The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  Now, instead of suppressing a fit of the giggles, she had to fight the urge to groan. And although her mind seemed to be working better, it didn’t seem a fair trade. She much preferred feeling overly happy and emotional compared to pain and a growing, killer headache.

  Up ahead, a horse snorted.

  “Who goes there?” came a faint, tremulous voice, one that was quickly hushed. The accent had been very refined and the voice so familiar that Falon could have sworn she knew the man…at least in passing—

  “It’s the Prince!” she hissed so loudly that she only realized after she spoke that she’d been so loud that everyone could hear her.

  Now it was her side’s turn to hush her.

  “But it’s him! He tried to have me flogged and then sent me up that hill to get killed. I’d know him anywhere,” she protested, before realizing she maybe ought to have kept her mouth shut. Maybe she wasn’t as fully recovered as her increasingly painful headache had led her to believe.

  “You Stag-men out there?” came a different voice that sounded highly suspicious of them.

  “Not all of us,” Falon giggled right before slapping both hands over her mouth as she suddenly was hit with the urge to declare to the world that she wasn’t actually a Stag-‘man’, but instead a Stag-‘girl.’ Then she snorted through her hands, as the oxymoron crossed her mind. A stag was, by definition, a male of the species.

  “You’re with the savages, then,” came the suspicious voice, only now he sounded incredulous. On the other side of the underbrush, the sound of blades clearing scabbards came clear enough through her mental fog.

  “Nay!” Sir Orisin slurred as fast as a man with a broken jaw could. “Some of us are Ravens, on parole.”

  “Impossible,” declared the suspicious man, and a heated discussion broke out in the other group.

  “We’re with the Sw-ans, un-der the Squire, Li-eu-ten-ant Fal-on,” he mumbled out.

  While the men with her stared with concern of being attacked by their own side—highly ranked members of their own side—Falon wandered to the right of the bushes.

  “Don’t believe it, Highness,” the other man, “it could be a revenge plot hatched by Hughes to—”

  Falon skirted the rest of the way around the bushes. “Here I am; it’s me, Prince William,” Falon declared as she finally caught sight of the Prince.

  “Who is this?” snapped a man with a pencil-thin mustache, a chain shirt beneath his bright-colored vestments, and a slender, deadly-looking sword. He was the one who belonged to the suspicious voice.

  In an instant, three swords were pointed at her throat. They were joined belatedly by a fourth, belonging to the Prince.

  “I don’t recognize him,” the Prince said doubtfully.

  “Then we kill him for an imposter,” snapped the suspicious man with the pencil-thin mustache, “along with all his men!”

  On the other side of the bushes, she could hear her men draw weapons in response.

  “Thou’d kill the Lieutenant over my dead body, thou ugly blighter!” snarled Uilliam.

  “That’s a Raven accent, alright,” Prince William said with distaste.

  “It’s a plot, it has to be, Sire,” said the mouth beneath the pencil-thin mustache

  “Do what you must, Lord Declan,” Prince William said, backing away.

  “You know who I am, your Highness,” Falon said.

  “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” the Prince said, looking at her as if there was something in his memory that he couldn’t quite recall.

  “We’ve met before and I can prove it,” Falon said flatly.

  “I highly doubt that we move in the same circles,” Prince William said, looking at her and then toward the bushes much more fearfully, “get on with it Declan!”

  The Lord and assembled men-at-arms—or Knights, whichever they were—advanced on her with death in their eyes.

  “You owe me my weight in silver, and an apology for placing my wizard under arrest for reminding you,” Falon said with an impish grin.

  Prince William did a double take. “You!” he said recognition dawning on his face. Then he scowled, “you would chastise your Prince over mere coin, as if he were nothing more than a day laborer and you a common, market huckster lending at usurious rates?” he said with outrage.

  Lord Declan stopped abruptly.

  “Of course not, my lord Prince. Perish the thought,” Falon smirked, “I only repeated the offensive things my wizard reported he said in your presence, in order to jog your memory, your Highness. Who knows if anything he relayed to me had the truth of it?”

  “You know this man,” Declan asked, and then hastily added a perfunctory, “Highness?”

  Prince William looked genuinely torn.

  “We are lost in the wood and alone, except for the four of us. More blade are direly needed, my Prince,” Lord Declan prompted.

  “Aye, I know this Squire,” Prince William said, as if speaking a lowly title like hers caused him physical pain, “he brought a wizard to my attention, prior to the arrival of the arrogant money grubbers.” His Highness sounded decidedly unhappy to be relaying this particular information.

  “Ah,” Lord Declan said giving her a second longer look, “what do you in the woods, Squire?” he asked sharply. “And be quick with your answer!”

  “Come out where the Prince and his men can see you,” Falon called out, and moments later her eight men, banged up and battle-damaged, appeared on either side of the bushes like forest ghosts.

  Falon turned back to the Lord and shrugged helplessly, as if words would only cloud the issue at this point.

  “Are you refusing to answer?” he demanded.

  “Can’t th-ou see the boy’s had his bell ru-u-ng,” Sir Orisin slurred.

  Lord Declan stepped closer, looked at her eyes and then cursed. He turned and did a quick survey of the rest of the men.

  “We might be better off by ourselves rather than with you rough lot hanging around,” he turned to the Prince. “They look like they’ve been through the wringer one too many times,” he said evenly, “but they’re no savages, and if you know this Lieutenant of theirs then I doubt they’re Raven spies or hostage takers, Highness.”

  “Your advice, advisor?” William said formally.

  Lord Declan gave Falon and the rest of her men a hard look, “We need them, my Prince,” he said, not looking happy with this announcement and eyeing the Ravens among her diminutive band.

  There was a long pause as the men on either side eyed one another.

  “Someone tell me how you came to be here,” Lord Declan finally said again.

  Falon hesitated because she honestly didn’t remember much after being hit in the head, but Sir Orisin, the only person of rank to remain with her group emerged and explained.

  Apparently, Falon’s flanking attack had been successful inasmuch as they’d routed the enemy, who had turned away from the Captain’s position in favor of overrunning her people with their entire remaining warriors—a significant number, apparently—in order to escape back into the forest.

  Sir Orisin and the men had grabbed ‘him,’ meaning Squire Falon, and a few others and fallen back into the woods. In the face of superior numbers and with their stated mission ostensibly accomplished, no one had felt it their duty to die when victory was already in hand. They’d lost a few in the pursuit to random enemy scouts after they had become lost in the woods. And they’d been trying to find their way back out ever since giving the larger group of savages the slip.

  “How did you become lost, Sire?” Falon inquired, belatedly adding, “If I may ask?”

  Lord Declan stared at her stonily, and Prince William looked an interesting shade of red somewhere between embarrassed and outraged.

  “The savages were on their heels, their shamans humbled by Royal Magic,” the Lord said, speaking for the Prince with the other’s tacit approval. “They looked to be wavering and his Highness thought one more good push would break them
. So we rallied the cavalry, drove through their center, and chased the survivors into the woods.”

  The way the Lord’s jaw jutted it was clear he was daring anyone to question his version of events or, if they were true, how the Prince and this handful of men had become separated from the rest of his army.

  “You will of course be rewarded for safely escorting his Highness safely back to our lines,” Declan added haughtily.

  The Prince made a muted sound of protest, but when everyone turned to look at him he pursed his lips and nodded sourly.

  Lord Declan turned back to them, all but ignoring the Prince. “You have my personal guarantee,” the man with the pencil-thin mustache said, while his Prince glowered behind him.

  “Let’s go home,” Falon said simply, sick to death with all the fighting and killing that had been done since sun-up. She felt as if she nearly drowned in a river of blood, enough that she could go a lifetime without spilling another drop and still have spilled far, far too much.

  “Yes, let’s,” Lord Declan said, a small measure of his Prince’s sourness flitting across his features before the lordly mask covered his emotions once again.

  Chapter 44: Home is where the Heart is but your tent is where you sleep

  It took an hour of creeping around the forest, jumping at even the slightest sound, and they had to dodge two large groups—one didn’t dare call them ‘patrols,’ at least not within the hearing of Lord Declan and the Prince—before they were free of the woods. After clearing the tree-line it was only a short jaunt back to the safety of their lines.

  After that, it was a simple matter of parting ways with the Prince. Which was easy, as he and his men stalked off without so much as a ‘by your leave’ or a ‘merry met and merry part.’

  After trudging back to camp, Falon knew she ought to visit the wounded but she just didn’t want a Wench to spend her magic on her when there were others literally crying and begging for their time and good regard. Besides, she barely had the energy to lift the flap of her tent and fall into bed.

  When she awoke, she still had a splitting headache but other than that she felt entirely like herself, and became more than a little embarrassed at her behavior in the forest. Head wound or no head wound, she should have been more careful.

  Her mind was active thanks to the headache, but her body still cried out for rest when someone scratched their hand across the tent flap.

  “Ye…I mean, you in there, Fal?” asked the tentative voice of Ernest.

  Something she hadn’t even known had been clenched up inside of her suddenly relaxed at the sound of the boy’s familiar, stumbling, farmer’s accent.

  “I’m alive,” she rasped, swinging her legs over the edge of the cot and starting to sit up. But no sooner she changed position than her head started pounding even worse, forcing her to lay back with a groan.

  Relaxing into the soft, sagging, confines of the cot, she slowly began cataloging her pains and hurts. Besides her head, her throat felt like someone had opened her mouth and filled it with sand while she slept. Both shoulders felt like she had wrenched them nearly in two at some point in the battle yesterday, and every time she moved a strained muscle in another part of her body shouted in protest.

  “You okay in there?” Ernest asked carefully.

  She groaned again, her body in too much pain.

  “That’s it I’m coming in there,” Ernest said, and there was a rustle at the tent flap.

  Looking towards the opening—and incidentally seeing her own bare legs—was the moment she realized she didn’t have her pants on. She had passed out atop the cot but she must have stripped off her pants somewhere along the way.

  “No!” she croaked, eyes roving wildly around the tent. They settled on the pants, and she realized she had missed them initially because they were right beside the bed. And oh, they were filthy. She must have started unbuckling them as soon as she stepped into the tent, and without thinking, taken them off in disgust.

  All of this passed through her mind in a flash. “Wait! I’m not decent,” she yelped in a dry voice, her hands scrambling on the side of the cot for purchase. She needed her arm strength to help lever her out of bed, and seeing her bare arm—in addition to her bare legs—she froze in horror. As she recalled, her shirt had been just as grody and covered in blood and filth as her pants. What had she done?

  “I’m sure it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Ernest grumbled dismissively. “What you need is a mug of something strong to drink, and a good breakfast to start out the day.

  Seeing the flap start to open and Ernest’s shoulder start to push through, she all but levitated out of bed. Hopping over to the opening, every single thing she had bared and flapping in the wind for the whole world to see, Falon grabbed the flap and jerked it shut. In the process of doing so, she sent Ernest stumbling backward.

  “Out,” she shouted. Her head felt like a dwarf with a hammer had crawled inside during the night, and now that he’d woken up was trying to batter his way out again. On top of that, her legs wobbled so badly that she feared she would fall on her rear—her very bare rear—which, in addition to her equally bare chest, was exposed to the chilly air of the tent. If only she had something more than that single, ratty old blanket with holes in it back at the cot to protect her virtue, she might have just tried hiding underneath it.

  As it was, the only way Ernest was getting into her tent right now involved her and her dead body—because that’s all she’d have if she was found out!

  A man might survive giving cheek to a Prince of the Realm, but she shuddered to think what would happen to a girl who had been brazen enough to parade around in an army, leading men, pretending to be a warrior had talked back to the Blood Royal.

  “Dang it, Fal,” Ernest yelled, grabbing hold of the tent flap from the other side, “you almost made me drop yer breakfast—and me own breakfast, too. So open up,” following through on his demand, he tugged hard on the flap.

  “You’ll wait until I’ve got some clothes on or I’ll stab you with my knife as you come through and…and-and, I’ll never talk with you again—see if I don’t,” Falon shouted back.

  “This is crazy,” Ernest declared loudly, a hint of anger in his voice, “you’re crazy, Fal. Your beauty sleep isn’t so important ye have to stab yer own friend!”

  “Remember who’s the Lieutenant here and who’s the valet!” Falon warned him, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.

  Ernest made a scoffing sound.

  “I can have you whipped if you don’t listen!” Falon grunted, reaching for her father’s travel pack behind her and trying to hook it with her toes. “Fine. Fine, Falon Rankin, high and mighty Lord o’ the Manor,” Ernest said, trying to sound put out with the wait, but underneath it all she could hear hurt in his voice and she winced. “Your whipping boy will be waiting outside after you’re done, primping,” he sneered the last word, implying that she would be busy beautifying herself inside the tent like a girl, not a fighting man.

  Since she actually was a girl, the insult didn’t have quite the sting that it might have otherwise. As it was, she knew she ought to say something manly and outraged but she was too busy diving onto the backpack and pulling out a fresh change of clothes.

  She tried to throw on her underclothes but even in an emergency—which she thought this clearly qualified as—her body screamed in protest at every attempt to move too quickly. So instead of a speedy dressing, what she experienced instead was a torturously slow, in every sense of the word, process of protesting limbs and clothing that took the opportunity to catch and bind at every possibility.

  By the time she was finished, as far as she was concerned, far too much time had passed. “You can come in now,” Falon said, lifting up the flap and tugging on the bottom of her shirt with the other hand.

  “Your breakfast, your lordship,” Ernest said gruffly.

  Silently, Falon gestured toward the campaign desk. Ernest bristled at the gesture and then
paused, looking around the tent. His lip curled and with a shake of the head he placed the food, a trencher of bread covered with fried eggs, bacon and greens, along with a mug of ale, on her desk.

  He turned back toward the flap.

  “You going to eat?” Falon said neutrally, remembering he’d said he was carrying his breakfast too and she didn’t want him to go hungry, but she didn’t want to provoke him either. At his angry expression, which was quickly blanked from his face, she wished circumstances hadn’t forced the fight between them and she silently chastised herself. Threatening to whip him had been over the line, even given the circumstances, she could admit that now that she was fully clothed.

  “I already ate while sitting in the mud outside your tent, Lieutenant Rankin,” Ernest said with mock courtesy heavy in his voice

  Falon winced. “Look, Ernest,” her face screwed up with regret and her head was pounding like it wanted to explode, she took a deep breath, “I’m sorry you ate in the mud. I didn’t mean—,” she grimaced, “look I was out of line. I admit that. Please forgive me.”

  She could see that her words had some effect, but that Ernest wasn’t yet ready to let it go. “You don’t mind if I look under the cot then, Squire?” Ernest asked his upper lip twisting, “I wouldn’t want to intrude on your privacy and all that.”

  “What…?” Falon said, trying to follow him and think through the pulsing in her head. With a groan she sat on the little chair in front of the desk. “Oh, go ahead and check if that’s what you want,” she gruffly gestured to the cot and then rested her forehead on the desk, placing her arms over her head, careful not to rest her elbows in the food, “whatever that’s all about.”

  “Dang it, Falon,” Ernest said dropping his muddy bottom on her cot.

  Falon looked up briefly, hiding a wince beneath her arms, which she quickly moved back over her head. She didn’t like the mud on her things and couldn’t help the reaction, but a little mud was far preferable to a damaged friendship.