed it into Sophia’s hands. “You’ll need to be quick, after. Stay behind me.” Then he stepped forward, putting himself between her and the oncoming riders, praying without words or very much faith.
Fighting mounted men from the ground went poorly for most. Mortal men needed either archers or a shield wall to manage it with any chance of success. Cathal had a few other advantages.
One was the horses’ reluctance to approach him. Even though he was in human form, he could see them snort and balk, smelling his true nature. It took a good application of spurs to move them again, and by that time, Cathal was ready to use his other advantages: height and strength.
His first strike pierced through the guard’s armor and the flesh of his thigh, and sank to the bone. The man screamed, a familiar sound. The spray of blood was familiar too. A major vessel was severed. The wound would likely be fatal. Cathal spun away, and the momentum as he pulled his sword back to his side half severed the leg.
The third man was turning his mount to run. Cathal had half expected as much. Valerius had taken the best part of his retinue to war. These men had thought they’d be chasing down an unarmed woman.
That woman was staring at the broken corpse of the soldier, and her full lips pressed together until they were a thin line indeed. Cathal had no time to speak because other men would arrive soon. He knew not what he might have said if he could have.
He felt no guilt over what he’d done, nor triumph. At best, he’d rid the world of a man who’d serve Valerius willingly, but there were many like him. At worst, he’d killed a man who’d done his duty for what might have been noble enough reasons in the end; feeding a family could put good men to bad work. That was often the way. It was war, and it was done.
Yet he watched Sophia’s face until he changed and then again after, and was glad when she swung herself up into the harness that he might not have to see her any longer. He was glad to feel her weight on his neck, and that she put herself there without hesitation—without, as far as he could tell, fear. He could only hope that wouldn’t change when she was no longer desperate, but that hope had to take a fifth or sixth place to other, more desperate wishes.
He crouched, gathered himself, and sprang, spreading his wings to launch himself with the wind.
Its strength was with him, carrying them far upward even more quickly than Cathal had managed at the castle, but this speed wasn’t his own, and he had no sure way to control it. The wind twisted too, tossing him from side to side, full of updrafts and downdrafts and cross-breezes, and the rain poured down so hard that he could barely see.
He was above the trees, away from most mountains, and both of those facts likely saved him and Sophia. For a long stretch he flew onward, heading as much as he could manage in the direction of Loch Arach, but not truly knowing where he was going. Sophia’s weight, and the warmth of her body, let Cathal know that she was still there, one of the few constants in the storm’s rage.
When she began to shiver, Cathal knew they’d need to stop soon. He was wearying too, his wings tiring with the effort to stay both on course and level against the wind. Shaking water away from his face with a quick gesture, he peered down through the rain and saw in the distance a cluster of tiny buildings, one with still-lit windows. A village, he thought, and with luck an inn—or at least a manor with stables.
Nobody would be out in the storm most likely, but he still wanted a bit of concealment. A line of trees a few yards away would suffice, he decided. He folded his wings and dove, landing as gently as he could manage under the circumstances. He still hit the ground more roughly than he’d have liked, and there was a moment of deep alarm afterward when he didn’t feel Sophia moving.
When he whipped his head around to look at her, though, she blinked back at him and slowly began to sit back. “I-if I’m not to g-get down,” she said through chattering teeth, “you’d b-b-best tell me so now.”
It took longer for her to get out of the harness, due to a sodden cloak and numb limbs, Cathal guessed, and cursed to see both. From what he could tell, she was in no danger, but he couldn’t tell much, in truth. He knew human fragility on the battlefield. In all else, the men had been the camp surgeon’s problem, or the supply captain’s, or the steward’s. If Sophia could move and speak, he thought she was well enough, but he only then realized how little qualified he was to gauge the certainty of any such thing.
As soon as she hit the ground, he was changing back to man’s shape. It did little immediate good—he hadn’t brought a cloak and had been warmer as a dragon—but he put an arm around her and started them toward what civilization there might be, wherever they’d ended up.
