Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Dane
The night hung dark and still over the dunes of Dry Reach. Quiet. Almost peaceful. Nothing stirred out there amongst the great ocean of Arathian tents dotting the desert. Nothing save for their campfires glittering like fireflies.
From his perch crouched atop the ramparts of what was now the outer wall, Dane narrowed his eyes.
Something felt…wrong.
The scuff of boots against stone was all the warning he received before a sour scent suddenly choked his senses. “Wilsham!” his bunkmate Thorley slurred, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing up here? We have third watch tonight.”
He shrugged off the other man’s hand. “It’s quiet out. I don’t like it.”
“Quiet?” Thorley tilted his head to the side, as if listening.
But there was nothing to listen to.
“Where are the drums?” Dane hissed. “And why is Arath not attacking tonight?”
Night and day, the walls of Fort Mysai had been under attack ever since Arath’s first midnight assault.
For months, the witches had flung their unholy fire.
For weeks, the enemy soldiers had employed their siege engines.
Every day and every night, the ceaseless rhythm of their war drums had swelled to fill the desert.
And now that Elmoria’s reinforcements from Drakmor had finally arrived, now that there was even the smallest sliver of them actually surviving this siege…Arath was silent?
Thorley sucked on his teeth and took another swig from the green bottle he carried—vodka from Drakmor, brought by their allies.
“They probably know they’ll have to retreat soon.
They’re just resting up for their long march back across the desert.
” Cracking a grin, he added, “Or maybe they’re hiding in their tents from the phantom of the dunes. ”
Thorley waggled his fingers and laughed.
Dane huffed out a sigh through his nose. “Maybe,” he conceded without a lick of confidence. Maybe that was it. Maybe they were simply curled up in their tents, licking their wounded pride. Or hiding from the “phantom” the Arathians had grown to fear out there in the desert.
Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe it was something else entirely.
Something far worse.
Unease crawled its way up Dane’s spine, prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. He wanted to believe that was it. He wanted to let his anxiety go, to give it all over to the Lord. That was what he was supposed to do, wasn’t it?
He remembered all those long summer afternoons spent sweating in the back pew of the Baron of Leinor’s private chapel with his ma and little brother, Hedley, listening to the Shepherd drone on about giving all one’s worries to the Lord and just letting Him take care of them.
But try as he might, he couldn’t quite let this one worry go.
Somehow, Dane knew he was supposed to take care of this one himself.
“I’m going to speak to Sir Conall,” he decided, easing around Thorley’s bulk so he could descend down the narrow flight of stairs leading into the guard tower. His commanding knight was a man he could trust. Surely, he’d know what to do.
Thorley shrugged, his rancid breath wafting over Dane’s face again when he slurred, “Whatever tickles your fancy, Wilsham.”
Dane dove down the stairs, his axe swinging within its holster and his shield thumping against his back with each step. He had abandoned his bow and quiver days ago. There was no point in carrying them anymore.
He was out of arrows.
Bursting out into the courtyard, he jogged straight for the commons—the squat building attached to the barracks where the soldiers not on watch ate and caught their breath.
The cool night air curled around him like a living thing as he ran, heavy and strangely moist. A peal of what sounded like thunder rumbled in the distance.
Rain again? So soon after the last miraculous storm that swept that strange smoke from the sky so that the usuri could finally carry news to and from Elmoria?
Warmth washed over him when he wrenched open the double doors, revealing crowded tables filled with armored men eating and drinking together—Elmorian and Drakmori.
“Where’s Sir Conall?” he called out to no one in particular.
A big, bearded man from his unit named Elias—some bloke all the way from Varoa who liked to tell tall tales about bears as large as trees—shrugged. “He’s in his quarters, most likely.”
A swarthy Drakmori soldier sitting on a bench nearby flashed a friendly smile. “You look cold, friend. Why don’t you come get a swig?” He waved another of those green glass bottles at him. More vodka.
Elias snorted. “Neither of you know what true cold feels like.”
Dane ignored them both and hurried back out the door. His unease returned the moment he stepped back out into the quiet, driving his pulse faster, his anxiety higher.
Sir Conall. He needed to find Sir Conall. He knew he did.
It was all he knew.
Skirting around the outer edge of the commons, he mounted the short flight of stairs leading to the next level, just above the barracks, that housed the officers’ quarters. Sir Conall’s door loomed in the distance. A light stirred in the window.
Relief flooded his heart. Good. Sir Conall was there. Soon they could speak, and the older man could tell him if he was being paranoid or not. Perhaps he even had a bad feeling, too.
But just as his hand hovered over the doorknob, just as he was about to barge into the knight’s quarters uninvited, a sudden thought shot through his mind. Sharp. Commanding.
Wait.
Dane froze.
From just behind the iron-banded door, a muffled shout sounded. Something heavy crashed to the floor. The light in the window went dark.
Dane forgot how to breathe. Voices. He heard voices—two men. Neither he recognized by sound alone. But there was one thing about them he recognized: their accents.
They were both Drakmori.
The voices grew louder. The doorknob turned.
Without thinking, Dane ducked into the nearby alley running between Sir Conall’s quarters and that of the next commanding officer just as the door creaked open and the two men slipped out into the night, as soundless as shadows.
Their steps retreated. Off in the near distance, he heard another shout.
Slowly, cautiously, he crept from the alley, his heart hammering at his ribs. Another rumble of thunder growled, louder that time. Atop the wall, just above the Gate of Exiles, he spied a torch flickering in the night as if it were being waved back and forth.
The air around him seemed to drop by several degrees.
He shivered.
You should run, a part of him whispered as he hesitated outside the still-open door leading into the deep shadows of Sir Conall’s room. The cowardly part. The part that wished he were still a farmer back in Leinor, tending fields alongside his brother.
Something is happening. There’s still time to run and save yourself.
Swallowing down his fear, he slipped past the door. His boots immediately caught on something slick underfoot, nearly pitching him to the floor. A metallic tang soaked the air. A tang he was all too familiar with.
Blood.
“Wilsham?” a voice rasped from the darkness. Weak. Nearly inaudible.
Sir Conall.
“I’m here, sir,” he whispered back, nudging the door closed until only a single sliver of moonlight illuminated his path.
He still found the knight easily enough where the Drakmori had left him—crumpled on the floor in a useless heap.
The man had clearly been caught either in the middle of removing his armor or putting it on.
His breastplate still rested on his armor stand. His sword lay nearby, still sheathed.
The obvious question lingered on the tip of his tongue. What happened? He didn’t bother asking it, though. He could see good and well what had happened.
The Drakmori had stabbed him in the lower gut.
Hand pressed against his wound, Sir Conall pushed himself up onto an elbow and barked out a quiet laugh. “You sent me Wilsham,” he murmured as if to himself, sounding amused.
A scream shrieked in the distance. A faint tinge of smoke wafted through the air.
Dane frowned and cast a glance back toward the door. “You need a medic, sir—”
“What I need is a Shepherd,” Sir Conall contradicted through gritted teeth.
“But we don’t have time for that. Listen closely, Wilsham.
I need…I need you…” Eyelids fluttering, the man swallowed hard and tried again.
“Take command, Wilsham. Fall back. Save what men you can. Retreat to the inner ring. Send word to the mainland.”
Each of the knight’s words struck Dane like a fresh blow to the stomach, driving him to his knees. Take command. But…he couldn’t. He wasn’t a knight.
He was no one. A common-born nobody. Who would follow him? Who would listen?
“I’m not a knight, sir,” he swiftly reminded Sir Conall. “I can’t—”
The other man cut him off with a mad laugh. “You are now. Congratulations on your knighthood, Sir Dane.”
Removing his right hand from his wound, Sir Conall snatched up his sword and pressed the bloody hilt into the grasp of Dane’s fingers. It was a brutishly large weapon—nearly as tall as he was. The weight of it felt odd in his hand.
Wrong, as if the sword itself knew he wasn’t worthy of wielding it.
“Take my blade,” the knight commanded. “And take my…” His hand trembled, falling limp to the floor. “Take my signet ring…”
Dane stared, dumbfounded, at the heavy gold ring bearing the symbol of a winged horse glinting on the knight’s third finger. He wanted to protest again. Who was he to carry a nobleman’s family crest?
But he no longer had the will to argue with a dying man.
Instead, he merely met Sir Conall’s swiftly fading gaze and asked, “What message do you want me to send to the mainland, sir?”
A faint smile hitched on the corner of the knight’s mouth. “Tell my wife I died with honor…rather than like…a butchered pig…”
Dane’s chest tightened. “Done.”
Sir Conall’s smile faded. His eyes finally fluttered closed. “And tell the queen…” he dully rasped, his voice little more than a thread of sound now. “Tell her Drakmor…betrayed us…tell her…”
Bowing his head, Dane quietly prayed for the deliverance of Sir Conall’s soul even as the knight drew in one last shaky breath and exhaled, “Tell her Mysai…will fall.”