Chapter 24 Dane
Chapter twenty-four
Dane
The deep tolling of the bells of Mysai filled the air, rattling through his bones, his chest, his heart. A palpable collective fear choked his senses—a noxious stink that left him nearly breathless as he pounded through the eerily empty streets of what had once been a bustling trade port.
Despite the hot afternoon sun seeking to scorch him through his armor, he still felt cold. It was a beautiful, cloudless day. Unease settled low in his gut again, driving him onward along with the dozen men who remained in his unit.
Something was coming—something far worse than all the soldiers, siege engines, and war elephants the King of Arath could fling at them.
Witches. A good handful of them, too, if Thorley’s last count had been accurate.
“Make for the docks!” Dane shouted again, his voice echoing off the elegant marble buildings stretching far overhead. Domes of gold, silver, and glass caught the light, seeking to blind him as he veered into the next street, banging on doors as he went. “All civilians must evacuate!”
“They’ve already left, Wilsham,” Thorley snarled, “and if we were half as smart, we would, too, while we still can. Other units have deserted already. We can, too.”
Dane tightened his jaw and kept moving. The clamor of many voices rumbled in the distance. The tang of salt water and rotting fish cut through the stench of fear.
They were getting close to the harbor.
“We have our orders,” he reminded Thorley without glancing that way. “Evacuate the civilians. After that, you can blight off to the desert like a coward if you want.”
Elias barked out a laugh.
Thorley grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him around to face him. Even through the slit in his helm, Dane could clearly see the wild look shining in the other man’s eyes—like a spooked horse ready to bolt.
“Coward?” his bunkmate repeated, spitting the word.
“I’d rather live a coward than die a hero.
” Thorley glanced just over Dane’s shoulder, where Sir Conall’s sword was now strapped to his back.
He sneered. “Dying man gives you a sword and now you think you’re all important, eh, Wilsham?
Well, I don’t give a blasted fig what Sir Conall wanted. You’re no commander of mine.”
Dane gritted his teeth until his jaw ached as Thorley kept on, hissing straight in his face with his rancid, vodka-soaked breath, “A crybaby like you, always whimpering in the middle of the night when you think no one can hear. ‘Oh, please, Lord, let Hedley still be alive.’ How old are you, Wilsham? Because you sound like—”
Without a word, Elias stepped forward and slammed the butt of his warhammer down over Thorley’s head. The man immediately crumpled into a quiet heap at Dane’s feet.
Unconscious.
“Anyone else want to waste time flinging insults at Sir Wilsham?” Elias roared to the rest of the unit.
When no one answered, the northman grunted and looked back to Dane.
Sir Wilsham. He didn’t blame Thorley for balking. Even he found it absurd.
But he was the commanding knight for his unit now. He could no longer afford to be afraid, nor to doubt. His men needed him.
The people of Mysai needed him.
Nudging Thorley’s body with the tip of his boot, he rolled the other man off to the side of the street and prayed he might be missed by the horde of Arathians that was sure to follow, hunting for survivors.
“We continue on,” he commanded the eleven soldiers left, already setting off back down the street toward the stink of the docks.
They had been stationary too long. They needed to keep moving.
“I don’t care about the other units. We’re seeing this through until the last ship shoves off.
That is what the queen ordered. That is what we’re doing. ”
“Aye, Lord Commander,” Elias whooped, following close behind.
Within the safety of his helm, Dane grimaced. “I’m not the Lord Commander,” he corrected. “Just a captain.” He was so far down the ranks, he had never so much as seen the Lord Commander of Fort Mysai, but he knew it hadn’t been Sir Conall.
And it certainly wasn’t him. Questionable promotion to knighthood or not, he could never be a lord.
Elias shrugged. “You’re the only knight I see. Probably the only knight left in all Mysai who didn’t go slinking off the moment we got our orders. Which would make you the Lord Commander.”
Dane tried not to think about that.
Shouts swelled in the near distance. Screams. Curses. Panic.
Rounding the next corner, Dane nearly crashed headlong into a writhing wall of men stretching between him and the docks, all fighting for a place nearer the front of the line.
Line? What line? There was no line. Only a chaotic swarm frothing for the opportunity to board one of the three ships that hadn’t yet departed for the mainland.
Three. That was all he could see that was left.
His stomach clenched.
It wasn’t enough to evacuate them all.
A piteous cry drew his attention to the left, where in the gaps between bodies he caught sight of a shock of dark hair only rising waist-high.
A child.
“Move!” he shouted, shouldering his way into the chaos. Hands grasped at his cloak, seeking to drag him backward.
“Please!” a man glittering beneath the weight of at least a dozen gold necklaces draped around his neck begged. “I’ll pay you anything for passage on one of those ships. Anything!”
Dane shrugged him off. “Elias! There’s a child!”
“I see him,” the northman growled. “Boy! Boy, come here!”
The boy came crying, but he came. Tears streaked his tawny cheeks. He babbled incoherently in heavily accented common until Elias finally hoisted him up into his arms, and the child caught sight of someone in the crowd. “Mama!” he wailed, pointing somewhere deeper in the sea of bodies. “Mama!”
Dane set his jaw and unslung his shield. “Make a path and let the woman through!” he roared. When the men before him didn’t move, he drew in a deep breath and dove into the chaos.
He slammed his shield into the wall of men, bodily carving a path, wasting precious seconds with each labored step. Bodies pressed against him on all sides, slowing him down. Someone else grabbed his cloak, nearly choking him.
He reached up and unclasped it, freeing himself from its weight.
Screams rippled through the crowd. “They’re leaving! The ships are leaving!”
In horror, Dane glanced over the rim of his shield and watched as two of the three ships began to ease away from the docks, crisp sails unfurling. Panicked men jumped into the waters after them, desperately trying to grab for the cut mooring lines so they could climb aboard.
The crowd surged, propelling Dane forward. A pained cry went up as people were crushed within the throng.
“Hold the last ship!” Dane shouted, though his voice was soon lost beneath the swell of the crowd. “We have two more! Miss? Miss! I have your son!”
“Mama!” the boy screamed.
“Khalid!” a feminine voice shouted back just as a woman stumbled from the crowd. Dane only caught a glimpse of wide, tear-filled eyes staring at him in relief before he caught her around the shoulders and tugged her in close.
“Do you have more children?” he asked against her hair.
“No,” she sobbed, trembling in his grasp. “Just Khalid.”
“My man has him,” he promised, shoving deeper into the crowd. “And I have you.”
His left shoulder screamed in protest at the effort of fighting his way through the crush of men. His heart hammered out a staccato rhythm, louder than any Arathian war drum. Each step was a chore. Each passing moment was a precious second lost.
“Hold the last ship!” Finally, he was close enough to be heard. For his gaze to meet that of one of the crew fighting to keep more men from surging up the gangplank.
The crewman spat and shouted back, “We don’t have room!”
“Make room!” Dane snarled.
Ignoring him, the crewman and two others shoved the gangplank clean off the ship, plunging it into the waters of the harbor. The male civilians who had been trying to push themselves aboard fell in along with it, screaming as they went down.
The woman beneath his arm choked on another sob.
Anger roared to life in Dane’s heart at the sound. “I am the Lord Commander of Fort Mysai, and I order you to make room,” he lied, biting out each word.
All three crewmen froze.
He could only pray they did not call his bluff.
“What are your names?” he demanded, doing his best to embody all things noble and condescending. “I look forward to writing to the queen personally and having you all hanged for disobeying not only her orders but the direct order of your superior.”
“I-I—” the first crewman stammered.
Elias stepped forward, the boy still wrapped up in his arms. “His Lordship ordered you to make room! He will not tell you again.”
“Forgive me, my lord,” the crewman finally managed, “I didn’t recognize you. Can the woman climb?”
Dane ducked his head and asked her directly, “Can you climb, miss?”
“I can,” she whispered, scrubbing her cheeks with shaking hands. Pulling out of the safety of his arms, she lowered her head. “Bless you, my lord. Please, forgive me for troubling you.”
Dane’s chest constricted. He wanted to correct her but dared not. Not with so many ears listening, so many eyes watching.
For her and her son’s sake, he had to be the Lord Commander now.
The crewmen tossed Elias a rope, and the northman held it steady as first Khalid and then his mother clambered up.
Watch over them, Lord. Please.
The moment they were aboard, Dane shouted, “Go!” A fresh surge from the crowd behind him threatened to pitch him straight into the harbor. He shouldered his shield and braced himself against the nearest mooring post.
“What now, Lord Commander?” Elias called out over the frightened screams of the civilians being left behind as the last ship sailed away, making for the Straight and the safety of Elmoria beyond. “Are we blighting off to the dunes?”
Dane cast a look across the crowd left at the docks—a sea of faces he didn’t know. Were there more women lost in the chaos? More children?
Do as your conscience dictates.
That was what the queen had written in her final missive to Fort Mysai before the last Roost fell. He could leave without being labeled a deserter. He could finally go and find Hedley. That was what he had always wanted, wasn’t it? That had always been the plan.
His brother was still alive out there somewhere. He knew it.
But now…
Dane closed his eyes and drank in deep of the salt-tinged air. The cries of those left behind pounded at his skull. The people of Mysai were no warriors; they were artists, merchants, craftsmen.
“I’m staying,” he whispered, surprising even himself. His heart lurched painfully with the words.
Forgive me, Hedley.
When he opened his eyes again, Elias clapped him on the shoulder. “I was hoping you’d say that, sir. I’d rather die a hero than live a coward myself.”
A humorless smile quirked Dane’s lips. Coward? Hero? When it all came down to it, he had no preference. He would have rather simply lived. But he supposed if he had to die today, it would be best to die like this.
Fighting to the bitter end.
Defending those who couldn’t defend themselves.