51. The Count
The Count
We made camp two miles south of the river crossing, in a ravine cut deep enough to hide our fire from anyone searching the hills above.
I say fire. I mean a handful of sticks burning low in a ring of stones, barely enough to warm hands over, tended by a servant woman who understood without being told that light could kill as surely as any blade.
The count was brutal.
I did it twice, because the first time the numbers didn’t make sense. They still didn’t the second time, but at least I’d confirmed they were real.
Fewer than half had made it out. Baldir and Armand.
My team: Maise, Grit, Perrin. Ygritte, still carrying her chains like they were part of her body.
Noble heirs from a dozen houses, most of them wounded, all of them wearing the blank expressions of people who’d watched their world burn in a single night.
A handful of servants who’d been quick enough or lucky enough to stay close to the fighters.
Two de Blaise soldiers, one missing his left hand.
No Sword-Kin.
I kept coming back to that. Henrik’s best, the men he’d trusted above all others to keep his sons alive, and not one of them had made it out.
Danzing. Tormund. Tennyson. Haim. Cain. Sedrick.
Gwent. Kent. Rikken. Willem. The ones who’d died in the Amber Hall, and the rest who’d held the gate until we were clear and then kept holding it because that was the job .
I’d watched them die. Watched Danzing cut through a wall of men with Doomfall singing in his hands. Watched Tormund catch blades on bronze skin that cracked and bled beneath the impacts. Watched Tennyson burn until his own fire consumed him.
They’d bought us time with their lives, and we’d spent it running.
That’s what soldiers do. They spend and get spent. You know this. You’ve always known this.
Knowing it didn’t make the weight any lighter.
◇ ◆ ◇
I hadn’t slept. The Knight Brand had quieted around the fourth hour past midnight, dropping from its battle-fed roar to a low heat between my shoulder blades, but by then my mind was running too fast for my body to follow.
I spent the remaining darkness doing what the Red Gale had always done after a fight: checking weapons, counting supplies, planning for the ways we could still die before reaching safety.
Weapons were short. I had my sword and two knives taken from dead crossbowmen.
Maise had her blade. Grit had his knife and the quiet patience to use it.
Perrin had a handful of throwing knives left from a pouch that had held twice as many the night before.
Ygritte’s chains were still intact. Baldir and Armand both carried their swords.
Beyond that, we had whatever the noble heirs had grabbed during the escape, which amounted to a couple hunting knives and a fire poker.
Food was worse. Whatever the servants had grabbed from the kitchens during the chaos amounted to half a sack of hard bread, some dried meat, and a wheel of cheese that had been dropped in the mud at some point during the retreat. Split among all of us, it would last a day if we were generous.
Water came from the stream at the bottom of the ravine. Cold, clean, and the only thing we had in abundance.
Days to de Blaise lands at a walking pace. Longer with wounded. Shorter if we pushed hard and left the slow ones behind.
We won’t be leaving anyone behind.
◇ ◆ ◇
Baldir found me at the ravine’s upper edge, where I’d positioned myself to watch the northern approach. He moved quietly for someone raised in a keep, but I’d heard him coming from twenty paces out. He sat down beside me without asking, close enough that his voice wouldn’t carry.
“We need to talk about what happened at the crossbow line,” he said.
“I killed them.”
“You killed scores of armed men in about two minutes.” His jaw was tight, the heir’s composure stretched thin over something he didn’t have words for yet.
“I’ve trained with the Sword-Kin. I’ve watched Father spar with the King of Swords burning.
What you did wasn’t swordsmanship, Danarre. I don’t know what it was.”
“The Knight Brand.” I kept my eyes on the tree line. “When the fighting gets hot enough, it takes over. Everything gets faster. My body moves before I think about moving. The sword finds gaps I didn’t know were there.”
“For how long?”
“Minutes. Hard to say. It comes in waves, and I can’t always control when it starts or stops. ”
He was quiet for a while, working through it. I let him. Some things needed space to settle.
“The other Brands,” he said finally. “The ones you’ve kept hidden. The Emperor. The Magician.”
I turned to look at him. “How did you know about those?”
“Armand told me. On the road, while you were scouting ahead.” His expression was steady, but I could see the effort holding it there. “He said you’ve been carrying them since before the Stone Yard. That they’re dormant, but they’re there.”
Armand. Of course. He’d learned about the other Brands during our training sessions, felt them stirring when the Knight flared too hot. I’d trusted him to keep it close. I hadn’t told him not to share it with his brother.
My fault. Should have been explicit.
“They’re still sleeping,” I said. “I can feel them sometimes, pressing at the edge of something. But they haven’t woken up.”
“And when they do?”
“Then I’ll be more dangerous than I am now. Or dead. Carrying one Brand is supposed to be the limit for most people. I’m carrying three, and I don’t know what the cost will be when they all wake up.”
Baldir absorbed that with the careful attention of someone cataloging information for later use. I recognized the look. Henrik wore it the same way.
“Father needs to know,” he said. “About the Knight, at least. And about the crossbow line. He’ll hear it from the other heirs regardless. Better if it comes from us.”
“Agreed. I’ll tell him myself.” I paused. “The Emperor and Magician stay between us. You, me, and Armand. Until I understand what they are, I don’t want Henrik making plans around weapons that might not work.”
“You don’t trust Father?”
“I trust that Henrik plans around every asset he controls. I’d rather understand what I am before I become one of his assets.”
A long pause stretched between us. Somewhere below, one of the noble heirs was coughing, a wet sound that meant the cold night air had found a wound.
“Fair enough,” Baldir said. He rose, brushing dirt from his trousers. “For what it’s worth, you made the right call. At the crossbow line. With the prisoners.”
“You didn’t think so at the time.”
“No. I didn’t.” He met my eyes. “But everyone here is alive because of the calls you made. I’ll carry my opinions about the method. You carry the results.”
He left me alone with the trees and the thin gray light of pre-dawn.
◇ ◆ ◇
Dawn came slowly, gray light filtering through branches that still held the cold of night in their bark. I called the group together when there was enough visibility to move without breaking ankles on roots and stones.
“South,” I said. “We crossed the river yesterday. We stay on this side, follow the bank until we’re clear of Hemmrich’s territory, then cut inland toward de Blaise lands. Days if we push it. Longer if the wounded slow us down.”
“The wounded will slow us down,” Ygritte said flatly.
She wasn’t wrong. Perrin could barely walk, his right calf wrapped in strips of cloth that needed changing and a cauterized wound beneath that needed rest it wasn’t going to get.
Several of the noble heirs had deep cuts seeping through their bandages.
A kitchen girl who’d gotten swept up in the escape had a broken arm that she held against her chest, white-faced with pain every time the path dipped or rose.
“Then we carry them,” I said. “Rotate bearers every mile. The able-bodied take shifts.”
“You’re not in command here,” one of the noble heirs spoke up. A boy about my age, maybe older, wearing the torn remnants of what had been an expensive doublet. “My father is Lord Garrett of House Vennar. Who are you to give orders?”
Maise shifted her weight, one hand drifting to her sword. I shook my head at her.
“I’m the one who got you out of the Amber Hall alive,” I said.
“And the one who killed the crossbow line that was waiting for us on the road. If you’d like to take command, I’m happy to step aside.
You’ll need a plan for provisions, a route that avoids Hemmrich’s patrols, and a way to move all these people through hostile territory without leaving a trail a blind man could follow. ”
The Vennar heir opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“That’s what I thought.” I turned back to the group. “We move in column. Fighters on the edges, wounded in the center. Grit takes point. I’ll be at the rear with Maise. Questions?”
Nobody had questions.
◇ ◆ ◇
The first day was the worst.
Perrin’s wound opened twice, and both times we stopped while Ygritte packed it with clean cloth and bound it tight enough to make him curse through his teeth.
The kitchen girl’s broken arm swelled until the skin turned purple and she couldn’t stop the small sounds of pain that escaped every time someone jostled her.
One of the de Blaise soldiers, the one missing his hand, started running a fever by midday and had to be half-carried by sunset.
We ate the last of the bread that evening and split the cheese into portions so small they barely counted as food. The dried meat went to the wounded. The rest of us drank water from the stream and tried not to think about how many more days we had to go.
Grit found wild onions growing along the riverbank.
Maise trapped two rabbits with a snare she made from bootlaces and a bent branch, the kind of field skill you learn when your meals depend on catching them yourself.
It wasn’t enough to fill every stomach, but it was enough to keep them from giving up.
I took the night watch and gave it to no one.
◇ ◆ ◇