Chapter Fifteen #4
“We don’t answer to the Temple,” said the big man in leather. “We answer to Ban Morin, and he wants the girl.”
“And does your master not answer to the Temple?”
“Not anymore.”
My knees buckled, and I nearly fell. Mieka held my shoulders from behind. “He’s bluffing,” she whispered. “No one has ever attacked the Followers. Ever. He would be hanged. We are safe so long as we stay with them.”
The Followers stood very still and straight around us, aside from a couple who started calling to the children in low voices and pulling them aside, into the trees.
It made sense that they would be careful, even though no one would really violate a Temple edict in front of an audience of dozens … Would they?
The Priest stepped between the men and the Followers. “This is not a matter for armed men. You risk bringing war upon yourselves and your master.”
The leader chuckled. “War is coming anyway, Old One. We’re just getting on the right side of it.”
The Priest raised their hands, palms open in a gesture of peace. “Leave now, and I will not report this to the Temple. No harm need come of this.”
The armed man hesitated—just for a moment, but I saw it. But he drew his sword. “Step aside.”
It could still have been all right. It could. I had already taken half a step forward, and the words of surrender were already on my tongue, waiting to be spoken.
It must have been an accident, a terrible accident, but as the Priest took several more steps forward to remonstrate with the armed men again, one of them—a youngster, perhaps new to service, and jumpy—thrust out his sword.
The Priest staggered, their hands clutching the blade. Blood bloomed across their robes; a dark and sinister flower. Mieka dug her fingernails into my shoulders. The Followers wailed, some sinking to their knees.
“No!” I cried.
My fault. This was my fault.
The leader’s face had been frozen in a horrified rictus as he watched—clearly this had not been his intention—but now his head snapped round towards me, his eyes narrowing.
The men surged towards me. Baldbeak took flight, screeching as he darted at the nearest attacker, pecking and clawing with wild ferocity.
I felt wild panic at the thought of being restrained again, imprisoned—at Ban Morin’s mercy.
Desperately, I threw out a hand towards the advancing men, my hood falling back to reveal my floating Hair.
I remembered the Temple guard whose neck I had snapped back in Quell—that strange surge of power.
I pictured the swift stab of a needle through cloth.
The leader cried out as his leg made a terrible crunching sound and folded unnaturally beneath him, sending him sprawling.
The others watched him fall. The majority had not yet bothered to draw their swords, but now they did, and they ran at me, shouting.
Some of the Followers, maddened by the death of their Priest, stood in their way, although they were unarmed.
Chaos. Confusion. Sparks kicked from the fire. The Priest’s body trampled beneath the charging men. Baldbeak shrieking above.
Mieka shook me by the shoulder. “Run!”
We ran for the trees. My lungs burned with every panicked breath. Behind us, Ban Morin’s men shouted orders. Baldbeak flew just ahead of us, his sharp cries cutting through the cacophony.
“There she is!” one of the men yelled, his voice too close.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw three of them closing in.
Baldbeak dove at the nearest one, raking his powerful claws across the man’s face.
He cursed, swinging wildly with his sword to knock the raven out of the air, but Baldbeak dodged and flew at him again.
“Get that Plague-damned bird!”
Another sword swung through the air with a sickening thwack. Baldbeak’s cry cut off sharply, and I froze, my breath catching in my throat. I turned just in time to see him climb higher into the sky, scattering blood droplets behind him like the tail of a comet—and then fall.
Despite Mieka grabbing at me, I stumbled back, catching him in my arms before he hit the ground. His feathers were wet in my hands. His third eyelid was closed over one eye and half closed over the other. His claws curled in on themselves helplessly, like the legs of a spider fallen from the web.
“Mieka,” I said, my mouth dry. “Run.”
“But I can …”
“Go!”
She looked into my face, and whatever she saw there made her turn and run deeper into the trees.
Raw, uncontrollable fury surged inside me, setting my Hair flying about my face like flame. I nestled Baldbeak’s body into the crook of one arm and raised the other, fingers trembling.
My bones hummed and vibrated under a vast pressure that I felt might destroy me if I didn’t direct it outwards. My rage became a needle, white and sharp as a bone shard, and I hurled it towards Ban Morin’s men with all the strength in me.
With a terrible succession of cracks and snaps, like kindling breaking in a fire, our pursuers collapsed one by one, and I sprinted away from them into the forest, cradling Baldbeak in my arms.