Chapter Ten. A Bloodthirsty Crowd. #2
As we emerge on the main thoroughfare and the knight hauls back on the reins, the guards are already raising the bridge up again, and for once, the Gauntlet is not the source of rowdy noise.
Lantern light bleeds out of its foggy windows, but there are no shadows passing in front of the bubbly glass on either of the floors.
The place is empty because people are gathering pitchforks to go after me—
Hide.
“Keep going,” I say over the clapping of the horse’s impatient stomps. “Down this lane to the square. I need to see the crowd for myself.”
Before I upend everything and make Mare die alone, hungry and in pain, I should verify it’s truly me my fellow villagers are protesting. Maybe they’re mounting a defense over demons? This is probably false optimism talking, but when the knight surges on, I take it he agrees with me.
Cleaved to his armored body, I shrink down to be as small as I can make myself.
The row houses flash by, and the sharp rapping of the warhorse’s iron shoes echo like the warning something dire is afoot.
As we come to the fringes of the crowd, the knight pulls back on the reins once again and the stallion minces in a jog.
No one pays us any mind. Attention is focused on the platform in the center of the square.
The boy who ran off is up on it with his father, his uncle, and his grandfather, the frantic light from the bonfire agitating their already animated bodies and faces.
Tears stream down the child’s face, but he has a slight smile under the theatrical sobbing, as if he’s delighted by the drama and unable to comprehend the loss of his friends and the rage of the adults he’s inciting.
“—working unlawful magic. She must be killed!” The father, a heavily built laborer, picks up the boy. “You heard him!”
He shakes the lad, like a music box that must be primed to function, and then the son’s higher voice quiets the crowd.
“The Pox girl said she cursed us, all of us!” The boy speaks what he’s obviously already spoken faster and faster, the words running together, the excitement of youth mixing with a first taste of power.
“She killed Thaddeous and Fergus! She was going to kill me with her magic, but the Fulcrum’s black band attacked her! ”
“The Fulcrum is weakened because of her!” The father takes over. “We were wrong to use the dark magic she plied us with—she is the reason the demons are free and why we are endangered! Who here will stand with my blood so that we may spill hers and save us all!”
The crowd yells and stomps so loudly the ground shakes and the stallion rears up and hooves at the smoky air.
Having gleaned what I required, it’s time to cut loose from the knight. I take advantage of the jostling and slip off the back of the saddle. As I disappear into the shadows, the knight wrenches around, and searches for me while trying to control his mount.
I used him only to get inside the wall.
The truth is, he’s better off without me, even with his threats of bringing an army here.
He doesn’t have anyone else with him right now and if that crowd gets ahold of him?
But moreover, I cannot be the solution to whatever problem brought him here in search of me, especially not after tonight.
Mare was right. Representatives from court must have come here at some point, and overheard whispers of what I’m able to do.
And sooner or later, he will insist. Anyone as used to giving orders as he is will have to address his own needs.
Hauling up my cloak, I mist down the alley that runs behind all the empty row houses. I’m dizzy and breathing so hard that my lungs pump as fast as my legs, and all along, there’s a single driving voice in my head.
Hide. Hide. Hide—
The drumbeat is relentless. As soon as I check on Mare, I’ll steal some provisions from these vacant houses, give her most of it, and find a place to hide out the night. After dawn? Maybe I can catch a hidden ride in a hay cart or something—
There’s a sudden commotion out on the main lane. Shouting. Racing footfalls. And it’s approaching me, rather than heading in the direction of the mob.
When I come up a passageway between two blocks of houses, I duck in and try not to make too much noise as I catch my breath and look out to the thoroughfare.
Four men are pounding down the lane, and the knives in their hands flash like heat lightning as they pass by the hanging lanterns.
I know where they’re going. They’re racing for the Gauntlet to try to find me and bring me to the crowd—and those blades of theirs are already bloody, so they must have sworn a mortal oath for their violent duty.
No doubt up on that platform, to the cheering of the crowd.
I flatten back against whatever house I’m next to and clap my hand over my mouth to keep my terror from coming out in a scream.
After they go by, I lean around once more.
And that’s when I see him.
The mercenary is sauntering down the center of the lane, heading for the market square and all the commotion. When a couple of stragglers come out of their houses, they give him a wide berth, and he pays them no mind—
He stops. Lifts his nose.
And then turns to my hiding place in the passageway.
Another man hurries by him, and when the lane is empty, the mercenary walks down toward me.
His massive body and all of his weapons represent a threat I’m not going to get away from unless I start running now—and oh, the coin he could make from kidnapping me and charging the village for the delivery of their source of torment.
Yet I’m frozen. My legs are jelly, my heart is flickering instead of beating, and there’s not enough air in the whole of Anathos to cut the suffocation in my lungs. I am the deer stalked and unable to bolt.
And now he’s standing right in front of me.
I’m careful to look only at his jaw, his chiseled, strong jaw, with its frame of black braids and waves. Unlike the golden knight’s, this warrior’s armor and weapons are of the darkness, and seem more deadly because of it.
“You aren’t going to see what the fuss is all about then,” he drawls.
Not a question. And now I’m narrowing my eyes on his chin. “You already know. You heard it in the pub.”
“So it’s true.” The mercenary’s tone is bored. “You cursed those boys, and killed two of them.”
“Absolutely not. But there’s no defense to the accusations of a murderous crowd.”
Footsteps approach out on the lane, and suddenly he’s blocking any possible view of me with his body, pushing me back against the clapboard wall.
As I go face-to-face with the blade of his enormous broadsword, he takes a wrap of wensel from his fighting vest with a steady and sure hand.
As he lights it, the smoke is fragrant in the cold air, but it’s the scent of him that really registers.
Unprincipled though he may be, he still smells so good. Clean male and leather. And that cedar.
I remember what he said about my own scent.
“You’ve got to leave this place,” he says softly on the next exhale.
Before I know what I’m doing, I blurt, “How much.”
He glances over his shoulder, and I trace the tail end of the braid that falls my way. There are black beads on the leather thong that ties it, stacked one atop the other. I wonder who put them there, for they seem too frivolous for him to have wasted the time on the decoration.
“You cannot afford me.”
“I can’t go alone.” My eyes flood with tears as my reality falls onto my head like boulders from our crumbling wall. “And I can’t stay here.”
And the golden knight wants to use the very magic that got me into this mess.
“I have … to hire you.”