44. Burning Defense
Burning Defense
I grabbed one of the unbroken alchemist’s fire vials from the armory floor, its contents sloshing in dark glass. The chemical stench burned my nostrils.
“What are you doing?” Maise’s voice cut low and sharp.
“Covering our retreat.” I hefted the bottle, feeling its weight. “They expect this barracks to burn. If it doesn’t, someone investigates why their men failed. That brings more of them to exactly where we don’t want them.”
Grit understood first. “Buy us time to reach the veterans.”
“Exactly.”
I moved to the far wall of our quarters, the one facing away from the main keep where the flames would be visible but the escape route wouldn’t. Simple soldier logic. When you break contact, you make sure the enemy’s looking the wrong direction.
“Ready,” Perrin said, slinging his pack.
I smashed the bottle against the wall. The liquid splashed across dry timber, and a spark from the shattered glass caught the fumes. Flames roared to life, racing up the wood with hungry speed. The heat hit my face like opening a forge door. Within seconds, the entire wall was ablaze.
“Move!”
◇ ◆ ◇
The practice yards crawled with armed men who weren’t estate guards.
Mercenaries in mismatched leather and mail, moving with purpose between buildings.
They’d positioned themselves at every gate, every gap in the walls where survivors might flee.
Professional work. Someone had planned this for months.
A crossbow bolt whistled past my ear. I didn’t have to see the shooter to know where he was because the sound gave away the angle. We dropped behind a stack of practice shields, the wood groaning as more bolts slammed into it.
“Suppressing fire,” Grit said, his voice flat. “Trying to pin us.”
“Then we don’t get pinned.” I pointed with my spear toward the dark space between the mess hall and the smithy. “There. Straight run to the veteran barracks.”
“Through open ground.” Maise adjusted her grip on her sword. “They’ll cut us down before we’re halfway.”
“Not if we move fast and they’re ducking.” Perrin pulled throwing knives from inside his tunic, four of them fanned between his fingers. “I can keep their heads down for a few seconds.”
“Do it.” I counted the rhythm of the shots. One, two, pause. Reload. They were disciplined, but discipline meant predictable. “On the next reload.”
The bolts came as expected. One, two.
Perrin’s arm blurred. Knives spun through the air, aimed to distract. A sharp cry from the darkness told us at least one found its mark.
“Now!”
We broke cover. Sprinted low and fast. Grit and I took the lead, spears angled forward. Maise and Perrin followed, blades guarding our flanks. Another bolt cracked the air where my head had been, but their aim was hurried now, panicked .
A mercenary stepped from behind the smithy to block our path. Heavy axe held ready. Big, bearded, confident. He planted himself like he expected us to stop.
Maise didn’t slow down.
She drove her shoulder into his side before he could swing, knocked him off balance, and her sword slid between his ribs. He dropped without a sound.
We didn’t break stride. Two more men appeared from the direction of the mess hall, blades already drawn. They saw their dead companion and their expressions hardened from surprise to professional anger.
“Split,” I commanded.
Grit peeled left, his sword a low threat that forced one man to focus on his legs.
I took the other, meeting his charge with the spear’s length.
He tried to bat the weapon aside, but the ashwood shaft held solid.
I let him commit his weight, dropped the spear’s point, sidestepped, and drove the butt-end into his throat.
He staggered back, choking. Maise finished him with a clean thrust to the spine.
Grit’s opponent was more cautious. He kept his distance, blade weaving patterns meant to find a way past Grit’s reach. But Grit wasn’t trying to kill him with finesse. He was herding him, step by step, forcing the mercenary back toward the smithy’s open door where coals still burned in the forge.
Perrin came around the doorframe. He didn’t use a knife. He swung a blacksmith’s hammer in a low, brutal arc that shattered the mercenary’s knee. The man screamed, high and thin. The sound cut short when Grit drove his sword through the mercenary’s chest.
“Clear,” Grit said. Nothing in his voice but report.
◇ ◆ ◇
The veteran barracks stood just ahead, a long low building of stone and timber.
Light spilled from a few windows, and the sounds of serious fighting echoed from within.
Not the panicked skirmishes of the practice yard, but the methodical ring of steel on steel that spoke of trained soldiers holding a line.
A crossbowman on the roof of the adjacent stable had them pinned. I watched the flickers as his bolts slammed into the stone around a window, keeping anyone inside from returning fire.
“Grit,” I said. “That roof.”
He didn’t need another word. He stepped into the shadow of the stable wall and was gone.
The rest of us laid down what suppressing fire we could manage, Perrin’s knives and my borrowed practice spears forcing the other mercenaries to keep their heads down.
The distraction was all Grit needed. A flicker of movement on the roof’s edge, then a dark shape dropping behind the crossbowman.
A single choked cry, and the rain of bolts stopped.
“Go!”
We sprinted the final distance to the barracks door.
I could hear Danzing’s voice inside, roaring orders over the clash of weapons.
A mercenary tried to intercept us at the entrance.
Maise was already moving, her blade opening his throat before he could raise his own weapon.
Blood sprayed across the wooden door frame.
I kicked the door open and found chaos.
◇ ◆ ◇
The main hall of the veteran barracks had become a killing floor .
Half a dozen mercenaries were locked in brutal combat with the Sword-Kin, and the air hummed with power that went beyond simple steel. Brands were awake in this room, and they were hungry.
Danzing held the center of the storm, his massive greatsword Doomfall carving through the press of bodies. Each swing sent men flying, armor crumpling like parchment, bones shattering under impossible force.
「The Knight stirs. Blood calls to blood.」
“Danarre’s team, on me!” he roared without looking, his attention fixed on a mercenary captain trying to flank him. “Seal the rear entrance!”
We moved. This wasn’t a skirmish anymore. This was a grinder, and the real killers had come here. But the Sword-Kin were something else entirely.
Tormund stood near the hearth, his arms bare and shining like polished bronze.
The brand of Taurus burned on his shoulder, a bull’s head wreathed in steel.
A mercenary’s axe glanced off his forearm with a shriek of tortured metal, the axe head shattering from the impact.
Tormund didn’t flinch. He grabbed the man’s head in both hands and squeezed.
There was a wet, cracking sound. The body dropped.
“They’re coming through the windows!” Cain shouted, his voice a razor’s edge.
He moved like a phantom, the Brand of The Hanged Man flickering upside down on his neck.
He wasn’t just fast. He seemed to exist in multiple places at once, daggers spinning from his hands while a dozen spectral copies followed, phantom steel that tore through two mercenaries trying to climb through a shattered window.
They fell back outside, riddled with wounds from blades that weren’t entirely real.
A wave of heat washed over us as Tennyson stepped forward, the Brand of The Sun blazing on his chest. The melted half of his face was lit by an internal fire.
“Room for one more,” he said, his voice a low rumble. White-hot fire erupted from his outstretched palm, incinerating a mercenary who’d just broken through the line. The man screamed for less than a second before he was nothing but ash and the smell of cooked meat.
Ygritte fought beside him, controlled and savage at once.
Shadowy tethers, black as pitch, erupted from the ground at her command, wrapping around the ankles and wrists of her opponents.
The Brand of The Devil burned faintly at the base of her throat.
One mercenary, caught in her spectral chains, was dragged to his knees.
Ygritte’s sword ended him with a single clean thrust.
We reached the rear door just as more mercenaries smashed it open.
Maise met the first with a savage grin, her blade crashing against his shield.
Perrin darted low, his knives seeking gaps in armor.
Grit flowed past the main clash, his sword finding the last man’s throat before the man knew he’d been flanked.
I held the center, my spear a wall of points. A mercenary tried to bull rush past me. A quick thrust to his knee sent him howling to the floor. The butt of my spear smashed his temple before he could recover. He went still.
The battle raged for another brutal minute. The mercenaries were good, veterans by the look of them, but the Sword-Kin operated on another level entirely .
Haim, the one-eyed old warrior, fought with the Brand of Justice burning on his fist. Every strike he landed hit harder than his frame should’ve allowed, as if the weight of every wrong his enemy had ever committed came crashing down with each blow.
The last mercenary fell, his blood pooling on the stone floor. The barracks went quiet save for the crackle of the hearth and the heavy breathing of survivors.
Danzing stood over all of them, Doomfall resting on his shoulder. He hadn’t broken a sweat.
“Report,” he commanded, his eyes finding mine.
“Five dead at the armory.” I pulled the vial from my belt, the liquid inside sloshing darkly. “They were carrying this. Alchemist’s fire. They planned to burn the barracks with everyone inside. I lit the barracks myself to cover our movement.”
Danzing took the vial. His expression hardened as he recognized the contents.
“They planned to burn the entire estate. All the young nobles. Everyone.”
“Looks that way.”
He looked at the vial in his hand, then at the bodies on the floor, then at me.
“You got here in time. Your people are alive because of it.”
“My people are alive because they’re good at what they do.” I met his eyes. “I just gave them warning.”
Danzing’s mouth twitched. Respect, maybe. Or the start of a very dark smile.
“Your brothers are still in that keep,” he said. “Along with every other heir who came to this tournament. ”
“I know.”
“Then let’s go get them.”
◇ ◆ ◇
「Hel’s Ledger」
Vessel: Danarre de Blaise | Year 828 | Age 13
House de Blaise | Status: Bastard (Unacknowledged)
Location: Duke Hemmrich’s Estate, Veteran Barracks
「Knight of Swords」 — Raging
「Emperor」 — Sleeping
「Magician」 — Sleeping
Active Charge: Find the Hierophant. End what was begun.
Blood was paid. Blood was owed. The vessel moves toward the keep to kill. Let the night sort what morning won’t forgive.