Crown of One Hundred Kings (Nine Kingdoms Trilogy #1) - Rachel Higginson Page 0,55

turns.

I could hear dogs barking and men shouting. Arrick’s sharp curse echoed my fear. Soravale was known for its hunting dogs.

Arrick dug his heels into Thief’s belly and the steed pushed forward, faster, more determined.

I turned to see Oliver’s near collision with a low hanging branch. “Keep up, Monk!” I shouted at him.

He hollered something back that was decidedly not monk-like.

The hounds barked and bayed, their low growls biting at the distance between us. As far as I could tell we were straddling the Tenovian/Soravalian border. We weaved in and out of forestry but didn’t commit to either country.

The Tenovian army would know this land well. They would be ready for us if we moved too far south. And yet, Soravale waited to the north. Both royal houses wanted Arrick, and they would want me, if they discovered who I was.

But I was more concerned about Arrick at the moment than my own survival or the crown in my satchel. He needed to be able to continue helping the realm.

I wouldn’t let him be captured. After he had saved my life so many times, I would do the same for him.

The path made a series of sharp turns. The hounds sounded like they were right on our heels. Oliver shouted something behind us, but I couldn’t make it out over the pounding of hooves and the racing of my own heart.

Arrick glanced back at me, his expression filled with determination. He nodded once and I understood him. He would protect me, no matter the cost.

The forest opened up into a clearing. Even the canopy of leaves and branches thinned, allowing a shaft of sunlight to provide a brightness and warmth I’d been missing inside Tenovia. We burst into the clearing.

“Just through here,” Arrick barked. “Then we’ll be—”

Our horses drew up, nearly unseating me. Soravalian guards pushed through the edges of the clearing on all sides. We were surrounded.

Arrick whipped our horses around to go back the way we came, but hounds rushed through, barking and snapping at the air, closely followed by more riders. One of them held Oliver’s reins tightly in his hands, another one kept a sword pointed at Oliver’s back.

“Dragon’s blood,” I cursed. Two armies working together to stop one person seemed a bit excessive, although we seemed to have lost the Tenovians. Or maybe we’d managed to end up on the Soravale side of the border. Regardless, it shouldn’t take an entire legion to capture one outlaw without his army.

Arrick pulled his blade from his hip and pointed it with unerring precision at the Soravalian captain. “You will let us go.”

The captain, a man at least ten years Arrick’s senior, slid off his horse and landed with the grace of a feline. “I cannot. I have orders.”

“Damn your orders,” Arrick growled. “I have essential business to attend to.”

“Be that as it may,” the captain smirked. “Your presence has been requested at the palace. By force if necessary.”

“Haeman, you make a grave mistake,” Arrick returned. He released Finare’s reins and slid off Thief as well. His feet hit the forest floor with a thud. He turned a slow circle, arcing his deadly blade in front of him. Bloody hell was right. He planned to fight the entire lot of them.

“You are outnumbered,” Haeman reminded Arrick.

Arrick smiled. “I cannot recall a time when that has ever mattered.”

“By the power of the Light,” I muttered, jumping down and pulling out my blade.

Arrick glanced over his shoulder, “I thank you for your concern, Stranger, but I can handle these—”

I lunged forward before he could insult me, meeting the sword of a Soravalian guard. The man was unprepared for the force of my hit and wobbled precariously to the side. In another two moves, I had his sword thrown from his limp hands and my blade at his throat.

I turned a raised eyebrow at Arrick. His mouth hung open and his sword stilled in his frozen fingers. “What was that?”

I bobbed a curtsy. “My education.”

He shook his head as if clearing it of fog. “Alright then.”

I turned around to face the guard closing in on me. “Alright, then.”

The clanging of swords clashed through the air as the guards attacked. Arrick and I fought valiantly, relentlessly. Our horses danced uneasily in the middle of it all.

I jumped and parried and leapt out of the way of more than a half dozen blades. Disabling what I could, I fought to stay just a step or two ahead of them. They attacked as one,