Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
THOMAS
“Then the traitors were given a swift death and burned alongside our enemies.”
~ The Fall of Wolfswail
M y hand shook as I splashed water over my face. It ran down my chin, warm by the time it reached my neck, carrying cold sweat as it went. The dream wasn’t as easily cleansed from my mind. My heart still hammering in my chest, I took a deep breath, then another. The house was quiet. The rest of La’Angi was as quiet as it ever was.
No shadows moved in my peripheral vision. But I waited, seconds stretching into eons. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something wrong. It hadn’t just been the normal nightmares this time. The threat was real. Immediate.
Soft sounds came from the next room, and energy rushed through my body. I straightened away from the basin, grabbing my sword belt on the way out of the room, my feet finding their way in the dark, urgency clawing at my throat and locking my fingers over my weapon’s grip. My chest expanded as I drew air in deeply, bracing myself as I took hold of the sheath of my sword with one hand, better to draw it when it wasn’t at my waist.
Light from the moon slanted in the open shutter on the window. Even as the horror of that filled me—that shutter had been closed when I’d checked on the girls before bed—I saw the cat sitting there, paused in the act of licking a paw to pin me with an arch look.
It had nudged the shutter open. Fury flashed through me, chasing away the fear.
The cat.
Again.
I forced myself to take a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut. There was no burst of pain, no noise, no movement. The cat hadn’t woken me. I couldn’t blame it. Not for that, at least. For being a constant source of discomfort and annoyance, yes. It was just the dream. Again. And I’d let it get me by the balls. Again.
The dream, and Gerad’s late-night visit. The dream, and my wonderful wife’s treason. The dream, and my role in covering up Rose’s crimes.
As if hearing my internal struggle to be charitable toward it, the cat leapt back down and stepped lightly through the girls to unerringly locate Sandra among her sisters. It curled up in the hollow behind her knees and happy purrs filled the room. I couldn’t help but tense up at the noise. Would it cover approaching feet, the sigh of a blade being unsheathed?
At the foot of the bed, Beatie struggled to pull the blanket up to account for the precious, stolen warmth, her childish face showing deep disapproval and then smoothing a split second later. Whether she had enough covers to be happy or whether they were unnecessary for her comfort, I didn’t know, but I felt the fist of panic release my heart fractionally at the sight of the peaceful scene. My girls .
Quietly, I readied and let myself out into the morning, kissing my Rose gently and leaving the still peaceful house behind me. They were safe, for now. I had to believe it.
Open a gate. That’s what I’d been told to do.
My gut twisted, and the sweat on my body wasn’t due to a nightmare this time.
The familiar cobblestones gave my boots good purchase. There was a light mist, barely discernible, and a hint of purple in the sky. The weight of my shield over my shoulder dragged on me. It was covered by my inside-out tabard. I wasn’t on duty yet. But I was, of course, always. It was all I’d ever known. All I would ever know. I’d thought that was glorious, once. I’d loved that I was a solid link in a bright shield wall.
And then I’d survived the war in the South.
And then I’d fought at Wolfswail.
And now I had to pay for my wife’s crimes with favors to bad people.
Swallowing down bile, I passed through streets unchanged since my youth, into the guard tower over the Outer West Gate. I pulled on my tabard, revealing my shield. I tried not to see the other two men who arrived and took the wall either side of me.
Had Mikus’ men come to all of us in the night?
Had they been struck down by their dreams, too? Or by their fears, and turned, like so many did, to the whispered Old Ways, trying to find hope?
I didn’t want to know.
“Two hours to dawn and all’s well!” came the call from deeper in the city.
I listened to it spread, the peaceful ripple of voices. When it reached me, I joined the chorus, standing beside the wheel that would raise the gate. The words didn’t stick in my throat. I wasn’t green enough for that.
Hooves on cobblestones, the stomp of boots. I looked resolutely out into the darkness, running through the orders I’d been given in the depths of the night. Swap your watch. Raise the gate . That was it. That was all I’d been told.
But I knew who Mikus’ men were. And I knew the one person Mikus would flee.
Gerad’s hand had spread across the scarred wood of my table, the same one Rose had served me meals on since we were wed all those years ago. The same one Sandra had hit her head on when she was but a babe and racing around the room, before I’d known better than to join in with the frivolity. My girl still bore a scar from that table, from my poor, if well-intentioned decisions.
Not today, though. She’d not get another today. I had two orders. I planned to fulfill both.
The Duke would kill me, but Mikus would kill my whole family.
“Raise the gate,” I heard Mikus call from below.
I went over to the wheel. My Rose, she hadn’t meant anything by what she’d done. She was heavy with child and anxious, was all. Natural, even for a woman who’d been through it all before. And with her keeping me up half the night weeping after Gerad’s visit, it was no surprise my nightmares had been so vicious. But I didn’t blame Rose.
The wood was cold beneath my fingers, worn smooth by years of use. I could picture the tree my lovely Rose had visited yesterday, as plenty still did. Oh, it was outlawed, but it was a source of hope, too. Outlawing hope was a difficult thing. And she’d just been scared. She’d asked for a blessing of the old tree.
I hope it brought her peace for the coming birth, whatever happened. I hoped she didn’t carry the guilt with her. It wasn’t hers, not really. Dropping a few chicken bones under some roots…what did it hurt?
The whole family would hang if it were known. And Mikus would make it known.
I glanced up as I put my shoulder behind it, and my eyes danced over the mounted figures of Mikus and Wade, the guards down there wearing the same tabard I was. The Duke’s tabard.
Here we were, though.
I heard a muffled noise, female, distressed. “If that damned maid hadn’t fought so hard—” Mikus hissed, the words loud in the darkness.
An arrow punched through my chest and sent my heart into the stone wall behind me. I looked down, agony in every breath, in every fiber of my being. There was nothing there. No shaft. No wound. But I could feel it still.
“She’s worth it,” Wade said, dark delight in his words. “Yours might turn you into a duke, but that bitch on my cock is going to turn me into a king, my friend.”
“Well, your damned queen used up too much of the tonic,” Mikus said, raising a boot and kicking the struggling lady in the shoulder. “Shut up, bitch, or I’ll shut you up.”
I’d known he’d be going against the Duke. But by taking the lady ?
The lady. The lady was there, thrown over the saddle of Mikus. The lady was there, tied, but struggling. Her maid was there, tied, but still, her hair matted with blood. Not struggling.
My hands were stuck on the wood. I felt my heart still beating spans behind me, the pump of my own lifeblood.
I couldn’t do this. Not again.
I shoved Rose from my mind. Eyes were turning toward me now. “Come on, old man.” The speaker was young. He shifted his weight anxiously. Who did he have to lose? “Raise the gate.”
I stood, frozen. I was a dead man. I was a walking dead man already. But I’d been a dead man for decades. I heard the howl of snow, the far-off baying of a pack of wolves on the prowl, felt the bite of cold so fierce it made my toes burn.
The young chap swore, glanced around, walked toward me, and put out his hands for the wheel to lift the gate.
I shoved my shield into his mouth. His teeth shattered. His head hit the stone wall behind us, leaving a bloody mark. I spun, unsheathing my sword. I was a dead man. I’d been dead since the last time I’d stood by. Wind, snow, a woman’s grunts of pain . The man to the other side of me ran at me. My body answered when my brain couldn’t. Steel rang like funeral bells. Running steps. Weeping. Snow.
“Thomas, what are you doing?” Disbelieving, furious snarls. His swing cracked my shield. I threw it at him, charging. My feet found purchase on the stone walkway. Why was it dry? Where was the snow? I felt my sword bite fabric, flesh, and bone. I planted a foot on his chest, ripping it free. I was as strong as an ox. He fell, blood spurting from his leg the way it was spurting from my chest. The snow should’ve been red. There was no snow.
I turned and saw a familiar face red from the effort of turning the wheel. The wheel I’d walked away from. Defended.
“Don’t stop!” Mikus’ words. Not for me. For the familiar man backing up, baring steel. I was a dead man. I lifted my sword, and he fell back a step. Beside the familiar solider was the boy whose face I’d smashed, sitting in a rapidly widening pool of his own blood. Stepping past him, I raised my sword, and the familiar solider raised his shield.
I thrust my weapon deep into the chain, jamming the gate only a fraction open. The scream of steel on steel, the grind of the mechanism thwarted, echoed through the quiet city. It was just open enough that the pressure from the weight of the gate would make that a time-consuming job to undo.
More time-consuming than killing me.
Something in my heart eased at that sight. I looked up at the man wearing the same tabard as I, and wished I’d kissed my wife before I’d left this morning.
He stared at me in utter disbelief for a moment, then another. “What’s—” but Mikus fell silent. Hooves on cobblestones—at a hard pace. The man before me lost attention for a moment. I charged. Dry stone. Power. He hit the wall. Smashed my head with the inside of his shield. His sword clattered on the stone below. Should’ve been softened by snow. I drove my forehead into his face, felt the gush of blood from his nose. Shoved him over, ripping my tabard out of his hands as he overbalanced.
“Get the damned gate open!” Wade was shouting. Boots. Running. Snow. Wolves . I glanced down. Wade had the maid, threw her over his saddle. She moved with the liquid quality of the unconscious. He anchored her with a hand possessively on her rump.
A gale was screaming in my head, wailing. I ran. Good, dry stone. My heart pumped behind me where it stayed, lodged in the stones. The top of the stairs. Spears.
I grabbed one. Lighter than usual. The wood was cold in my palm. Damp. No ice. I was dead already but still breathing. Then a big man, his hair dark and shoulders wide, burst into view on a huge fuck-you horse, a tourney lance in his hand with its gaudy red and black paint and no real tip. He rushed past Wade and sent him sprawling back. He hit an unsuspecting Mikus with the lance. It shattered into a million pieces, and his beast trumpeted in fury.
“Oh, shit,” someone breathed, from the stairs, as the big knight’s horse struck the air with its hooves, majestic and terrifying in the pre-dawn gray.
The knight was down on his feet. The lady was struggling to hers. He grabbed her like a sack of potatoes and threw her up onto the horse. My heart pumped blood onto the stones. I felt the hot spurt of it, the splash of where it misted over my boots. I didn’t look down. There was no hole in my chest. Not that was visible. Wade was coming at the lady from behind, his eyes full of fury. Mikus was drawing his sword.
“Get the cursed gate!” someone shouted from the stairs.
My spear snapped forward. Snow screamed as my attention narrowed. The clamor of combat came from below. A woman’s shouts. Ahead of me, the men dodged, bringing up their own shields. Time. I was a dead man. But I could buy time. I fell into the flow of combat. High, low. Faces, thighs. Avoiding shields, searching for gaps, keeping them down on the stairs where they couldn’t flank me. Someone shoved forward from behind in their fury to progress. I opened the man at the front’s thigh up as his shield was raised too high. He fell back. Flurries of snow swirled around me as I moved. I could feel it kissing my skin. Those shields, that staircase, those men, were my world. Someone came at me with their sword. Tried to knock aside the spear. I changed my grips. Let the spear dip. Deflected the sword. Freed a hand. I grabbed my knife. Stepped forward, sliced down. He screamed. Staggered back. Clatter of sword on ground. My spear leapt as he fell. Stabbed. Short, sharp. Keep the head free . Air, into my lungs. Icy.
“Enough!”
The word cut through the storm, the snow, made the men before me halt. I didn’t look away from them. I knew, deep in my guts, whose voice that was. My knees went weak. I didn’t blink.
“Kill them,” I heard him order.
I was a dead man. The men before me fell. Crossbow bolts punctured shields, helms, chests, guts. They fell, bags of bone and betrayal. I could smell the pine forest, the snow, the freshly emptied bowels.
They were dead. The spear shook in my grasp, suddenly as heavy as the stone wall itself. I stood to attention. The wood bit into my hand as I tried to stop my spear from clattering in my shaking grip.
Below me I saw the Duke nod. Sullivan stepped forward. Mikus turned to run, trying to dive beneath the cracked gate. Sullivan came up from behind him as he crawled on his belly in the mud. They’d fought together for more than a decade. Sullivan brought a mace up, over his head, and down on Mikus’ spine.
Beyond the twitching limbs of Mikus, the little lady was standing, her hands still tied, covered in blood. Her maid stood in front of her, swaying on her feet but with a knife in her hand. Wade was on the ground. He only had one eye now, his face still and lifeless.
“As the two of you may know,” the Duke said, his words crisp, “There has been some unrest as of late. This is a poor time for me to be two knights short.”
The little lady swayed. I watched her, struggling to understand what the Duke meant or who he spoke to.
A curled finger. Crossbow bolts were replaced around him, the sound echoing in the silence. I was one of the two he was talking to. Everyone else was dead or with him. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was a desert. A glacial desert.
“Don’t,” the little lady gasped. “Please, Your Grace. Spare them.”
“Sir Chay of West Grenvale. Thomas. You both seem to be useful men to have about. How do you feel about continuing to defend this duchy as you have this morn?”
I tried to speak, but it just came out as a croak. The crossbows were trained on us. The knight with the big horse and long name, and me. The maid staggered, but was grabbed by the little lady. The bloody knife skittered across the cobbles. The Duke waited with outward calm I knew wasn’t to be trusted. I cleared my throat, and managed, “I will gladly serve.”
“Good. Come here.”
There was no refusing him. My feet found their own way down the steps, though my legs threatened to go out with every step. I slipped on the blood or the snow, once. I couldn’t tell which.
“I’ve a liege lord already,” the knight said, his words like gravel. The crossbows all turned, now, on him. Sullivan did, too. The mace in his hand was dripping. Mikus wasn’t twitching any longer. I looked away as the boy’s hands fisted hopelessly at his sides. “I’m sworn to Raider’s Ban.”
I waited for the sounds of his death, not tarrying. It didn’t matter what the Duke asked of me. I’d do it.
I always had.
“A Blood Oath will override whatever you’ve sworn to others,” the Duke said. Confused for a moment, I wondered who he thought I’d sworn to, then realized he was speaking to the big knight. “And I’m in a mood to ensure loyalty.”
I made it down to the road. My legs kept going. Good legs, they were. Great, even. I watched as Chay, standing like he’d had a spear shoved up his ass, took his sword. There was no threat in the movement. He’d have had rocks in his head to try anything, then, with half the garrison’s crossbows pointed at him. His horse stamped its feet impatiently behind him as I approached.
Blood Oaths were binding. I wasn’t scared of that. There was no magic, old or new, that would take my soul from my wife, and he already owned the rest of me.
I didn’t stand too close to the big knight, though. Because I didn’t know if he’d figured it out, yet.
Even as I thought that, he let out a breath between his teeth and ran his palm across the edge of his sword. He knelt. He offered his sword.
But he didn’t offer it to the Duke.
“I swear,” he said to the lady, the words full of piss and vinegar, “to serve you every day as I have this day, until my heart no longer beats.”
The Duke’s eyes narrowed. I saw Sullivan heft his mace. The lady’s attention flickered to her father, her cheeks white as death.
She was splattered in blood already. I’d seen her splattered with more, but never in her nightclothes, her eyes puffy with tears. She was taller than my Sandra, and older. She had no scar on her head, because her pa had never chased her around the dining table, laughing.
But he’d make sure none of those crossbow bolts ended up in her gut when the knight was executed.
Rather than give the order, though, I saw the Duke’s lips curve, as if he were amused. “Accept it,” he told the lady.
“I accept your pledge,” she said, the words so fast they tumbled over one another. The hand that she closed over his was still tied. “Stand, sir Chay, and serve long and well.”
Eyes swung toward me. I looked between the daughter and the father, disoriented. “Your Grace?—”
“My daughter deserves the best, most loyal men, don’t you think, sir Thomas?” the Duke asked me.
I fell down on my knees before her, gracelessly. I wasn’t a knight. Or I hadn’t been.
My hand wrapped around the spearhead. It sliced into my hand, but most of the blood wasn’t mine. “I swear to protect you,” I told the girl. Her feet were bare. It made tears rise in my eyes. “Until my last breath.”
“I accept your pledge.” Her hand was icy as it wrapped over mine. Icy, but surprisingly strong. “Stand, sir Thomas, and serve long and well.”