by Shae Ford
Gilderick snapped his fingers, and the Fallows took off. They charged in a horde for the front gates. Thelred waited until they’d gone before he dragged himself to D’Mere.
Over bodies, across stone, through slick blood until he reached her. He pulled her head from the floor; he wiped the red from her face with his sleeve. Thelred stared into her eyes, not entirely certain of what he expected to see — but he knew he hadn’t been expecting to feel their emptiness reflected inside his chest …
Or the quiet snap of something deep within him breaking.
“D’Mere?” he whispered.
Her eyes widened at the sound of his voice. “Thel … red?”
“Yes, I’m here. What do I need to do? How do I stop Gilderick?”
Her lips moved, but he couldn’t make out what she said. Thelred had to lean over her before he could hear the whispered words:
“Get … the torch …”
Thelred followed her glare to the sconces upon the wall, where the torches sputtered weakly.
“The … arrow …” One of her bloodied hands twisted into his tunic. Her eyes sharpened behind the film of her pain. “The bridge …”
All at once, Thelred understood: the mop and bucket, the rag coated in resin …
“Burn the bridge. You’ve rigged it to burn.” He gripped her hand when she nodded. “I’ll do it. I swear I’ll burn Gilderick alive.”
Her eyes fell shut, then. Thelred had to bare his teeth against a sudden swell of pain — a pain that crashed against his wounds and threatened to drag him under. She was leaving him. He could already feel the cold stirring in the tips of her fingers …
And he couldn’t bear to watch.
“I hope you find him, Olivia. I hope to Fate you’ll cross.” He pressed his lips against hers and set her body down gently. After a heavy breath, he dragged himself to his feet.
Thelred limped to the sconces first and grabbed a torch from the wall. Then he began the long journey up the stairs.
He used his sword for a cane and leaned heavily upon the banisters, holding the torch out beside him. His ribs stabbed so mercilessly that he was out of breath by the time he reached Right’s bow.
There was still an arrow nocked onto its string: a single bolt with its head bound in rag. Thelred slung the bow over his shoulder and kept the arrow clenched between his teeth as he fought his way up the stairs.
Every step was a battle — a race against the grains’ fall from the glass. He had to reach the ramparts before Gilderick’s army made it across the bridge. He had to stop them. Pain shook his leg; his vision was more black than color. But he forced himself on.
Morning light drenched his flesh as he pushed through the door to the castle’s roof. It washed down his neck, warmed his skin, dulled the pain. The bodies scattered across the bridge were slowing the Fallows’ escape. They moved clumsily, tripping over limbs and flopping onto the ground. They hadn’t managed to go very far. He could hear Gilderick shrieking at them:
“Move, you worthless corpses! Step around it. Don’t try to —”
A giant tripped on the body of a soldier and flipped over the rails. He landed with a heavy plunk into the waves below — drawing a fresh round of curses from Gilderick.
Thelred didn’t know why he was so desperate, at first. He followed the line of Fallows’ deadened eyes and his heart lurched when saw a fleet of boats moving towards the island. They were mostly fishing boats — and rickety ones, at that. He could practically hear them groaning against every wave that struck their sides. But from the bow of the lead ship came a familiar cry.
Eveningwing burst from the deck and swooped towards him, screeching — and the noise must’ve caught Gilderick’s attention.
“Look — on the ramparts! Kill him! Bring him down!”
Thelred’s blood froze when every last deadened eye turned upon him. The Fallows scooped up whatever they could find to throw while Thelred tried desperately to light his arrow. The ships were still a ways out. Gilderick would be gone by the time they reached land. Thelred couldn’t let him escape.
Eveningwing was coming closer, oblivious to the danger. Thelred’s arms shook as he drew the arrow back. His ribs screamed in agony. His leg, blast his leg! It trembled with such fury that he more leaned against the wall than stood.
Objects flew past him: spears, swords, and rubble. A chunk of rock struck him hard in the shoulder, jolting him. But he forced himself to stand. He would not move. He would not be shaken. He was going to end Gilderick. He would end him for the Kingdom’s sake …
… and for Olivia.
CHAPTER 41
A Month in the Brig
“I’m going as fast as I can, Captain!” Shamus insisted. He gripped the wheel and swore at the sails. They fluttered against the push of a weak breeze — hardly enough to move them a length. “There’s no blasted wind today! I can’t do aught without the wind!”
“Keep trying!” Lysander barked.
He was pressed in at the front of the helm, half his body stretched over the rails and his eyes locked upon the madness at the chancellor’s castle. The pirates and the wildmen were clustered at the bow in a knot that might’ve flipped a lesser ship. But Anchorgloam’s weight held her down — and far more than Lysander would’ve liked.
“What is it? What do you see? Blast it all,” he muttered when Eveningwing screeched back. He twisted to Silas, who was crammed in beside him. “Can you understand what he’s saying?”
“I do not speak bird,” was his hissing reply. He closed his glowing eyes, and his head tilted back. “Perhaps if the sun wasn’t blinding me, I could see more. But I smell …” His nostrils flared widely. “I smell … blood.”
“Blood?”
Lysander straightened so suddenly that he nearly lost his balance. He might very well have tumbled overboard, had Gwen not grabbed him by the belt. “Human blood?” she asked as she righted him.
“Yes, and a great deal of it.”
Lysander spun to Shamus, his hair standing up like a madman’s. “Hurry! Can’t you move any faster?”
“I can’t give any more than the wind gives me!”
“Perhaps what we need is a bit of music to —”
“No!”
Jonathan stuffed his fiddle away quickly at the noise of their collective roar. “All right, fine. No need to shout. I just thought a song might lighten things up a bit.”
Lysander looked about to reply when a cloud drifted over the sun, blocking its light. Silas’s glowing eyes cut across the bridge. “There’s an army — they’re running for the castle gates.”
Lysander’s face went white. “Do you see anyone else? Anyone in the castle?”
“I don’t — wait a moment.” Silas moved down the railing, shooing Lysander out of his way. Gwen stuck close behind him. “Look! I see someone.”
They followed the line of his finger to the lone man upon the castle. His shoulders were just visible over the top of the wall. With the sun blocked, it was too dark to see anything else about him. He was nothing more than a shadow.
“He carries something … I can’t tell what it is. The men on the bridge are throwing things at him. They are trying to knock him down,” Silas said, his chin cutting away. “He’ll be killed if he keeps showing his head.
Eveningwing’s screeches came in sharp, panicked bursts — growing fainter as he beat his way towards the castle.
A ghostly white overtook Lysander’s features. His words seemed stuck inside his throat.
A second later, Silas pointed again. “A bow! That’s what the man carries.” His head swung around to Gwen. “Why would an army fear an arrow?”
She didn’t get a chance to answer. The moment the man drew the bow above his head, Lysander cried: “I know that draw! Thelred — get down! Get down, you fool!”
He yelled, he beat his fists against the railings. The pirates crushed in at the bow and lent their voices to his cries. But no matter how they screamed at him, Thelred didn’t duck. H
e held his ground and loosed a single bolt down upon the army.
And all at once, the bridge exploded.
A burst of orange-blue flame engulfed it with a roar that shook the air between them. The fires devoured everything. Flaming bodies spilled from the bridge. In a matter of seconds, the whole thing buckled and collapsed — dragging what was left of the army down with it.
But though the noise shook their tallest mast, Lysander hardly glanced at the flames. He grabbed Silas roughly by the back of his shirt. “What happened? Where’s Thelred? Do you see him?”
“The smoke is too thick — I’m trying!” he yowled, when Lysander snatched the top of his hair.
Gwen finally had to pull him away, but the captain wouldn’t be calmed.
“Go faster! Tilt the sails, trap every last gust of wind.”
Though his voice broke across his orders, the pirates had never moved faster. They scrambled to their work.
By the time they reached the castle, Lysander looked near to splitting. He leapt from the rails and into the choppy water below. He hauled his dripping body up the rocks and scrambled through the castle’s front gates.
“Hold on, Captain — wait for us! You don’t know what’s in there,” Shamus yelled. But Lysander didn’t stop. He disappeared into the thick black smoke that trailed from the ruins, moving at a dead sprint.
Shamus signaled for the rest of the boats to make their way to the village before addressing the crew. “I just need a couple of men to row — the rest of you wait here. I don’t know what we’ll find in there, but it could be trouble. Bring some of your people along,” he said to Gwen. “Just in case things get thick.”
By the time they’d made it through the front door, Lysander was nowhere in sight. The once-grand room in the middle of the castle was destroyed: its chairs broken, its tables smashed. Bodies and gore littered the cobblestone.
Gwen glared around the wreckage, eyes sharp behind her paint. “What in Fate’s name happened?” she whispered after a moment.
“I’m not sure, my Thane.” Silas crouched before one of the bodies and jabbed its head with his fingers. “These men have the look of those long-dead, but not the smell of them. It’s strange.”
Shamus knew full well what these men were — and more troubling than that, he knew who they belonged to. No amount of grog could’ve drowned the memories of the Endless Plains. There was a darkness in Gilderick’s realm the likes of which he’d never seen.
Now, that darkness had found its way here. Why? He wasn’t sure. But just the thought of it chilled him.
“Search the chambers,” Gwen said quietly. “See if anyone survived.”
A handful of wildmen peeled off to follow Silas. They stayed close together as they went, and their legs carried them stiffly.
There was an arc of bodies upon the grand room floors. They were mostly those dead-looking fellows, though they found one that was crushed beyond telling — and another that chilled Shamus again.
“Tide take me,” he whispered.
He was careful as he pulled the body of a woman off the floor. The woman’s head was smashed, her golden-brown waves stained with red, her features frozen in the soft embrace of death.
Still, Shamus could hardly breathe. “Countess D’Mere?”
Gwen crouched beside him. “I’m sorry. Was she your friend?”
“No, I didn’t know her well.” He pressed two fingers against her neck, but only the cold answered him. “It’s just strange, is all — to see someone you knew sprawled out like this. No matter who they were in life, you can’t help but feel a bit … sorry for them, in death.”
Gwen reached over and closed D’Mere’s eyes, her mouth drawn tightly. “Come on, shipbuilder. Let’s find the captain.”
Before they’d even made it out the rampart doors, they heard Lysander yelling:
“You should’ve listened to me, Red! I told you to bloody well duck. I told you to get down. You followed my orders every day for eight years — you never once ignored me. And this is the day you chose to turn. You should have listened!”
Those last words came out as a scream — a cry that broke across the waves and sent Shamus into a run. Gwen followed so closely behind that she nearly flattened him when he stopped.
Thelred lay still in Lysander’s arms. A gash split the front of his head and spilled down his face. It blackened at his eyes, as if they’d been sealed shut by the gore. A bloodied spear lay beside him — its head matched the hole in the top of his shoulder. The wooden leg was shattered, nothing more than a handful of splinters at the base of his knee.
His clothes were torn; his flesh was bruised and swollen. Lysander screamed at him, but his face stayed fixed, and still.
Horribly, terribly still …
“Oh, Fate,” Shamus whispered. “I’m sorry, Captain. I’m so sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?” Lysander snapped. His eyes burned and veins bulged from his neck. “He can hear me. He knows what I’m saying — don’t you, Red? You’re in an under-realm’s worth of trouble.”
“Captain, he can’t —”
“Shut up!” Lysander cried. He held Thelred tighter as Shamus crouched, as if he feared his body would be taken away. “You don’t know him like I do. You don’t know anything at all.”
He was right about that. Shamus had no clue what to say. When he looked to Gwen for help, he saw she’d wandered off. Eveningwing was perched upon the rampart walls. His eyes were squinched at their bottoms and his feathers ruffled miserably. He stepped onto Gwen’s arm when she offered, and she carried him away.
It was probably for the best. Shamus didn’t think a young fellow should have to see a thing like this.
“You should’ve listened,” Lysander moaned again. His voice climbed when he pressed his face into Thelred’s bloodied hair. “You should have listened to me, you idiot! Now you’ve given me no choice — I’m going to lock you in the brig for a month! Do you hear me, Red? A month!”
He’d turned the corner, now. Shamus knew if he didn’t do something quick, the captain would drive himself mad. He’d reached to pull him away when a hand rose between them. It was bloodstained and bruised; it trembled as it held up its fingers.
And then a voice rasped:
“Two … weeks …”
Shamus nearly fell backwards when Thelred opened his eyes. “Seas and serpents!”
“I told you,” Lysander said as his glare melted into to relief. “I told you he could hear me. He was just trying to knock a little time off his punishment … and it worked.” He laughed and clutched Thelred’s hand tightly. “Fine — two weeks.”
*******
There’d been more to the castle siege than they realized. Thelred talked the whole trip to the village, but Shamus still didn’t understand it. Countess D’Mere, Lord Gilderick, and Midlan had collided — all over some sort of poison. The army that went down with the bridge was Gilderick’s. Thelred swore they’d all been killed: either by fire or sea.
But almost all of the bodies strewn throughout the village belonged to Midlan.
“Tide take me,” Shamus said again at the sight of the battle.
Corpses clad in gold-tinged armor were scattered across the street and all along the alleyways. They coated the shop floors. It looked as if a stormwind had burst from the skies and torn them all to pieces. Midlan lay scattered and broken around them.
The pirates and fisherfolk had begun piling the bodies up to burn. But the wildmen’s arrival sped things up — well, mostly. The craftsmen seemed taken with the armor’s color, and reluctant to toss it away.
“This is good steel. We could make all sorts of things out of this,” one of them said, as he crushed a gauntlet with his bare hands. The metal crumpled between his fingers like parchment. He passed a grin around the others. “We should keep some of it — just in case.”
Lysander frowned at them. “You already have rocks from the Valley, and all of those blasted shells you found in Harborville. Th
ere’s no way you’ll be able to make something out of all of it.”
“They can keep whatever they can carry,” Gwen said, waving a hand at them. “Those are the rules.”
Shamus watched in amazement as the craftsmen went about gleefully packing things into the warriors’ rucksacks — crushing whole plates of armor into balls to make them fit. “They’ll be dragging their boots, trying to haul all of those bits and baubles around.”
The swirling lines of Gwen’s paint creased together with her sharp grin. “My warriors will run out of space before they run out of strength.”
There wasn’t a true healer among them, but one of the fisherfolk knew enough about herbs and stitching to patch Thelred up. The worst mark on him was the gash across his face — but, thanks to a few tankards of pirate grog, Thelred didn’t seem to feel a thing.
“Do you remember Greenblood?” he said, his words already getting a bit slurred.
Lysander had gotten a tankard of his own — in what he’d sworn was merely a showing of moral support. Now, he nearly choked on his laugh. “Of course I remember! It took us weeks to find a route through all of those bothersome islands. There were supposed to be mountains of gold locked up inside their middle.”
“Never saw so much as a glittering speck,” Thelred lamented. His chin fell to his chest — and the sudden jerk snapped the fisherman’s needle from his string.
“Stop fidgeting,” he grunted as he tied it on again.
“But we found something far better, didn’t we?” Lysander said with a grin.
Jonathan — who’d very quickly insisted that two moral supporters were far better than one — swung up from his tankard in interest. “What was it?”
“The biggest cellar we’ve ever seen! Shelves upon shelves of dark, dusty bottles just waiting to be cracked.” Thelred swooped an arm out to the side in a gesture that toppled him over — and broke the string again.