Читать книгу Throne of Dragons - Морган Райс, Morgan Rice - Страница 11

Prince Vars rode at the head of his men, trying to stay upright in the saddle and look every inch the royalty he was. He’d always been good at that. He wasn’t quite as muscled as Rodry, didn’t have the almost feminine beauty of Greave, but he was still young, still handsome, still noble looking in his armor and finery as he rode.

He knew that the guards with him were watching, waiting for his orders. He considered the inn where they’d stayed the night, wrung dry of ale, and meat, and women. Vars had paid for his share of all three, and now the temptation was to just dive back in there.

“Your highness,” the men’s sergeant said. “Shouldn’t we be making time if we’re to catch up with the princess on her wedding harvest?”

“I give the commands, Sergeant,” Vars reminded him, but the irritating thing was that the man had a point. Slacking off for a night had done no harm, and would serve to remind everyone that he was the important one. Even so, he knew how angry his father would be if he found out that Vars wasn’t there, and Vars had no wish to truly risk his father’s wrath.

“Very well,” he said. “We march!”

They set off, the sun just getting higher, the warmth pleasant rather than oppressive. They spent the morning making their way back to the crossroads where Vars had chosen for them to go the other way. They rode through open farmland, where fields of wheat and whatever other crops peasants were meant to grow stood on either side. The roads out here were dirt things, with dry stone walls to either side and occasional trees: apple and cedar, oak and pear. A few sheep flocked in one of the fields nearby, stupid as people often seemed to be.

His men, at least, were sensible: when they reached the spot where the fallen crossroads sign lay, they didn’t say a word about having been there before. Vars led the way down the other fork; it shouldn’t be more than about an hour’s ride from there to reach the inn where Lenore was supposed to be spending the night.

After that time alone, just afraid enough of the dangers of the road, she would greet Vars the way she always greeted their hero brother, Rodry. Of course, Vars would still need to spend another few days with her on this journey, trudging around the backwaters of the kingdom to collect tribute, but maybe that didn’t have to be so bad now. Maybe some of that tribute could find its way into his coffers along the way…

That pleasant thought kept Vars going while his troops marched in step, heading along the road to the inn. He could see it there in the distance, the buildings visible now through the trees. Vars heeled his horse forward. They would arrive as a single, shining cohort, with Vars at their head…

Something was wrong. There should have been smoke from cooking fires there, should have been a dozen other signs of life. Instead, it was quiet. A part of Vars screamed at him to turn back, to stay away. He knew, though, that doing so would make him look weak, would get back to his father…

So instead he hung back just enough to let the others arrive in the inn before him. From behind the wall of his men, Vars saw the spot where Lenore’s carriage had been left, and that made hope rise in him. Then he saw the bodies, and hope fell away again, replaced by a crushing fear.

They lay where they had fallen, or been dragged. Vars recognized the uniforms of the few guards Lenore had taken with her, covered in blood. There were maidservants, too, killed with at least as much savagery, although perhaps not so much speed. Vars’s practiced eye knew marks made with careful violence all too well.

Fear filled him then. Some of it was fear for his half-sister, because in spite of what some people thought, Vars was not a monster. Admittedly, more of it was fear for himself, and how their father would react if he found out that Vars had lost Lenore, but that wasn’t the point.

The point… the point was that this had happened and Vars hadn’t been here.

His first thought was relief, because being here would have meant senseless danger, maybe even death, looking at the ease with which it seemed that they’d slaughtered the few guards that had gone with Lenore.

His next thought was that he was meant to be there, and that everyone would know it. They would look at him like he was nothing, less than nothing, even though he was a prince of the realm.

“Find my sister!” Vars commanded. “Find out what happened here!”

He sat there atop his horse while his men spread out, watching as they moved from building to building. Vars sat with his hand on the hilt of his sword, not knowing what he would do if attackers were to leap from the buildings around. Would he strike out at them, or sit there frozen, or flee? Certainly, he wasn’t going to go into the buildings first, seeking out danger.

A part of Vars hated himself for that.

“There’s someone here!” the sergeant called out from over by the inn’s stables. “She’s alive, barely!”

That was enough to send Vars down from his horse, hoping against hope that it was Lenore. If she was dead among all of this…

He burst into the stables and found the sergeant helping a young woman to her feet. She wasn’t Lenore, didn’t even look like one of her maids. Instead, she wore simple clothes that marked her out as a peasant of some sort, perhaps a servant at the inn. Vars strode up to her.

“What happened here?” he demanded. “Where is my sister?”

The young woman cried out at the violence of his tone, and only the sergeant’s soothing grip on her stopped her from pulling away completely. Vars had no time for that. He needed to know what had happened here, needed to know just how much trouble he was in.

“What happened here?” he demanded. “Where is Princess Lenore?”

“Gone,” the servant said. “The Quiet Men… they took her…”

“Quiet Men?” Vars said, unwilling to believe it. He’d heard the stories. King Ravin’s trained killers, taught to cross the bridges to do his bidding.

“They… they killed most of us,” the woman said. “They took over the inn, kept only a few of us for… for…”

Another man might have said something soothing in that moment. Vars just watched her.

“Where is my sister?” he repeated.

“They took her,” the servant said. “They waited until she came into the inn with her men, and they killed the men, and… they captured her; her and her maids. They kept her here, hurt her, and now they’re riding for the South.”

“And they left you alive to tell us this?” Vars asked, not entirely believing it. When one did evil things, it was better to do them in secret, away from prying eyes. He knew that as well as anyone.

“They wanted people to know,” the young woman said. “They killed some of the maids, but others… they sent them out with the news. They left me here. They want people to know what they did, that they could get to the princess even here. That they have her.”

Vars let out a shout that was pure frustration and anger. Those around must have taken it for anger that his sister had been captured like that, that she was in danger. It was more than that, though, so much more. It was the fact that others knew what had happened here, thanks to those the Quiet Men had let go. It was the frustration that others would, inevitably, know about his failure.

It was the understanding of what he would need to do next.

“How many of them are there?” he demanded.

“A… maybe a dozen,” the woman said.

A dozen had done all of this? Still, at least there was one advantage to that: they outnumbered them. Vars liked it when he outnumbered his opponents.

“Gather the men,” Vars snapped.

“What about this one?” the sergeant asked, with a nod to the woman who’d been left.

“My sister’s the one who matters!”

She was the one whose safety would count to their father. Come back with her, and Vars could make up any story he wanted about being delayed on the road, then still be counted as a hero. Come back without…

It wouldn’t come to that; Vars wouldn’t allow it.

He went to his horse, vaulting into the saddle like some hero out of a song. The irony of it wasn’t lost on him as his men gathered, forming up together as precisely as if they’d been commanded by a real leader.

Vars drew his sword, which was more than he usually did in a fight. He looked out over the men.

“You, see if there are any horses left in the stables. The rest of you, get ready to march, double time.” There were a few murmurs from within the ranks, but Vars silenced them with a glare. “My sister, your princess, is in danger! King Ravin’s men are taking her back to the Southern Kingdom, and that means crossing the bridges. If we reach them first, we can still stop them, still save her! Every man here can be a hero!”

They all could, but he would be the biggest hero of all. Save his sister, and men would tell stories of how brave Prince Vars had fought the best that King Ravin could offer. Fail… fail and his father would probably have his head.

Kill a dozen men to stop that? Vars would do that and more.

“Forward!” he yelled, and heeled his horse onward. “We need to get to the bridge in time!”