Honor Bound Read Free

held her in
thrall had apparently neglected to specify that she could
not defend.
    It was something, but he would have
been glad of her sword. When they were not fighting each other,
they made a formidable team. In years past, the two of them,
standing back to back, could hold off a dozen of the Mistheim's
best warriors.
    At least he had Asteria's help.
Starsong magic hummed through him, speeding his sword arm, slowing
the blood flowing from his wounds, dulling the pain.
    One of the humans barked a command.
The swordsmen scrambled out of the way as a swarm of arrows sped
toward the elfin trio.
    A black-shafted arrow pierced
Honor's sword arm. She hardly seemed to notice. But Nimbolk felt
the arrow that grazed his shoulder, the arrow that drove deep into
his thigh, the arrow that thrust a fiery lance of pain into his
side. And the next arrow, and the next.
    He did not remember falling, but he
must have done so, for why else would he be lying in the
snow?
    Honor kicked him aside and took his
place. One of the men lunged at her, slashing at the knee she'd
been favoring. Nimbolk heard the sword's impact, the chilling
scrape of metal against bone.
    She swayed but did not fall. "Go,
Asteria. Go now ."
    Nimbolk could read the reluctance on
the queen's face despite the mist that gathered on the edges of his
vision. In a voice weighted by duty and dull with sorrow, Asteria
spoke words that molded starsong into a softly glowing
portal.
    A dull thud sounded behind her.
Asteria slumped to the ground. In the light from the fading portal,
blood bloomed against the shining snowfall of her hair.
    The humans closed in, wolves
surrounding a fallen doe.
    Even now, Honor did not attack them,
but twin fires of rage and frustration burned in her
eyes.
    The man she'd tripped bent down to
reclaim the sword Nimbolk had wielded. "Bring the queen and the
dagger," he commanded. A cruel light slid into his pale blue eyes.
"Better yet, bring her corpse."
    Honor's shoulders sagged in defeat,
and if not for her staff she probably would have fallen into the
snow beside her sister. She pushed away from the staff and started
to reach for Asteria, stopping as she noticed the arrow impaling
her forearm. She grasped it just below the barbed point and yanked
it free, not even flinching as shaft and fletching slid through the
wound.
    Honor dragged the queen to her feet
and scooped her limp body into her arms. "Minue take you!" she
snarled as she hurled her twin-born sister at the massive
fir.
    To the humans, the words would sound
like a curse, an invocation to some dark god or demon. They would
see only an elf forced into treachery, cursing them as she dashed
her queen's head against an ancient pine.
    But Nimbolk's elfin eyes had seen
the bark of the tree turn to mist, as insubstantial as a
rainbow.
    The queen disappeared.
    Minue, the tree's guardian dryad,
had taken her.
    Honor pushed herself away from the
solid trunk. Her leggings had been torn from thigh to calf,
exposing her wounded knee. For a fleeting moment Nimbolk could have
sworn that metal, not bone, gleamed through the blood.
    She ran one hand over a new circle
of runes on the bark and then turned to face the invaders, triumph
written on her face.
    "You lose, Volgo."
    "There's a first time for
everything." The bearded man reached down into the bloody snow and
came up with the Thorn in his hand. "Unfortunately for you, this
isn't it."
    He made a sharp gesture with the
dagger. Behind Honor, the man who'd clubbed Asteria raised his
weapon high.
    Nimbolk tried to shout a warning,
but no breath remained to him. Even if he could warn her, even if
he had starsong left to send her, she could not move quickly enough
to avoid her fate.
    In helpless silence, he steeled
himself to witness the death of the elf he loved nearly as much as
he hated.
     
    * * *
     
    Honor surged to her feet, gasping as
she felt anew the impact of the club—the moment of bright, sharp
light, the sound of her own shattering skull and the