by Claire Luana
Hale turned to meet his gaze, eye to eye. It was often convenient to be six and a half feet tall. “I meant no disrespect. I was helping the young lady with her labor.”
“Father.” Emery laid a hand on her father’s arm. “He was acting like a perfect gentleman. Don’t embarrass me.”
Chiron’s jaw worked as he looked between Emery and Hale. “You’ll take first watch, boy. Come with me now.”
Hale inclined his head in a nod as Chiron whirled to stomp back to the fire. Hale flourished a little bow at Emery, and she giggled behind her hand. “I take my leave, my lady,” he said, flashing his most heart-stopping grin before turning to follow Chiron. Yes, that one would be putty in his hands.
It turned out watch was Chiron’s devilish punishment for Hale’s disregard of his order. It apparently involved standing in the cold away from the fire while everyone else got to sleep. “You hear so much as a jackrabbit, you wake me. You hear? We’re not far from Se Caelus, but in these times of turmoil, there’s no telling who might be out there looking to take advantage.”
“So I just…stand out here? For how long?” Hale asked in dismay as the man handed him a sheathed sword and belt.
“Till the moon hits about there.” The man pointed to a spot in the sky a ways above the horizon. “Then you wake Stiv.”
“Okay,” Hale said with more gusto then he felt. Chiron began walking back to the fire. “Which one is Stiv?”
Chiron shook his head. “The burly one,” he replied without turning.
Hale glared at his retreating figure, buckling the sword belt around his waist and pulling his cloak closed around him. At least the man had allowed him to retrieve it from his pack. Otherwise, he would probably freeze to death out here and the whole caravan would get robbed by wolves or eaten by bandits. Or the other way around. Hale’s mind was growing foggy. The last endorphins from the day had worn off and he was weary to the bone. Not to mention already hungry again. Was this what it was like to be a normal man—like a farmer? Every day, working your fingers to the bone, out in the cold, never enough to eat? Hardly even a life worth living. No wonder peasants died so young. Was that what his life was destined to be now?
They hadn’t had time to talk about what the plan was once they got to Terrasia. Perhaps his mother would have contacts who could get them set up there. If not…how many gems did she have in that little pouch of hers? Would it be enough to buy them a house…? Would his mother try to find a winery to work at or manage? She had skills, but what would he and Cal do? They knew nothing about Tamrosi politics; surely, they couldn’t continue their father’s dream of following in his political footsteps. He would have to…find a trade? Work for a living? The thought made him want to weep. What skills did he have besides seducing women and gambling? Perhaps he could make a living through those two pastimes somehow. Certainly he could win them some money gambling; he had an uncanny luck. Yes, that would do it. He would win his wages gambling and provide a comfortable life for his family. He blew out a sigh, followed by a little chuckle. Work for a living. Ha.
Hale shifted in his boots, wiggling his numb toes, staring out into the darkness. The moon had risen about halfway to the spot it was supposed to reach before he could wake Stiv. He looked back at the camp. The fire was just embers. Everyone had gone to bed. He looked back out into the lonely darkness. Honestly. This watch thing was ridiculous. He held up his hands and blew in them, trying to warm them. How could they expect him to see anything out in this darkness? He should go back to the fire. No one would be the wiser, and he’d just as easily see someone coming there as from here.
Resolved, Hale whirled to head back to the campfire. It was this sentiment that saved him. For when the thrusting jab came, seeking the soft flesh where his belly had been, it found only air.
Chapter 9
Hale wasn’t sure who was more surprised—him or the man who had attacked him from behind. Hale barreled into the man, his feet tangling with his attacker’s. They both went down. Hale landing with a thump on top of the grizzled man. “Bandits!” Hale bellowed. “Attack!”
“Shut up, you dog,” another man snarled, hauling Hale off the first man and smashing Hale across the head with his gauntleted fist. Pain exploded through Hale’s temple as he fell back to the ground, his vision blurring until four men stood before him instead of two. The metallic sting of blood filled his mouth and visions of his untimely death filled his mind. Thankfully, the attackers soon had more pressing matters to attend to. The rest of the camp had sprung to life, and Chiron was now running at them with bared teeth and bared steel.
The sounds of combat filled the night as Chiron crashed into the men with a bellow. Through his hazy vision and sluggish thoughts, Hale counted more bandits—as many as ten. From the ringing of steel and muffled curses, Hale couldn’t tell who was winning. He tried to stand, but his legs didn’t seem to be working right. He fell back to his knees, retching onto the dark earth. He had never felt pain like this. It roared in his head, threatening to consume him. He tried to fend it off, to claw past it and reach a coherent thought. Mother. Cal.
Hale crawled across the ground, past the silhouettes of battle backlit by the embers of the fire, the quicksilver of the moon. One man fell with a crash, pierced through—Hale wasn’t sure if it was a bandit or one of theirs. He saw faces huddled behind a wagon, female faces—Emery, there…his mother. “Cal,” he rasped.
“Help him!” His mother’s voice cut through the pain, and Hale whirled, regretting the sudden movement when it was rewarded with an explosion of fire in his temples. Cal was fighting a skinny bandit, swords flashing and clanging in rapid tempo. He and Cal had rudimentary training in fencing, but this—this was different. This was real. A defeat was not just a tick on the breastplate, it was the end. The bandit seemed to have Cal on the defensive, backing towards the wagons while the horses whinnied in fear. Hale summoned whatever strength he had from some hidden well and with a roar ran at the bandit, tackling him at the waist, bearing him to the ground. He punched the man in the face with a savage blow, then again, then again until his fist was bloody and the man’s face was barely recognizable.
“Hale!” Cal said. “You got him. The others.”
Cal extended his hand to Hale to help him off the ground, and Hale took it gratefully with his own blood-slicked hand. As he went to pull himself up, Cal’s eyes shot open with fear and pain and he let out a gurgling gasp.
“Cal!” Hale gasped in horror as he registered the blade protruding from Cal’s stomach. It slid out with a sickening suck and Cal fell forwards into his arms, revealing the bandit behind him who had pierced him through with a short sword. Hale collapsed, bearing Cal’s weight with him, before rolling him gently onto the ground. Hale was numb. Cold. Unable to think—to speak. The pounding in his head dulled to an ache as the cry of his heart filled his whole being. Cal. Not Cal. Not his brother. No, no, no. They could fix this.
Cal coughed, crimson blood spattering his lips. “Hale.” He gasped.
“I’m here.” Hale cradled Cal’s head in his lap as he took off his cloak and balled it up, pressing it against Cal’s wound. There was so much blood—the bandit had pierced him all the way through. Even with the best medical care, it was a grievous wound. And out here…Hale looked around for help but knew there was none. The other men had fallen—Sim Chiron…Stiv…whatever the other man’s name was. All down, drowning in pools of their own blood. Captain Brimmer was writhing on the ground, his tricorne hat crushed in the dirt beside him. Griff was nowhere to be seen.
“Mother.” Cal coughed again. “Protect Mother.”
The bandits were dragging the women out from under the caravan now, and Hale’s vision turned red—narrowing to a pinprick. A man with his grubby fist around Brea’s upper arm dragged her across the dirt towards the fire.
Hale stood with a roar, grabbing Cal’s sword from his blood-soaked hand and tearing across the clearing towards his mother. A bandit stood to meet him and he smashe
d aside the man’s sword with a powerful blow before burying his blade halfway through the man’s neck. The man slid to a crumpled heap and the next man came at him, two short swords at the ready. It was the man who had stabbed Cal—the bastard’s ugly face had been burned in Hale’s memory. Hale parried two blows and kicked the other man in the chest, knocking him back into the dust. The man rolled to scramble out of the way but Hale was too fast, the purifying fire of vengeance searing his blood, burning away the fog. With both hands he buried his sword in the man’s back, cutting through him, watering the earth with the man’s blood. A grim smile crossed his face as he saw that the blow mirrored the one the man had given Cal. Hale stepped over the man’s corpse into a fighting stance, looking for his next fight.
“Stop!” A deep voice rang out clear and strong.
Hale froze.
A tall, dark-haired bearded man held a knife to Brea’s throat, his hand tangled in her flaxen hair.
Hale growled, stepping forward. The man stood his ground, tightening his grip. Brea let out a little cry of pain.
“One more step and this woman dies.”
“Don’t do anything rash,” Hale said, his voice rasping like gravel.
“Drop your sword,” the man replied. “On your knees.”
Hale complied, never breaking eye contact with the man. The smallest slip of that blade…and his mother would be gone. He couldn’t risk it.
“Bind him,” the man instructed the other bandits, who rushed to Hale’s side, painfully twisting leather straps around his ankles and hands. “Tightly.” When the men were done, one of the bandits kicked Hale between his shoulder blades, and he toppled forward into the dust.
The bearded man shoved Brea towards another man, who tied her arms and feet. They did the same with Emery and her mother, who was sobbing quietly. The heels of his boots crunched in the dirt as he knelt down, looking into Hale’s eyes. “You’ve got fight in you.” Hale looked up and spit into the man’s face.
The man stood with a laugh.
“Should we take him?” one of the other bandits asked.
“No,” the leader said, walking back to survey the three women before him. “I’ve seen this kind before. Too much trouble. Let’s leave him here for the vultures. Let him contemplate his failures before he dies. Let him think on all the things we will do to this lovely woman. His…mother, I presume?” The man tucked a lock of Brea’s hair behind one of her ears.
“Don’t touch her!” Hale screamed, struggling against the bonds that bit into his wrists and ankles. He flexed against them, trying to break them through sheer strength, but they only cut into his wrists more, adding more pain to the growing list.
The bearded man chuckled. “He would have been great in the fighting ring. But I don’t want to deal with his screaming the whole way back. You two, search the wagons and pile anything of value into the front wagon. Add the prisoners. We’re taking the pirate too. I recognize him. He has a bounty on his head. You, round up the horses.”
The man returned to Hale’s side, crouching down once again. “I’ll take good care of your mother. Don’t you worry.”
“I’ll find you,” Hale said with as much venom as he could muster. “And kill you.”
Another deep chuckle. “Ah, the optimism of youth. Save your strength, young fellow. You’ll need it when the crows come.”
Hale bared his teeth at the man as he stood again, surveying his men while they pillaged the caravan. Hale caught his mother’s eye as she was thrown over a man’s shoulder like a sack of grain. “Cal!” she said. “Save Cal.” Hale turned his head to where his brother lay, heaving shallow rasping breaths. He needed to get to his brother.
Hale rolled, maneuvering himself back up onto his knees. His ankles were so tightly tied, he could barely inch one knee forward, then the other. Twice, he fell forward, dirt mingling with the blood from the wound at his temple, blurring his vision.
The bandits were hitching a team of horses to the wagon now, rounding up the remaining steeds into a long line.
“Hale,” Cal rasped when Hale finally reached his side, collapsing onto the ground beside him. His brother looked pale and pallid. “I’m cold.”
“We’re going to get you all patched up,” Hale said. “Do you have a knife?”
“I think I lost it,” Cal said with a weak, apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Hale said, dropping his head back onto the ground. A memory swam to the surface of when he and Cal were young and would sleep in a nest of blankets on the floor of the lake house. Faces turned towards each other, whispering for hours after their parents had gone to bed.
“You hold on, Cal, okay? I’m going to get us out of this. I’ll think of something.” In the distance, the wagon was starting to move. The dark-haired bandit swung onto his horse and gave Hale a salute before digging his heels into his steed.
A lump rose in Hale’s throat, a feeling of panic and fear unlike any he had ever felt. His charms, his smiles, his swagger—none of it mattered a bit out here in the darkness. Being Hale Firena, son of the most prominent minister in Aprica, it was all meaningless. The girls, the gambling, the parties and fun. He would give up any of it—all of it—if he could just save Cal.
Cal’s eyelids fluttered shut.
“Cal!” Hale cried, nudging his brother awake. “Don’t you leave me. You fight, okay? Don’t stop fighting.”
“So…tired. Cold.”
Hale scooted closer to his brother until their shoulders were touching. “I’ll keep you warm. Just don’t leave me, okay? Don’t leave me alone out here. I need you. I need my brother.”
“Sorry…I let them get me. Never could…fight as well as you.”
“Cal, you’re a great fighter. You’ll heal from this and be stronger than ever. You’ll even be able to beat me. Just wait.”
Cal’s eyes shut again. “Glad…you were my brother. Even if…you’re an annoying ass sometimes.”
Hale choked out half a sob, half a laugh. Tears began to fall. “I’m glad you’re my brother too, Cal.”
“Take care of Mother.” Cal’s breath rasped in and out.
“We’ll do it together,” Hale said. “Firena brothers stick together. Promise me?”
But Cal said nothing at all.
Chapter 10
A crow’s shrill caw startled Hale awake. The creature had been sitting on his chest and leaped into the air at his movement. “Get out of here!” he cried, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. His head fell back to the earth, his neck too weak to hold it up. Cal lay next to him, his blue eyes open and vacant, his skin gray. A sob escaped Hale’s throat. Cal was dead. First his father, and now his brother. His mother was on her way to a slaver’s auction block, and as for him…he squinted into the sun as it peeked over the horizon. He wasn’t long for this world. Quite a fall from grace for the Firena family.
Hale rolled onto his other side, ignoring his muscles’ cries of pain, the cramps from the tight bonds at his ankles and wrists. He couldn’t look at his brother’s corpse any longer. Regrets flashed through him, sharp as knives. He should have spent more time with Cal. Done brotherly things. He shouldn’t have teased him all the time. Hale squeezed his eyes shut. Gods. He had been merciless. A complete ass of a little brother and Cal had endured it, tolerating Hale’s antics with a shrug of his shoulders and a roll of his eyes. He had even defended Hale to their father when the brunt of his anger seemed to fall on Hale.
“Oh, Cal,” he whispered. “I didn’t deserve you.”
Hale lay back, letting tears of misery leak down his face, dripping into his ears. Eventually, his misery for Cal turned inward. How in the hell was he going to get out of this? He was stuck here, tied up like a solstice ham, getting thirstier by the minute. He awkwardly rolled to his knees, squinting into the sun, looking for something—anything—sharp that he could cut his bonds on. There. Next to Sim Chiron’s corpse was the man’s sword. Hale slumped on his heels for a
moment. It was far. All the way on the other side of the clearing, past the firepit. He sighed. Might as well get moving. He wasn’t getting any less dead.
Inch by inch, Hale scooted forward, the knees of his trousers tearing on the rocky ground. The crow watched his progress with a cocked head. “What’re you looking at?” Hale grumbled, coughing on the dust coating his mouth and throat. He felt weak and woozy—his head had started swimming as soon as he’d gotten himself upright. He probably had a concussion.
Hale was so intent upon the promised land that was Chiron’s sword that he didn’t notice a figure approaching from the trees. Not until the person was almost upon him. A figure appeared as if out of thin air, and Hale started, falling to his side. Silhouetted by the morning sun, Hale had to squint to take him in. “Griff?” he asked, relief welling in him. “Is that you?”
“Got yourself in quite a pickle, didn’t you, Firena?” Griff stood with one hand on his hip, the other holding a horse’s reins. A horse. Hale could have wept at the sight.
“Griff, please. Untie me,” Hale begged.
Griff stood for a moment longer than Hale was comfortable with before sighing and pulling a knife from his belt. “Hold still.” With a quick flick of his wrists, Griff slit the leather bonds. Hale was free. He groaned, collapsing onto the ground, stretching out spread-eagle with a groan. His shoulders burned the worst, and he sat up slowly, rotating his arms in his sockets to bring the life back into them. “Thanks.” He pushed to his feet, swaying slightly.
“You don’t look so good,” Griff said, examining him.
“You don’t look like a trunk full of coin yourself,” Hale snapped.
Griff bristled, turning. “Just here to grab some supplies. Best of luck to you.”
“Wait.” Hale held out his hands beseechingly. “Wait. I’m sorry. My brother is dead, my mother is a captive of that bastard bandit, and my head feels like a marching band just walked through it. But please. Maybe we can help each other.”
