Chapter 6 The Ultimatum
The Ultimatum
Day two hundred and fifty-eight
Dear Diary,
It’s been seven hours since the attack of the Elmswood encampment, and I have yet to be properly fed.
To be fair, there were several deaths of the forest dwellers, so I suppose I must be patient while they bury the bodies.
In the meantime, I have stolen several loaves from what appeared to be their cooking hut.
They taste like manure. It makes me hate myself.
But not nearly as much as Chief General Killian is going to hate himself when he learns his men fled in the night from peasants with trowels.
Ha! Serves the cretin right. No soldiers remained alive, and
The cottage door opened, letting in a pool of bright, brilliant morning light as someone stepped inside.
After the (unsuccessful) invasion last night, Morfran had made it to Benjamin in the animal pen and proceeded to faint from the pain.
It wasn’t his proudest moment, especially because he distinctly remembered one of Brim’s burly men hoisting him up bridal style and carrying him into a quaint little ground-floor cottage complete with yellow lace curtains.
He’d been placed on a comfortable straw bed, and to his immense relief, when he woke the next morning to birdsong and the rustling of trees, he found he wasn’t bound anymore.
He supposed they considered him not a threat at the moment for three reasons.
First, he was heavily bruised and bloodied, and the pain was hellish.
Second, if anyone saw him hobbling outside around camp, he surmised that even the toothless child who’d snuck in to get a look at him earlier could probably take him.
And lastly, sometime during the night, in an act that was entirely natural and not at all to be laughed at due to the circumstances of him being tied to a post for more than fourteen hours…
he’d wet himself, and frankly, was trying to let his breeches dry out before attempting to flee.
Nothing wore on one’s dignity more than running through the woods with a screaming goat tucked beneath one arm and her screaming kids tucked beneath the other while in pee-stained pants. He just wouldn’t do it.
It was Bronwen who’d entered. He closed his journal and pulled a blanket over his lap to hide his damp pants, because the last thing he needed was her laughing at him.
Although when he saw her face, he noticed her scorn for him had faded: blue half-circles sat beneath her eyes, her long hair was falling loose from her braid, and her green skirts were stained with dried blood and dirt.
In her hands was a bowl of something steaming.
She stared at him for a long moment before saying, “You couldn’t possibly have had another exploit last night with all that earlier commotion.”
Raggedly, he blinked. “What?”
She gestured to his journal. “Your so-called autobiography?”
He patted it absently. “I record more than just that in it. I also keep a tally of all the times I save a village from certain death.”
She had no response to that. Her gaze fell to her feet, as if she were conscious of a mistake made on her part. “I saw you in the animal pen last night.”
“Pardon?”
“You were going to leave,” she said. “You had your sword and your goats, and we were all distracted. And the next thing I saw…” She raised her chin, looking at him openly, no trace of anger left in her face. “I may have…judged you prematurely.”
Eh, you were fairly spot-on. He shrugged at her weak apology, instead choosing to make her grovel some more because why not? He’d been tied up and tortured and starved, and he’d had to watch that idiot Hugh prance around with his sword. So he said nothing, pointedly tilting his head and waiting.
She understood immediately. “And I’m sorry for all the threats, and insults, and torture.
Here.” She awkwardly shuffled forward, passing the bowl towards him.
He took it. It looked like some type of attempt at meaty broth, which wasn’t all that hard to make, but someone had clearly struggled with preparing the meal, as it looked like muddied water mixed with aged boot leather.
“I don’t like making excuses,” she continued, folding her arms around her.
“We had to do what we needed to. You were suspicious, and although we still don’t know who you are, you helped us beat back Morfran’s men, and you saved more people than you know.
And you didn’t run last night when you could have. ”
I can’t see out of one eye and would only make it two days out there in the woods before Ravana’s men found me again. It wasn’t a hard decision.
“With that said, I suppose what I’m trying to say is…I mean to say…is…” She looked frustrated, as if something were preventing her from speaking. “You did…eh…you…”
This was the saddest attempt at an apology and a thank-you he’d ever seen.
Give him de-armed men out on the battlefield wailing for their mothers, or the curses of soldiers who’d failed him as he tied them to the back of a horse and told the rider to go for a leisurely gallop over a field of goathead weeds.
Anything but this awkward befuddling of tongues. He swiftly changed the subject.
“That dagger of yours.” His eyes fluttered to her skirt pockets. He wasn’t sure where it’d ended up, nor where his sword was. Likely back in the hands of her idiot brother. “Where did you get it?”
She paused, the slightest trace of sorrow in her eyes, and damn that hesitation, because the door opened and Brim, six or seven men, a withered old geezer, that little girl from earlier, and Hugh, who snuck in last, all entered, flooding the cottage with eyes that were focused entirely on him.
He shifted the bowl strategically on his lap—praying to the gods that he didn’t stink of piss as well, please—and waited. A question sat in all their gazes, turned into spoken word by Brim.
“All right, friend.” There was a heavy bruise turning plum purple above Brim’s eye and a mean-looking cut on his cheek that would likely scar. But his eyes were back to their muted sparkle as he asked, “Who are you?”
Morfran knew it was inevitable. They’d seen him chuck his sword with all the precision of a professional axe thrower.
They’d seen him tackle Yerfra. They might’ve even noticed he and the general exchanged words as if they were familiar with each other.
They knew he was not like them. And they were not stupid.
They would know if he tried another outright lie.
So instead, he told them only half a lie.
“I was a general in Morfran’s army,” he announced, tired and sore and barely able to open his jaw.
Those in the room inhaled as he confirmed it, their chests ballooning at the revelation.
“I’ve fought in many battles, and killed many men, and watched many others die.
Their blood stained my hands for weeks afterwards, and not a day went by when I’d take a sip of water and not taste that tang of death on my tongue…
” He paused. Considered his next words. And said,
“And it was so boring.” His entire body deflated as he blew out a breath.
“After the five hundredth death, they all start to look the same, you know? Don’t get me wrong.
The dying bit wore on me as well, because have you ever tried to get bloodstains out of your cloak?
Nightmare. I’ve gone through at least eleven over the years.
And then of course you learn how much you’re hated all throughout the kingdom, but that fearful respect grew addictive.
To tell you the truth, I believe that’s what kept me on the front lines so much—the respect they gave me—free ale at any inn?
Yes, please. But it got to be such a headache with the people I was working with because they were exhaustingly dumb, and one of them turned into a lunatic when before they were perfectly lovely, and then, well, then the next thing you know, you’ve defected from your army and adopted a pregnant goat and learned how to make ridiculously delicious jam.
And that is how you easily decide that that’s the life you want instead of”—decapitating anyone in your way, he was about to say, but quickly reworded it—“never-ending death.”
Morfran didn’t know what to expect after such a confession.
He’d hardly said it in as many words to himself, had since tried to steer clear of writing down feelings in his journal.
But they clearly suspected he was someone villainous, so he gave it to them.
He just chose to be incredibly selective on his exact identity.
To his relief and surprise, it worked.
“You were a general in Morfran’s army?” Brim gaped, dropping his crossed arms. He wasn’t the only one shocked. Brim’s men were fidgeting, suddenly very interested in what he had to say.
“We tortured one of his generals?” one murmured.
“No wonder he didn’t break,” another added. “He’s probably been conditioned to withstand torture.”
Bronwen had quietly lowered herself into a nearby chair, apart from her father’s men. She seemed almost diminished and smaller somehow, and when she spoke, her voice was softer. “What is your name? Have we heard of you before?”
“You likely wouldn’t have,” he lied. “I was only a northern general for a time. It was a trivial position in a trivial land hardly the size of a township. Before that, I was a foot soldier of his for many years.”
“Why not just tell us you defected to begin with?” Brim demanded.
He stirred the broth to give himself something else to do than fidget. “Oh, you know. You all seemed so eager to hang me and eat my spleen thinking I was a mere spy. If you knew I was a general—”
“I say we still hang ’im,” Hugh commented. Morfran had been correct in that his sword had ended up back in this buffoon’s hands. Hugh pressed the tip into the floorboards and was using it to lean against, an act that made Morfran see red. “He chose to put his allegiance in that vile lord of a man.”