Daas swore, jumped to his feet, and charged.
No more mercy. No more chances. Leith had to end this and help Jamie. He sidestepped, shoved Daas’s arm away with a forearm, and plunged his knife into Daas’s chest.
Daas’s eyes widened. “You…” He collapsed to the ground.
Pine needles crackled. Leith spun, his knife raised. Crossley charged him, one knife aimed at Leith’s chest, the other at his stomach.
An arrow buried itself in Crossley’s throat. Crossley choked, grabbed at the arrow, and fell at Leith’s feet.
Shad stood in the center of the clearing near the cabin, Blizzard and Valor snorting and prancing behind him.
“Shad!” Leith pointed. Off to Shad’s left, the dark shape of a man, an arrow nocked to a drawn bow, stepped from behind a boulder.
Shad wheeled, sidestepped, and shot in nearly the same motion. The archer lurched and fell.
Jamie picked himself off the ground, a cut oozing blood along his hairline. He adjusted his grip on his knife and regained his position a few steps behind Leith.
Two Blades and an archer down.
The archer Shad shot should’ve had a Blade with him. Leith searched for movement in the rocks.
Blizzard snorted, his ears swiveling first toward the rocks to the left where Martyn and Ranson had gone, then back to the right.
There. Leith rested a hand on Jamie’s shoulder and pointed at the boulder where the Blade had disappeared. “Head straight for that boulder. Keep his eyes on you.”
“Got it.” Jamie ran forward.
Leith crept into the darkness. Somewhere behind him, another arrow hissed and slammed into a body with a dull thunk.
He circled along the ledges in the cliff face. Rough rock grated against his fingers. Dust whispered beneath his boots. The darkness closed around him like a familiar cloak. This, he understood. Darkness. Prey.
He eased into position behind the Blade. Perhaps he could take this one alive.
The Blade sprang toward Jamie. Jamie deflected his knife, but the Blade’s momentum took them to the ground. Jamie struggled, but the Blade’s bigger size pinned him to the ground.
Leith lunged and dragged the Blade off Jamie. The Blade whipped around, his knife aimed at Leith’s stomach.
Former Blade Offen.
Leith grabbed Offen’s wrist and stepped forward, planting a boot behind Offen’s leg. Leith whipped his left elbow into Offen’s face.
Offen reeled backwards and tripped over Leith’s foot. He fell onto his back but rolled, coming to his feet with knives in both of his hands. Leith leapt backward, but the move put him off balance. Offen pivoted and kicked, catching Leith just above his left knee.
His weak leg. Leith crumpled to the ground. A rock struck his back, knocking the breath from his chest.
Offen pounced, pinning one of Leith’s hands to the ground. Leith swept aside one of Offen’s knives, but the other stabbed down at him. With his arm trapped, Leith couldn’t stop it.
Jamie dove from the darkness, grabbed Offen’s arm, and plunged his knife into Offen’s back.
Offen gasped and collapsed to the ground, wracking with wet coughs. As Leith clambered to his feet, Offen’s coughs grew weaker and stilled.
Leith gripped Jamie’s shoulder. “You all right?”
Jamie nodded and swallowed, though his shoulder shuddered beneath Leith’s hand. If only Leith hadn’t had to ask Jamie to fight this battle. Hopefully, it would be the last. Maybe this time, they would have peace.
Straightening, Jamie turned toward the clearing. “Do you think that’s all of them?”
Across the way, two shapes tottered from the rocks, one leaning on the other. Martyn and Ranson.
Shad still stood in the center, an arrow aimed at a black-clad figure with his hands in the air.
“Please, don’t shoot! I surrender! Please, don’t!” John Uldiney, the youngest of the banished Blades, knelt on the ground, knives glinting in a pile.
“Yes. I think that’s all of them.” Leith strode toward Uldiney, careful not to get in Shad’s way. When he halted a few feet away, Uldiney didn’t move.
There had been enough bloodshed. Leith wasn’t ready for yet another execution in a courtyard. Even if this was the Blade that had hurt Renna. “If I let you leave, will you promise never to return to Acktar?”
Uldiney bobbed his head. “Yes. Just please don’t kill me. I didn’t really want to return. Honest. But Daas said we had to. That it was the only way.”
Leith wasn’t sure he believed him, but Uldiney wasn’t much of a threat by himself. Nor would he return after seeing the rest of the Blades killed within a few minutes. “I pray whatever life you find outside of Acktar is better than the one you’ve had here. Now, go.”
Uldiney hesitated. “I…might need my knives. And I don’t have a horse. You drove mine away.”
“There’s a horse outside the entrance.” Shad used his bow and arrow to gesture in that direction. “You may have that one, as well as the provisions in the saddlebag.”
Uldiney nodded and glanced at his knives again.
Leith tensed, his knives held ready. “Pick them up slowly. Wherever you go, don’t turn back to killing. You’ll just end up dead sooner or later.”
Uldiney bent, scooped his knives from the ground, and fled as if he feared Leith would change his mind. Leith didn’t relax until Uldiney disappeared in the darkness of the crevice.
It was truly over this time. The Blades were gone.
“Leith!”
Leith whirled. Ranson grasped Martyn under the arms, staggering under his weight. Martyn’s head slumped forward.
Leith dropped his knife and dashed to them. He helped lower Martyn to the ground and swept a glance over him looking for wounds. In the darkness, he couldn’t make anything out. “Was he injured?”
Ranson shook his head. “I didn’t think so. But maybe. I didn’t see. I…”
Shad knelt beside Leith and shook his head. “He was badly burned in Flayin Falls. I’m surprised it took this long before the pain got to him.”
Lord Norton told the truth when he said he’d left Martyn behind to die by burning. Yet, even after being badly burned, Martyn had still come to rescue Leith.
Whatever betrayal Leith had done to Martyn, whatever torture Martyn had done to Leith, it had all been repaid, blood for blood, torture for torture.
Would it be enough? Had enough blood been spilled and enough pain shared?
Shad rested a hand on Leith’s shoulder. “Let’s load Martyn on a horse and get you home.”
36
Renna eyed the man laid on the stretcher between two bearers. A bad cut slashed across his leg, but the blood was only drooling, not spurting. She pointed to her right. “Set him over there.”
The bearers nodded and carried the man past her, laying him down at the end of a long row of wounded.
Behind and beside Renna, the wounded, mostly from Lord Norton’s men and some from Stetterly, rested in rows on the hill beyond the town. Those with medical experience among King Keevan’s soldiers assisted Michelle while more of King Keevan’s men fetched blankets and water to make the wounded comfortable. Other soldiers stood guard.
With her hands raw and bandaged, Renna couldn’t help the healers as she had after the battle at Nalgar. Instead, she had forced herself to sort through the chaos. Organize the wounded. Make sure torches and fires were lit. Set the townsfolk to cleaning up the mess of battle.
She searched the horizon yet again. No movement. No sign of Leith and the others. How long would it take to rescue Leith? Surely it shouldn’t take this long, should it?
What if something had gone wrong? What if Leith had been hurt or killed?
No, she mustn’t think about that. She couldn’t give in to her worst fears. Not now.
Especially not when she wasn’t the only one worried. A few yards away, the girl Kayleigh sat cross-legged on the ground and scrubbed at her already-beyond-clean sword. Next to her, Bran
di chattered with barely a pause for breath. Apparently Brandi and Kayleigh knew each other from the war, or something like that.
A few yards away, Martyn’s brother paced, muttering about how he was never going to let Martyn out of his sight again.
Renna wrapped her arms over her stomach while she waited for the next pair of stretcher bearers. What would she do if she lost Leith now? Who would sit up with Brandi on nights when the nightmares of war became too much? Who would Jamie look up to as an older brother or who would understand Ranson when the guilt plagued him?
Owen stilled. Renna followed his gaze. Four figures crested the far hill, leading two horses. One of the horses had a bundle draped over its back.
Leith. Renna grasped her skirts, hiked them to her knees, and ran. The whole town, Lord Alistair’s men, and King Keevan’s army would see her act undignified. But they didn’t matter. Not if the body draped over that horse was Leith’s.
One of the figures handed the horse’s reins to someone else and broke into a run of his own, a hitch in a stride.
When they met, there wasn’t laughter or tears or spinning hugs. She tucked her head against his shoulder, and he simply held her, pressing his face into her hair. It was a long moment, filled with warmth and a steady heartbeat, the kind of moment Renna would face any battle just to savor once again.
She pulled away and began patting his shirt. “Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not.”
“Of course you are. You always get hurt.” She eyed his dust-colored clothing. In the half-light cast from the torches of Stetterly behind her, she couldn’t see any darker splotches of blood. At least, none that looked like they belonged to him.
“Not this time. I—” Leith grabbed her hands and held them up, inspecting the bandages. “What happened?”
“Rope burn.” Renna tugged her hands free from his grip. If Leith wasn’t the one hurt, then who was draped over the horse?
She glanced past Leith to the body slung over Valor’s back. Martyn’s head hung limply. Shad reached a hand to stop Kayleigh and Owen, forcing them to skid to a halt.
Renna curled her fingers into Leith’s shirt. “Martyn?”
“He’s alive, just unconscious.” Leith rested his hands over hers. “The Blades are gone.”
“Good.” She wouldn’t ask how. Not yet, anyway.
“Leith. Renna.” Shad’s voice had a tight, low tone to it. When Renna stepped back from Leith, Shad tipped his head at something behind her.
Renna turned. Stetterly’s townsfolk gathered before the church building, the crowd growing with each passing second. A chill settled into her chest.
She slid her hand into Leith’s, and he squeezed her fingers so gently her rope burns didn’t even hurt. Together, they strode down the hill toward the line of men waiting at the edge of town, their arms crossed. Behind the men, the women gripped their children and scowled.
One farmer stepped forward. “He isn’t welcome here. He’s a Blade.”
“A Blade killed my wife!”
“And my brother!”
“My father!”
The shouts came harder and faster, thrown like stones, battering her. How had she ever thought she and Leith could simply settle down into a happy life? Leith’s past wouldn’t let them.
“Blades killed your parents! How could you think about marrying him?”
The yells escalated. Fists pounded at the sky, a thunder building before the storm broke in all its fury.
Beyond the town, Lord Alistair and King Keevan moved toward the shouting with groups of men at their back. But would more men calm the storm or infuriate it?
Beside her, Leith drew in a breath. Renna clamped a hand on his arm. Something told her words from Leith would only stir the crowd.
No, this was her moment to speak. She was Lady Faythe. This was her town, and if a riot started now, it would be because she failed to stand when it mattered.
She forced herself to let go of Leith’s arm and step away from him. To make her words count, she couldn’t lean on Leith while she said them. She squeezed her aching fingers into fists, lifted her chin, and prayed for courage and a steady voice. “Silence, everyone!”
For some reason, the townsfolk listened to her. Her knees shook. What was she going to say now that she had their attention? She swept her gaze over the mass of people. Standing off to one side, Brandi met her gaze and nodded.
Renna could do this. She had to. She had faced Respen in his own castle. Surely she could face her own townsfolk, no matter how angry. “We have all lost much to Respen and his Blades. Blades killed my father, my mother, my uncles, aunts, and cousins. I have lost just as much as any of you.”
That got a few of the townsfolk shifting. How could they forget what she had lost too? Her parents. Uncle Abel. Aunt Mara.
She swallowed and drew in a deep breath. Her head buzzed with the weight of so many eyes on her. She focused on a patch of star-filled sky above their heads. “Last winter, a wounded Blade stumbled into the kitchen at Stetterly Manor. As a healer, I made the decision to tend his wound. That Blade was Third Blade Leith Torren, and at the time, he’d never failed King Respen.”
She heard the murmurs in the crowd and saw the stir, but she couldn’t concentrate on that. Couldn’t stop this story now that it was being told. The truth had to come out this time, once and for all. Then she’d deal with the consequences.
Half-turning to see both the townsfolk and Leith where he stood a few yards away, she forced her voice to remain calm. “Leith, show them your marks.”
Not looking at her, Leith grasped the end of his right sleeve and rolled it to his shoulder. In the torchlight, the rows of scars shone against his skin, the newer ones near his elbow more visible than the faint ones at his shoulder.
Thirty-seven marks, and Renna knew the tale behind all of them. Leith had been right. The knowledge did stiffen her spine in this moment.
The murmuring grew louder. A few shouts tore from the back of the crowd. Some of the men clenched their fists, as if preparing to charge Leith and pound their revenge into him.
Not if she could help it. She sent them the best glare she could manage. Perhaps it wasn’t as stern as Lady Lorraine’s, but it quieted most of the unrest. “God used what little kindness I gave and Brandi’s stories to touch Leith’s heart. Leith turned against King Respen and joined the Resistance. He risked his own life again and again for me and for Acktar.”
The crowd facing her didn’t budge.
How could the townsfolk remain stone-faced at hearing this? Why wasn’t it changing their opinion?
If she closed her eyes, she could see Vane’s knife plunging into Leith’s shoulder, Respen’s knife into his leg. Hear the crack of the whip, the rattle of chains, and the screams echoing off dark, stone walls. Feel the anguish in Leith’s eyes as he fought his best friend.
But the townsfolk couldn’t see and hear the past. They hadn’t witnessed what she had.
But perhaps they still could.
“Leith, show them the rest of your scars.” Her words had a bite, a cold, she hadn’t intended.
His eyes still focused on the ground by his feet, Leith pulled his shirt over his head and let it drop to the ground. The ridged scars from the burns blazed across his torso from his chest down to his stomach, patches of white and pink. A splotch at his shoulder marked the knife wound. Jagged welts and scars twisted across his back.
“Look at his scars. That was his reward for his actions. Torture.” Renna pointed. Surely the townsfolk would see how hard he’d fought, how much he’d given. His heart, his courage, etched into his skin.
Silence had fallen across the crowd. Even the breeze held its breath.
Leith remained as still as the crowd, hands at his sides, head bowed as if he couldn’t face their accusations.
But he should be able to face them. He had no reason to hang his head. Not now.
“Those scars are proof that God has changed him. Whatever Leith did as a Bla
de, it has been paid for with Christ’s blood.” As she spoke, Renna approached Leith. He probably sensed her, but he still didn’t look up. She rested her hands on either side of his face and tipped his head up. “For that reason, he should hang his head in shame to no one.”
Their eyes met, and the tiniest of smiles tipped one corner of Leith’s mouth. He rested his hands on her waist but didn’t pull her closer. Probably a small concession to propriety, considering he still lacked a shirt. Something she was working hard not to notice.
“Thank you.” He murmured as he kissed her forehead. “But I think it’s my turn to speak now.”
She barely kept her knees from giving out. A tremble worked its way down her spine and into her fingers. Whatever anger or courage or determination that had kept her speaking coherently for the past few minutes was fading. “Good. Because I reached my limit of pretending to be confident for the day.”
When he turned to face the crowd of townsfolk, tucking her hand in his as if to hide her shaking from all the watching eyes, Renna let part of her relax. Whatever the future held, they would survive it.
Together.
Renna’s fingers trembled in Leith’s. She’d given the last measure of her courage to make that speech to the townsfolk. Leith couldn’t mess up what she’d done now.
Too bad he couldn’t grab his shirt and pull it back over his head to hide his marks. His skin prickled with the eyes counting his marks, cataloging his scars. All his secrets bared for them to judge and find him lacking.
But, as Renna said, he didn’t have to hang his head in shame. There in the Tower, he’d been worthy. Wasn’t he just as worthy now?
He straightened his shoulders. “I understand why you don’t want me here. The Blades did terrible things to Acktar. I did terrible things. If you wish, I will tell you the whole truth and answer all your questions.”
Perhaps in the truth, they would find healing. He had, when he’d learned the truth about his mother’s death.
The townsfolk remained silent. Still. That was probably better than yelling.
He had one last thing that might sway them. “Knowing you wouldn’t accept my past, Renna and I decided long ago that when we marry, I won’t become the lord of Stetterly. Rule over this town will remain with Renna.”
Deliver (The Blades of Acktar Book 4) Page 32