Gavin was about to turn to face him when Anjali dug a foot in, twisted without thought, and slicked her stolen sword right across the bandit's chest. He kept running, the momentum unaware of the internal injuries that would lead to his death. Lashing a foot out, Gavin kicked right into his knee, finally ending the dead man's run into the ground.
Swiping an arm over her forehead, Anjali coated it in blood, "Not bad, baby knight. See, we work pretty well together."
Grimacing at the damn nickname and the idea they would do anything together, Gavin suddenly remembered the royal carriage. Turning, he leapt over a pile of cargo the knights no doubt covered the ground in for a distraction only to find...a pile of blackened and charred corpses clinging to the handle of the door. Breath caught in his throat at the macabre sight, but the rest of the carriage didn't look to be damaged at all.
He thrashed a foot out, trying to kick the charcoal bodies away. They made a sickening crunch and then splort noise as his boot sunk deep into the gooey parts. His fingers fumbled with the latch, when a cold voice warned, "Try that and you'll be as cindered up as the rest."
"My lady!" Gavin gasped both in fear and gratitude. They were alive.
The door popped open on its own, Gavin stumbling back with it as the princess stuck her head out. "Squire," she gasped in surprise to find him there. She didn't look any worse for the wear, her hair partially out of place, and a redness burning upon her cheeks as if she sat very near a hot fire. Glancing into the shadowed carriage, Gavin spotted the prince sitting with his knees up against his chest and a silver dagger in his fingers. The last person inside was the reason they were safe.
Myra had her fingers spread out, the veil twisting around her. At his look, she sucked it all away, her eyes grim but a shrug to her shoulders. He couldn't stop the stupid grin rising upon his face and an even dumber chortle in his gut. They were all alive and safe.
"Hey," Myra moved to wave, when a hand clamped onto Gavin's shoulders. He spun, his body prepared to slice into whoever else would dare attack, when he spotted the gritted jaw of his knight.
"Ser Daryan," Gavin sputtered, needing to get the name out to remind himself she wasn't a threat.
"Your Highness," the knight spoke, before glancing over the rest, "Highnesses. Are you all right?"
"We are, Ser Knight," Princess Rosamund smiled, her lips flushed redder than her namesake. She must have been very close to Myra's point of attack.
Daryan blinked a moment, a hand trying to tuck the errant strands of hair that slipped free during battle back against her sweaty forehead. "How?"
"We are..." Rosamund glanced over at her sister who was staring out the other window at the carnage in the trees, "not without our defenses."
"Well, good," Daryan gasped, struggling to get in a breath after the unexpected attack. "Remain in here until we have the area secured and..." Her eyes drifted away from the crown. Once she was certain the line was safe, she took the time to survey first her squire who was sliding further back in respect, then to the assassin.
"What in the Maker's name is she doing armed?!" Daryan roared waving her own blade right at Anjali's head.
Smartly, the woman held the blade parallel to the ground and began to slowly lower it. "I believe we call it 'saving your ass' in the common tongue. I could teach you it in Rivain but I don't think you can handle it. There's a lot more tongue rolling than you're used to."
"Traitorous cur," Daryan cursed, about to swing her blade back, when Gavin stepped in.
"She saved me!" he shouted, for Maker only knows what reason walking in between his knight and the woman who a few days prior kneed him in the groin. "Two bandits attacked and, if not for her intervention, I would be gravely injured," he explained, both hands up.
Out of the carriage, both Rosamund and Myra stuck their heads. The latter's eyes darted down his body fast, trying to find the damage as she mouthed, "You did what?" at him.
Daryan intervened from Gavin trying to explain what happened to Myra. "That is no reason to arm a potential threat, squire. You shall be..."
"Rewarded," Rosamund interceded, stepping out of her carriage to face down the raging knight.
"Your Majesty, that isn't your decision to make," Daryan hissed, in no mood to have her sovereignty questioned. Neither, it seemed, was the Princess.
"Unless my father is lurking around somewhere, am I not the highest ranking voice on this journey, Ser Daryan?" Rosie stared up and right into the woman's hard eyes.
She gritted her teeth like a golem's jaw, Daryan's nose sucking in a deep breath as she swallowed all the things she no doubt wished to holler at her future queen. "That may be, my lady, but..."
"This woman saved my life," Rosie began before blinking. "Saved the life of a squire that should have been under your care. If anything, you owe her your thanks for doing your job."
"Your highness," Daryan growled, somehow making each syllable sound like a threat. Everyone else all but flinched at her voice, except for Rosamund who seemed to refuse to be cowed. "You are walking on very dangerous ground."
"Is that so?" Rosie turned on her, those forest green eyes narrowed to slits in a challenge. Maker's sake, did he just get his knight in trouble? If they...if she was executed what would that mean for Gavin?
Daryan swallowed hard, her stance fading back to neutral, "We do not yet know who was involved in this attack. It could have been your pet assassin that instigated it."
"Then," Rosamund folded her arms, clearly considering the matter settled, "I think it best you find that answer before we go throwing around accusations."
With a growl, Daryan strode off, shouting orders at any and all who glanced her way. The princess didn't release her rigid stance, her eyes trailing the knight with concern. "Squire Gavin?" At his name, he snapped up, trying to focus away from his knight. "Keep an eye on Anjali for me, until the matter is settled."
"Yes," he moved to salute, when his eyes darted away from her highness to Myra. She was leaning out of the back window watching the mass of people dragging dead bodies out of the trees. To think, if she hadn't have been in that carriage with her siblings... "Yes, your Highness," Gavin finished with. He moved to grab onto Anjali's wrist and pull her back to where they belonged in the line.
Before trailing with him, the assassin glanced over at the princess and very clearly winked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Tactics
She had to find Bryn.
The caravan was a disaster. It never looked that great before, operating on a lot of luck and people not wanting to get lost so they clumped together, but now... People dashed back and forth trying to cart up the tipped over crates. Clothing and cooking pots were scattered into the dirt and getting trampled over by the people who were supposed to be picking it up. On occasion, a cry of shock would echo from a raw throat. There were a lot of those when they spotted the fiery remains Myra caused.
Okay, it was probably more for the bodies than the blackened dirt. Not a lot of people got an up close view of charred corpses. Mage fire tended to go so quick it looked more gruesome but killed faster. She barely glanced down at her handy work before sliding past Rosie to find her friend. So help her, if anything bad happened to Bryn...
"Myra!" a voice shouted from behind her. It'd been making a lot of ruckus for her attention, getting real anxious when it got caught behind roadblocks of mess, but she'd been too focused to glance back and answer it. Where in the void was Bryn?
"Stop, please, I..."
A massive trunk was shoved off a wagon bed, the wall that used to keep it in place long since plucked off. Myra scattered back just before the damn thing broke both her feet. She glanced up, a sneer in place, to find a couple of the younger servants gasping in terror. "So sorry!" one called, her fingers waving sheepishly. "Didn't expect that to happen."
They were all rattled. Calm down. Wiping a hand down her face to try and knock away her glare, Myra asked, "Have any of you seen Bryn?" Both heads shook negative a
nd shrugged. Damn it all!
She began to walk further on, when a hand grabbed onto her arm. Surprisingly, Myra didn't spin around and whack right into the face of the owner. The adrenaline in her system didn't kick in much, truth be told. Even the pit of worry didn't open up until she hopped out of the carriage and got a good look at the chaos around them. Far too many bodies were left rotting in the dirt for this to be no big deal.
Sighing, she glanced back expecting to see Cailan or one of the grumpy Knights holding her in place. Amber eyes blinked furiously, as if some of her smoke was still clogged up his vision. "Myra," Gavin began, his voice fluttering like he was uncertain if that was her name. She stared at him, her brain cracking in half. What did he want? kept rattling through it. She couldn't make sense of his sudden appearance.
Glancing over at his hand as if surprised it wound up there, he suddenly released his grip and dug his fingers over the felt-like hair on his head. "Sorry, I...are you, are you okay?"
"Yeah," she shrugged, completely lost. Shouldn't he be off consoling Rosie or Cailan. Okay, Rosie probably had her shit together, but Cailan went five shades of white in the carriage. He didn't really have the stomach for fighting.
"You..." Gavin bounced on his toes, "I was only concerned that, I mean, when you, um..."
Myra watched for a time, wondering if anything approaching a coherent thought would tumble out. The boy gulped a few more times, a very nervous grin plumping up his cheeks. After a few deep breaths, he seemed to have calmed himself. Abashed eyes darted over to hers and he whispered, "You're probably used to all that."
"Dead bodies? Yeah," she laughed. She'd been trailing her mother's work since she could walk. "Fights? More than I should probably admit to." On that account her mother would have her head. Reiss knew of a couple times the supposedly 'safe' assailant wasn't such easy pickings. But there were others. More down and dirty back alley fights growing up. Myra's height served her well when she was younger, but when she stopped putting on any weight she pretty much classed herself out of surviving anything in the streets. Good thing her magic came in when it did.
"It..." Gavin glanced back at the carnage where he left their beautiful princess. Rosamund had been tapping her foot in impatience, stuck in leader limbo while all those around her rushed off to find the information to give to make her useful again. No doubt it'd be a few hours before there'd be anything interesting done. In the mean time...
"Look, you can come with, but I have to find Bryn. I have to know if..." That bravado Myra wore like an old coat slipped away and her throat caught. If Bryn was hurt, so help her.
Gavin bowed his head, revealing a bit of blood crested in his tightly shaved hair. That caught Myra's attention and she tried to peer closer. "Are you, did you...?" She shook it off. It didn't matter, she couldn't really help to heal him even if she wanted to. And there wasn't a good reason for her to want to. Caring for squires was someone else's job.
"Come on," Myra jerked her head onward. "I need to check to the end. No one seems to have seen her." Nodding dumbly, the squire trailed along behind her. He didn't say much, but he kept hunting through the debris and people all curled up in shock while helping to look for her pseudo-sister.
"Do you know what she looks like?" Myra asked, suddenly realizing how little help he could be.
"Pale skin, blue eyes, round face, elf," Gavin repeated at the drop of a hat. She turned in surprise. How did he remember what Bryn looked like that fast? Was he running around looking that closely at girls all the time? At her look, Gavin said, "You'd mention her often at the refuge and...I suppose it stuck."
"Right, okay," Myra shook her head in anger. Stupid. You're being so stupid right now. He's trying to help and you're all... Just don't be stupid. "Pretty lucky thing, eh? You rushing up to save the day like that."
A snort echoed from his nose, "I hardly 'saved the day.' Seemed it was more you that did."
"Eh," Myra spun her hand around. In truth, she'd been trying to form a barrier, but when they moved to open the carriage she lost control. Could have burned off her sister's eyebrows if she wasn't careful. Which, admittedly, would have been really funny to watch later. Rosie trying to act all pleasant and princessy without eyebrows. "But it's the optics, ya know. The story. Young squire rushes to the aid of a princess in need."
Her gut plummeted at that thought. And in all those stories the princess falls helplessly in love with her savior because stories need simple endings. Blushing in more of that stupid, misplaced anger, Myra tried to hide away her cheeks with a hand while snapping out, "You're sure to get another promotion out of it."
Gavin laughed mirthlessly to himself, "I doubt it highly. I fear my Knight shall have me peeling potatoes until my hands turn blue."
"My dad's really good at that. The potato part. I don't think I've ever seen his hands blue." She felt even dumber, dredging up her father as if it was no big deal. Just the King of Ferelden, ya know. Used to peel a lot of potatoes. Still does it sometimes at night when he needs to think. Freaks the cooks out. Thought they had potato fairies for awhile.
A silly smile lifted upon Gavin's lips and he snickered. "I think my mother made mention a few times of his skill. I suppose I should ask him for advice whenever we return to the palace."
"Should be pretty soon," Myra snorted, resuming her walk down the caravan. There was no one here, save a few dead bodies left to dry out in the dirt. "No way they'll let Rosie continue on after this disaster. I can't believe Dad didn't rush out here once word of assassins popped up." She narrowed her eyes in thought. That was odd, really odd.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Gavin staring right into an arrow riddled corpse. He seemed so entranced with the body, she could have easily left him behind, but for some reason Myra didn't want to. "Hey," she called, "you...?" Asking him if he was okay felt dumb. He was fine. He leapt right to their side and was this weirdly calm and collected voice in a sea of people shouting why.
"They really don't bother you, do they?" he spoke so softly, Myra had to inch closer to hear his baritone voice.
She shook her head, "No. I've seen death so much, it's... I, I make it into work stuff. Compartmentalize. Like here, all I see is arrow wounds. Most likely cause of death. Or that one," she pointed to another body, "sword to the gut. And that one, sword to the throat."
Myra waved around the pile of dead bandits as if they were pieces of a macabre puzzle. Her mother taught her to do it because it was useful to the problem at hand while freaking out wasn't. Shrieking because a dead woman's hand landed in her lap wasn't going to solve anyone's murder. But that reaction probably wasn't normal, certainly not for a young lady. They were supposed to titter and faint so other people could feel strong.
"Is that...?" Myra screwed her eyes up, her arms wrapping around herself as she felt the cold clutch of the void, "Is that weird?"
"I saw death often too," Gavin spoke to himself. Perhaps he didn't even hear her. "But it was always from sickness or injury. Bodies were laid out as respectfully as possible. Even to the pyre, even if they had no one or nothing to their name. Dignity, it... This doesn't feel very dignified."
"This is survival," Myra snorted, repeating a fact she'd hear often around various tables. It meant something different at the palace's grand long table compared to her mother's tiny lap one, but it ended in the same. You live, the other one doesn't. Simple maths.
Beside her, a hand fumbled through the air. It grazed against her thigh before knotting fingers through hers. Gavin didn't glance up from the body, but he locked his grip in tight. Wind through the leaves wrapped the metallic stench of blood and splintered wood through their noses. That cocksure perch Myra rested above everyone else began to plummet to the ground. Death sang through the air, its never satiated wings drenched in life-ending vigor today.
"I, uh," Myra stumbled back, a hand wiping at a sting in her eyes. "I should find Bryn, before...I just need to find her."
Gavin snapped away from the body, th
ose amber eyes crushed in a pain she couldn't quite catch. It was like trying to read a poem you sort of knew but in a different language. Whatever it was flitted in and out, glancing off his brow and eyes before dragging his lips down. Nodding, he snaked his fingers out of hers, seeming to feel foolish for needing a moment of comfort.
Was that what it was? Well, that's okay. Friends do that.
Wait, were they friends? Gah, she didn't have time to worry about this stuff.
Turning on her heel, Myra bounded further down the caravan calling out for Bryn. With each step her cries grew more jagged, the name slicing apart her throat as the fear came to roost. What if she didn't make it out? What if she...? There were a lot of arrows, the bastards shooting haphazardly into the crowd. It'd be a miracle if everyone survived really.
It was simple maths.
Rounding near the end of the train, Myra was about to turn back and try heading north certain she missed something and not that it was a fool's errand, when a head prodded through the gap. Tears sputtered from her eyes, Myra shrieking the name as the girl it belonged to whipped her head over and smiled. Leaping like a fool, Myra all but flattened Bryn to the wagon in her need to hug her.
"You..." she struggled to speak, "you had me, what are you doing back here?"
Her friend laughed a moment, patting Myra on the shoulders, "Collecting lost belongings like I was ordered to. Why?"
"I thought..." Maker's sake, she was an idiot. She should have asked that head servant who bossed them all around. He'd have known right where Bryn was. "Forget it. You're, you're good? No, nothing bad?"
Bryn yanked up her skirt and jabbed at her leg, "Twisted my ankle running to hide under a pile of the princess' dresses. Not so sure if they made it out okay."
At that Myra waved her hand, "If anyone can make arrow holes fashionable, it'd be Rosie. You're sure you're okay?"
"Me? What about you? Weren't you up in that carriage where the fireball went off?" Bryn gasped before she paused and slapped her head. "Oh, duh. Who else would have done that?"
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