had been hit in arms raised in defense, or legs as people threw themselves sideways. Her small cry had saved many lives.
The fighting was over more quickly than Taya had imagined possible. The rebel forces had taken no prisoners.
Taya pulled herself to her feet, which burned with pins and needles but supported her weight, and looked quickly over the gathering. She was ashamed that she only cared for certain faces, but her selfishness was rewarded. There was Jeremy, bloody sword griped grimly in an equally bloody hand; Darren, standing behind David; Ryan, close by as always. She realized with a pang that she could not see Sarah among those standing, though Liam was searching the ground for someone.
Darren came running to her side, David and Ryan close behind. They had not dropped their guard—one lone archer still hidden among the rocks could put an end to their would-be-king, and all their hopes for righteous revolution. Jeremy was ensuring someone triaged the wounded, and organizing the unwounded into a search party to comb the hills, but his eyes found her, full of gratitude and weight, before he turned away.
“Taya! Are ya hurt? I saw ya fall,” Darren said, catching her by the shoulders.
She shook her head, dreading the news that would pass between them, knowing its inevitability. She had thought she would relish a moment like this, a small victory, but she found the words were stale in her throat before they were even spoken.
“I’m fine. I just fell as I was getting down. I was a sitting duck up there.” She patted the horse’s heaving flank fondly, and it gave a faint snort. It must have been battle-trained—being a baron’s horse she supposed it was used to tourney grounds and the clash of steel on steel—or she was sure the smell of blood would have sent it mad.
“How did you know?” he asked, releasing her shoulders.
“I…” She glanced up at him for a moment, catching the concern in his deep gray eyes, and then quickly looked down at her feet. She couldn’t watch his face as she told him. “I’m sorry, Darren…it…I was in the stable, and I noticed a saddlebag…I didn’t know it at the time, but it was decorated all in gold. Gold and black.”
“A saddle? I don’t understand.”
“There were only two horses in the stable, Darren, and two saddlebags. One the set on the horse you see here. The other…was Nicola’s.”
“What?” He took a step away from her. Violently, he shook his head. “No, that can’t…There’s a mistake. She borrowed a saddlebag! It’s only a color, Taya. It means nothing.”
“If it was a mistake, I would have found no ambush here,” she reminded him gently.
“No,” he whispered, tears welling in his eyes, and then abruptly he spun and moved away, almost running.
Ryan put a hand gently on David’s arm and then took off after Darren, moving silently amidst the gravelly rocks.
“It is a hard blow,” David said quietly. “He will need time.”
Taya nodded, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. “Then we’ll have to give it to him. And meanwhile, the injured need our help. I don’t know much, but if you show me I can help.”
David nodded, putting a large hand very gently on her shoulder.
“I regret the circumstances, Taya, but I’m glad to have you among us once more,” he said solemnly.
“Thank you, David. I’m glad to be here.”
And she was, at first. Later, too, she thanked Ashua that she had found the courage to ride out, not letting herself be left behind in a cottage in the woods. But that afternoon, as her senses filled with blood and the screams of the dying, she regretted that this was now her world. She lost the contents of her stomach so many times that there was soon nothing left to vomit, but each time she gritted her teeth, wiped the sting of tears from her eyes, and returned to the blood-soaked earth. She had never given stitches before, and without an anesthetic it was an agony for surgeon and patient. Her arms were soaked in blood from fingertips to elbows, and many a time she could do nothing but clutch a man’s hand as David worked on his wounds. Of the twenty-six men who had accompanied Darren across the border, five were killed and ten more wounded. Sarah had taken an arrow through the throat—it would have killed her instantly, which was a small comfort. The young red-haired man, barely out of boyhood, who had ventured his