Chapter 65
Consequences
Wyona’s tent flap tore open, and a man stumbled inside.
I waited a few seconds before moving in on him; drunk idiots wandered into the wrong tents all the time. But the man didn't stumble back out. He made a move toward Wyona.
"Well now," he said. His voice was thick with whatever drink the mercenaries had been passing around. "Never had a princess before."
Wyona's eyes opened. "Remove yourself from my tent this instant."
The man—Brently, one of the caravan's mercenaries—dropped to his knees beside her bedroll, his hand reaching for her.
"Don't be like that, princess. Whole caravan's falling apart. Might as well enjoy—"
I caught his wrist.
He turned, bleary-eyed and slow. My grip tightened as worms hardened along my forearm, into bone-scale plating.
"She said remove yourself," I said.
Brently tried to pull his hand free. His eyes went from confused to angry. "Let go, this isn't your concern."
"She's under my protection. That makes it my concern."
"Protection?" He laughed. "You? You're nothing. You hid while real men fought. I saw you—"
Brently screamed in pain as I snapped his arm. He tried for the knife on his belt, and I snapped that one too, wrenching it sideways, the bones on his forearm popping out of his skin. Brently collapsed onto his side, pissing himself.
I stood over him, pulling my worms back.
"You okay?" I asked Wyona.
She was sitting up on her bedroll, watching Brently writhe in pain with the same expression she'd worn when her guards died.
"A ridiculous concern, of course I am," she said.
Zo pushed through the tent flap, axe in hand, hair wild from sleep. "The fuck happened?"
"Brently here wanted to get to know the princess better."
Zo's face sank. "He tried to—"
She looked down at Brently's ruined arms and his piss-stained pants. "Good, should've cut off his pecker."
Outside the tent, I could hear voices and a rush of people towards us. I grabbed Brently by the back of his collar and dragged him out of the tent. He shrieked the whole way, both arms bouncing against the ground.
I dropped him in the open space between our tent and the nearest fire.
"Your man came into her tent uninvited and tried to take her… I taught him he should listen to a woman when she says no."
One of them stepped forward. "So you crippled him for trying to have some fun," Martin said.
"He tried to force himself on a woman."
"That's Brently's word against yours."
"Brently can't even lift his hands to wipe his own ass now, so his word's not worth much."
The man scowled as more mercenaries were gathering. Zo stood next to me, her axe resting across her shoulder.
"There's law on a caravan," Martin said. "You don't get to break a man's arms and walk away."
"There's law about what Brently tried to do, too."
"I demand compensation for the damage. Brently's a fighter… was a fighter. You've taken a sword arm from the caravan's defense when we can't afford to lose even one."
I snorted. "You want me to pay for stopping your guy from raping someone."
"I want you to answer for the injury." The man's hand went to his sword, resting it there so I could see it. "You're an outsider here. You want to stay with this caravan, you follow the rules."
Bone-scale plating spread across my torso beneath my shirt, layering itself along my stomach and chest.
The plan was dead. Brently had killed it the moment he'd walked into Wyona’s tent. And if I were being honest, our cover was burning away regardless. Zo had fought on the cliffs in full view of the survivors. Wyona's power play over the goods had already pulled us into the center of things.
"Draw it, asshole," I said.
The man blinked.
"Your sword… You idiot. If you want compensation, come and take it."
The crowd went still.
The man's eyes moved across my body. My hands were empty; I had no weapon visible.
He outweighed me by forty pounds and had six inches of reach with the hand-and-a-half. He drew his blade and held it to my chest. He snapped the blade into my throat. Bone-scale plating, as dense as iron, had formed across my hand as I caught the blade just before it connected.
Martin stared at his sword, stuck in my fist.
I squeezed my hand tightly around the blade, grinding the plating against steel, and the sword bowed inward with a groan.
Martin pulled back, but I didn't let him.
I stepped forward and drove my left fist into his gut.
Martin folded over my arm, his feet leaving the ground, and he fell to the ground. I tossed his sword into the fire.
Martin rolled onto his side, gasping for air. He reached for the knife on his belt, and I stepped on his wrist and knelt over him. He was strong enough that he could've bucked me off if I were a normal man, but I wasn’t normal.
"Stay down," I said.
Martin's face was red with rage. He tried to twist free, but he was helpless under my weight.
"Enough!" Jacko shoved through the crowd. "Get off my man, outsider."
If I let Martin up, Jacko would take it as weakness and come at us later. If I killed Martin, Jacko might rally every sword in the camp against us tonight. The caravan had maybe a few fighters left, and we couldn't afford to lose more of them before Valdris.
I stood up and stepped back, allowing Martin room to breathe.
"Compensation's been paid," I said to Jacko. "Your man Brently tried to force himself on Wyona in her tent. I stopped him. Your second drew on me for it; consider us even."
Jacko's eyes flicked between me and Martin, who was climbing to his feet, one hand holding his stomach where I had hit him.
Zo slammed the back of her axe onto his head as he got up. His skull caved in, and his body was sent sideways as he landed heavily into the dirt. He was dead before the dust settled.
Zo stood over Martin's body with her axe at her side, breathing hard through her nose. The blue-green veins along her arms were fading.
"He drew on Fish, and he was just going to let his man have his way with a woman. That's what your damn caravan law gets you."
The mercenaries surrounding us did nothing. They'd just watched as I caught a sword with my bare hands and Zo cave in a skull with a single blow.