by Hensley,Alta
I nodded and followed him out of his room, keeping close behind him. Without saying anything, he took my hand and gripped it tightly. I did not say anything else.
When we turned into the main hallway, I expected there to be guests gathering about. But when Rigby and I peeked through the door, I saw the entire crowd still in the dining hall.
“I guess it is not too late,” Rigby whispered to me. “We must have only been alone for a few hours.” He squeezed my hand reassuringly. “Dablin enjoys long parties that go late into the night.”
I nodded and pulled my brown hair to one side, running my fingers through it. He turned back to me with a warm smile.
“I would like to see you again soon, Tudor. Besides just in battle,” Rigby told me, taking both of my hands.
I stared at him. “I’m a soldier. We train on a daily basis, and I live in the quartering area which is far from your home. And you’re busy rebuilding your army. It’s going to be hard to see each other. That is, until we do go to battle.”
Rigby stared at me for a long moment, until I started to get uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” I asked quietly.
“I would like you to live in the house with me.” Before I could argue, he said, “You would live in your own room if you want. That way, we won’t be far from each other. I feel it is safer for you to be here, anyway. You are the only woman among many… lonely… men.”
“But how would I train?” I demanded. “I’m sure that your cousin, of all people, would want to keep me in his army. After all, I was just given honors for helping to lead his army to victory.”
Rigby nodded. “You could train in the courtyard, as will I. You would still be a loyal part of this army.”
I paused long enough to consider the proposal. “I’m not sure your cousin would agree to it. He might reject this idea. It will look like you are playing favorites.”
“I am. You are my favorite.” He smiled a toothy grin, which made me smile in return.
“Rigby.” I shoved his shoulder playfully. “I’m serious.”
“He will see it my way, I’m sure. You are our prized soldier, after all,” he said with a devilish wink that made butterflies erupt in my stomach.
I nodded a little and glanced down at my shoes. “Will you allow me to think this over? I fear the other men would not like the special treatment. I don’t want to seem like I’m weaker.”
“It is for your safety.”
I nodded. “Yes.” I looked deep into his eyes, and raised my eyebrows in question. “And for no other reason?”
Rigby used his finger to lift up my chin. He pressed a short kiss to my lips, pulling away with both of us smiling. “For your safety, my dark feather. Allow me to protect the army’s prized possession. My prized possession.” He kissed me again before adding, “But that’s not really the whole truth.”
“Ahh, so the truth finally comes out,” I teased.
“You are safe at camp. I made sure of it by asking Oakes to keep an eye out for you. No man will dare come near you knowing that Oakes is ready to attack on my command.”
I wasn’t sure if I should speak of the conversation Oakes and I had exchanged only a few hours earlier. Though I didn’t really feel the need to withhold the fact that we’d spoken, I wasn’t sure if Oakes would consider it a breach of confidence. I also didn’t know if he’d consider that his confession that he wished to have feathers might be seen as a sign of weakness. No, I would do nothing to possibly cause even a modicum of his commander’s respect to be taken from a fellow soldier. My decision made, I said, “Oakes? Why Oakes? I need protection from him. He hates me.”
Rigby chuckled. “He hates everyone.” He laughed again. “But I wouldn’t want anyone else—except you—to stand by my side. He has saved my life many times, and I will forever call him my friend.”
I huffed. “Well, good thing I didn’t kill him,” I said with a smile. “It would have been unfortunate to kill your friend.”
“He’ll be your friend someday. Just give him time. Already the men are impressed with you, and with time, they will all see you for the wonderful, and powerful woman you are.” He spun me around and playfully swatted me on the butt. “But yes, I will give you some time. Not much, but some.”
“And if I say no?” I asked as I placed my hands on my hips and played the part of a mischievous brat. Every emotion flowing through me was foreign, but I loved it. It was refreshing to be so carefree in a world that was anything but. Rigby allowed me to step away from darkness and see a light, if even for a short time.
He gave me an impish smile. “Then I will just have to convince you to change your mind. I am your commander, after all. I may just give you a direct order. And like any good soldier, you would follow your commands. Am I right?”
My heart soared with our playful banter and my face nearly hurt from how big I was smiling. “Yes, sir. I will always follow your command.”
Chapter Nine
Slipping out of the first dress I had worn in a long time, I ran my hand down the fabric. Yes, the color had reminded me of blood, and yet now, the richness of the deep, vibrant crimson would always bring to mind elegance and… well, femininity. Removing the ruby necklace and setting it next to the dress, I shook my head. Neither of those things had a purpose in my life. Pulling on the clothing I had worn only a few hours earlier, I reminded myself that jewels, no matter how priceless, and a dress, no matter how beautiful, would not keep me safe. My training, my skills as a warrior, my ability to nock an arrow into my bow, sending it true to its target—as easily as the servants had wielded their pots to paint my face—those traits would keep me alive.
Rigby insisted on walking me back to camp after we’d left the dinner and I had changed. After the spanking, and the intimate influence of submission, and with his hand even now pressed hotly against my flesh, I no longer had the same desire to protest his dictate. His kind words and soft touch afterwards had earned it. My feelings for Rigby remained of confusion, but one thing I was sure of was my intense respect for him.
“Do you know where the Penna are keeping our men?” I asked as we strolled under the moonlight. The battle a few days back had resulted in three of the Cyan men being captured.
“We don’t.”
“They know how to torture answers out of the bravest of men. I fear our location is no longer safe.”
He nodded. “We have never been safe. If the Penna want to march toward us, I say let them. We will be ready.”
“We should be on the attack, not the defense. We need to find them before they even get within several miles of here.”
He leaned in closer to my face, and I moved closer as well. I watched his eyes glinting in the moonlight, hoping for another kiss like before.
“RIGBY!”
A voice shouted from a few hundred yards away. I thought I recognized it to be Oakes calling.
“RIGBY!”
Rigby and I hurried toward the shouting and saw a beaten body lying naked in the bitter night snow. I recognized the man’s face.
“Garrett,” I said softly under my breath. Poor Garrett. He was always one of the nicer soldiers. I breathed a solemn sigh.
Oakes studied Rigby and me when he saw us approach him side by side. Oakes pointed at the dead body. “The Penna and their cowardly men killed him. They killed a man held captive.”
“Did he say anything before you saw him like this?” Rigby asked.
“Not a word. He stumbled here and collapsed,” Oakes replied. “Maybe if you hadn’t been too busy deciding where to ‘stick your dagger,’ none of this would have happened.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” Rigby tried to lift his sword free but I stopped him fast, resting my hand on his wrist. Garrett and Oakes had been close. His anger was understandable.
“Sir! The Penna are approaching!” one of the soldiers called out from the distance.
In a blur, we all grabbed our weapons and headed to the wall to face our ene
my.
Rigby asked me to stay while he and a small group of others met with the Penna.
“No.”
He frowned, but I knew that was the end of it. I was going.
I could sense that one of Rigby’s top priorities was to protect me, and when he didn’t feel like he was doing so well, it upset him. But now, I was just as much a part of this as he was.
“I wish you would not come,” Rigby snapped in one last desperate—yet futile—attempt at keeping me back.
“I know,” I replied. I also knew he didn’t actually expect me to remain back.
Side by side, we all carried bright torches, though the deepest part of the night had already passed and a new day would dawn soon. Our broad swords gleamed as they hung slung across our backs. Our snowmobiles gathered speed through the shifting valley of snow.
Rigby held his hand up and commanded all of his riders to stop. A shimmer of something loomed up ahead.
The Penna came on snowmobiles from the depths of the icy land. They were wary. The heavy armor they were coated in suggested it. In the distance, some of the enemy sat on their machines in front of many others, who hung back even further. The Cyan army never dishonored the diplomacy intended to discuss terms, but the Penna seemed nervous. Over the past month, many rumors had gone through the campgrounds about the Penna’s unfaltering nerve. People believed they were unstoppable, unwavering. That wasn’t what I saw tonight.
“They want to talk,” Rigby said to me.
“Do you think there are more we cannot see?” I asked. My snowmobile vibrated loudly beneath me as I spoke.
“No Penna would be foolish enough to venture out into the icy land without a powerful army. Well, except for the one sitting next to us,” Oakes muttered, coughing over his shoulder.
“Keep your words to yourself,” Rigby barked.
“Let me go with you. Let me go and talk to them,” I said, driving into Rigby’s path. Rigby looked up and faced me.
“You mean to talk sense into them? You really are mad…” Oakes said, sliding his hands down his cheeks.
Rigby turned his snowmobile so he could face his men. “Stay here and do not move until I give you a sign,” he demanded.
The men held back, watching.
The Penna drove until they were a hundred yards from their battalions, and paused. Rigby, Oakes, and I drove toward them. I recognized them instantly. One soldier was a man of considerable strength and poise. He was nearly twice the size of any man in our army, and had a loose, shoddy-looking cloth eye patch over one eye. No one knew why, and no one asked him about it. He didn’t speak much unless drunk. He carried a massive double-sided battle-axe no one else could even hoist. The other soldier by his side was almost the complete opposite—small, agile, loquacious, cunning. He had always preferred knives. Both men were deadly.
Oakes was a master of tongues and diplomacy—even if not with me. If there was any chance we would see the Penna leave without bloodshed, he would be the man to secure it.
“What do these men want? There are not enough of them for battle. They are outnumbered,” Rigby said.
Their snowmobiles moved together in perfect formation, as if the very machines were demanding we understand the gravity of this unexpected assembly.
“I have not dealt with them personally. But this is out of the ordinary. Is it not, Tudor?” Oakes asked.
“It is unlike the Penna to come only to discuss,” I agreed.
“Then why are we here? More importantly, why are they here?” Rigby asked.
The closer we moved to the solitary Penna, the stronger the pungent smell of death became. It was almost as if the Penna had splashed their bodies with the cloying scent of decay as if to convey that while they were willing to ‘talk,’ we need not forget they were better known for slaughter. The Penna were sending a message. An orange and violet hue spread as the first rays of sunlight bled over the desolate plain. A few feet before them sat a man on a machine with a crooked smile.
As we approached the Penna, they dismounted and stood there. This was not a typical arrangement. It was customary to always stay on their snowmobiles to discuss terms.
“Dismount,” their general ordered us. “We will talk.”
This didn’t sit well with me. I looked at Rigby for a moment, and could see he knew how I felt. He read me well and yet, when he dismounted, Oakes and I followed suit.
“We thought you dead, Tudor Dane.” The general took in my new appearance. “So the rumors are true. You are a traitor to us just as you were a traitor to your father.”
“Do you have our men?” Rigby interrupted. The general seemed surprised Rigby was so bold as to interrupt him.
The general nodded. “We do. We will gladly return them in exchange for Tudor. She is a traitor, and must be tried as such. Her fate is to be prosecuted, and hopefully, executed.”
“She goes nowhere with you,” Rigby responded.
“You know what we want. This woman does not belong with you. Keep her, and we’ll kill you slowly. But if you give Tudor to us, we’ll kill her and then the rest of your men, but quickly. We are merciful men, after all.” The Penna all chuckled at their general’s words. “Take your pick.” None of the Penna seemed worried about a reaction from Rigby, Oakes, or me.
“Talk is over. Walk away now, or taste the sharp end of my sword,” Rigby announced.
“Very well,” the general said. He came toward us with six other men in tow. It looked like a formation.
Oakes approached slightly ahead of Rigby and me. The general reached his hand out to grab Oakes in what appeared to be a friendly gesture.
I had known something was off from the moment the call that the Penna were here was given, and yet had kept as silent as possible as I did not command the Cyan army. I could feel my gut coiling, my instincts protesting as I watched Oakes reaching for the general’s hand. In that split second between their flesh meeting, seeing the other Penna’s hands clenching around the hilts of their swords, I screamed, "No!" My warning came too late.
The general’s hand clasped around Oakes’s and pulled him in close to ensnare him while he used his other hand to unleash his short, close-combat knife. He pierced through Oakes’s midsection and was out of the way just in time to dodge a fellow Penna soldier’s battle-axe coming down toward Oakes’s head, barely missing it.
“No!” I screamed again as total chaos ensued.
The other six Penna filed forward, forming a half oval around the general and raising their shields. They outnumbered us and yet we gave no quarter. Rigby peeled six throwing knives out from where they were strapped around his tunic, and deftly put four of them in the legs of one of the men. I charged forward and swung my sword with a centrifugal force so massive that it cleaved one man in half. His body falling caused another man to stumble and yet he managed to stay on his feet. Rigby sprang onto the man with knives in his legs, pushing a knife into his heart and twisting.
The general and his remaining four Penna mounted their snowmobiles and fled. Rigby sent two more knives whispering through the air, both landing in the back of one of the men. The man tumbled into the snow while his snowmobile surged into the icy vastness. Rigby pulled out the knives he’d planted in the bodies, and after wiping them off on his pants, he placed them back in the straps lining his tunic. I ran to Oakes as he gasped for breath, my sword still drawn. Rigby came to stand next to me, taking large breaths.
“Come on, Oakes. Don’t die,” I gently ordered the man who now laid in my lap. Oakes had been so cruel to me, and yet had shared his desire for feathers, and in his dying breaths, I could see a softness so long hidden under his rough façade.
Oakes’s stomach looked awful. Blood spurted with every beat of his heart. I saw his eyes drifting.
Rigby bent down and smacked his face. “Listen to the woman. Fight!”
I tried to comfort him as he went.
“Oakes. Oakes!” Rigby cried.
I rubbed Oakes’s hand, and he smirk
ed at Rigby. “I’ve never been good at following your orders,” he said between coughs.
“Well it’s about time you fucking learn!” Rigby almost pleaded rather than commanded. “Fight death just like you would fight any of those God damn Penna.”
I pressed my hand on the bleeding wound, doing my best to hinder the bleeding, but I knew he was losing too much blood. I had seen enough men die in battle to know that Oakes would soon die. And judging by the pain that washed over Rigby’s face, he too knew that death would be the end result.
Oakes reached down and pulled my bloody hand from his wound, allowing the blood to flow freely. He looked into my eyes and said, “I was wrong about you, Tudor. You have proven to every one of us that you are a soldier worth respecting. I am honored to have fought beside you.” He coughed, blood seeping out of the corners of his mouth. “I shouldn’t have been so hard,” he coughed again, “none of us should have been so hard.” He held my hand with whatever energy he surely had left in his body and squeezed. “But we all believe you are our dark feather sent here to lead the Cyan to victory. And Rigby…” He paused while he swallowed back the pool of blood forming in the back of his throat. “Fight beside Rigby. Protect him, help him, but mostly… love him.” When his fingers loosed his hold on my hand, I yanked a feather from my wrist and pressed it into his palm, closing his bloody fingers around it.
“I will, I give you my word.”
“I already feel warmer…” He smiled one last time, and the light faded from his eyes.
It wasn’t until then that I noticed I was surrounded by soldiers. Grief conquered each one. Unlike the Penna, these men were not ashamed to show their pain. They weren’t ashamed to cry and mourn someone they cared so deeply about. We had lost Oakes. We had all lost a respected soldier, and a friend.
“They wanted death,” Rigby said, his voice cracking with pain.
“They got it,” I replied. “They wanted to send a message that they know where we are.”
Defeated, Rigby picked up Oakes’s lifeless body and carried him back to our encampment, followed by every man who had once fought beside Oakes. Rigby placed him gently in the snow, sorrow blanketing his face and tears in his eyes.