Elvira's odds against the new attackers were horrendous: the courtyard Sigvart picked to make his escape was starting to look like a rallying point for the Deadfisher's men being pushed out of Antikapey's central district. Cerne was a green... meaning an inexperienced street fighter. Her troublesome betrothed was running away from her by the rooftops. Unlike him, she didn't have a magic rope to spirit her away from the mess she walked in.
She counted at least a dozen shadowy figures amassing on the opposite corner from her. It would only take one spark to set them against her. And she didn't have to wait long for that to happen.
"That harridan is with Sigvart!" someone hollered—the half-naiad's voice. So much for showing mercy. Gnashing her teeth, Elvira let her chains sing, instead of useless words.
Cerne sighed about there being so little for her to work with in this terrible city. Despite her dispirited mutterings, a few mud traps opened up in the beaten dirt, ready for the unwary feet.
The rogues charged all at once, in a wave of limbs and sharp objects. Elvira felt more unnerved by a twang of a bowstring. The first arrow went wide, but where there was one, there were more.
"Stay in the light. Do not waylay those who mean you no harm." Beautiful words, but had they ever worked?
Furious shouts responded to her instead, when the traps did their job. After that Elvira didn't have time for worrying about anything but deflecting the closest blade swinging at her.
Cerne produced a couple of weak vines that snapped like spider webs, barely slowing the attackers. Exhausted, she piped in, "Sorry!" and disappeared back into her acorn.
Irrationally, Elvira felt betrayed, even though her mind told her that she was better off without defending the fragile dryad. She also didn't need the guilt, if Cerne suffered a wound or, worse, fell in the fighting.
Her grip on the chains didn't weaken—odds or not, betrayal or not, the fight wasn't over while her eyes beheld the light. And the light and shadow was all she could see. The attackers were a blur of dangers to turn away. She did, she did. A blade, an arrow point, another blade.
Something slipped under her defence, piercing her shoulder. The shouting drowned out her shout of pain, but then a more important sound emerged from the noise.
The brassy note of the war horn. The clip-clopping of hooves. And a hoarse voice that yelled, "Stay in the light! Do not—"
"Do not waylay those who mean you no harm!" Elvira shouted back on top of her lungs.
Elvira's attackers turned to the unknown threat. Between their bodies, she saw glimpses of the most beautiful sight in the world: a score of the mounted knights of the Order of Verity. Their horses circled in place, the swords flashing bravely, and the red flower blazed in the strengthening light in the eastern sky.
Somehow, she survived to see the dawn!
The thought poured quicksilver into Elvira's veins, almost enough to fly after Sigvart. Alas, almost didn't count, so she hacked at the backs of her attackers with renewed fury.
Her rescuers' warhorses trampled the rogues into dirt, sturdy arms cutting the others down... it was beautiful and fast, and she survived. Just like a righteous fight should be!
"Thank you and well met!" she cried out to the mounted knights.
"Well met." Their leader rode over and lifted his visor. "Allow me to tend your wounds, Dame."
The heat of the battle cleared her head. Thousand scrapes and bruises bit into her, beyond the exhaustion in her limbs. Nothing life-threatening, but she was about to chase a nimble rogue over the rooftops. "I would be most grateful, Sir."
"Theophil," the paladin introduced himself with a smile, then yelled to his fellows that he would catch up in a moment. While he filled his hands with the same healing light as easily as Ferrante, that's where the resemblance between her healer and her beloved ended. Theophil face was open and boyish, with earnest hazel eyes and close-cropped reddish beard. A younger son of a noble family, a pleasant man without prospects to inherit, the kind she had seen loitering at court all her life looking for luck. Good for him for finding a better purpose in life...
"Are you new to our Chapter, Dame?" Theophil asked cheerfully. "You wear our colours, but I haven't seen you around, in the chapel or the refectory."
By the stockiness of his torso, Elvira assumed that he frequented the refectory at least as much as he did the chapel. But that didn't make him less sharp for verifying her identity under the cover of the banter.
"I am Elvira, Sir," she supplied, "and I stepped off the ship near midnight. I am on a temporary leave from the Monterrey Chapter. A delicate family matter to attend to."
"In Gallicia, isn't it?" the man smiled.
She nodded; in these parts, her accent was too familiar to deny the obvious.
"Aye, understandable, with all the changes there..."
Elvira wished he would elaborate instead of trailing off, but this wasn't the time to sit down and trade news. Plus, seeing that she professed to be traveling home, it was best not to reveal her ignorance. She just nodded again. She would inquire after she married Sigvart.
The honor, however, obliged her to speak up. "My sword is yours to aid in restoring the order in the city, Sir Theophil."
And, as much as she loathed it, she fell back on something from her forsworn life as a princess. She hooded her eyes and tilted her head just enough to hint at her exhaustion. It was a hard facade to put on. The war drums already started up in her heart. Her hands and feet itched to climb that roof and chase after Sigvart.
Theophil picked up on the clues like an honorable man of his station should. "We can't ask more of you than you have already done, Dame. You've walked into the middle of a fray after a long sea-crossing. Besides, it's quieting down now. We'd nearly chased the Deadfisher to his layer. And that other scoundrel Raul is lying low. Light only knows what burr got under his tail to start this."
"And the fires?"
"One of my knights has the elemental affinity with water. She contained the flames and is presently putting out the hot spots. The city is secured, Dame."
Elvira sighed in relief, the image of those who lost their homes running for their lives with what they could save fresh in her mind. Guilt tasted sour in the back of her throat again, but Sigvart was on the run. Maybe she could arrest this Raul the Earless when she caught up to her wily fiancé.
"Don't you worry, Dame," Theophile reiterated. Not privy to her thoughts, he must have interpreted her frown based on the half-truths she had told him. Another boyish, ridiculously hopeful smile brightened his face. "If you have no lodgings arranged beforehand, the Order's quarters are at the Holy Light Lane. It's—"
"Thank you, I know where it is," Elvira said. "I held you up too much already." She wished she had Sigvart's audacity to announce to the world that her heart was devoted to Ferrante alone, but Sigvart said it in a better context. Perhaps, he only professed to uphold their engagement to women who threw themselves at him. In the interest of safety, no doubt.
It took an eternity for Theophil to mount, even though he wasn't clumsy. It was just that he didn't vault into the saddle the way Ferrante would have. Then he threw another glance over his shoulder before pointing his horse into an alley and galloping after his unit. That would have been just what Ferrante would have done, and her heart squeezed at the memory of many such glances.
Elvira didn't know if she should be flattered or dismayed by Theopile's chivalry. She wouldn't have given it a second thought before, but since admitting her feelings for Ferrante, she became increasingly curious about love.
She even tried to remember the words of minstrels' songs on the ship. To counteract the dreadful shanties, she told herself. But who was she kidding! The ballades' sentimental words now resonated with her, and the more heart-wrenching, the better. It used to be that the marching songs had that effect on her and epic sagas. Now, it was the ballads.
And why shouldn't I dream of love?
The anonymity of her new station permitted her enjoy love—save for occasional freak lightning storms that blew in from her Princess' past. Fortunately, just like with the sailors' less courteous attentions, no tempest broke out to strike Theophil down the moment he set his eyes on her and thought... who knew what he thought. Apparently, the curse must have required her to reciprocate the feelings to the degree she had reciprocated Ferrante's feelings. Or, perhaps, her maidenhood and Sigvart's rights to it had to be endangered against her will. Neither was the case, so she could proceed without delay.
She scouted the buildings and found two close enough together that she could press her back into it and use her arms and legs on the opposite wall to prop herself up.
About half way through the laborious ascent, a green shoot stretched out of her neck pouch, and felt the wall. It found a purchase, then the acorn popped out of her pouch. The fresh section of the shoot stretched out from the anchoring spot, pulled the acorn up, and so forth and so on, and in no time, Cerne dangled her feet, sitting at the edge of the roof.
"Great job," Elvira grated.
Cerne dipped her head forward and her emerald tresses wrapped themselves around Elvira's arms and whisked her to the tiled rooftop. "I had no idea I could do that!" she exclaimed with an enthusiasm that stopped all further complaints from Elvira.
"You learn a lot of things about yourself on the road," she said instead.
"Uh-huh," Cerne replied. "Now give me a moment to talk to the locals," she splayed her hands of the mossy tiles, and her fingers blended into the green film over the red of clay. With her other hand, she pointed toward the east where the Vesper Star was fading before the pink and orange rays of the rising sun.
Elvira ran across the roof, her heels pounding on the tiles. But, if the inhabitants of the rooms below were not aroused from their sleep by the fire and the fighting on the streets, her thumping wouldn't matter.
Luckily, the roofs of Antikapey didn't slope steeply, as snow was almost never a concern this far south. Elvira picked up speed and leapt the gap to the next house. She landed safely a half-body length away from the edge, her knees absorbing the impact.
Cerne did the same, and with less noise. The lighter landing, however, was negated by giggling. She didn't hit the brakes after the jump, taking the lead. Elvira charged after the skipping dryad. Maybe after the turbulent night, the guards would choose to mistake them for overgrown kids playing tag.
Running and leaping, leaping and running, she chased Sigvart.
The roofs made an incredible pathway, convenient pavement one moment, a chilling thrill the next, with a drop gaping below her feet.
Sometimes Cerne stopped to confer with moss and change direction, giving Elvira a breather.
The roof-hopping could have been fun, if she didn't spot the bodies left in the streets or people lingering like shadows in the burned-down quarter. Theophil and his cohorts will find the Deadfisher, Elvira promised herself.
She didn't know why she was so sure that the fire wasn't Raul's doing. She just wanted to believe that Sigvart wouldn't tangle with someone who'd torch houses of the less fortunate. At least she was sure it was not Sigvart himself who set the houses ablaze, or she wouldn't have caught him in the battle's hotspot by the Cockerel.
The houses grew smaller, first two, then only one storey tall. The pigs and chickens spilled out into the yards and streets as the morning dawned. Elvira hopped off the roof and waved for Cerne to jump too. "I know where they are going."
They already climbed over the section of the city wall a few blocks back. It badly needed repair, but at least the dwellings within its perimeter would be protected if an attack came. These poor huts would be destroyed and their inhabitants would beg to be sheltered in the castle... But the slum dwellers did their best to fortify the exit into the surrounding hills against lone murderers or thieves, with palisades and hedges woven with brambles. Hopefully, Sigvart left a few shreds of his precious cloak on those thorns...
Elvira surveyed the hedge and winced. She didn't fancy climbing it, even with vambraces and greaves for protection.
"The men we are tracking mounted the horses and took that road," Cerne said after touching the thorny tangles.
A thin trail popped into view and disappeared again in the prickly grass. A lark sung, invisible, high in the sky and cicadas answered from the ground, equally hidden from sight. A herd of sheep rolled out of the gates to Elvira's right, adding the excited bleating to the early morning's symphony.
There was no sign of Sigvart's hasty flight, no matter how hard Elara squinted at the trampled dirt and worn out grass, but she trusted Cerne's tracking. He came through here, riding hard for a hideout somewhere in the countryside.
"I need a horse," Elvira said. "Let's see if the Order can spare one."