Bound to the Conqueror

The first soldier died without seeing her.

Fayrin loosed from the fork of an old cedar, watched the arrow vanish beneath the rim of his helmet, and moved before his body struck the roots. Shouts rose below. Men pointed into the branches she had already abandoned while she crossed a swaying limb and dropped to the next tree, bare soles finding holds hidden beneath moss.

Smoke dragged through the canopy. It tasted of pitch, scorched fern, and the bitter sap of wounded trees.

Her settlement burned beyond the western rise.

She did not look toward the houses. Looking would cost time, and time was all she could still give her people.

A horn blared from the ground. The invaders tightened into another shielded knot, metal plates overlapping above their heads. They had learned quickly. Too quickly. An hour ago they had wandered beneath the trees in pairs, cursing the roots and swatting at branches. Now they moved as one blunt creature, shields lifted against arrows, spears stabbing at every shadow.

Fayrin drew again.

The shaft struck a thigh between shield and boot. A man fell screaming. The formation split around him, and she sent her next arrow through the gap into another soldier’s throat.

Three arrows remained in her quiver.

Below, one of her hunters broke from cover with blood covering half his face. He buried a stone-headed axe in an invader’s neck before two spears caught him beneath the ribs. Fayrin knew the beadwork on his belt. She refused to remember who had woven it.

She killed one of the spearmen.

Two arrows.

The soldiers began beating their weapons against their shields. The noise rolled through the forest, harsh and regular, meant to shake courage loose from bone. It might have frightened men raised behind walls. It only helped Fayrin measure their steps.

She slipped around the trunk, following the old hunting path through the branches. The path had belonged to children first. Every child of the settlement learned which limbs bent and which broke, where squirrels nested, where the bark grew slick after rain. The invaders knew none of it.

They had numbers instead.

A flame leapt in the brush beneath her.

Fayrin recoiled as heat climbed the cedar’s trunk. Soldiers carrying torches pushed fire into the undergrowth, feeding dry needles and last summer’s leaves. The forest answered with a crackle that became a roar. Rabbits burst from hiding. A fox raced between armored legs and vanished beneath a shield wall.

They meant to drive the hunters down.

A cry came from the eastern grove. Not a war cry. A woman’s voice, cut short.

Fayrin’s fingers tightened around the bow until the wood creaked. She forced herself onward. The noncombatants had been sent toward the stone hollow before dawn. The hunters had sworn to hold the settlement path long enough for them to reach it.

They had not sworn to live.

Through a break in the smoke, she saw the man directing the invaders.

He stood where the path widened near the council fire, taller than those around him, his armor edged with dull gold. No shield covered him. He pointed with a curved blade, and soldiers moved at once. When one hesitated at the burning brush, the commander struck him across the mouth with the back of his hand.

Fayrin crouched.

One arrow for him. One for whatever came after.

She crossed to a lower branch where the smoke would hide her. The commander turned, surveying the trees as if the forest were merely another formation he intended to break. Blood streaked one cheek. Not his, she thought.

Her breathing slowed.

She set the arrow to the string and drew until her shoulder blades pressed together. The distance was longer than she preferred. Wind pushed smoke north. His throat showed above the collar of his armor.

He looked toward her tree.

Fayrin saw recognition sharpen his face.

He reached over his shoulder for a bow.

She would loose first.

Movement flashed beside the nursery.

A soldier with a torch ran toward the low, round building tucked beneath the roots of the great ash. Its door had been barred from within. The children who could not make the climb to the hollow had been hidden there with two elders.

The commander drew.

Fayrin changed targets.

Her arrow crossed the clearing and struck the torchbearer beneath the arm. He spun, flinging fire across the nursery roof.

Pain exploded through Fayrin’s left shoulder.

The commander’s arrow punched through flesh and drove her backward. Her fingers opened. The bow fell, turning once before it disappeared into smoke.

The branch vanished beneath her feet.

She struck another limb on the way down. Something cracked—wood or bone—and then the ground slammed the air from her lungs. Ferns crushed beneath her. For several breaths she could see only pale sky tangled in black branches.

Her body would not obey.

Fayrin rolled onto her right side and found the arrow jutting from the back of her shoulder. The head had passed through. Dark blood soaked her tunic, but the wound was not what frightened her.

Her fingertips tingled.

Poison.

The invaders emerged through the smoke, shields raised, expecting another arrow. One laughed when he saw her bow lying beyond reach.

Fayrin dragged her knife from her belt.

Her left hand had already begun to curl uselessly, so she held the blade in her right and forced herself to her knees. The nursery stood twenty paces away. Fire crawled along the thatch where the torch had landed.

The barred door shook once from inside.

She rose.

The first soldier came carelessly. Fayrin let her knees buckle, watched satisfaction loosen his stance, then drove upward beneath his breastplate. The knife entered soft flesh. His breath burst hot against her face.

She tore the blade free and shoved him into the second man.

The second wore no helmet. Fayrin slashed his cheek to the bone before he caught her wrist. She twisted, stamped his knee, and heard him howl. A third soldier struck her across the back.

The ground rushed up again.

Laughter circled her.

Fayrin planted the knife point in the earth and used it to push herself upright. Her arm trembled. The numbness had reached her elbow. Shadows doubled at the edges of her sight.

Words passed among the soldiers, ugly clipped sounds she could not separate. One mimicked her fall from the tree. Another pointed to the dead man at her feet and spat near her hand.

She lunged for his ankle.

He jumped back, and the others laughed harder.

The commander strode through them.

They opened a path at once.

He had slung his bow away. Up close, the gold edging on his armor was scratched and stained, and a pale line cut from his lower lip into his beard. He looked past Fayrin to the burning nursery, then back to her.

His smile showed small, even teeth.

Fayrin tried to lift the knife.

His boot struck her wrist. Bone ground against stone. The blade spun away.

He said something to the soldiers. Their laughter quieted into eager grins.

Fayrin gathered spit and blood in her mouth and sent it across his boot.

The commander’s expression emptied.

He kicked her onto her back.

The arrow shifted inside her shoulder. White pain blinded her. Before she could roll away, he planted one knee beside her ribs and seized the shaft. He spoke close to her face, slow words shaped as though she ought to understand them.

She bared her teeth.

He ripped the arrow out.

Her scream tore free before pride could stop it. The forest tilted. She heard cheers, boots scraping closer, men hungry for whatever their commander meant to do next.

Not all of them.

Beyond his shoulder, several soldiers watched without smiling. One looked away. Another rubbed a hand across his mouth.

A broad-shouldered officer near the edge of the circle stepped forward.

His armor was plainer than the commander’s, though better kept than the others’. Smoke had darkened his fair hair. A shallow cut crossed his brow. He spoke once.

The commander ignored him and caught the front of Fayrin’s tunic.

The officer spoke again, louder.

Silence spread unevenly through the soldiers.

Fayrin could not understand the words, but challenge needed no translation. The officer’s voice remained controlled while the commander’s sharpened. The commander gestured toward the dead men, toward Fayrin, then toward the nursery. The officer did not move aside.

For one foolish instant, hope stirred.

Then the officer looked down at her.

There was no mercy in his face. Not the mercy Fayrin knew. Mercy would have meant a knife across her throat before the poison stole the rest of her strength. Mercy would have meant turning his sword on the men burning children alive.

What she saw instead was anger held behind discipline, and something like disgust that might have been meant for his commander—or for her.

The commander rose with a curse. He shoved the officer hard enough to rock him back a step, then pointed toward the settlement. The officer answered with a short, flat sentence.

Around them, the soldiers waited.

At last the commander laughed.

He bent, caught Fayrin around the waist, and hauled her over his shoulder as if she were a slain deer. Her wounded arm dangled down his back. Each step drove pain through her until the clearing pulsed red.

Fayrin clawed for the knife at his belt. Her fingers brushed leather and failed to close.

The officer followed two paces behind. She saw his boots through her hanging hair.

She hated him for following. Hated him more for having made the commander stop, because it left her alive to hear the roof of the nursery collapse.

Flames burst through the thatch.

From inside came the thin, high voices of children.

Fayrin tried to scream their names, but the poison took her tongue, and darkness swallowed her while they were still crying.