Solace

by Raven Dark

  It still didn’t move.

  I tossed a glance over my shoulder at the men fighting and saw my large Brothers of Brimstone counterpart currently dropping a J’nai onto his knee and breaking the man’s back.

  “Beast, get over here and help me!”

  He let the man’s lifeless body drop to the floor and raced over.

  We hurled ourselves against the door twice before it cracked free of its frame and crashed to the floor. Beast took off to help his Brothers as soon as it fell.

  “Sheriff!” I shouted.

  “Right here, Steel, go!”

  We started up the stairs with two J’nai behind us.

  “I got your back, General.” With Hawk’s other sword in his grip, Pretty Boy positioned himself between Sheriff and the J’nai before they reached the stairwell. Weapons clanged. Sheriff hurried up the steps after me.

  At the top of the stairwell where it veered to the right, I turned around in time to see Pretty Boy dancing backward up the steps, clashing swords with the two J’nai. One of them swiped, almost taking my Brother’s head off while he was occupied with the other.

  Letting Sheriff pass me, I tossed the crumbling bust of some jowly-faced lord off its pedestal at the two swordsmen. The heavy bust flew down the stairs past Pretty Boy and slammed into one of the men.

  Leaving PB with one man to fight.

  “Go, Steel, I got this!”

  I ran up the rest of the stairs…and snarled in frustration. There was another one of those thick fucking doors at the top. Beyond it, I heard Setora screaming. Sheriff yanked and banged at the door.

  “Steel, get this thing open!” he shouted.

  I rammed my shoulder into the door. It must have been barricaded, because it didn’t budge.

  “No!” Setora screamed. “I’m not going with you, Damien! I’m with them now. They are my Masters!”

  I’d never heard her sound so scared…or so determined.

  There was a hard slapping sound and a thud, like a body falling.

  Maker’s tits, Setora…

  I threw myself at the door again.

  The familiar sound of a horn blasted beyond it. Great, more trouble. We were far from leaving this fucking fighting ring.

  Chapter 5

  On the Battlements

  A horn blared, a single, long blast from what I assumed to be the roof of the castle. The sound, like some tribal call to arms, would’ve seemed out of place if I hadn’t heard it before.

  Since the Virus had wiped out so much of the world’s population, most forms of long distance communication had been made impossible, even to the super rich. Flare guns and horns were the only way to call someone to you from a distance in battle.

  I glanced up to where the stairs disappeared to the right. How many J’nai was Damien calling to him? How long before they descended on us?

  The sound blared loud enough to cause a moment of distraction. That was all my opponent needed. The J’nai, two steps below me, slashed with his sword, grazing me across the chest. I hardly felt the sting.

  Our blades clashed. We danced up and down the steps, cutting and slashing. The moment I had an opening, I kicked him down the stairs. He tumbled to the bottom and didn’t move.

  At the top of the stairs, Sheriff and Steel shouted in frustration and threw themselves at the door. I bolted up the last few steps and rounded the corner just in time to see the heavy door fall to the ground outside. I raced through it after Sheriff and Steel.

  The sun was starting to rise, offering little light, but torches illuminated the roof enough to see by. Outside, stone battlements encircled a wide span of roof. While I looked for Setora, I heard Steel tackling someone—one of Damien’s J’nai. A few paces from the door to my right, Sheriff had tackled Damien to the ground. Near Damien and Sheriff, Setora laid on the rooftop on her back, as if she’d fallen. My heart jumped into my throat. Her face was pale and there was a nasty purple bruise on her cheek that made my blood run with fury. She looked lost and frozen in place.

  While Sheriff and Damien rolled around on the roof, each one trying to pin the other down, I sheathed my sword and raced to Setora. I scooped her up and carried her to a corner, settling her against the stone battlement.

  “Princess, you all right?” I took her face in my hands until her eyes focused on me.

  Behind me, Sheriff and Damien hurled insults at each other amid the meaty thwacks of men throwing fists.

  Setora nodded, shaking.

  I looked her over, and when I didn’t see any sign of injury other than the bruise on her cheek, I squeezed her shoulders. “We got this, baby. Stay here with me, all right?”

  Glancing behind me, I pulled her close and covered her with my body, hoping I was enough of a wall of protection for her.

  She nodded into my chest and clutched my cut in a death grip.

  I kissed her forehead, unclenched her hands, and gently pushed her further into the corner. “Stay down, Princess.” I drew my sword. Staying in a squat, I turned my back to her, keeping eyes on the battle across the roof.

  Sheriff and Damien were still at it, punching each other. Further down the roof, I heard Steel shout in anger, then a man screamed, the sound fading, the way it does when someone drops a long distance.

  In front of me, Sheriff punched Damien in the jaw. Damien threw him off, then rolled away, coming up onto his feet. He ran in the same direction Steel had gone, to the closest J’nai Steel had killed. Sheriff raced after him but stopped when Damien ripped the sword off the J’nai and rounded on the General.

  “So uncivilized you pirate savages are.” He brandished the sword in a skilled two-handed grip. “Let’s see you fight the way a real man does battle.”

  “Sheriff! Heads up!” I shouted and slid the sword toward him.

  The weapon scraped across the stone roof, hilt first, sliding in Sheriff’s direction. Keeping his eyes on Damien, Sheriff turned sideways and stopped the blade with his boot. Then he stepped on the hilt. It flew into the air and he caught the weapon.

  “You want to die, Vale, let’s go.”

  Damien wore a smug smile, but I could see the surprise in his eyes. The fucker obviously hadn’t expected Sheriff to know how to use a sword. Dumbass.

  The two of them circled each other slowly, like wolves.

  Tucked against my back, Setora pressed her cheek to my shoulder, her body tense with fear.

  “I’ve been waiting twenty years to take your head off, Damien.” Sheriff deflected a blow aimed at his neck. “I’m going to enjoy every drop of your blood I spill.”

  “Is that so?” Damien’s smile made my skin crawl. “Tell me, where do I know you from, boy?”

  When Sheriff didn’t answer, Damien slashed at him. Sheriff blocked the blow, shoving him back, sword against sword.

  “Is that the best you can do, Captain?”

  “How do I know you? Did I burn down your village or something, General?”

  Sheriff’s smile was almost as dark as Damien’s had been. He slashed, and Damien jumped back.

  “That’s the worst part of this. You don’t remember her, do you?” He swung three more times, driving Damien further down the roof.

  Damien dodged and weaved. “Twenty years ago? I’ve killed a lot of people, boy. You’ll have to refresh my memory.”

  “All your money.” Slash. “All your power.” Slash. “Everything you have, and all you know how to do is destroy people’s lives.” Slash. “Just like you would have destroyed Setora if my men hadn’t taken her from you.”

  “You know nothing about Setora,” Damien hissed, his eyes blazing. He slashed back at Sheriff, forcing the General to back up. “You and your Legion.” Slash. “You’re a boy in a man’s body.” Slash. “You and your men are peons.” Slash. “Filthy, uneducated scum.” Slash. “Setora is too good for you. She’s beyond all of you.”

  “No!” Sheriff blocked his blows with loud clangs. “She’s beyond you.”

  “I molded her, General. She bel
ongs to me.” Clang. “I made her.”

  Sheriff’s face twisted. “You made her? So you’re a god, now?”

  Apparently realizing neither was going to get an opening, the two men circled each other once more.

  “I am to her, General. And I am the only one who can protect her.”

  “Funny how psychopaths always hurt women in the name of protection. Is that what you were doing with my mother before you killed her? Protecting her?”

  Behind me, still pressed to my back, Setora’s hands slid under my cut, her arms gripping my waist. I squeezed her hand, trying to give her all the comfort and reassurance I could.

  “So holding auctions to sell women and killing the ones that aren’t Violets because they’re not good enough for you…is that how you protect them, too?”

  Damien shoved Sheriff back and made a confused face. “Killing ones who aren’t…” His grip on his sword loosened and his brows shot up before he reasserted his grip on the blade.

  “Ah. I remember now.” His voice dripped with twisted delight. “So you’re the little shit she got on her knees to protect.”

  Sheriff’s face contorted, and his chest heaved. I’d never seen him so pissed off. He slashed at Damien. Damien staggered back, fell, and hit the ground, dropping his sword.

  “Go ahead, kill me, Sheriff. Take from Setora the only real protection she has from him.”

  Blade raised for a killing strike, Sheriff went deadly still. “Him who?”

  Damien raised his hand, his face suddenly solemn. “The same person I’ve been protecting her from for the last twelve years.”

  He rose slowly to his feet, but when he reached for his blade, Sheriff kicked it away from him, then advanced, forcing him toward the same battlement where Setora and I crouched, but further down.

  “You don’t know what’s coming, boy. Now that you’ve taken her from me, I can’t protect her. Let me take her back home, where she belongs.”

  “Setora isn’t going anywhere except home with us.” Sheriff shoved him against the wall, sword to his throat. “As far as I’m concerned, the man she needs protecting from the most is you.”

  “You don’t get it—” Damien started, but he cut off when Sheriff pressed the blade against neck until Damien was almost bent backward, half over the wall.

  “Save your begging, Damien. You’re not getting out of this place alive—”

  Sheriff cut off with a hiss and dropped his sword, the blade falling over the battlement. Damien kicked him in the chest, sending him across the roof on his back.

  “You don’t get it, General!” he snarled. “No one can protect her from Julian. You can’t handle him! No one can, except me!”

  Sheriff lay on the ground, gripping his left arm. Fuck, there was a bolt sticking out of his bicep, between his fingers.

  At the same time as Steel came racing across the roof and skidded to his knees beside Sheriff, a body dropped from a window from a nearby tower. He hit the ground with a splat, a crossbow clattering to the ground beside him. There was an arrow with red fletching sticking out of his back.

  That man had shot Sheriff, but who the hell had shot the bowman?

  I lifted my gaze to the tower. In the window the man had dropped out of, Reaper drew a second arrow and fired. My gaze traced its trajectory, and only then did I see what he’d been shooting at.

  Damien had leaped over the side of the battlement, so that Reaper’s arrow now flew through the air and dropped, hitting nothing. I stood and bent over the wall, looking down, expecting to see Damien splattered on the ground below. Instead, he was on the roof of one of his flying carriages. It was rising slowly toward the roof with a whine. My eyes widened.

  Crash?

  Crash was sitting on the vehicle’s roof, throwing his foot through the open window in the carriage’s top and into the face of a J’nai who was trying to yank him inside.

  Damien spun on the roof, and his body stiffened when he saw Crash. He swung his fist at him, and Crash rolled away, across the carriage roof. The carriage pitched, nearly throwing both men over the side.

  Damien righted himself and tried to kick Crash in the head. Crash rolled over onto his back, out of the path of Damien’s boot, and punched Damien right in the balls.

  “Reaper, Hawk, shoot him!” Crash shouted.

  The two men must have come up on the roof to help, but I didn’t take my eyes off Crash to look at where they were.

  “Just shoot him!”

  “We can’t,” Reaper called down. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, leaning over the roof with his short-bow. “We might hit you!”

  Crash rolled out of the way of another kick from Damien. “Who cares, just fucking shoot him!”

  “What’s going on!” Setora’s voice sounded frantic behind me.

  Not wanting her anywhere near the top of the wall or Damien, I pushed her to the ground, against the wall beside me. And not a moment too soon, because the pitching carriage rose upward toward the roof.

  “Crash, get the fuck up here now!” Sheriff was suddenly on my other side, reaching with his good arm over the battlement. Crash had stood up, but the carriage was still too low for him to reach us.

  Crash kicked at Damien. Damien weaved and dropped to his knees. Then, before I could blink, Damien drew a blade and then stabbed it straight into Crash’s chest.

  My stomach dropped, the breath knocked out of me.

  “Crash!” Sheriff roared.

  Beside me, as soon as Sheriff yelled, I felt Setora trying to stand up. I shoved her down toward the ground, against the wall. She didn’t need to see what was happening beyond the wall.

  Setora screamed, bucking against me.

  “Stay down! Do as Master says, dammit!”

  She stilled.

  Crash clutched his chest, he and Damien both struggling to their feet while the carriage continued to rise. Damien kicked at his chest. Crash shouted and staggered, his arms pin-wheeling. I grabbed his wrist, keeping him from going over the side.

  Damien threw his head back. “I’ll be back for her, Legion. You won’t win twice.”

  Then, seeming to realize he was out of luck, Damien slithered through the window in the roof head first, while Hawk grabbed at Crash and pulled him up toward the battlement ledge.

  An arrow fired at the carriage roof, shooting straight at the open window, but Damien slammed it shut just in time. The arrow hit the closed window cover with a thunk. Reaper spat out a foreign curse word.

  While I held Setora to me, Hawk pulled Crash up over the battlement and laid him across the rooftop.

  I only half noticed the carriage lifting into the sky and flying off into the sunset. I’d already hurried with Setora to Crash’s side, where Sheriff, Hawk, and Steel knelt around him.

  I looked at Crash. The air around me seemed to have become so thin it hurt to breathe. Crash was clutching his chest, Damien’s blade still sticking out from between his ribs. He coughed, struggling for air. Blood soaked his chest and cut.

  “Maker’s Mercy, Crash.” Setora covered her mouth with her fingers. Her eyes were large and glistening.

  “Fucking dammit, Crash.” I pulled his cut aside. The blade had been shoved in, hilt deep. Crash was trying to pull it out.

  “No, don’t move,” Hawk ordered, taking Crash’s blood-soaked fist from the hilt.

  “Steel, get Doc. Now!” Sheriff snapped. He didn’t even seem to notice the bolt still sticking out of his arm.

  But Steel was already racing to the door and down the steps toward the Great Hall, yelling for Doc.

  “Sorry, man,” Crash huffed between coughs. His eyes were glazed with pain. “General. I th…thought I could…I was try…trying to…”

  “Don’t worry about it, boy. Just shut the fuck up and stay still, all right? Doc!” Sheriff bellowed.

  Doc appeared, kneeling at Crash’s side opposite Sheriff, Steel coming up the steps behind him. Everyone except the General backed up to give Doc room. I pushed to my feet and gr
abbed a white-faced Setora, pulling her to me. Hiding her face in my chest.

  “I can’t breathe, Doc. Take it out.” Crash gripped the blade until Doc pulled his hand away.

  “You have to leave it in, Crash. That knife is keeping you alive.” Doc inspected the wound.

  “Reaper, is the castle secure?” Sheriff asked the man beside him.

  I half-heard Reaper’s slightly accented voice answer in the affirmative, telling him the J’nai were dead.

  “Fuck.” Doc’s shaken voice caught my attention as be bent over Crash. “The wound is inches from the heart. If we move him, it could kill him.”

  “We can’t stay here, Doc,” Sheriff snapped. “Damien could come back and find us here.”

  Doc nodded jerkily and looked around. “I don’t have time to stabilize him. Steel, Beast, get him downstairs, now. Carefully.”

  I hadn’t noticed that Beast had come up the stairs with Steel until the two of them carefully picked up Crash and moved him toward the stairs. Doc followed them.

  “Put him in the Great Hall, and block off every exit,” Sheriff ordered. “If those J’nai come back, at least we can hold them off for a while.”

  “Try not to jostle him…” Doc’s voice faded as he, Beast, and Steel disappeared down the steps.

  Sheriff scrubbed his face with his palm. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but stopped when Hawk took his arm, looking it over.

  “General, you’ve been shot. Let me take care of it until Doc can see you.” Hawk tried to lead him backward toward a bench near the doors, but Sheriff twisted out of his grip.

  “Later. It can wait.” His eyes were death, enough that even Hawk backed off. “Where the fuck is Matais?”

  Drawing on Setora’s warmth in my arms, I forced myself to focus, to calm down until we took care of business. If I hadn’t, I’d have set the world ablaze and watched it burn.

  “He should still be tied up in the carriage where we left him, Sheriff,” I said.

  Sheriff bent and grabbed Damien’s sword from the roof where he’d dropped it. Gripping the blade so tight his knuckles were white, he headed for the stairs. “I want his head. I want it right the fuck now.”