2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows Read Online Free Page A

    
    The dog had it by the throat. As her jaws crushed through the mount’s flesh, dark blood welled over the dog’s muzzle. The tahldi thrashed desperately, trying to shake the dog off. Alidas swung like a doll in his saddle. His rifle went flying and landed near John’s feet.
    Suddenly, the dog was thrown aside. A geyser of blood sprayed from the mount’s neck and it collapsed with Alidas half pinned beneath it. The moment the dog hit the ground, it turned and sprang for Alidas.
    “No!” John grabbed Alidas’ rifle and took aim at the dog. She stood over Alidas’ limp body, growling, her eyes on John.
    “Just go,” John said softly. “Get out of here.”
    The dog barred her teeth. Blood so dark that it was nearly black glistened across her entire face.
    “I’ll kill you if I have to,” John told her.
    Slowly, her eyes still on John, her teeth still barred, she backed away. John kept the rifle trained on her until she at last turned and fled into the deep shadows of the western woods. The empty rifle dropped from John’s hands. His arms shook with shock. He wondered how badly he’d been hurt by the fall. Definitely not as badly as Alidas.
    John knelt down over the fallen rider to check his pulse and breath. Alidas was alive, but not conscious. There was blood all over him, but John thought it was his mount’s. The tahldi lying on top of Alidas’ left leg was a mess, its head connected to its body by only by a stretch of tendon and a flap of skin.
    John touched the ground. It was soft and moist. A thick layer of half-decayed leaves and twigs covered the actual soil. He dug fistfuls of dirt and leaves from around Alidas’ pinned leg and then pulled him out from beneath his dead tahldi. The leg looked bad, twisting at the wrong angle below the knee.    
    John stripped off his coat and tucked it around Alidas’ inert body. He didn’t trust himself to attempt to splint the leg. He’d probably do more harm than good and there had to be some kind of physician in Amura’taye. For now he just needed to keep Alidas warm and safe.
    Distantly, John heard gunshots and the sound of a tahldi screaming, but it was so far from him that it could have been a bird call. Even with the growing morning light, he couldn’t see any of the other riders. He guessed they each chased their own chosen quarry, as Alidas had.
    John sat down beside Alidas, exhausted and shaking. His eyes burned and his back ached. He’d been up the entire night. But he knew he was trembling from more than simple exhaustion.
    He’d never seen brutality like this. He hardly knew how to react. Intellectually, he knew that this battle would have taken place whether or not he had warned the Bousim convoy. Still, he couldn’t keep from feeling responsible for the carnage surrounding him, for Alidas’ hopelessly mangled leg.
    More gunshots cracked through the woods.
    If John hadn’t warned the Bousim convoy, then perhaps Alidas would not have been injured; but then again, maybe he would have been killed. John pulled the rifle close and leaned his head down on his knees. He would stay with Alidas until Pivan came searching for his surviving rashan. He didn’t think that there was anything more he could do. Just wait.
    His eyes were drooping closed when he heard a hushed moan behind him. Turning back, John realized that he had forgotten completely about Saimura.
    The young man’s chestnut hair was tangled with dirt and rotten leaves. Mud streaked his tattered, reddish coat, pants and bare feet. He had his hands wrapped around his right ankle.
    As John pushed himself to his feet, the young man looked up at him and went pale. His brown eyes were wide with fear. The moment he caught sight of the rifle in John’s hand he drew out a long hunting knife. He didn’t hold it towards John. Instead, he turned the blade to his own throat.
    “Don’t,” John whispered to him.
    “I won’t burn on your Holy Road,” Saimura said.   
    “Saimura,”