A Time of War and Demons

by S E Wendel

  In this house, she was someone she wanted to be. In this house, she understood what Ennis meant when she spoke of building a new life here. Lora had been content with the Sisters in the Haven, had known her place there and was grateful for all they’d done. But it wasn’t a life. It couldn’t offer opportunity or promise. But here…here she had something, even if she didn’t quite know what yet.

  And tomorrow she’d fight. She wouldn’t don armor like Ennis or go marching out to battle like Manek. She’d leave the killing to others, for her business was to heal. She’d fight to keep her neighbors alive.

  Tomorrow she’d fight. For her cottage, for her neighbors, for Ennis. For the life she had here and all the promise it brought.

  Fifty-Three

  This country has not been won by one, but by many. I sit here today because there were enough brave people across the Highlands who saw what I saw, who understood what I did—that the Highlands has paid the price for standing divided. Anona has come and gone with that age; let her have it. Today, we celebrate a union. Today, we are a nation. We fight together, we live together, we stand together.

  —from the coronation speech of Adren Dunstan, King of the Highlands

  “The numbers just aren’t here—if they weren’t on horses, maybe then, but…” The man shrugged helplessly.

  Manek tugged a hand through his hair, his mood rapidly worsening. He knew the situation was grim, but to have such resignation written on his men’s faces very nearly choked off his feeble optimism.

  The men ranged around the room were his captains and Kierum’s—those who’d fought with him in the skirmish this afternoon. A sickening feeling crept up Manek’s throat at the memory of seeing Larn holding Ennis, his men grasping, pulling, groping at her. Something had come over him at the sight, a fierce, raw savageness that eclipsed fury and demanded blood. He’d only ever felt something similar once before—when he held Anneka’s body in his arms, blood still gushing from the gouges she’d made in her own wrists. The thought of his sister, of Ennis’s, darkened his mood further.

  He wanted this meeting over. They’d been cloistered in the hall for hours now. Night had descended on Rising, inky and cold, the stars veiled. For hours they’d fought over if they would fly their banners tomorrow. Manek knew they must march. They had to destroy as much of Larn’s force as they could before the main army arrived.

  He’d said all this at least twice, and yet here they were, still arguing.

  Manek was fraying around the edges. He needed to be with Ennis. He needed to be by her side when she covered her sister with earth. But he wasn’t. And he unraveled a little more.

  Taryn noted his face and cleared his throat. “We haven’t much choice; he’s here and we must face him.”

  “Yes, but where,” said Beon.

  “It’d be daft to face him in the open field,” said Graeme, a bowman who sat further down the table, for the third time.

  “We can’t let him close to the wall,” Taryn said.

  “Even with iron pikes, it’d be near impossible to break his line, and Themin knows we’ve precious few of those. I say we give them hell from the wall,” Graeme replied.

  “Rising isn’t Dannawey. Our wall won’t hold him all winter—not when Verian and the rest catch up.”

  Grim faces and sunken eyes turned to him, and he met them. Manek knew that if Morn had marched out from behind his wall and attacked when they were weakest, he might still be Lord of Dannawey. This he told them, adding, “I know our numbers aren’t what we hoped, but the truth is, the Midlanders will never be weaker. The main army’s only a few days off. Larn wants us to hide behind our wall.”

  He could see he still hadn’t convinced some, most importantly his father. Spying the sharp angle of Kierum’s shoulders from the corner of his eye, Manek knew everything hinged on what his otherwise quiet father would say.

  “You all know the horrors of a siege. Bad as Dannawey was for us, I can only imagine what it was like for those behind her walls.”

  Only the oldest here met his eye when he looked around the table. They’d been the few to stay behind in spring and didn’t understand what the rest had seen at Dannawey, what they had done.

  “It was that bad?”

  Manek’s eyes slid to his father. “Yes,” he said. “Highcrest was a mercy compared to Dannawey. The city ate itself alive before we took its bones.”

  Kierum drew in a heavy breath. Long creases ran under his eyes, throwing shadows from the fire along the craggy planes of his weathered face.

  “You were right to fear him,” Kierum said almost too quietly to hear. “I want the Lowlands out from under his thumb, but gods, the man is determined to watch us burn.”

  “So we meet him in the field.” Manek gripped his father’s shoulder, trying to fortify Kierum just as Ennis had him. “Keep him out of Rising. I think it’d give us a fighting chance.” He met his father’s gaze and held it, willing him to understand just this once.

  Kierum nodded slowly. “You were right about him. About the wall. And you’re right now.” Louder, to the men who pretended they hadn’t been listening in, he said, “We march. Let’s make sure as few of our people suffer as possible.”

  Manek swallowed the victory without tasting it. The decision weighed on Kierum; he could almost see it pressing his shoulders down. He felt the same weight settle on his own chest.

  A grim sort of determination encompassed the hall. It was decided. Tomorrow.

  Manek looked up at the rustling of skirts. As if knowing she was what he needed then, there she was, conjured from the blue haze of night.

  She stood tall in a finely cut gown that wasn’t quite Highland and wasn’t quite Lowland. Her skirts hugged her hips, flaring at the knee and rippling like water as she walked. And it was blue. Courtnay blue.

  That’s who came to him now—Ennis Courtnay, Lady of Highcrest. Her shoulders thrown back, her chin raised as she crossed the hall. Her gray eyes fixed on him, and his breath hitched at the sight of her.

  She approached with her best saunter, and watching her hips sway nearly made him forget everything else.

  She held his gaze as she came. A small twitch at the corners of her mouth brought on a grin of his own. When she reached him, he took her hand and kissed the palm, needing to touch her, assure himself that she was safe. He’d known true terror today; even though he too had been captured, surrounded, bound, it was nothing compared to watching it happen to her.

  She smiled at him, tracing one of his brows before resting a hand on his shoulder, light but firm. As if she too needed that physical connection between them.

  Finally, he noticed how quiet the room had become. His wasn’t the only appreciative eye, but when he turned back towards them, the men dropped their eyes.

  A few, however, had grown suddenly sullen with Ennis’s arrival. Before he could fully shift his mind away from Ennis and her hips, Haemon, a farrier and one of Kierum’s oldest friends, cleared his throat.

  “Well, if I’d have known we were to dress so fine, I suppose I’d be late too!”

  A few uneasy chuckles echoed in the hall.

  He gritted his teeth so hard he could feel the muscle in his cheek flutter.

  Ennis squeezed his shoulder as her sharp gaze turned on Haemon. “Not that you’d know much about dresses, Master Haemon—putting them on or taking them off—but I assure you, my appearance didn’t take long.”

  Haemon huffed, his whiskers twitching. Manek did his best to bite back a smile.

  “Why’s she here?” He directed this question at Kierum.

  “Because I want her to be,” Manek said.

  Haemon narrowed his eyes. “And why’s that?”

  “For one, she’ll soon be my wife and your lady. Remember that the next time you open your mouth to speak to her. Second, I value her opinion, as you all should.” He glared at Haemon, silencing whatever interruption he’d planned. “And, Ennis will oversee Rising’s defenses.”

  Haemon bri
stled. “Building a wall and defending it are two different—”

  “What would you know of the wall?” Ennis asked, her voice still resolutely calm. “You’ve refused to have anything to do with it.”

  “Ennis will oversee defenses,” Manek said again, “and lead those who stay behind.” He leaned forward in his seat, his elbows resting on the table. “She has as much right to be here as any of you.”

  “Hear, hear,” Taryn said, prompting most of the others to nod their heads.

  “Enough.” All looked to Kierum as he leaned forward. “Are we fighting Larn tomorrow or each other?”

  Haemon had the decency to look abashed. “Forgive me, Kierum, but I just don’t see why I should trust her to protect my hearth.”

  “Let her prove herself to you tomorrow, then,” said Kierum. “In the meantime, trust Manek. And me. We both trust her with our hearth.”

  Manek turned to his father in surprise and caught his eye. Kierum lifted a brow before raising his eyes to Ennis. His mouth twitched ever so slightly in a smile. “They’re the future, after all.” Manek felt his jaw go slack. Kierum gave him a small nod, which Manek returned, his heart suddenly beating loud in his ears.

  It was midnight by the time the final plans were lain. Every man who could be spared would march out tomorrow morning. Fifty pikemen would stand as the vanguard, armed with iron pikes, lances, and spears. Behind them, two hundred archers. Next came the cavalry; a meager three hundred compared to Larn’s. And then the foot soldiers. The women and a small unit of reserves would keep the town safe under Ennis’s command, should Larn try to attack it.

  Kierum waved Manek back into his seat when he made to follow the men from the hall and see to the last preparations.

  “I’ll do it. You stay. I suspect you’ve things to say.” And with that he left them alone in the hall.

  Manek wasted no time, wrapping an arm around Ennis and tugging her into his lap. He gathered her up in his arms while she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder.

  “Your sister…?”

  She took a sharp breath, telling him without words she didn’t wish to speak of her sister. Not yet. So instead, Manek plucked at the blue skirts pooled around her. “I like this,” he said.

  She hummed contentedly. “I thought you might. Your mother helped me make it.”

  “My mother?”

  She poked him between two ribs. “Yes, Kasia. I can’t say she likes me now, but she does seem…”

  “Resigned?”

  He got another poke for that.

  He ran his hand up the length of her leg, the fabric whisper soft under his fingers. He stopped at her hip, unreasonably pleased to find she was holding her breath. “I don’t want you to go tonight. Highland tradition or no.”

  She cradled his face, tracing one of his brows with her thumb. “I wasn’t going to. Not for anything.”

  “Good.” And he dropped his head and kissed her, willing everything else to just fall away.

  Sometime later, when he knew he must get out what he needed to tell her or risk never saying it, he drew her more firmly to him and said, “We must speak.”

  She let out a small sigh and settled her head back onto his shoulder. “Yes.”

  Rallying his resolve, he said, “If I die tomorrow, I want you to return to the Highlands.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve already told my mother. She’ll outfit you and any others who want to go north with enough supplies and a guide.”

  “What makes you think I’d want to return?”

  “What’ll be left for you here? Go home. Go anywhere you’ll be safe.”

  “And what will you do if it’s me who dies?”

  “It won’t.”

  “It could be. So long as we’re discussing last wishes, I—”

  “Ennis, it won’t be you.” It was easy enough to imagine his own death; he’d been doing so for years. But hers? No. He’d already danced with that fear today, and it wasn’t something he could bear again. “You’ll—”

  She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. “Stop it. If you make me hear of you dying, then you’ll do the same for me. It’s only fair.”

  For a moment, he thought about refusing. Finally, he sighed.

  She nodded. “Should I die tomorrow, I want to be buried. No funeral pyre. Send me to Mithria facing north, so that no matter what, in a way I’ll see the Highlands again. Are you listening?” His eyes were clenched shut against the idea of sending her to Mithria, either on a pyre or in a grave. He nodded when she poked him. “Good, because this is the important part. Bury me beneath the wall.”

  At this, his eyes flew open and he stared at her with parted lips.

  “Bury me there, and when I meet Mithria, I’ll ask her to help me hold it up until the end of days.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Yes. I’ve been trying to make you understand—you’re stuck with me.”

  He touched his forehead to hers as she held him tight. For a long while, they held each other, the only sound the steady crackling of the fire in the hearth. And it was enough—more than enough. It had to be.

  “All right then,” she said, her voice noticeably airier. “We’ve said our piece about death wishes.” She shifted in his lap, the movement nearly making him lose the ability to think. And from her smirk, she knew it too. Merciless as ever, she didn’t close the small distance between them, but rather said, “I think we should speak of what we’ll do if we win tomorrow.”

  A twinge of hopelessness contracted in his chest at her words. He wasn’t sure if he could give the future too much thought, still afraid to hope, to want too much. But Ennis seemed intent, so he at least said, “You have an unhealthy love of planning.”

  “Mm,” she hummed. “Though I’d argue unhealthy isn’t the right word.”

  “Mm,” he said, mimicking her hum as he leaned down to kiss the corner of her mouth. “I do love it when you argue.”

  She made an indignant sound, but she turned her face to his and again made him lose his train of thought.

  “Manek,” she said after a moment.

  He sighed, but she only cocked an expectant eyebrow at him. It was a look he’d come to recognize, one that told him she wasn’t to be defied.

  “If we live tomorrow”—she made a face at his phrasing—“I plan to lock myself in a room with you for at least a sennight.”

  Her grin was lopsided, exposing a dimple in her right cheek. From this he knew he was about to be toyed with.

  “Ah, but which room?” she said. “That could make all the difference. I’m not about to spend a sennight in the stables.”

  He gave her his most put upon look, but she only smiled and batted her eyelashes innocently. Merciless woman.

  “Now, do you know what I want should all go well?”

  He pretended to be offended. “You mean it’s something other than spending a sennight in bed with me?”

  She blushed, and it was his turn to smirk.

  “It’s similar,” she said. “I’d like to see the Lowlands—travel through the forest, see where the Morroley begins.”

  He leaned back a little to see if she was joking, but she looked back at him earnestly, eagerly.

  “Truly?”

  She nodded. “I’ve travelled all across the Highlands. I’d like to see the Lowlands now—I’ve barely been outside Rising. And,” she leaned forward conspiratorially, “it’ll be just the two of us.”

  She watched him carefully, trying to gauge his reaction. In truth, he quite loved the idea and hadn’t the words to describe how beautiful it sounded to him. So he settled for the next best thing—teasing her.

  “I’m not sure you’d like going into the bush,” he said.

  She huffed a little. “And why not?”

  He shrugged.

  “Are you suggesting I’m snobbish?”

  “You did just scoff at staying in a stable.”

  She huffed again, outraged and amused in equa
l measure. “They aren’t exactly the same.”

  “No,” he conceded. “But surviving in the bush isn’t easy.”

  Squaring her shoulders, she said, “A challenge if I ever heard one. And I do love a challenge.”

  If he knew nothing else about her, it’d be that. Manek suspected she was challenging him now, and he smiled in its face. He did love her challenges. Taking her face in his hand, he turned it to his and pressed her lips gently with his. He coaxed them apart, satisfied when she sighed and touched a hand to the side of his neck. He could feel her heartbeat in her palm keeping time with his own pulse fluttering at the base of his throat.

  “Is that a yes then?” she asked, breathless.

  “Most definitely,” he said, threading his fingers into her hair and pulling her back to him. He wasn’t quite ready to quit the field.

  “Will you marry me tomorrow?” she whispered against his lips.

  “Tomorrow? But what about—”

  “Tomorrow. And if we die, we’ll die each other’s. Not Larn’s, not Renata’s, each other’s.”

  Again she left him without words, so he kissed her instead.

  “Is that a yes then?” she said again, her amusement warm in her voice.

  “Yes.”

  She smiled, dazzling him, and then set about seducing him in earnest. He was already hopeless when she wasn’t trying hard. Merciless.

  As her hand slipped into his shirt, sending gooseflesh up his neck, he wondered if they’d get away with having the wedding night right there in the hall. His patience had reached its humanly limit with her sitting there, beautiful, teasing, in his arms.

  “Would you oppose having the wedding night sooner rather than later?”

  “Gods, no. Besides,” she said with a wicked smile, “we have been practicing.”

  A great heaving knock assailed the door, making the two of them start. Ennis blinked at him, a question forming on her lips. Irritation surged through Manek, and he’d half a mind to send whoever was at the door to the Southern Sands and back before disturbing them again.