Chapter 14 Horses, Baths, and War Maps #2
“And I was the one who helped steal Lord Morfran’s shipment of new weaponry last year.
That was me. I had to wrestle eight bloodhounds during all that!
Earned a few scars because of it, and afterwards I was crucial in saving our lead chemist’s life when Morfran’s men tried to burn him alive, and— Are you even listening? ”
Morfran sighed deeply. He’d get no peace here. He scrubbed off the last of the squid goo and wasabi and rose. A towel hung over the raised leg of a stone horse. He wrapped himself up and walked past Gueldefore.
“Egads, man!” Gueldefore shouted. “Just who do you think you are to ignore a knight?” He reached out to shove Morfran’s shoulder.
That was the last straw.
Morfran snatched his hand out of the air, twisting it so fiercely the knight bowed into the direction and was soon staring at Morfran’s feet.
His vow to never decapitate a man again was being greatly tested, especially since Gueldefore’s sword was in its scabbard and oh so close.
“You’ll have to forgive me that.” Morfran heard the venom in his own voice.
“Before I deserted, I was well-renowned among Morfran’s army as the one who killed knights, and the urge still hits me like an addict trying to quit but who suddenly finds himself within reach of his drug.
So you see, it isn’t that I’m ignoring you.
” He leaned closer to the man. “I’m ignoring the impulse to remove your head from your body. ”
He shoved Gueldefore hard. The man stumbled a few feet but hastily righted himself to glare at Morfran. It was evident he hadn’t liked that. No, not at all. Knights were all about honor and one-upmanship, and Morfran had clearly spat in the face of both.
Right when Gueldefore’s fingers twitched towards his sword, cheery voices funneled into the room from the halls, and soon Brim and his merry men were entering with laughter and jokes and jostling. It cut through the tension like a knife slicing through Camembert cheese.
“Oy, Bernard!” one of the men—Bill—hollered out as they approached. “We haven’t stopped talking about your guts back there. Thought you were crazy, we all did.”
“I’ve never seen anyone willingly ask to be flung into a monster’s mouth before,” Theodore stated. “It was most excellent.”
“Glad you’re on our side now— Oh, is that you, Gueldefore?” Owain asked. “What happened to you?”
Morfran affected a grin, false as it may have been, and let the men love-tap him. As much as it irked him, it was better than hate taps, which often resulted in deep bruising as well as the feeling that they wanted to remove his spleen from his stomach and feed it to their dogs.
They wanted to know how he knew the squid was allergic to wasabi, and if he knew what Morfran was like, and if he had any embarrassing habits they could point and laugh at.
He internally sighed and settled back into the bathwater as a dozen or so enormous half-naked men settled in beside him to listen to him roast himself.
It was one of the worst days of his life, second to only one, and as he told them false, humiliating tales about himself, from the corner of his eye he saw Gueldefore spit in his direction and stalk away.
The next few days weren’t any better. The Elmswood Rebels believed that their fight against Morfran was picking up steam, and so Morfran spent many days inside Tritonia’s war room pushing tiny tin soldiers across a fancy map and helping plot out ways he could kill himself.
“You say he’s allergic to honeybees?” Owain, who had a habit of scoffing after sentences, asked. “We could collect all the hives in a fifteen-mile radius and ship them to his doorstep.”
Brim humphed and haa’d, stroking his beard, and said, “Possibly. The Beekeeper’s Guild does live near Castle Atrago. But they might be concerned the bees would be harmed, and you know how insect rights activists can be.”
“Why don’t we behead all of his soldiers and stake their heads on pikes in all the cities we take back?” Gueldefore offered from his position at the head of the table. “A little bit of psychological warfare, and a way of fighting back using his own game.”
Elena, who was sitting across from Morfran, shot Morfran a look that said she was interested in how he’d react.
Morfran perfected a look of apathy and shrugged.
He’d only have to feign interest in battle plans for so long—they would soon be marching inland, whereas she’d be staying in Lake Dumast to help rioters along shorelines.
She was leaving tonight, which he was relieved about.
She’d been breathing down his back since they’d arrived.
Brim didn’t seem to take to Gueldefore’s idea. “We’d be scarring any children who lived from here clear to Warshire. Do we really want emotionally damaged youth in addition to already emotionally damaged adults? I say we preserve the children’s innocence for as long as we can.”
Quite a few nodded at that, and then, as they always did whenever he was in the room, their eyes roamed back to Morfran. Waiting for his suggestion.
He could hardly blame them. If he had a turncoat from an enemy army, he’d squeeze every last drop of information out of them, too.
He shifted uneasily in his chair before he felt a different set of eyes on him.
It was Bronwen, seated to the right of her father.
He’d been avoiding her since the day they’d arrived, primarily because he didn’t want to go to the Tower of Lettis, and also primarily because if they could lift the hex off her, he didn’t want to worry about a skilled assassin who loathed him on the loose.
“I know!” Hugh hollered out. He sat clear in the back, half-hidden behind Brim’s beefy men.
He’d finally been forced to give Morfran back his sword and had somehow found a rather nice-looking cutlass that he currently had resting on his knee.
He leapt up, slashing the cutlass through the air in a show of flair.
He only achieved looking like a semi-blind grandmother trying to swat a fly off her nose.
“We gather every honey badger in the kingdom, arm them with explosive detonators, and set them loose on the castle all at once.”
Brim stared at his son for a maximum of 2.4 seconds before announcing, “Anyone else?”
Bronwen slipped to her feet. Her expression was hard, her chin tipped up as if in pride, but Morfran noticed the way she nervously pinched her fingers behind her back. Those in the room eyed her with lackluster energy.
Brim cleared his throat and said softly, “Wen—”
“I know in the past I’ve disappointed you,” she began, keeping her eyes lowered to the map.
“You all pitched in a great deal to help me go to Assassin Academy, and I didn’t live up to your sacrifices when I failed to end Queen Ravana’s life.
I’d thought at the time it was because of something I did.
But Bernard recently revealed something happened the night I tried to kill Ravana that prevented me from doing so. ”
That caught everyone’s attention, even Tritonia, who’d been fiddling with a clay soldier and making him kiss his clay horse, complete with sound effects.
Bronwen released a small breath. “I’ve been hexed. Hexed to always fail at what I strive to do. Ravana cursed me the night I almost assassinated her, and anytime I give something my all, I fail.”
Brim looked to Morfran for confirmation, as did all the others. He winced at the heavy weight of their gazes. “Yes, Ravana is capable of such things,” he forced out. “I once saw her curse a chicken after Lord Morfran beheaded it himself. It was cursed to roam headless in the yard forever after.”
Unsettled whispers arose at the prospect of curses, and one guy murmured the legitimate question, “Why did she curse the chicken?”
“Yet there might be good news.” Bronwen eyed Morfran with a sly look that spelled Got you.
He’d subconsciously slouched in his chair, arms crossed, because what she said next meant there’d be no more avoiding it.
“Near Atlantis 2.0 there is a tower where a powerful man lives. He should know how to remove the hex, and if he does, I’ll be back in commission. I can end what I started.”
Many in the room were nodding, shouting, “Hear, hear!” and grinning at each other at the thought of the Red Rogue leaping back into the fray. Bronwen seemed to grow taller at the decent reception, hope in her eyes. Brim smiled before saying, “Why didn’t you say something, Bernie?”
Morfran groaned. “Please don’t call me that.”
“All right then, Nard.”
“That’s even worse.”
“I say it’s the start of a plan.” Brim patted his back so hard it rattled his vision. “Why don’t you both go to this man first thing tomorrow morning?”
Someone cleared their throat. It was Gueldefore, straightening over the map, his hands palming the surface. “I will go with them. If he sees that the rebellion has a knight, he may be convinced to join our cause as well.”
Morfran instantly leapt on that. “No.” He shook his head. “Not going to happen. This man has bad memories of knights. He loathes every single one of them.”
Gueldefore balked. “What kind of imbecile is afraid of knights?”
“One with knightaphobia.”
“If he’s afraid of knights, it’s best that you remain here, Gueldefore,” Brim said. “Besides, I’m sure Bernard can convince this man to help my daughter remove the hex off her on his own. Right, Bernard?”