Chapter 29 #3
Six of Elrod’s men dressed in those fucking black uniforms stood before nearly thirty of Flambriar’s soldiers, arrows sticking out from shoulders and torsos like they were pin-cushions. Even from this distance, Hark could feel the wrongness seeping off them and tarnishing the mountainside.
Sebastian was at the front, directing men to swing heavy blades at the Kastonians … only for the blades not to cut them down at all.
With every strike of a sword, blood leeched from them, a thick, oozing mess that didn’t look normal. And of course it wasn’t, because no matter how many times Flambriar’s soldiers struck them, they didn’t fall.
And with every swing of their own swords, Elrod’s men managed to wound Hark’s own soldiers enough to send them retreating back to the rock where Hark stood transfixed.
There was a heartbeat during which he wished there was a blonde-haired, wicked-mouthed assassin at his side. She wouldn’t have balked, wouldn’t have cared that whatever stood before them wasn’t anything they had ever encountered before.
He wondered if the gods were laughing.
And then that heartbeat passed and Hark was drawing his sword, his legs thundering across the rock as he ran straight at those things threatening his kingdom.
Whatever confidence he looked to have possessed must have bolstered his own soldiers, because as Hark breached the line, they began running too, swords raised, determination thundering in every footfall.
And then there was madness.
Kase was at his side and then there was Seb, swinging blades against the six bodies that wouldn’t fall. They hacked at the men, their blades cleaving through flesh that split and bled a liquid too dark, too thick, to be anything other than evil. Whatever Elrod had done to create them…
‘What the fuck are they?’ he growled, spitting blood through his teeth as one of the men sent an elbow into the side of his jaw.
‘Something that needs to fucking die,’ Seb panted between swings of his blade. Flambriar’s own soldiers fought behind them, dragging those too injured to keep swinging blades back towards that outcrop of rocks.
Still Elrod’s men didn’t fall.
Perhaps this was what Thara and Arla had felt in the mountains that night they’d come scouting with him, and why they had said something felt off…
‘I’ll have your father’s head for this myself, Stappen,’ Kase snapped as her blade struck deep above the heart of one of the men. He didn’t so much as flinch.
Of course…
Hark lifted his blade above his head, hoping to all the gods that listened that Seb would cover him long enough not to have his torso run through … and then he cleaved the head straight from the shoulders of one of Elrod’s men.
The world halted, and then, as slowly as the sun sets, the soldier’s body crumpled to the earth and did not rise.
Hark met the blood-splattered faces of Seb and Kase, a mixture of shock and relief passing in their eyes as they turned towards the five remaining soldiers still battling Flambriar’s own.
‘Their heads,’ Sebastian bellowed. ‘Take their gods-damned heads!’
The bodies fell pretty quickly after that, but his mind felt entirely too far away as he trudged back down to Claret Hall, Kase and Seb not far behind.
‘The men will bring the bodies back to see if we can figure out what the fuck your father’s done, Stappen.’ Sebastian sounded tired. Too tired. Hark was trying not to feel anything at all, especially the knot of dread tightening in his stomach.
His father had found them. And worse than that, he was sending soldiers into Flambriar that couldn’t be killed. Thara had said it was impossible for Elrod to use the mages’ blood for anything, but after tonight…
Fuck, he needed Arla to come home.
The hall was a hive of activity, maids rushing about gathering spare bandages and cleaning liquids to take down to the barracks for those who had been injured, soldiers filling Claret Hall’s corridors with noise and fear and blood.
Hark had expected it. He knew the noise they had made in the mountains couldn’t have been missed and that Flambriar’s citizens were likely barricaded inside their homes.
What he had not expected though, not in a million years, was to see Jack hobbling down the hallway towards them, leather armour strapped over his chest and a sword that looked too heavy grasped in his hand.
A small, squeaky sound escaped Kase when Jack raised his other hand in greeting.
And then she was running, the clatter of her blades hitting the floor and drawing the attention of everyone in the corridor.
She flung her arms around Jack’s shoulders, burying her face in the crook between his neck and shoulder.
‘You stupid idiot,’ she said against his skin, and Hark could hear the relief in her voice that Jack was actually standing after the way they had left him in the healer’s office that afternoon.
‘Let’s leave ’em to it. I reckon Jaz will want to hear about this,’ Seb muttered in Hark’s ear.
That knot of terror squirmed in his stomach again, but he had to do this. He had to keep these people safe, and that meant tackling whatever the fuck his father was up to.
He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘I’ll meet you in the study.’