Her eyes were on me. She was a long ways off but I had seen that look on her face before, and I knew what it meant.
I took a breath, staring at her as I did so.
“People of Inverham, you honor me with your presence.”
“What’s that? Speak up!”
I scowled at a face in the crowd. Thane’s face. Burro stood beside him, his eyes worried, darting everywhere.
I bowed to the crowd and spread my hands wide. “This is perhaps more attention than I have ever received in my lifetime. Forgive me if I revel in these final few minutes.”
I looked over the crowd. “You’re well represented today. First and foremost by the army.” I gestured to the bowmen on the scaffold platform. “Your new masters, or so they would have you believe.
“And I see a few Nobles have survived,” I added. “Though only very, very minor ones.” The crowd jeered.
“I think I see… Yes, that is the Order of The Glove at the back of the crowd.” A small but mighty cheer erupted at the edge of the mob.
“But my final words are not for these, not any of these.” I paused. “My words are for…the streetslag.” With these words, I raised my voice and my arms, and the mob responded with devilish howls of approval, pleased with this recognition and acknowledgement. The captain beside me frowned as his hand moved to his hilt and I guessed I wouldn’t have much more time. The brown balls, the purpose of which I could not guess, bobbed back and forth in front of the platform.
“The streetslag,” I repeated. “The streetslag who think themselves as good as other men, and equal to the nobility. The streetslag who would not be—could not be, refused to be—ruled by other than by themselves. Well, I am the last in the Noble House of Gunnar,” I roared. “Let me leave you with one last ruling, which is within my power and my right!
“Let me grant you your freedom! The freedom to rule yourselves!”
And then I realized—as every streetslag arm was raised—that every fist in the mob was gloved. Every motherfucking fist!
Many things happened at once. The crowd surged and roared. The balls were not leather as I had supposed them to be. They were iron balls, their rust brown surfaces closed with latches. Unlatched and thrown into the armed bowmen, they spilled liquid fire onto the soldiers. Nobguards screamed as sticky fire caught their clothing alight.
And I stood staring.
The formula for liquid fire was—and is—a closely guarded secret in every society. A powerful and dangerous weapon, kings and generals alone know the recipe. Men have been killed for only pretending they might know the formula. I gaped as the thick, cindery smoke burned my nose. This, then, was the recipe Spark had from her grandmother.
Whit was suddenly beside me. “Jump!” he screamed as he threw himself into the crowd.
Thane pushed me from behind and I jumped.
My instinct was to jump feet first, which was a bit of a mistake. Whit and Thane threw themselves, literally flat out on the crowd. Hands reached out of the packed humanity to catch them, passing them hand-to-hand over their shoulders. Me, they had to pull back up over their heads so they could send me on my way to the back of the crowd. It was a bumpy ride with lots of dips and rises, but as I was passed away from the scaffold I watched the wooden structure wobble and lift, then tip under the rising power of the mob’s shoulders. I watched it slope and tilt as the hated nobguards slid into the crowd and disappeared.
Nearing the edge of the crowd, I fought to my feet. Fought for the right to take the last several steps toward her. I looked for the horse large in the crowd, looked for her face, and the look on her face—confirmed that it meant what I thought it had. I let out a breath of knee-buckling relief and hope, because I had seen that look before.
It was the same way she looked at our son.
Epilogue
Tor
I won’t tell you there haven’t been problems getting our little democracy off the ground, up and running. But we have a good template to go by, Thrall being just to the south and west. A number of men died that day—the day of my execution—instead of me, as the nobguard army rushed into the square. But Spark had planned on that eventuality. The battle went well.
Spark led our fledgling parliament for the first five years, then Thane had a go at it. Whit’s running for the next choosing and stands a good chance of winning.
These days I do most of the cooking. It’s a great joke in our family that Spark’s cooking is a shade on the hot side. But her grandmother’s recipes have come in handy over the years. She’s not told me about her grandmother—yet. But I have my theories.
As I mentioned, you’d almost have to be a king or general to know how to formulate liquid fire. And it’s common knowledge that Chay was originally from the Yute Peninsula. That was before she helped push back the Maydayn Invasion and became Thrall’s greatest general. And Chay was blonde, as are most northern Yutes—as is my wife.
Spark’s recipe was particularly useful the winter the Vandals attacked. Coming from the west, they hit the islands first. I’ve never understood how Whit managed to get himself and his family out of there alive. I suppose he kept himself going so he could bring us the warning.
He came out of the war a hero and has a house in the city. It’s a handsome home, newly constructed out of gray stone—the same gray stone that once formed the highwall and separated our worlds. We are one now, as a people, though Spark and Whit still argue—but the two women are friends and our children get along.
Burro has grown to a young man and rides every day with my children. Both of my daughters are in love with him so I expect that means he turned out handsome. I don’t know. As a man, I’d be a poor judge on the matter. Sometimes I wonder if he hasn’t a little of the Slurian in him—it might explain his inability to talk. The Slurians were a race of mutes who could sense others’ emotions. That might explain how he led us to the stables when Spark was attacked. It might also explain why he never gave up on us—Spark and I—even when we’d given up on each other. Perhaps he alone knew that we’d never stopped loving each other.
I hadn’t lied. I never lied to her. I had loved her from the moment I first saw her in the street that day, as I stood with Whit—and I told her so. It was the first thing I told her. Why should she find that hard to believe? She’s the most beautiful woman on The Peninsula.
Yes, I told my brother she was a good fuck. It was true enough. And I was keen he shouldn’t know what she meant to me. I won’t apologize for that.
Did I ever say she was just a good fuck?
No. Never.
That was Neels’ voice she heard.
But then, I’ve been told our voices were very similar.
About the Author
I slung the heavy battery pack around my hips and cinched it tight—or tried to.
“Damn.” Brian grabbed an awl. Leaning over me, he forged a new hole in the too-big belt.
“Any advice?” I asked him as I pulled the belt tight.
“Yeah. Don’t reach for the ore cart until it starts moving, then jump on the back and immediately duck your head. The voltage in the overhead cable won’t just kill you. It’ll blow you apart.”
That was my first day on my first job. Employed as an engineer, I’ve worked in an underground mine that went up—inside a mountain. I’ve swung over the Ohio River in a tiny cage suspended from a crane in the middle of an electrical storm. I’ve hung over the Hudson River at midnight in an aluminum boat—30 foot in the air—suspended from a floating barge at the height of a blizzard, while snowplows on the bridge overhead rained slush and salt down on my shoulders. You can’t do this sort of work without developing a sense of humor, and a sense of adventure.
New to publishing, I read my first romance two years ago and started writing. Both my reading and writing habits are subject to mood and I usually have several stories going at once. When I need a really good idea for a story, I clean toilets. Now there’s an activity that engenders escapism.
&
nbsp; I was surveying when I met my husband. He was my ‘rod man’. While I was trying to get my crosshairs on his stadia rod, he dropped his pants and mooned me. Next thing I know, I’ve got the backside of paradise in my viewfinder. So I grabbed the walkie-talkie. “That’s real nice,” I told him, “but would you please turn around? I’d rather see the other side.”
…it was love at first sight.
Madison welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at 1056 Home Ave., Akron OH 44310.
Also available from Madison Hayes
Dye’s Kingdom: Wanting It Forever
Enter the Dragon anthology
Gryffin Strain: His Female
Kingdom of Khal: Redeeming Davik
Miss February
Zeke’s Hands
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Kingdom of Yute: Tor's Betrayal Page 10