35 Rhona
Rhona
“Sir Rhona!” the guard yelled from the top of the parapet in the training ground. “An attack!”
Rhona’s senses piqued as she realized that this wasn’t a drill, and she quickly looked to the other knights training with
her. Their eyes told her they hadn’t heard about an attack drill today either. Which meant Astrad really was under attack.
She and the other knights moved in unison, sprinting to the gates of the castle to assess the situation. What met them was
pure chaos. An attack on the capital hadn’t happened since the uprising—not since they’d been the attackers on the capital.
Adrenaline pushed her through the winding hallways to the gates of the city, a ten-minute journey taking less than half the
time, even in her heavy plate armor. She saw smoke in the distance, billowing from the castle gates.
“What’s going on?” she yelled to one of the soldiers running past her.
“Corisia is attacking!” he yelled, and Rhona wondered how he knew, or if he was making assumptions.
She set off toward the gate, unsheathing her sword and looking for anyone not in Iron Retinue plate.
Smoke poured from the city guard barracks just outside of the castle grounds, men screaming as they ran out of the burning
building. Rhona watched as soldiers clad in black leather attacked the soldiers fleeing the burning barracks, and she moved
without thinking. Four steps with her long legs had her in front of one of the attackers. She swung, her massive sword cleaving
the man in two as she searched for her second target.
Sir Jack fought just a few meters away from her, surrounded by several of their enemies. Rhona leaped in his direction, knocking
two of them down.
“Sir Rhona,” Jack exclaimed, his sword clanging against one of the attacker’s swords. “I’m glad to see you!”
Smoke billowed, and the acrid scent of burning bodies filled Rhona’s nostrils. She could taste it too—it was all-encompassing.
Rhona heard the screams of civilians as they fled the area. She swung her sword relentlessly, an enemy screaming in pain as
she cracked his knee and knocked him to the ground. She looked around, searching for the source of the soldiers or what their
target was before she spotted them: a group of five people slinking through the castle gates and running up the path to the
castle. They’d be going for Iron Empire secrets, for the lord general.
“I have to go, Sir Jack!” she yelled, already sprinting after them, barreling through allies and enemies alike.
“HALT!” Rhona yelled, three of the black-clad figures turning as the other two kept running toward the castle.
They lunged, daggers out, toward her. It was clear they hadn’t expected to be noticed. They were obviously the real reason
the attack was happening. It was nothing but a distraction tactic.
Fighting was like a meditative trance for Rhona; the movements and rhythm brought her peace, even in the most violent of moments. All three attackers had a sword strapped to their belts but were choosing not to use them, a curious decision that Rhona knew she’d need to keep an eye on.
They lunged in unison, and Rhona was almost certain they had some way of silently communicating with each other. She swung
her sword in return, hitting the dagger-wielding hands of two of the fighters and turning to the side to dodge the third.
“If you stop now I will not have to execute you, and we will take you as prisoners of war,” Rhona called, hoping some of them
would back down from the fight.
The three stayed silent, faces covered apart from their eyes, circling Rhona as she waited for their next attack. When it
came it was swift, and in unison once again.
Rhona opted to turn her back on one of the attackers, letting them try to stab her where plate armor met chain mail. She turned
her attention to the other two, slashing up and disarming one. On the downswing she brought her blade down on the other’s
arm, severing it. Both dagger and limb clattered to the ground as the attacker screamed, a woman’s pitch wailing as she dropped
to her knees.
The Corisians allowed women in their ranks? Rhona had just assumed their king was as strict as the De Clare monarchy had been.
It made her hate them even more for holding her back. She flicked her sword quickly upward, the hilt connecting with the other
one’s jaw as she felt the tip of a dagger start to slide through her chain mail. The one in front of her flew into the air,
falling beside the other, who was still screaming about her arm. Rhona whipped around, using her heavily armored fist to slam
into the third one before punching her sword after them, connecting with their torso and cutting through them. Rhona heard
a gasp as they realized they were dead, and she turned to the gates.
“Finish these ones off,” she yelled, meeting Sir Jack’s gaze as he caught up to her.
“Aye, sir!” he yelled back, red hair peeking from the base of his helmet; she’d need to talk to him about getting that cut. Sir Jack had been impressive, both in training and today, and Rhona mentally filed him onto the list of knights she’d bring with her to Corisia.
Rhona turned and sprinted into the castle, trying to figure out where the other two could have gone. Think, Rhona, think. These five had seemed like they were absolutely meant to be an infiltration force, not an attack force . . . so they were
here for information. Rhona gasped as the realization hit her: they were going for the lord general’s office. She took off
at a sprint, the throne room very close to where she was now, the lord general’s offices attached.
As she turned the corner into the empty throne room, she noticed the door to the lord general’s office was ajar; she’d been
right. Rhona crept, slowly and patiently, her steps as quiet as possible in plate armor, with the screams and shouts from
outside giving her scant cover as she approached the door.
She heard voices inside, realizing in a panic that the lord general may have been in the room, unprepared and unarmored. Rhona
leaped through the doorway, sword drawn, to see Lord General Kerrigan sitting at his desk with one of the two attackers, the
other lying on the ground with a puddle of blood growing beneath them.
“Oh, Sir Rhona,” the lord general said, motioning to her with a dagger-wielding hand. “I was wondering if anyone would notice.”
The attacker’s hands were flat on the desk. One of them had a dagger pierced through the palm, buried to the hilt into the
table.
“I’ve been chasing these two, Lord General,” Rhona said through labored breaths—running in plate armor was not easy, and she’d
been doing a lot of it.
“I commend you for noticing their meager infiltration team,” he said as he looked back to the attacker.
“Please, stay and watch.” Lord General Kerrigan slammed the dagger he held into the attacker’s other hand, a wail escaping his unmasked face.
Rhona saw watery blue eyes and blond hair, a sure sign he was Corisian, as she’d suspected.
“Your friend is dead, and you’re about to be,” Lord General Kerrigan said mildly, as if his time was being wasted by this
person who had come here to assassinate him.
The man just groaned, tears streaming down his face as the lord general twisted the knife. Rhona could hear the weapon grinding
against the bone in the Corisian’s hand; she could only imagine how much pain he was in.
“Tell me why Corisia attacked, or I’ll make sure Rhona kills you slowly.”
Rhona’s head snapped up. She wasn’t sure if the lord general meant it, but it was her duty as a sworn knight to protect the
Iron Empire, not to torture people. Rhona would kill if it was absolutely necessary—not for the fun of it. But would it be
worth it to say no to the lord general? What would a slap turn into this time? If the lord general wanted her to torture this
Corisian . . . well, she’d have to do it. Even if it went against what she felt like she should morally do.
“We were just sent for information,” the Corisian whimpered. Lord General Kerrigan twisted the dagger again, and the man screamed.
“I mean it,” the attacker wailed. “This whole attack was so that my crew of five could get in here and find what you’re doing!
We didn’t expect you to be in your office. Our intelligence told us you were going to meet with Osnia!”
“What does the Corisian monarchy think we’re doing?” Lord General Kerrigan asked, hand poised on the hilt of the dagger as
a threat.
“A soldier was found in Mirstone—no breath, but walking. Sallow skin and freakish strength. We,” the Corisian said, then moaned in pain. “We found a piece of a missive they’d tried to burn with the Iron Empire’s sigil on it.”
No breath? How could a person be walking without breathing? It had to be a mistake. A lie.
“Shit,” Lord General Kerrigan snarled.
“So we decided to try and find out what was happening,” the Corisian gibbered. “This wasn’t meant to be a bloodbath. We planned
to set fire to several buildings in the city all at once, but the city guard were stronger than we thought.”
“It wasn’t an attack, only a distraction?” Rhona asked when Lord General Kerrigan said nothing.
“Yes,” the Corisian grunted, looking down at his partner’s body, “Whatever you’re doing here is dangerous for the whole world.
That soldier, it—”
Lord General Kerrigan interrupted the Corisian by pulling the dagger out of his hand and slitting his throat in one fluid
motion, quickly snatching the papers off his desk and stepping out of the way to ensure not a drop of the blood spraying across
the table got on his clothes.
“If this wasn’t an attack, then our knights should have had no issue dispatching the Corisians who were trying to distract
us,” he said to the lifeless body, one hand still pinned to the table as blood flowed over the edge of the desk in a thick,
dark stream.
“We seemed to be holding our own, Lord General,” Rhona ventured, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.
He looked at her blood-covered armor before pulling out the remaining dagger and pushing the now-dead Corisian to the ground.
“This was an act of war,” Lord General Kerrigan said. “I hope you’re ready to fight.”