Epilogue
The Blackchurch Guild
The sword came arcing down, barely missing its intended target.
Sinclair stood back, out of range, and grinned.
“That was an excellent move, my lord,” he said. “I see you have been working with Fox, too.”
Nikolai grinned in response, but he didn’t let his guard down. His trainers over the years had taught him to never, ever let his guard down, even if he knew his opponent. When the stakes were high, it was never a good idea to relax in any way.
He’d learned that lesson well.
“The Protector has taught me a great deal about defense,” he said. “But part of defense is a strong offense.”
“That is true,” Sinclair said. Suddenly, he charged Nikolai with a series of strikes, causing the young man to back away quickly, heavily on the defensive.
When Sinclair had delivered six or seven heavy strikes that beat Nikolai back, he came to a halt.
“And part of a good defense is not to let your opponent distract you with chatter.”
Nikolai didn’t like that at all. Sinclair had startled him by charging at him with a thrusting weapon.
In the six years that Nikolai had been at Blackchurch, he’d grown quite tall—almost as tall as some of the trainers—and was filling out.
His voice, as he became a man, was still rather odd-sounding.
Sometimes, he honked like a goose. But his muscles were filling out, and he was coming to stink to high heaven when he’d been out working too long.
Most men smelled, that was true, but Nikolai, as Tay so kindly put it, smelled as if he’d been dead for a week.
Such were the perils of a boy growing into a man.
Poor Nikolai had to take a lot of teasing from men he greatly admired.
And from his sister’s husband, whom he loved with all his heart.
Suddenly, he lunged at Sinclair, causing the man to take a few steps back, sword leveled, as Nikolai swung his sword with skill and strength.
“And part of a defense,” he said, grunting with exertion, “is not allowing an opponent a moment to rest.”
Sinclair wasn’t really fighting him, simply keeping his sword leveled until Nikolai wore himself out. When the young man was finally so weary that he had to stop and breathe, Sinclair walked past him and slapped him on the back of the head.
“That is for being out of control,” he said. “You exhausted yourself. If I was a true enemy, I would have cut your head off and thrown it in a stewpot by now.”
Nikolai was breathing heavily as he watched Sinclair put his sword in a stand, one meant to keep the sharp weapons off the ground.
“When I am duke,” he said, still breathing heavily, “I am going to bring my army and capture you. Then I am going to make you my slave.”
Sinclair eyed him. “Good,” he said. “I will not have to train spoiled little lords like you.”
“Now I am going to make you my cook.”
“I will poison you to death.”
Nikolai didn’t have a response for that one.
He grunted and stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow and noticing the approach of Tay and Athdara. They were coming up the slope from the village.
Nikolai pointed. “See?” he said. “Now you are in trouble. My army approaches.”
As if on cue, three little boys came running out from behind Tay, screaming and playing, running straight for Nikolai and Sinclair.
Nikolai wagged a finger at Sinclair. “You may as well surrender now,” he said. “When they get here, they will attack you.”
Sinclair started laughing. He was removing his heavy gloves, alternately looking at what he was doing and watching the children as they ran toward him.
Milo, Brendon, and Anton Munro were three of the most boyish boys he’d ever seen in his life.
They lived and breathed warfare, training, and battle, even if they were only five, four, and two years of age, respectively.
That was all Tay’s doing.
In truth, all of the trainers had contributed.
Milo had been the firstborn. A year after Tay and Athdara married, she gave birth to a dark-haired lad who looked a good deal like his father.
Athdara joked that she would have never seen the child except for the fact that she needed to feed him once in a while, because Tay had the boy with him constantly. Wherever Tay went, Milo went.
Then came Brendon.
Then Anton.
The last two were towheaded boys, and had they not looked exactly like Tay in both features and spirit, he would have thought someone else had fathered them.
He taunted Athdara about it so much that she finally lost her temper once and struck him, giving him a black eye that he was quite proud of.
But he had three little boys who were never far from his side, and the Leviathan, whom men had so feared, turned into a big pile of mush when his children were around.
Truth be told, so did others at Blackchurch.
St. Denis was the worst. He volunteered to tutor the children from a very young age, teaching them to read and write and do their sums. In the baby’s case, all he did was draw circles, but he could be surprisingly attentive at times.
Because of St. Denis’ three pupils, most of the management of Blackchurch was turned over to St. Sebastian, who ran it better than his father ever had.
Blackchurch took on more recruits, and, with Bowen becoming another fully fledged trainer known as the Titan, they were able to expand their operations.
Blackchurch was thriving.
And so were Tay and Athdara’s children. They ran straight to Nikolai and tackled him. Nikolai went down, the victim of overexcited children, and then they ran at Sinclair, who held out a hand to them.
“Halt,” he commanded. “Stand still, all of you.”
Milo and Brendon obeyed. They were good lads, bright and obedient. But the baby, Anton, wasn’t so inclined to stop until Brendon grabbed his little hand and yanked on him so he fell to his bum.
As Anton began to wail, Sinclair stood aside and pointed to the field behind him. “Run,” he ordered them. “Run until I tell you to stop running.”
Milo and Brendon took off, running only as children can—free and happy, running because they loved it, because they’d been told to. Running because they would never disobey their Uncle Sin, whom they were only allowed to call that when no one else was around.
Uncle Sin grinned as he watched them run off.
“What have you done to my baby?” Athdara said, bending over to pick Anton out of the dirt. “You are a wicked man, Sinclair.”
As Sinclair snorted, Nikolai picked himself up off the ground and brushed the grass from his clothing as he headed toward his sister and her husband.
“What about me?” he said. “Will you not scold him on my behalf, too?”
Athdara cocked an eyebrow at him. “Nay,” she said flatly as she cuddled grumpy Anton against her. “If anything, he is too easy on you.”
Nikolai sneered at his sister, a woman who had also matured by leaps and bounds over the past six years.
Three children and one husband later, she had veered away from the life of a warrior.
Not that she couldn’t fight, because she certainly still could, but her focus was more on her family, as it should be.
She was dressing in fine clothing these days, lovely garments that her husband had made for her, and her long hair was braided and wrapped around her head like a halo. So much about her had changed.
Except her heart.
It was as big as ever.
“We have come for a reason, Niko,” Tay said. “We have news for you.”
“Oh?” Niko said, brushing grass from his hair. “What news?”
Tay glanced at his wife before continuing. “We have received a missive from the Comte de Roubaix,” he said. “It came this afternoon. Abelard de Bottreaux brought it.”
The jesting tone of the conversation took a serious turn. “The pirate?” Niko said. “Why would he bring a missive from Roubaix?”
Tay looked to his wife to answer this one, since it had all been her doing.
“Because while you have been training, I have been making arrangements for the moment when you decide you will lead an army to Breda Castle,” she said.
“We have discussed this. Someday, the moment will come for you to act. You know that the country is suffering, Niko. It has ever since Atilla stole your birthright.”
“I know,” Niko said. “And I am sorry. But you know how I have felt—I could not go charging to Breda, even with Roubaix’s army, if I could not participate. I do not want to linger at the rear while other men do my fighting for me. I want to fight on the front line.”
Athdara knew that. The past six years had been spent waiting for him to grow up and become a man.
She went to him, putting a gentle hand on his arm as Anton tried to pull her hair.
“I realize that,” she said. “Had you gone charging in those years ago, you might not have been successful. We might have even lost you. But you are old enough now. You will be fifteen years of age soon, and Tay has said he will ride into battle with you when you reach that age. You have trained well, my darling. You are ready to go if you want to.”
Niko twisted his lips pensively. He was seriously considering his sister’s words.
They’d spoken of the situation with Toxandria frequently over the years, so it was never far from their thoughts.
It was what Niko was working toward every single day.
Sometimes it seemed as if he’d been training forever.
He looked at Sinclair. “Do you think I am ready?” he asked.
Sinclair took the question seriously. He didn’t really know what Athdara was thinking, but he knew what Tay was thinking because he had been told.
Over the past six months, the subject had come up more and more, which was why the trainers worked with Nikolai when they weren’t working with their own recruits.
Let the boy become a man, Tay had said. Sinclair had to agree.