by J. Kirsch
We were still alive, but it didn't seem we'd stay that way for long. The other two men were now leveling crossbows of their own. They'd converged on us, clearly deciding that Drake was the more desirable target. Their plan seemed a good one if it involved puncturing my husband and then beating me to death.
I grabbed the footstool at my feet and chucked it at the nearest assassin's head. He reacted instinctually, his aim deflecting to the side as the bolt shot harmlessly through the tent's wall to our right. The second man aimed his crossbow and fired at the same time that Drake dove to shield my body with his, and luckily his momentum carried us clear of the kill shot.
Then the vicious struggle really began. I rolled onto my back as Drake got up, took a lantern from the table where we'd eaten our dinner, and prepared to fend off all three assassins, each of them having discarded their used crossbow to draw a close combat weapon of choice. One killer gripped a hatchet while the other two killers brandished curved, unfriendly-looking swords.
Drake was a magnificent fighter, but right now he was a magnificent fighter in his birthday suit. I needed to jostle the odds more than a little.
With a diversionary shriek I grabbed my ruby-studded belt and charged at the man with the hatchet. He sneered at me, probably not too intimidated by a naked woman with nothing but a belt in her hand. Then again, he probably wasn't aware of the throwing knives attached to that belt. I was having a hard time learning to train with throwing knives, and making me wear them at all times had been Drake's way of getting me to practice. I think he'd enjoyed it almost as much as me when we'd seen his mother's reaction to the scandalous idea of me wearing them at our wedding.
Looks like I would be getting some practice I hadn't bargained for.
I flew ahead like a banshee, my wrists flicking as I prayed that my flawed skills would be enough. The assassin didn't see the flash of the first knife in the moonlight and so he never tried to duck the blade that plunged between his ribs. He lurched forward with a painful grunt as my second knife caught him just below the sternum.
At the same time I was dimly aware of Drake's dance with shadows who moved, grunted, and then bellowed in dismay. One man dropped, disarmed and with an arm bent at an angle no man's bones should ever imitate. I heard his gurgled cry as the Black Knight ran him through with his own sword. Drake then dodged a thrust from the other sword-toting assassin as I emptied the rest of my knives his way, their veering arcs distracting him just long enough for Drake to outmaneuver him with a slice across the abdomen. There was a terrible cry, followed by a pitiable moan as an awful stench filled the tent.
By now we weren't thinking. Just moving. I doubted that my wedding gown would be the most practical armor and I didn't know how many other assassins might be waiting out there to make sure their friends had finished their task. So I just crouched low, still naked as a nymph, and retrieved two of my throwing knives from the first fallen killer. Then I tried to meet Drake's gaze so that we could agree on where to go from here.
The only problem was that our lantern had been destroyed in the struggle and everything was pitch black.
I didn’t risk making a sound, not even a whisper. Drake had the same idea, but I felt his hand snag my wrist in the darkness and give it a tug.
After a few more heartbeats, with only the forest's sounds echoing around us, I heard his voice.
"Naji, are you hurt?"
It was probably stupid, but I lowered my arms as he enclosed me in a fierce embrace. His hands roamed across my face, shoulders, and back searching for wounds that luckily weren't there. My breasts felt the warmth of his chest, and it was all I could do to rip away and hiss at him. The arousal coiling though me was anything but helpful, and I cursed my traitorous body.
"I'm fine! Now let's focus!" I looked left and right. Beyond the beckoning tent flap the world seemed peaceful. So why were the hairs on the back of my neck giving the moon such an erect salute?
"Did you see that?"
"See what?" I asked.
"Those attackers were ambassadors," Drake said, fury rising in his voice. "I'll have the Knights who sent them regret the day they were born."
"I'm pretty sure that's an overused threat," I mumbled. "And besides, what's our exit strategy?"
Just then we heard movement coming from all sides of the tent. Skin prickled up and down my body, and I realized that so far all we'd done was give ourselves a little extra breathing room in which to die.
Chapter 11
I listened carefully for the footfalls of several, possibly a dozen men who meant to kill us. Perhaps I should have panicked, but right now the only distracting emotion I felt was anger. Anger that these men thought that they could murder two people in cold blood. I glanced at Drake, and luckily my husband hadn't been wasting time.
Underneath the bed lay Drake's great-sword with its lifelike dragon coiled around the hilt's bottom. Its gaping mouth seemed ready to spew acid or flame, and as Drake drew the weapon with a flourish it seemed as if the dragon might spread its wings and animate.
A man with a great-sword is a danger to anyone around him, and this weapon wasn't of ordinary make. It was one of the Black Knight's artifacts of power, a one of a kind magical item which Drake had inherited from a line of ancestors going back nearly 250 years.
Of all the Black Knight's enchanted objects, this was the only one which Drake always kept close, and now it was a good thing because it gave us a fighting chance. I was a weapon of sorts too, and I planned to give the odds an extra nudge in our favor.
The would-be murders outside must have gotten impatient because suddenly a deadly barrage of bolts punched through the tent at a variety of angles. I ducked low, my hands yanking Drake by the ankles to force him down to my level. He dropped the sword, losing his grip and cursing under his breath. I'd accidentally disarmed him, but that seemed a whole lot better than watching him become a human pincushion.
We pressed our bodies flat and kept our breathing quiet. For a few moments the harmless creatures of the night reasserted their dominance. The chirping of cicadas taunted us with a normalcy I knew was false.
Then the people trying to kill us made their next move. A column of shapes hurtled through the entryway. Four men ducked through the tent flap before Drake could react, but I slowed them down when the first throwing knife shot from the catapult that had become my arm, and it buried hilt-deep in one assassin's unfortunate eye.
I doubted he would ever enjoy reading a good book again. Definitely a fate he deserved.
The second knife slid from my fingers like an extension of my body. I knew before my eyes saw that it would find prone flesh. I wish I could've called it skill, but it was more luck which had the blade sinking into his neck. He stumbled, gurgling as he slumped over and looked down at his life seeping away.
The two unscathed killers split up and tried to avoid Drake's swipe with his head-seeking great-sword. The assassin whose eye I'd skewered was still clutching his eye socket and screaming when Drake lopped off his head as an accidental bonus. One of the two other assassins managed to duck underneath the swing, but his nearby partner wasn't so fortunate. Blood fountained as the great-sword nearly cut him in half.
I still had better things to do than gape at the gory spectacle, though, and my hands were already scrabbling for the fallen hatchet of the man I'd killed.
I saw the lone remaining assassin lunge at Drake with a short blade. The thrust should have gone through my husband's kidneys. Would have if Drake's sword had been just a sword. But the Black Knight was not just a man, and his fingers weren't gripping just any sword hilt. Heavy though a great-sword should have been, in Drake's fists the enchanted weapon became featherlight and moved like the nosedive of a falcon. It was hard not to be mesmerized by the way Drake reversed the blade to block the assassin's thrust. He made it look effortless. Even sexy.
In the faint shard of moonlight I saw the assassin's form, which was much larger than his recently slain friends. He sidestepped, b
arely avoiding a slash from Drake that would have spilled his guts.
"You can't win, Brother." At those words all combat froze. Drake and I turned to see two men still wearing their ornamental doublets from our wedding ceremony. They stepped into our spacious wedding tent as if they were healers making a house call. One of the main differences I noticed, though, were the seven additional assassins in ghostly camouflage who had surrounded us while we were distracted fending off the others.
I recognized Ecthor's voice first. Ecthor was the older of Drake's two brothers. His eyes were the color of amber, and in them I saw the unmistakable intent to kill. Why? I thought. Of all the sick and twisted things…Kingdom's mercy! Fraey stood beside him like a loyal twin, and though I saw a spark of regret in his face, I knew it wouldn't be enough.
The slender, slightly feminine face of Ecthor would have been pretty if it hadn't been contorted by so much hate. He and the other assassins raised crossbows in unison, proving that even heroic resistance can't get you out of every situation. Enchanted swords were great, but Drake was not a god and I certainly wasn't a goddess. At point blank range I wasn't optimistic about our chances, but I preferred to be productive and die trying. I snarled and prepared to get skewered while at least charging the despicable pigs who'd betrayed their own brother. The thought somehow haunted me—What if their betrayal was because of me?
I imagined how it would feel, those crossbow bolts carving a hole through my stomach. Maybe shredding my lungs. I prepared to feel pain in amounts I'd never known. But a curious thing happened. A surprised look painted Ecthor's face and Fraey's in two shades of puzzlement, and my jaw dropped when I saw each one fall clutching at a mortal wound. Bronwyn was standing behind them, now discarding two spent crossbows from her outstretched hands like a kitchen maid dispensing dirty dishrags. She efficiently unslung a third loaded crossbow from her shoulder, aimed, and fired.
While Ecthor and Fraey began the undignified process of bleeding out, one of the startled assassins went down with Bronwyn's third bolt tunneling through his chest. That seemed to cow the rest, including the broad-shouldered assassin whose blood Drake had tried to use for redecorating the tent moments earlier.
Mr. Broad Shoulders raised his hands high, his weapon gripped nonthreateningly.
"We surrender, lord. We put ourselves at your mercy."
The man knelt, tossing his weapon out of reach to prove his intent.
Bronwyn walked over to the two mortally wounded princes. She looked down at Ecthor and gave him a nudge with her foot. If I hadn't known better, I would've thought I saw a grin light up her face at the sound of Ecthor's agonized groan. Who knew my friend was also a bit of a sadist?
"Next time you try to assassinate a Knight and his Queen you might want to wear body armor. Just a suggestion," Bronwyn purred.
I doubted these men had planned on a female stable master violently interrupting their well-choreographed assassination. I looked at the young woman who called me her best friend, and the feeling was definitely mutual. If it wasn't before, it was now, as sure as rain was wet.
Drake approached the prone assassin who seemed to be their voluntary spokesperson. He rested the edge of the great-sword across the big assassin's throat and forced his head back until he had to strain to keep his neck from being sliced open.
There was something unreal in seeing my naked husband, his pectorals smeared in blood not his own, holding a weapon to a fully clothed man and demanding answers. My hand still clenched around my hatchet in a death grip. I watched, ready to brain any of the other six assassins if they so much as twitched in my direction. Wisely they followed their leader's example.
"Do you have a name, friend?" Drake's tone was deceptively casual, and he said the word 'friend' like it reeked of horse manure.
"I am Sawuli."
I could see Drake's eyes dart to his brothers, but only for a moment. The desire to pin them down and demand answers must have been savage, but the assassins were still the main threat. My husband kept his attention doggedly on them. An unarmed enemy is not a defeated enemy. He'd told me that in training often enough, usually after I'd disarmed him and still lost the match.
"Naji, go fetch Lady Vaela. We'll need her healing skills to keep those wretches from bleeding out."
What part of 'I'm naked' don't you understand? That's what I wanted to yell at the idiot who was my husband, but I realized that his priority right now was getting me to safety. He wasn't sure that the assassins here wouldn't have a change of heart, and he was willing to risk Bronwyn over me.
I couldn't blame him for that train of thought, but…actually yes, I could. It didn't sit well, the idea of my best friend's life being put in danger when it seemed more appropriate for me to stand by my husband's side. But that was an argument we'd hash out at a later time. Besides, his nakedness would've been too distracting at the moment to have that conversation anyway.
I leapt over to Bronwyn and gave her a bone-crushing hug. "Thank you for saving us." Bronwyn squeezed me back and kissed my cheek.
"Shush. You're a Queen now, remember? Saying 'Thank you' is unbecoming. Now go! Find Lady Vaela and the castle guards."
I vanished into the night like a memory. At least that's how I romantically pictured it as I leapt onto Bronwyn's horse and gave it a hard nudge in what I hoped was horse speech for 'Move like the wind!'
The beast obeyed me easily enough, and we began the climb up the steadily sloping field toward the Black Knight's stronghold. The stretch of field here was a finger between two patches of dense forest. The idea at the time had been to have the wedding ceremony surrounded by the musical rustle of the leaves, but now the tall shadows just looked ominous and added urgency to my aching limbs.
I stared straight ahead, focused on the vigilant glow of the fires along the castle's ramparts. They'd never looked so welcoming. I mentally groaned at the bedraggled sight I was about to present to the Captain of the Watch. Turdrin was a stoic, very proper soldier. The sight of his new Queen covered in assassin's blood and not much else would give him more than a little indigestion. I should have been worrying more about my surroundings, though, and less about how quickly Lady Vaela could be roused from a sound sleep. A creature abruptly came crashing from the trees like an avalanche.
It was one thing to hear of ogres in tall tales, but quite another to have one lumbering towards you at the speed of an arrow. I fell off the horse, my shriek cut short as a large hand gripped me by the throat, lifting me high. Moonbeams threw my face, chest, and extremities in a wash of pale light, but the shadows of the tall trees still hid my attacker's face.
Only by his height did I make the guess that he was an ogre, and when he leaned forward he erased all doubt. The ogre's handsome faces—yes, ogres had two heads as reliably as humans sported two arms or legs—peered at me intensely.
Both those faces were handsome, and the ogre's build was massive but otherwise just as glorious as any masculine physique I'd been told about as a child listening to my maid's far-fetched stories.
Both sets of eyes were a deep red. Just a point of fact, it's very hard to pull off red eyes without looking creepy, and this ogre was no more fortunate.
The creature's intense gaze made goose bumps ripple up and down my arms and even ripple across my breasts. My eyes must have been the size of moons, and fear was throttling me every bit as much as his massive hand. My own tiny hands and fingers were gripping the ogre's wrist, trying desperately to get him to loosen his hold. Each hard-fought lungful of breath came back out as a wheeze.
This was it. I was about to die. I didn't know much about ogres, but what I did know was that they weren't happy-go-lucky creatures. They didn't have a soft spot for humans, and if anything they disliked humans even more than trolls did.
I nearly soiled myself when one of the heads spoke.
"You must be Queen Najika, one of the two we were supposed to kill if you escaped your tent." The ogre said this so matter-of-factly it took my breath away. I p
robably made an odd face, because the ogre continued as if I'd offended him.
"What? You think that because your ridiculous myths depict us as savage brutes that it must mean we're dumber than a broken church bell?"
The second head interrupted his counterpart. "Najika, we have two brains to your one. Do the math. Does it make sense for us to be dumber than humans? Now we may not be twice as smart either, but we are your equal and more. Don't forget it."
I managed to speak as his hands relaxed around my throat. "Does this mean you won't kill me?"
The ogre heads gave me a puzzled look, and I realized that something had been lost in translation.
"Kahg doesn't understand." The head calling itself 'Kahg' looked over to the nearly identical and equally handsome head.
"Hahg also doesn't understand the human's point. We have been ordered to kill the Black Knight and his Queen if they should escape the death trap at their wedding tent. In killing you, we accomplish half our duty. What part of that involves you still breathing, woman?"
My mind was reeling. If the two ogre heads didn't kill me physically, they might frustrate me to death.
"Why talk to me if you are just going to kill me?" I cried.
Hahg snorted. "Because, silly human, it is always worthwhile to teach and instruct. This is the ogre way. Is that not right, Kahg?"
Kahg nodded solemnly. "An ogre is constantly learning from himself, and so it is right and good that he pass information on to others. Even those he is about to kill."
"Wait!" I begged. "Before you kill me you should know that the two men who planned this assassination are wounded and dying even now. Prince Ecthor and Prince Fraey have been captured and their assassins are either dead or held captive as we speak. There is no need to kill me. The conspiracy has failed. It's over."
Kahg and Hahg exchanged a conspiratorial glance. "Those two princes were just pawns, Najika. You and your husband have thwarted nothing. We still have no reason to let you live."