The Blacksmith Queen

by Aiken G. A.

  He made a motion with two fingers and soldiers appeared from dark corners around the room. Weapons out, advancing on her.

  The prince, however, spun around and again started toward the exit.

  * * *

  Samuel was busy trying to figure out how he could get the poor girl away from her captor and get the rest of the women out of the brothel without being harmed by these brutes, when Keran suddenly slapped both her hands onto the face of the man in front of her and leaned in as if to kiss him. But the man started screaming as Keran forced him to the ground.

  Startled, most of the soldiers simply watched the attack, but a few attempted to rescue their comrade. The captive girl tried to drop down so she could get away from the blond man holding her but he was quick and yanked her back. But then the other women threw themselves at the soldiers standing with him. The soldiers who’d kept them here against their will. With just fists and feet and their bodies, they assaulted the men.

  Samuel jumped over Keran and the soldier she still had pinned to the floor and went right for the young girl. The blond man started to drag the blade across her throat, but Samuel followed Keran’s example and tackled the man to the ground with the poor girl stuck between them. He grabbed the man’s hand and pulled with all his strength to get the blade away. The girl took her chance and slipped out from between them.

  The soldier used his leg to flip Samuel over him. When Samuel landed, he rolled over, expecting to see the man going after the girl. But he didn’t have the chance.

  Keran was standing in front of him, blocking his way out.

  Her face covered in blood, she gazed up at the man until she finally spit at him. Samuel thought she’d only spit blood to blind him but then something fell to the floor and Samuel quickly realized that it was a tongue. She’d bitten that first soldier’s tongue off.

  Keran slapped the blade out of the blond man’s hand, hooked her leg around his, and yanked him to the ground. Then she grabbed him by the collar and began hitting him in the head. Blow after blow from her fist. Over and over until she’d destroyed the man’s face.

  Another soldier attacked her from behind but Samuel got to his feet and pulled his sword. He blocked that soldier’s blow at Keran’s back and pushed him away. He then went on the offensive, striking at the soldier again and again until he’d backed him out the door and kicked him down the stairs.

  Turning, he grabbed Keran’s axe.

  “Here,” he said, forcing the weapon into her hand. He had to do it in order to get her to stop hitting the blond man, who was clearly no longer breathing. “Take this. There are more.”

  “Oh.” Keran smiled at him as if her face and hands weren’t covered in other men’s blood. “Okay!”

  Some of the soldiers attempted to escape with a few screaming girls through the hallway.

  “Take the women to safety, Samuel,” Keran ordered. “I’ll get the rest.”

  Samuel probably shouldn’t leave her alone to fight but when he looked down at the blond man with the crushed-in face and the other soldier choking to death on his own blood and without his tongue . . . he assumed she’d be fine.

  * * *

  Gemma paused in the middle of the town to watch her centaur compatriots fight the mercenaries. Rapidly shifting from human to centaur and back again so they could confuse their opponents, they avoided direct assaults to important body parts. But as fascinating as that was, Gemma had to move. She grabbed an abandoned sword from the ground and pointed it at a group of soldiers attempting to drag off some women who’d been trying to use the sudden battle to escape.

  “Leave them!” she ordered and a few of the men snickered at her. “I said leave them!”

  “Or what?” one of them demanded, facing her. “What will you do, nun?”

  Burying the tip of the sword into the ground, Gemma grabbed the collar of the white robes she wore and ripped out and down.

  The man stumbled back. “War Monk!” he screamed. “WAR MONK!”

  * * *

  Quinn heard the soldier’s scream and turned to see a battle unit release the women they’d been dragging away and run. From Gemma Smythe.

  “You really love doing that, don’t you?” he had to ask, briefly ignoring the fighting going on around him. “Scaring the unholy shit out of them when they see what you really are?”

  She looked at him over her shoulder, the smile on her face pure sin. Which was kind of strange since she was a monk and all.

  Yet it wasn’t that she simply scared her opponents away. He saw that now when she caught the handle of a war hammer aimed at her head—one not nearly as large as her sister’s hammer—without even looking at her attacker.

  Yanking the war hammer and its wielder close, she rammed one of her short swords into the soldier’s belly, then slashed him across the throat before shoving him to the ground.

  “Are you fighting, Brother?” Laila called out to him. “Or watching the woman?”

  “Can’t I do both?”

  “No!” his kin yelled at him.

  Surprised by his siblings’ intensity, he twisted around to see more mercenaries—a lot more—racing into the town on horseback.

  Quinn’s stomach dropped. “Oh, shit.”

  * * *

  Keeley lowered her head and readied her weapon. The prince had walked out of the hall but with a cry, he tumbled back in. The lead demon wolf knocked him to the ground.

  “Get it off me!” Straton screamed. “Get it off me!”

  One of the men ran to Straton’s side and kicked the wolf off. He rolled across the floor but, as Keeley would expect, righted himself quickly enough and charged back. Straton stood and pulled his sword. He slashed down, hitting the animal in the head.

  “No!” Keeley screamed out, hitting two of the soldiers that stood closest to her and running. But another soldier caught her and held on.

  The prince studied her with cold eyes. “A pet of yours?” he asked. “This thing?”

  “Leave him!” she ordered, watching her friend stumble from the blow, leaving a trail of blood as he moved.

  “I’ll end this thing,” Straton swore, raising his sword above his head, “and then I’ll end you.”

  Keeley yanked her arm free and rammed her elbow into one soldier’s face. She pulled away from the other and brought the head of her hammer down on his foot, crushing it.

  As the soldier howled in pain, Keeley charged forward but she stopped when the demon wolf’s blood abruptly disappeared into the ground and a crevice opened up in the stone floor. The soldiers and Keeley moved away from that opening when paws appeared, and then wolf heads . . . their eyes made of flames.

  Keeley looked at her old friend and watched the wound to his head heal, leaving a raw scar from the top to under his jaw. Then he flashed his fangs at her. Not in warning, but a smile.

  A brutal, merciless smile.

  That’s when they came tearing up from the crevice. Ten. Twenty. More.

  Full-grown. Eyes full of flame and rage for one of theirs who’d been harmed by a human.

  They charged at Straton and the bastard dragged one of his own men in front of him before running back toward the bedroom.

  Keeley ran after him. “Straton!” Keeley barked to stop him before he could go back into the room. She didn’t know if his captive had made it out yet and she didn’t want to risk it.

  He came to a stop.

  “Afraid of me, are you?” she taunted.

  “Afraid of you? A farmer’s daughter? You’re nothing,” he said, walking toward her, his bloodied sword still clutched in his hand. “You’re no one. And you will never be queen!” he bellowed.

  “Then come for me, prince. Or are you afraid of a woman who can fight back?”

  “Cunt,” he hissed.

  “Right here,” Keeley agreed. “And waiting.”

  Straton now held his sword with both hands and raised it over his shoulder.

  Keeley readied her hammer, smirking as she heard the sound
s of the soldiers behind her being torn apart by the wolves.

  That smirk was too much for the prince. He ran at her first and Keeley raised her weapon to block the downstroke of his sword. But he abruptly stopped, removing one hand from his weapon and reaching behind his back. As he did, he turned, and Keeley spotted the knife that had been rammed into his spine.

  Straton fell to his knees; his sword fell from his hand. As he dropped, Keeley saw the woman who’d been chained in his room. Still naked, her hand covered in the blood of the prince; but the woman hadn’t killed him. Straton wasn’t dead. Her strike had been precise, Keeley guessed, to keep him alive but leave him unable to fight.

  “You need his head,” she calmly said to Keeley, walking past her. “Feel free to take it at your leisure.”

  Keeley watched the woman walk out of the longhouse, and Keeley sucked her tongue against her teeth. She motioned to the lead demon wolf and then the woman. He sent several of his original pack to follow her. They’d help her get to safety.

  With the woman cared for, Keeley looked down at Straton. She sheathed her hammer and pulled the long sword hanging from her side.

  “As I told the first contingent of mercenaries you sent to kill my kin . . . you chose the wrong family.”

  “You’ll never be queen, peasant!” he desperately gasped out. “You’ll never—”

  The head came off swiftly and cleanly, bouncing a few feet away.

  Done with that bit of unpleasantness, Keeley switched back to her hammer and headed out to join the fray.

  “Bring the head along, would you?” she asked the lead demon wolf. “The rest of you can have the body.”

  Keeley met Gemma outside the doors. Her sister looked in, then glared at her. “Where did all those extra demon wolves come from?”

  “Why do you ask me questions when we both know the answers will only upset you?”

  * * *

  “Pull back!” Caid ordered the centaurs. “Pull back!”

  Caid knew not asking the dwarves to send a battalion or two with them was a danger but he also agreed with Keeley that they would need the king’s dwarf armies far more when they took on Prince Marius and Beatrix. It would be foolish to waste their good favor for such a small battle.

  Of course, they hadn’t expected fresh mercenaries would be arriving during their attack and now they had to contend with the new arrivals. They were holding their own but Caid didn’t know how much longer they could.

  Although, he had to admit, his brother was enjoying the melee.

  Dragging two soldiers off their steeds, Quinn threw them to the ground. He used his front hooves to batter one to mush while he bashed his sword into the other’s head, bellowing like a madman as he did.

  “Pull back!” Caid ordered again, hoping this time his brother would hear him. Maybe even obey.

  A hand pressed against his hindquarter and he recognized Keeley’s touch.

  “Is it done?” he asked.

  “It’s done. Quinn!”

  Quinn stopped bellowing and looked at Keeley. “Yes, my lady?” he asked calmly.

  “Your brother said to pull back.”

  “But he’s not my queen.”

  “Do it anyway. I have a greeting for those reinforcements.”

  Quinn moved quickly, joining the others, and Keeley stepped in front of them. The lead mercenaries came to a stop and stared down from horseback at Keeley.

  “Turn back,” she called out. “It’s over. Straton is dead and the town is ours.”

  One of them moved his horse closer to Keeley. “So what? It’s a nice town.” He glanced at a few of the buildings. “Maybe we’d like to stay a bit. Have some fun.”

  Keeley glanced at Caid and the others over her shoulder. “We like fun. Don’t we, lads? Don’t we all like fun?”

  Caid thought she was talking to him and their team . . . but no. She was talking to her demon wolves.

  The wolves appeared beside them, around them, and above them. Standing on the tops of buildings and growling down at the men. Growling with their bloody drool pooling in the dirt.

  And there were more of them. Not a few more. An army more. An army of angry demon wolves with eyes of flame and drool made of blood.

  “Come on, my beauties!” Keeley called out to her “friends,” raising her arms in the air. “Go have some fun!”

  The demon wolves had the first half of the reinforcements torn off their mounts and dying in the dirt within seconds. Then they chased the soldiers who made a mad run for it.

  Keeley faced Caid and the others, smiling. “That went well, yeah?”

  Laila pointed down. “What happened to its head?”

  Keeley looked down at the now-scarred lead wolf standing beside her, with Prince Straton’s head hanging from his mouth.

  “What do you think happened?” Keeley asked, confused. “It got cuff off.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Keeley sat next to Gemma on the stoop that led into the longhouse.

  “I can’t believe how tired I am,” she said, watching as the bodies of the mercenaries were dragged off to a burning pit outside town. The local men had happily taken on the duty, offering Keeley their services for nothing.

  “I didn’t think one could be this tired without being dead.”

  “Hhhm.”

  “Where’s Keran?”

  “After she got the girls from the brothel to safety, she took Samuel to the pub.”

  “That, Sister, might be a plan.”

  Keeley heard the startled screams of the locals and she knew the demon wolves were returning to her. When they arrived, they had a dark-haired woman with them.

  “Are you Keeley Smythe, the Blacksmith Queen?”

  Despite her exhaustion, Keeley couldn’t help but smile a little at the title. “I guess I am.”

  “You returned our sister to us. She was a captive of Prince Straton and I wanted to thank you myself.”

  Keeley combed her hair off her face. “Does she need anything? We don’t have much right now, but the women . . . who were . . . I mean . . .”

  “Me, my sisters . . . we’re witches. It wasn’t sex that Straton wanted from my sister, but her magicks to advance his cause. She refused simply because she didn’t have the skill, but she could have done little things. Little things to appease him, to give a bit of help in his war. But my sister wasn’t blind to the kind of leader he would be. That he was not a leader she could allow in the world. So he beat her, every day. And we were unable to rescue her because we lacked the power to do so.” She shrugged. “Perhaps we should have joined an order, but it’s too late for that now.”

  “I have some healing skills—”

  “No, thank you, War Monk.” The woman cut off Gemma not only with her words but a brutal look.

  Gemma flicked her hands. “As you like.”

  “Are you two sisters?”

  Keeley nodded. “Yes.”

  “You fight together then?”

  “We do.”

  “That’s nice.” She gestured at the longhouse. “And you will stay here?”

  “Once we get the stench of Prince Straton and his men from this place,” Gemma said.

  “Actually, my plan is to reinforce the town walls first,” Keeley explained. “My family will be arriving soon and I want everything to be secure for them as well.” She thought a moment. “Or maybe we shouldn’t stay here at all. I don’t want these poor people to be put through any more—”

  “You do understand that you can’t save her?” the woman interrupted Keeley.

  Keeley glanced at Gemma. Was the woman speaking of Straton’s former captive?

  Unsure, she said, “Pardon?”

  “Beatrix. You can’t save Beatrix. She was never yours to save. I know that hurts you and I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t continue to hope. She’ll only destroy you with it.”

  Keeley shook her head, a little confused. “I must admit, I haven’t had that hope since she stabbed me.”

  “I
wasn’t talking to you, blacksmith. I was speaking to the War Monk.”

  Shocked, Keeley again looked at Gemma and there were tears in her sister’s bright blue eyes. “Gemma?”

  “You were right,” Gemma admitted. “I shouldn’t have left the family. I should never have left.”

  Keeley put her arm around Gemma’s shoulders. “Gemma, come on. You have to know that whether you had left or stayed, Beatrix would have done all this. But you had to go. I see that now. So should you. Because now I have a much-feared War Monk by my side. To fight with me.”

  Keeley wiped the tear that rolled down her sister’s blood-covered cheek. “And you are with me now . . . yes?”

  Gemma nodded. “Always. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t punch you in the face should you deserve it.”

  Keeley kissed Gemma’s temple. “I’d expect no less.”

  “I have to get back to my sisters,” the woman said, turning away from Keeley and Gemma. But she stopped and added, “You know, the old jarl had a throne in there. Straton was a fan. He’d sit in it, feeling all proud of himself. As if he thought he was already the Old King. If I were you,” she said, moving away from them, “I’d get rid of the bloody thing. Tear it from the ground.” She glanced at them one last time over her shoulder. “Just a suggestion.”

  The sisters watched the woman until she disappeared into the crowd of workers removing the bodies; then they jumped up and ran into the longhouse.

  The centaurs were sitting at the long tables, eating and drinking ale.

  “What’s wrong?” Caid asked as Keeley and Gemma rushed over to the throne.

  “It’s bolted into the stone floor,” Gemma noted.

  “So?”

  “We’re both exhausted.” When Keeley stared at her, Gemma rolled her eyes. “Get the tools.”

  * * *

  The local blacksmith, apparently delighted to be free again, gave Keeley whatever she requested and she quickly returned to the longhouse.

  Caid watched her and her sister start working on prying the throne from its moorings.

  “What are they doing?” Laila asked. She was so tired, her face nearly dropped into her plate of food.

  “They’re trying to pry up the jarl’s throne.”