two of them wheeled their horses around and fled, shouting for the others to follow.
Several more of Serge’s followers now came crashing through the undergrowth toward Jindabyne, just as a flight of arrows came hissing out of the trees and one man fell. Olga screamed as several more arrows whizzed past Jindabyne’s hiding place and Jindabyne readied herself to disrupt the next flight. Then a horn sounded out at the edge of the forest sounding the call to regroup.
“Come on,” Serge waved his arm. “We must get away. To me! To me! Jindabyne come on!”
He wheeled his horse around and rode deeper into the forest. With a shrug of her shoulders, Jindabyne dropped her camouflage and marshalling her magical defences again, followed.
***
Alyx Verdey, heir to the Mori throne was hunting with three of her Mori brethren. They were creeping silently toward a herd of hopping mice grazing in a glade near the outside border of their forest, when a shout rang through the trees and they heard the sound of horses and the ring of metal on metal.
The hopping mice fled from the sound. Alyx flattened herself against a tree trunk while her guardian, Didier dropped behind a bush. A horse whinnied and a man shouted. Horses - that meant Mirayans. Sweet life! What were they doing in the forest? Attacking? Was this the next step of their plan to destroy the Mori?
Didier, popped his head up above the bush and beckoned the others to follow as he crept through the underbrush toward the sound. Suddenly a couple of horses came crashing toward them, flank to flank, riders smashing at each other with swords. Silently the Mori group broke apart, all four putting trees between them and the riders. From where she was hiding, Alyx could see an old overgrown camp ground making a clearing in the surrounding forest. Several riders were fighting there and a couple more were hacking at each other on foot.
One young man stood up in his stirrups waving his sword.
“Madragas!” he shouted. “To me!”
Madraga! The surname of the Duke of Lamartaine, her father’s killer. So was he invading the Mori after all his promises? It didn’t look like it. It looked like his party was under attack by a superior force. The liveries showed them to be Lord Petrus’ men, but Petrus was a loyal follower of Madraga. Cursed Mirayans. Why were they fighting each other? And why come into the Mori forest to do it?
Suddenly, several men in Petrus’ livery fell from their saddles. Magic! Alyx looked around for the mage but he or she was keeping hidden. A couple more of Petrus’ men fell and the rest turned their horses and charged away towards the edge of the forest, leaving only those wearing Madraga colours behind. The young man who had called out turned his horse around.
“Jindabyne, come on,” he called. He was looking for a mage too and suddenly a woman carrying a child and crouched on the back of a horse, appeared. A Tari woman. She was so close Alyx would have walked into her had she crept a few steps further. Alyx had never seen this Tari before, even though she had thought she knew all the Tari outside Ermora! Jindabyne? That name seemed familiar.
A horn sounded nearby. Petrus’ men were probably marshalling for another attack. Certainly Madraga’s folk thought so for they turned their horses and fled away deeper into the forest. The moment the Madraga party had passed, Alyx slid round the tree back towards the place where her own group had originally separated. She spotted Didier among the ferns, caught his eye. After a quick exchange of signals, the silent language of hunters, Alyx and the others nocked arrows into their bows ready for when Lord Petrus men came into view.
“Are there Gibadgee in our forest?” asked one of her mother’s guards, using the derogatory name the Mori used for outsiders.
“We drove most of them off,” called Alyx over her shoulder as she entered the opening of the enclosure where her mother held court. “Only a few got through.”
How did news spread so fast? she wondered. After they’d scared off Lord Petrus’ men with a couple of flights of arrows, Didier had sent her and Seb back to the camp while he and Arlette had followed the Madraga group. For once she hadn’t argued about being sent to safety. Better this news comes from me than from someone who doesn’t understand the Madragas’ significance. Especially now that I remember who Jindabyne is.
Alyx handed the guard her weapons and strode down the corridor into the centre of the enclosure. Her mother, Elena Verdey, was there with some of her attendants. Since the attendants were all female her mother was unhooded. Good, Alyx would be able to read her expression.
Her mother had a thin message paper in her hand and a couple of messenger birds sat on a bird feeder that hung over the side of the enclosure. So that was how the camp knew about the Mirayans in the forest. But a bird could only carry short messages. Her mother smiled at Alyx and Alyx’s heart sank. Elena clearly didn’t know. Alyx would have to tell her about the Madragas and break her mother’s fragile peace. Talk of the Madragas meant reminding her mother of Alyx’s father’s murder and of the captivity and abuse Elena had suffered at the hands of his killers. Often as not these memories drew Elena into black moods, leading to days spent sitting silently in the corner of her tent, speaking only as much as was necessary to maintain her rule.
Alyx knelt formally, as was proper for a subject, and gave her report of the fight and of Didier’s plan to follow the intruders.
“He has done well,” said her mother, her eyes bright with exaltation. “Were there any indications of who they might be?”
“Their leader called out the name Madraga,” Alyx told her mother carefully. “I don’t know if it was his name or his chieftain’s.”
Elena clapped her hands, her face full of bitter triumph. “Ha! So they have ended up here.”
Alyx blinked. Not the reaction she had expected. How did her mother know everything when she seldom left the enclosure?
“Our spies in Lamartaine say that Lev Madraga has taken over the Dukedom and driven out the youngest son Serge. So Lord Petrus has turned against Serge Madraga,” Elena paused. “Unexpected.”
“And Duke Wolf?” asked Alyx, feeling so confused by this news that she mentioned a name she normally never spoke aloud.
Her mother laughed mirthlessly.
“He’s dead,” she snapped. “He was killed five days ago with his two oldest sons. The Mirayans blamed us, of course.”
Alyx’s jaw dropped in amazement.
“Dead? Then he’s gone!” Her sense of relief was quickly replaced by outrage. “And they blamed us!”
“Until Mage Lev accused Serge of killing his father. Though I expect that the Mori will still be held responsible for it in the end. Given what I know of Lev, he is probably attempting to conceal his own guilt.”
Her mother’s mood was so strange that Alyx hesitated to go on, but a ruler could not make proper decisions without having all the facts.
“There was someone else with them,” she said. “A Tari. The leader called her Jindabyne.”
“Jindabyne! Sweet life, Jindabyne here!” cried Elena. Her eyes narrowed. For a moment she almost wasn’t beautiful. “So. I am to have vengeance after all.”
***
The Madraga troops bashed their way along through the underbrush in single file behind Serge, the nervous horses occasionally shying at rustling shrubs or uneven ground under their feet. Here the mangiri trees grew as tall and straight as pillars, with few branches low enough to trouble the riders, but the undergrowth beneath them, tall tree ferns and prickly shrubs, was as high as the horses’ heads and covered all manner of fallen logs or stones. Jindabyne was too busy trying to keep her mount under control to pay any attention to the birds nearby.
She was not the only one to heave a sigh of relief when the party suddenly came out onto a path. Serge stopped and the others gathered round him. Except for the breathing of the horses and the shushing of the wind in the trees, it was suddenly