by Morgan Rice
“I hoped that you weren’t dead,” Royce said. “They struck you down, but I didn’t see them kill you.”
“They threw me on the pile when you left,” Mark said. “They were so busy chasing you that they didn’t bother finishing me. They just… left me.”
“I left you,” Royce said. “I should have taken you with me.”
“You couldn’t have escaped,” Mark said. “They would have killed us both.”
“I’m taking you with me now, though,” Royce said.
“No, leave me. You can’t escape carrying me. Just… finish it.”
Royce shook his head, lifting Mark on his shoulders and holding him there, his sword held ready.
“Hold on. We’re getting out together.”
Using Ember’s eyes as much as his own, he headed toward the exit from the pit. A guard moved into his path, a spear held in his hands. Royce stepped aside from the first blow, feeling it scrape across his side. He cut him down, then kept moving. He came out into the open air, and two more guards came for him. Royce barely parried a blow and kicked one man back, then thrust his blade through the other’s throat before he could react. The first man cried out, and Royce cut him down too, but he could tell that it was too late.
From above, looking through the hawk’s eyes, he could see that other men were closing in.
He picked the path that looked like it would be the most open and kept going.
Men started to come out from between the houses, and Royce killed them as they came, the crystal sword singing in his hand while Mark was almost a dead weight over his shoulder. He was far too quiet too, and Royce might have paused to check on him if he’d had any time. As it was, he pushed on, striking out where he had to, taking twists and turns as he saw them, using them to avoid the worst of the incoming guards.
Then he saw the horses charging in, and he heard the sounds of Lofen’s voice, shouting above the sounds of battle.
“Hold on, Royce, we’re coming!”
They charged into the heart of the settlement with weapons drawn, dragging Royce’s horse behind their own. Royce ran for them, then spun as he heard something behind him. A man struck out at him, hard enough that it made the crystal blade ring as he parried. He cut him down without pausing and ran again, making it to his horse and all but throwing Mark across its back. He was almost relieved to hear his friend cry out as he landed there, and then Royce jumped up next to him.
“We need to get out of here,” Raymond yelled to him, hacking down at a guard who came too close to the three of them.
Royce nodded, making sure that Mark was secure. Then he kicked his horse into a gallop, and the four of them thundered away from the settlement, racing for safety.
***
The old meeting place sat at the heart of a bowl-shaped depression up on the moorland. There were rocks and stones there that all of the old families had dragged up into place, each one carved and recurved, until the patterns of the carvings turned into a kind of history of the families who gathered there.
Royce stood at the heart of it all, not knowing what to think. He’d been to the edges of this place before, as a boy, but then it had been just an old place, long abandoned since the duke would have sent soldiers to break up any gathering. Now, it teemed with people, both those who had come with him and others who had come in from the surrounding villages.
He stared over to the spot where a couple of the local wise women were tending to Mark. Royce might have dragged him from a pile of the dead, but some of the expressions of those there suggested that they weren’t sure whether he would stay clear of it for long.
“You’ve done all you can,” Raymond said, as if guessing his thoughts. He held out a wooden plate filled with rough porridge, seasoned with scraps of game. Royce took it even though his stomach felt like lead.
“Where are Garet and Lofen?” Royce asked.
“They have their own wounds to see to,” Raymond said, “but they’re safe, thanks to you.”
“I’m not sure that anyone here is safe,” Royce said, looking around at the people there. There were people he’d never met, who’d come in from all kinds of places. There were villagers with no villages left to hold them, and people who had fled in advance of the duke’s men. They’d come in, apparently from nowhere, and it seemed impossible to Royce that they might have decided to gather around him like this.
“This is an old place,” Raymond said. “A safe one.”
“Only as long as no one comes here in force,” Royce replied. He thought about the duke’s men, and what might happen if they all came here. He took another look around at the people there. “It feels like they’re all waiting for me to decide something for them; like they’re all expecting me to keep them safe.”
“And can you?” Raymond asked.
Royce shook his head. “Not all of them. As long as I’m here, Altfor will hunt for me, and he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.”
“Then maybe the best thing is not to be here,” Raymond suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“We head to the coast, get a boat and head south into the rest of the kingdom, or over the sea into the Varranlands or to Dressia. We could start a new life where they won’t find us. It might even stop people from being hurt.”
Royce didn’t like the thought of running. It felt like giving in, abandoning the people who needed him, yet maybe, just maybe, it was what he needed to do. He thought about the things the witch, Lori, had said to him, about the blood that she’d seen stalking him. Maybe if he walked away, he could save other people from that.
Maybe if Genevieve had still been there, if she hadn’t been Altfor’s wife, he might have stayed. Maybe he would have had something to stay for. Here though, like this, it seemed that there was only one thing he could do to keep all these people safe.
“You’re right,” he said to Raymond. “We’ll wait until we can move Mark, and then move to the coast. Maybe if we find a ship, we can get away from this with everyone who wants to come. Maybe if we go far enough, we can stop this darkness from killing everyone.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Altfor rode into the latest village, sitting tall and proud atop his charger, armor in place so that he looked every inch a commander. The fact that this was his uncle’s force, and that the men here would have gone about their business regardless of whether he was present, was a matter of no consequence. He wanted to be here for this.
“Is this all of them?” he demanded, looking down at the lines of peasant folk arranged before him.
“All that we could find… my lord,” one of the men said, and the fact that it took him that long to remember the part that mattered irritated Altfor further.
He was sure that this couldn’t be all of them. A village would have more young men and women, wouldn’t just be these lines of sorry looking folk, so worn and weather-beaten that it seemed impossible that they could ever survive alone.
“Check the buildings again. If there are any hiding, I want them killed for their disobedience, unless they come out now!” Altfor raised his voice for that last part, letting it ring around the village.
A couple of others did come out, staggering out into the sunlight. There was a grubby-looking family, a young woman Altfor might have considered under other circumstances, a man who was probably a farmer. It still wasn’t enough to make for a full village’s worth in front of him.
“Where is everyone else?” Altfor called down to them.
For several seconds, no one answered, then one lumbering man stepped forward.
“Everyone else, your lordship? Begging your pardon, but there’s just us here, and—”
“And all those who are young enough and strong enough have either run up onto the heathland, or joined Royce’s little rebellion, or both,” Altfor snapped. Did this man think that he was stupid?
“Begging your pardon,” the man insisted, “but most of our young folk have been dragged off into the duke’s armies, or h
ave been taken by nobles, or—”
“What’s your name?” Altfor asked, still looking down from his horse at the man.
“I’m Yarrow, sir, the headman of this village.”
“And who decided that?” Altfor demanded. He drew his sword at a leisurely pace.
“Well, sir, the others kind of got together and decided, you see…”
“Ah, so you decided something like that without the permission of your betters?” Altfor asked. In the distance, he could see the fires from the places his uncle was visiting. “No doubt, they chose you for your ability to make important decisions for them? For your ability to keep them safe?”
“Well, sir—”
Altfor heeled his horse forward and hacked down, feeling his blade bite deeply into the man’s neck and shoulder. It was anything but a clean cut, and Altfor had to dismount, wrenching at his blade to pull it free. The so-called headman collapsed while he did it.
“Your duke keeps you safe!” he bellowed to the others. “Your duke decides who will give orders on his behalf, and what actions you will take in your pitiful lives. How many years now have we kept you safe from the forces of the neighboring lands? Whose soldiers have fought off Lord Kershaw’s men, and Earl Undine’s?”
Altfor looked around at them, walking down into the middle of them. His men were nearby now, their hands on their weapons, ready for the slightest hint of violence from the villagers.
“My family has given you so much since the settlement of these uncivilized lands by the south,” Altfor said. “Nobles have brought stability to these lands, and the rule of law. We have brought order, and safety from both the Picti and those who would invade. We have given and given, yet our thanks is that you rise up against us to follow some boy?” He shook his head, barely able to believe their ingratitude. “The boy, Royce, is a traitor and a murderer. All those who follow him are traitors, as are those who fail to stop them. You will tell me where he and his friends are if you wish to live.”
Altfor looked around at the villagers. Some of them quaked visibly. One man tried to run, and Altfor gestured to one of his guards. The guard raised a hunting bow and fired in one smooth movement, bringing the fleeing man down easily.
“See the penalty for traitors,” Altfor said.
“But we don’t know anything!” a woman protested from the back.
Altfor shook his head and took a sand timer from the recesses of his saddlebags. He turned it and set it on the post of a low gate.
“I don’t believe you. You have until the sand runs out to tell me something more useful. Until then, someone bring me a drink to wash away the filth of this place.”
One of his men ran off to the local inn to get it, and while he did, Altfor went back to the rest of his men. He wasn’t surprised to find a man riding in, his horse breathing hard with the effort of being pushed to a gallop for so long. Altfor recognized the man as one of his men; his, in a way that most of them weren’t. The fact that he was having to divide the men in such ways was more than irritating in itself.
“Ah,” he said to the others, “a man with news from my uncle, no doubt. Go and spread out. Make sure that the village is secure and keep an eye out for any of the villagers who want to come forward.”
“You think that they’ll tell us anything?” one of the men asked.
Altfor ignored the impertinence, for now, of the man thinking that he could speak when he wished. “They’ll tell me whatever they can think of, eventually. They’ll scream out the location of every valuable in the place, and tell us everything they know about the rebels. You and you, get a fire going and heat some irons.”
The men went off about their tasks, and while they did, Altfor mounted his horse and went to meet the man riding in.
“My duke,” the man said, which immediately won him more favor than the rest of the men put together.
“Careful… Trin,” Altfor said, because he made a point of remembering the names of those men who were loyal to him. It made them feel valued even when they weren’t. “As much as I appreciate it, there are things that you cannot risk being heard saying.”
“I understand, my lord,” the man said, and the best part was that he seemed reluctant to do even that. Altfor found himself wondering what exactly he’d done to win the man’s loyalty; certainly nothing that he remembered. That in itself was a little concerning. At least with fear or greed, a man’s motivations could be relied upon. Still, Altfor would use the loyalty while he could.
“What news of my uncle?” Altfor asked.
“Lord Alistair has burned three villages so far, but has yet to find signs of the traitors, my lord,” Trin said. “He asked me to see that you were progressing in your own efforts.”
“And what will you say to him?” Altfor asked.
“That you are making every effort, my lord,” the man said.
That was good, although possibly not good enough for his uncle. Lord Alistair would probably not care how strenuous Altfor’s efforts were; he was a man who valued results over everything.
“And the other matters?” Altfor asked.
“The men say that they went to the girl, Sheila’s, home, and found her in bed under the covers. They killed her there with a sword thrust.”
“Did they check that it was her?” Altfor asked.
“There was blood,” Trin said.
Altfor sighed at the stupidity of that. “A stuck pig will bleed. How do they know that they killed the right person, or killed a person at all? Didn’t they check?”
“Once… once it was done, they wanted to get out of there quickly,” the guard said.
Altfor shook his head. That wasn’t good enough. “They were lazy, and they didn’t check. So I’ll tell you… the girl is still alive. Do you think that a girl would just hide under the covers while two guards killed her? Do you think that she wouldn’t try to run, or fight, or beg? Does that fit with anything you’ve seen?”
“My lord, I’m not sure that—”
Altfor sighed again and rode over to one of the women there. “You, I’m going to kill you.”
“My lord,” she begged, falling to her knees. “Please, I’ll do anything you want. If you want money, I’ll find some. If you want me…”
“I don’t,” Altfor said, with a note of contempt.
She rose and started to run then. It took Altfor only seconds to ride her down, hacking down with his sword and catching her across the back. He paused to flick the blood clear from his blade, then rode back to where his guardsman was waiting.
“Do you see?” Altfor said. “Yes, a peasant might hide, but they hide better than that. The others have been fooled. Tell them that I want the girl found, and killed. Tell them to make sure this time. My wife is going to suffer for her disobedience.”
“Yes, my lord,” Trin said.
“And Trin?” Altfor said.
“My lord?”
“Find my wife too. I want her brought to me. I don’t care what it takes.”
Altfor knew that he shouldn’t admit his desperation in this, but it mattered. Genevieve was his, and he knew that his uncle would hold him responsible for losing control of her if he found out that she was missing. As it was, Lord Alistair was distracted, but that would not last forever.
“She will be found, my lord,” Trin promised him. He hurried off, and Altfor found himself both grateful to the man and worried by him. He knew too many of Altfor’s secrets now. At some point, he would have to die, quietly of course. For now though, he was useful.
There was more to do now; the kind of work that would probably make a butcher proud, and his uncle prouder.
Altfor made his way back to the middle of the village, walking pointedly to the spot where the sand timer lay. The last few grains were just making their way through its pinched neck, tumbling their way down to sit upon the rest.
“Does anyone have anything to tell me?” he demanded. “Does anyone know where the traitor Royce is?”
“We don’t
know,” an older man cried out. “We just know that he’s on the heath somewhere!”
Altfor nodded to the guards, and they dragged the man forward. “It seems that you know something then.”
“Where else would he be?” the man said.
“And of course, some of your sons and daughters have gone to him.”
“We couldn’t stop them,” he said.
“Then what use are you?” Altfor demanded. He drew his sword and hacked down into the man’s leg, ignoring his screams. “What point is there in keeping you alive?”
“Please, I have gold!” the man said. “Hidden… hidden behind the chimney of my house!”
“Which house did we drag him from?” Altfor asked his men.
One pointed. “That one, my lord.”
“Check.” As the guard hurried off, Altfor turned back toward the older man. “Of course, now you’ve told us that, we don’t need you.”
“But I’ve given you everything I have!” the older man protested.
“You say that as if it excuses your crimes,” Altfor said, “rather than telling me that you hid things you should have paid as taxes to your lord.”
“Please!”
“The property of traitors is forfeit, and you… you deserve this.”
Altfor swung his sword again, and it should have been a beautiful, clean blow. Instead, it took him another three hacking strokes before the man collapsed into the dirt. He stood there panting, then looked around at his men, daring any of them to suggest that he hadn’t meant to do it.
“Well?” he called to them. “What are you waiting for? Get killing!”
His men didn’t need any further prompting, and that either said something about their loyalty, or about the kind of men that his uncle was careful to employ as guards. They charged forward into the lines of the villagers, blades drawn, hacking as they went in. Villagers screamed, and backed away, and tried to run. A couple even tried to fight, for all the good it did. The guards struck at them, hacking them down with the expertise of long practice.