The man stood frozen with indecision, then glanced at his companions, looking for help. But the mention of the crime boss had been enough to curtail any assistance they may have thought to give, and they only stared at him mutely. Finally, the man gave a hiss of impotent anger, turning back to Brandon. “You’ll pay for that, Captain.”
“Maybe,” Brandon agreed. “But it seems you won’t be the one to collect that debt, at least not today.” He leaned closer to the man, and didn’t bother trying to keep the satisfaction from his voice. “Clean all the filth off a man, duds him up however you want, but a coward is still a coward. And wipe your nose—you’re bleeding all over your uniform.”
The man’s face twisted in renewed fury, but he did nothing as Brandon had known he would not, only bringing his hand to his nose in a vain effort to staunch the flow of blood. The captain was surprised to note, however, that one of the other guards seemed to be trying to conceal a smile at his fellow’s plight, and he thought he recognized the man, not as one of Grinner’s lot, but a young guard who had been granted his post only recently.
That gave him an idea, one last chance—not a good one, not really, but the only one. “Very well,” he said, turning away from the man with the broken nose to look at the young guard. “I commend you on successfully removing the prisoners from the dungeon and bringing them here. As captain of the guard, it is now my duty to see them to the square. Guards have already been posted throughout the city to keep the crowds back, and so you are relieved of duty, all of you.”
The young guard hesitated, suddenly unsure, and Brandon saw a light of recognition, of excitement in his eyes as he realized what Brandon was trying to do. He opened his mouth, though whether to agree or disagree Brandon couldn’t have said, for the bloody-nosed man spoke first. “Oh, that’s quite alright, Captain,” he said, making the last a curse. “After you having only recently reminded me of the importance of ensuring the Councilman’s pleasure, I would be foolish—we would be foolish,” he paused to shoot a meaningful look at the other guards, “to risk rousing his ire by not seeing the thing done and done proper. You see,” he continued, smiling a bloody smile that made Brandon want to strike him again, “the Councilman, well, he’d be just all tore up, if he knew that we didn’t make sure justice was done.”
Brandon watched the excitement go out of the young guard’s eyes, and he had a moment of regret for striking the other man, for making of him an enemy, but only a moment. The truth was the man had been an enemy already, never mind the uniform he wore, and the pleasant memory of the feel of the man’s nose cracking beneath his fist was one he would take with him to the grave. “Fine,” he said, shooting May an apologetic look she didn’t seem to notice. “Then let’s not waste any more time—we’re already running late, thanks to you.”
“Not our fault,” Grinner’s man said, and Brandon felt a fresh surge of anger as the man rubbed the arm of his uniform across his nose, soiling the fabric with blood and snot as if it was a simple garment of no worth. “The big fucker here can barely stand—so much for Hale’s legendary strength, eh?” He looked at the others, and there were a few answering chuckles. Quiet enough, without much feeling, but far more than Brandon would have normally accepted, and again he was struck with how much the world had changed and in how short a time. He would have had such men as this flogged at the least for making a joke of the thing. A man’s death, whoever that man might be, was never something to jest about.
“Just shut up and come on,” he growled. And with that, they began what would be one of the longest walks of Brandon Gant’s life.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Despite the guard captain Marcus’s warnings of danger, Perennia’s streets were practically deserted, and Adina only saw a few people as they made their way into the city. The captain himself ran at the front while the other guard, Hugh, brought up the rear of the procession. Those few they did pass, however, paused to watch them, their expressions suspicious if not openly hostile. Adina wasn’t sure whether they did so out of the normal curiosity such a group of people, running through the city and escorted by guards, might cause, or because they recognized her or one of her companions, and she had little time to consider it in any case.
The captain set a brisk pace, moving quickly enough that soon Adina could hear Gryle’s ragged breathing beside her as he struggled to keep up. But the chamberlain did not complain, and his features were set with a grim determination. She had the thought that, just then, the chamberlain would have run until he passed out, if that was what it took to save his friends.
Still, for all their haste, Adina was all too aware of the minutes slipping by, and prayed to the gods that they would arrive in time. They’d been traveling for twenty minutes at least, and she was preoccupied with another prayer—at least the fifth of its kind—when the captain came to an abrupt halt, and she only just managed to avoid running into him.
She started to ask why he’d stopped, but there was soon no need as four men with blades rushed out of an alleyway, blocking their path. She recognized one of them as the overeager guard from the gatehouse. He was panting heavily, his face covered in sweat, but his mouth was twisted into a cruel sneer.
“Recruit,” the guard captain said, his tone ringing with authority, “what is the meaning of this?”
“Oh, take your ‘recruit’ and your ‘captain’ and be damned, Marcus,” the man spat. “As for what this is,” he said, grinning as he glanced at the men on either side of him, “well, I think you know that well enough.”
In answer, the captain drew his sword, and the quiet, deserted street rang with the sound of steel leaving scabbard. “I will say it once and no more after—leave this place and get out of our way, or we will be forced to cut you down.”
The man laughed. “Is that supposed to frighten me?” he asked. “The fact that you got a sword? Turns out, we got some too.”
Adina studied the men, and though they wielded blades, they were dressed in trousers and jerkins, not the uniforms of the guards. Grinner’s men then, she did not doubt, as was the guard from the gate house. “This man works for Grinner, Captain. That much is clear.”
Marcus nodded without taking his eyes away from the men in the street. “We outnumber you nearly two to one. It’s still not too late to walk away from this thing breathing—the next time we ask, our blades will do it for us.”
The man laughed again. “Outnumber us, do you?” he asked, looking over the group. “And what a little army you are too, huh? A fat man who looks like maybe he ate one of your number, two women, a Parnen who thinks the height of fashion is hanging bells in his hair, and a dried up old sergeant? That what we’re supposed to be scared of, Captain?”
“Captain.” This voice didn’t come from the man in the street but from Hugh, the other guardsman who stood at their rear. Adina looked behind her to see several more armed men spilling into the street. For his part, the guard captain didn’t so much as turn from where he studied the man who’d once been under his command.
“How many, Hugh?”
“Six, sir.”
Marcus nodded, and Adina was impressed with the guard captain’s calm. A worthy name for him indeed, and she promised to tell him as much again—assuming they survived what was coming.
“Now then,” the criminal said, “I reckon that ought to even us up a bit, Captain, what do you say? So how about you just go on ahead and put down your weapons, and we’ll get this thing done civil. I ain’t set on killin’ you, understand, but it ain’t exactly gonna break my heart, neither. As for the princess here,” he said, looking her up and down as if she was a piece of meat he was considering purchasing at market. “Well, might be she can make it out of this thing with all her royal bits still in their royal places, too. All we mean to do, see, is bring her to the boss—figured he might want to have a conversation with her.”
“What do you want to do, Princess?” Marcus asked, turning and glancing at her over his shoulder, and by the look of ange
r on his face and in his tone she thought it was all too clear what he wanted.
Adina frowned. “The only conversation I intend to have with Grinner is the one that takes place before his execution.”
The traitorous guard hocked and spat. “You sure about that? And what about the rest of you? You all so keen to die on account of the princess can’t be bothered to sit down and talk with the likes of us criminals?”
In answer, Wendell drew his own sword and went to stand beside Marcus, the scarred sergeant choosing, for once, to let his actions speak instead of his words. Gryle followed a moment later, his fists clenched at his sides. Leomin and Seline went to stand beside Hugh, facing the others who had appeared at their backs.
“Well alright then,” Grinner’s man said, shaking his head. “It’s your blood—I reckon you can decide whether it gets spilled or not.” He gestured to the men beside him, and they started forward. Adina drew her own blade and went to stand with Hugh and the others.
“Get it done fast,” she said, loud enough for all of those with her to hear, “we haven’t much time.”
There was a shout from one of their attackers, and as if on cue, they all charged forward. Adina braced herself, gritting her teeth in anticipation.
“Stop.” The word struck with the power of a lightning strike, and every one of the onrushing men froze as if commanded by one of the gods. Adina saw Leomin staring at them, sweat beading on his forehead, a look of intense concentration on his face.
The men stood as still as statues in the street, their eyes glazing over, and Adina and the others only stared at the Parnen in astonishment. “Can’t…hold it…for long,” he hissed.
“Don’t worry, love,” Seline said, drawing the short blades at her side. “You won’t have to.” There was a sudden blur of motion, and one of the six screamed as she appeared behind him, burying her blade in his side. She was on to the next one before the first had even had time to hit the ground, slicing his throat, and Leomin began to growl with apparent effort at holding the men still.
There was a wooden, creaking sound, and Gryle walked toward the four men in front of them. Adina’s eyes widened as she realized he was carrying a horse cart over his head.
One of the their attackers started to move, as if breaking whatever hold Leomin had placed on them, but then the chamberlain brought the full weight of the cart down on him, powered by his incredible strength. There was a crushing, squishing sound, and Adina felt her gorge rise in her throat as she stared at the bloody mess on the cobbles. Gryle brought the cart back up, moving toward the next man, and Adina turned away in time to see Seline pulling her blades free of the last of the group at their backs who collapsed on the ground at her feet.
It was all over in an instant, and despite the fact that she knew the power they carried, Adina found herself staring at the three in awe. But for all her surprise at the speed with which the violence had occurred, she, at least, had possessed some sense of what her companions were capable of. The guard captain hadn’t, and his shocked gaze shifted between the corpses, his eyes wild. “I...I don’t understand,” he breathed, his voice little more than a whisper.
“No, Captain,” Adina said, pulling her eyes away from the massacre and turning the captain so that he faced her. “And, right now, I don’t have time to explain it to you. Know only that Kevlane’s dark sorcery is not the only magic in the world—there are other forces at work, and many of those forces, such as the ones you have seen here, are on the side of good.”
The man nodded slowly, his eyes still glazed over as if he was dreaming. “A-alright,” he said. He cleared his throat, shaking his head in a visible effort to gain some control over himself. “Hugh.” The man didn’t answer, still staring wide-eyed at the corpses in the street. Veteran he might be, but there were few in the world who had seen such swift carnage as he had just witnessed.
“Hugh,” the captain said again, louder this time, his voice ringing in the preternatural silence of the street. Some ingrained part of the guardsman, accustomed to responding to such an authoritative tone, must have heard the captain’s words despite the shock he felt, and he finally turned to look at the captain.
“S-sir?”
“Take your position, we need—” The captain’s words cut off as the sound of a bell filled the air. Adina had never heard a sound so terrible as the sound of that bell ringing. Her heart lurched in her chest. “Is that—” she began, knowing the answer to the question even as she started to ask it.
“Noon,” the captain confirmed, scowling in the direction of the bell tower as if it was somehow in league with Grinner and the dead men littering the street.
“We are too late then,” Gryle said, his tone full of disbelief.
“What do we do now?” the Parnen asked, staring at the bell tower as the last peel of its ringing echoed in the air.
Adina was at a loss for what to tell him. She glanced at the woman, Seline, thinking that, perhaps, she could use the Virtue of Speed to make it to the square in time but quickly dismissed the idea. The woman looked exhausted, and her breathing was labored from her fight—if fight it could be called—with the criminals. Just then, it looked as if it was all she could do to remain standing.
Still, Adina had to believe there was some way of helping May and the others. In the stories she’d heard so often as a child, things often grew dark, seemingly hopeless, but in the end good always triumphed, always found a way.
This is no storybook, she chided herself, and you are no child to be comforted by pretty fancies. You are a princess—a queen—and you are enough. “What do we do? We go anyway—perhaps the execution is running behind, and even if it isn’t…” She didn’t finish the last, for she saw in the slowly building anger in the faces of those around her that they knew what she would say, felt it as well as she. If they didn’t manage to save May and Hale, then at least they would make sure the two did not venture into Salen’s Fields alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Darrell pushed through the people in the street, trying and failing to quell the panicked urgency rising in him. There was a chill in the air, but he was sweating profusely, a product of an hour spent forcing his way through the multitude gathered to see a man and a woman die. Despite his recent wounds he was possessed of an almost manic energy as he shoved people to the side, driving further and further into the shouting crowd.
Soon, he could make out the castle, could even see what he thought were the captain and other guards gathered outside the dungeon. They started toward the gate, and as they drew closer, Darrell craned his neck to see them over the men and women crowding the gate—the most dedicated of the audience, those who had fought their way past their fellows for the dubious honor of being the first to lay eyes on the condemned.
Briefly, a space opened in the crowd, and he caught a glimpse of the captain in his dress uniform. The man had a grim expression on his normally jovial face, as if he were contemplating murder, and the other guards that walked with him, surrounding the two prisoners and blocking them from Darrell’s view, looked tense. Not that the swordmaster could blame them, as they were about to venture into a street flooded with a river of humanity, one that could easily overpower the guards spaced intermittently along the street to keep it in check.
Grinner must have mobilized the entire city guard as well as a generous helping of soldiers from the gathered armies, but the guards and soldiers were still outnumbered a hundred to one at least. If the people decided to start the execution early, to rush the two prisoners and take out whatever fears and frustrations the past months had caused in them, Darrell knew—as the other guards must—that those meant to keep them in order would be no more successful than a shield crafted of paper would be at staying a blade.
The grim procession reached the gate, and the guards stationed there opened it, closing it back again with what seemed to Darrell to be indecent haste, as if the thousands of people that had gathered might decide that an audience could easily enou
gh become an army and rush through the gates, intent on seizing control of the castle and, thereby, the city. The guards needn’t have worried though, for the men and women who’d come to see the execution were content to shout angry threats and curses at the two prisoners. The bravest in the crowd hurled rotten fruits and vegetables, never mind the fact that, like Darrell, they almost certainly couldn’t see anything of the two prisoners for the guards that surrounded them.
The rotten missiles struck the guards and the captain, and soon Brandon’s fine dress uniform was covered in slime and filth, but from what Darrell saw the man didn’t so much as notice, his eyes cold and hard and far away. The swordmaster was trying to meet that stony gaze when one man from the crowd—particularly outraged or particularly thirsty for blood—abandoned his fellows and rushed toward the procession, brandishing a knife.
Brandon Gant reacted at once, spinning and thrusting a finger at the man. “Blade!” he bellowed in a voice that somehow managed to cut through the shouting multitude.
The guards on that side reacted, spinning, and Darrell noted that one of their number had a bloody nose, obviously broken. The guards drew their swords and faced the onrushing man. At the sight of them, he seemed to think better of his plan, and came to a stumbling stop, dropping his blade.
A second later, the bloody-nosed man lunged forward and drove his sword through the man’s gut, and what he obviously lacked in skill he made up for in cruel enthusiasm, ripping the blade free and driving it in again in a shower of crimson. He grinned grimly as the man struggled weakly at the blade that pierced him, as if to pull it out, then the guard jerked the sword back, and the man crumpled to the cobbles of the city. Gods, but that was ill done, Darrell thought, and judging by the angry shouts of the crowd they thought so too. Several of those in the front surged forward against the guards that tried to hold them back, threatening to overwhelm them, but the swordmaster barely noticed.
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