by Amy Hopkins
The trees ended a short trek from Tahn. The distant glow of light rose above above the crooked wall that had been damaged during the battle and apparently not yet repaired.
Arnold risked a few words. “Where are we entering, Sir?”
Lawson briskly gestured for him to be quiet and Arnold winced. He would be punished for that later, he was sure. So, he shut his mouth, kept his head down, and followed his sergeant along the tree line once the lights had dwindled.
The two men cut across a field as the moon dipped behind a cloud, sticky mud sucking at their boots as they raced with the shadows. The easy run they had expected took far longer than Lawson had anticipated, due to a murky bog hiding beneath the lush grass.
Reaching the wall, they tumbled against it, panting after an exertion they had grown unused to in the previous weeks.
Lawson made a hand gesture, signaling Arnold to follow the wall along to the east. Lawson kept on his tail, smirking when the smooth, white wall suddenly changed to rough-hewn timber. A short distance from there, it stopped.
Lawson guessed the villagers either thought they were far enough from the town’s entrance that it didn’t matter, or, more likely, they had simply run out of materials. Or, perhaps, they had relied on the thick bog to slow any advancing army.
They slipped through a simple wooden fence designed to keep livestock in, but did little to keep the two men out. A horse in the corner of the field snorted and stamped his feet, but otherwise ignored them.
“Split up,” Lawson whispered into Arnold’s ear, making him jump. “Meet back at camp.”
He knew Arnold was at least smart enough not to lead anyone back to their campsite, though he was tempted to give a stern warning anyway. He bit the words back and moved along the fence line, watching his soldier head for a small barn on the property.
He debated following him. Arnold was soft, a man who cared too much about the weak and desperate. Lawson knew his subordinate would have preferred to serve in the Muir army rather than with young George, and he despised that lack of integrity.
To Lawson, a person gave everything to the place they were assigned to, no matter their personal preference.
Lawson wandered, unhurried, looking for what he needed. He found a road and walked along it for a short distance, then veered off into another field. A house lay beyond it, and his eyes were drawn to the flickering lantern hanging from the porch.
If the light was outside, then someone was expected home. Probably the man of the house, he guessed—no woman would be out that late at night. The inhabitants were likely women, maybe some children.
“Just ripe for the picking,” he muttered with a grin. Maybe he would get the chance to feed more than one type of hunger tonight.
Lawson kept an eye out for movement, but saw none. The night was getting on, and the moon had slipped behind another cloud by the time he reached the little cottage. He crept up to the window and looked inside.
The house was dark and quiet. A floorboard creaked gently on the porch and he froze, waiting twenty heartbeats before easing off it gently. When he touched the door, it swung open noiselessly.
Sharne lay in her bed, breathing slowly. The scouting trip earlier that evening had taken longer than expected—she had watched the soldiers long enough to establish they weren’t moving out anytime soon, then gone back to report to Bette and Garrett.
By the time she had gotten home, she had barely had the energy to kick off her boots and throw her spear in the corner. Except, now something had woken her from a deep, exhausted sleep.
It was the floorboard, the one her mother wanted fixed, but her father wouldn’t touch. She knew this was why—so that anyone at home would be alerted if someone approached the house. Now, she waited.
Easing a short sword out from beneath her bed, she watched the dim gleam of light beneath her door stretch as the lamplight leaked inside. She gripped the weapon, feeling its comforting weight even as she wished for the spear across the room, the one she had trained with day after day until it felt like an extension of her arm.
Something bumped gently in the hall and boots scraped softly past her door. So, they were going straight for her mother’s room. They would get a hell of a shock when they got there.
Sharne slipped out of bed, leaving the sword on her blanket. She picked up the spear as her bare feet flitted past, and she eased her door open.
Counting silently to three, she threw caution and quiet to the wind as she took three running steps. She saw the shadow in the doorway ahead move, turning back towards her.
Lawson spun too late. A thrust of the spear landed in soft flesh. He cried out and Sharne jerked the shaft back as the lamp in the room ahead flared.
She saw a soldier, his bulky silhouette turning. Another jab, this time at his neck, missed as he jerked back.
“Ma! Raise the alarm!” Sharne yelled. She barely had time to react as a fist headed for her face. She darted back into the narrow hall, and stabbed with the spear. This time, it found a home in the soldier’s thigh.
The intruder yelled, then barreled forwards, taking her off-guard. He slammed into her, pushing her to the ground and driving a boot into her chest. Sharne gasped for air, her lungs stunned from the blow and refusing to cooperate.
She groaned and rolled over, forcing herself to her feet to give chase as finally, the ability to breathe crept back.
Lawson didn’t bother to look back. He ran, bumping into walls as he ploughed down the narrow hallway and tripped into the doorframe. Doing his best to ignore the twin burning sensations in his thigh and bicep, he staggered out, clipping the porch lantern with his shoulder.
An idea grabbed him, and he yanked it off the thin wire, then tossed it into a bush towards the back of the house. Glass tinkled as it smashed and a glow blossomed as the oil caught fire, sending thin flames licking at the dry leaves.
He hurried off at a jog, grunting in pain each time his weight landed on the injured leg. The door behind him clattered as the girl who had attacked him slammed it open and started after him.
He picked up speed, grinning when he heard a cry of “Fire!” He risked a glance back—the girl had left off chasing him, running now towards the bright glow of the grass fire.
Lawson ran on, aiming for the field he had cut across earlier. He thanked the thick cloud bank and hoped beyond hope it wouldn’t rain. He needed them distracted for as long as possible.
When he reached the wall, Arnold was nowhere in sight. Growling at his second’s incompetence, he set off to return back to the campsite and his lord.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Donna stood in the hallway, listening to Rogan mutter to himself.
“The head is the key. The one who control the heads, control the snakes.” He rambled on, talking about armies and cities and all the groups he wanted to conquer.
“Control the daughter; control her father.” He stopped then, pausing to inhale a slow breath. “Ahh, Adeline. Beautiful, beautiful Adeline. So clever. So, so clever… not like the others. Stupid. Stupid, all of them.”
His ranting slowed as he talked about his new crush, but his voice became fast and tight as he spat insult after insult.
Donna’s face burned. She knew he was talking about her, about her failure. She hadn’t brought Julianne to their side, nor had she killed her. Because of Donna, Julianne now posed a problem.
She leaned against the wall, biting her cheek. The taste of copper filled her mouth, but she didn’t relax her jaw. The pain was the only thing she had left.
Since killing the two mystics back at the Temple, it had become easier to remember who she was. It brought her no peace. Instead, the image of Gunter’s face stayed with her, his eyes wide with shock as she had sunk the knife into his chest.
He had started to whisper her name, but had died before he could finish.
She had spent the next days in a stupor. When her people had attacked Julianne’s party on their way down from the Heights, Donna had watched o
n, unable to pull her fractured mind together enough to use magic any more complicated than a shield.
She had managed a semblance of her normal self, at least in front of the others. Rogan hadn’t noticed her occasional lapses, moments where her brain drifted off to another place, a blink of time that, when she woke, might turn out to be minutes or hours.
In fact, Rogan hadn’t noticed her much at all. He’s obsessed with that bitch, Donna thought. That vapid, attention-seeking whore isn’t good enough for him. He deserves better, he deserves me!
A part of her saw the disconnect: she was pining over the affection of a man she hated, who she desperately wanted to escape, while begging to spend her life by his side.
She pushed herself up, knees trembling, and took three steps down the hall, away from her master.
“Donna? Is that you?” Rogan called out, his vague, aimless mumbling interrupted.
“Yes,” she said, frozen in place.
“Come here, my dear.”
He hadn’t called her that in weeks. Not since she had let Julianne escape from her grasp. Heart racing, she quickly turned and entered his throne room.
The old petitioning chamber Lord George had used was now Rogan's favorite place. He had set an ornately carved chair in the middle, and thick rugs delineated the room to form a clear boundary.
The thick, navy carpet surrounding his self-proclaimed ‘throne’ was his territory. The lowly townspeople and servants must stand on the ageing red. Only a select few might step off the red hall runner, onto Rogan’s blue.
She hurried down the long, red path, stopping with the toes of her boots just shy of the end. She halted so abruptly, so close to stepping past it, that she almost tripped over herself.
Taking a step back to catch her balance, she bowed.
“My lord?” she asked, breathlessly.
Am I excited or afraid? she wondered. Her heart raced, and her feet still felt unsteady beneath her. Does it matter? She would do his bidding regardless.
“Donna, I’m so glad you were close. I need to know what the current status is of our army. I want to know how many men we have, how many horses, what food supplies would be needed for a one-week journey, and… everything else.” He frowned, thinking.
“Everything, my lord?” Donna asked.
“Just tell me what we need to take the army to Tahn, and if we already have it or need to find it.” Irritability leaked through his words. “I don’t care if we have to take food from the poorhouse—just make it happen, and tell me if there is a shortfall.”
“My lord, if I make it happen, there will be no shortfall.” She’d been under his spell long enough to know how it worked. If he gave an order that couldn’t be completed, a mind-slave could literally kill themselves trying.
“Wonderful,” he replied with a smile. “I’m glad you understand.”
Is he unaware of the danger, or does he not care? Donna hid a tiny smile to herself. Well, at least he hasn’t given me a deadline.
As a mystic herself, she knew the trick was in the phrasing. A willing servant—or a stupid one—would take words at face value, adhering to the spirit of the instruction.
However, a subject forced to act against their better nature was harder to control. A smart one would figure out a loophole or clause where they could, to avoid doing what they were told.
She blinked. A face formed in her mind of a foot soldier Rogan had ensnared with his magic. Already angry at the world for no reason at all, Rogan had thrown a fit when a small bird had gotten caught in his room and shat on his bed.
“Catch it,” Rogan had said. “Before it escapes.”
The soldier hadn’t had a chance. The high rafters and wide-open window allowed the bird an easy exit, and the soldier followed, caught under a compulsion that left him splattered on the stones below when he landed.
Donna remembered looking out the window and down to the stones below, wondering when it would be her turn to give her life to save her master’s… or just to fulfill one of his many whims.
It didn’t bother her. Rogan was her everything. She would die for him, even while fighting against it.
“Hey!” Rogan smacked her face, not hard, but enough to sting.
“Wha… sorry, my lord.” She looked at the ground, wondering how he had gone from lounging in his chair to standing before her in the blink of an eye.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
Her eyes met his, ice-blue to glowing white. She felt his presence brush against the shattered edges of her shield, the touch sending electricity down her spine.
“Hmm. I seem to have broken you, my dear.” He placed his fingers on her temples and closed his eyes to concentrate.
Pain streaked through her mind as he poked and prodded, shoved and yanked.
“You have more holes in here than a block of good cheese!” He laughed at his own joke, though Donna was too tired to respond. “Oh. That was poor form, wasn’t it? Doesn’t matter, it’s not like you care.”
No, I don’t, Donna thought. But I’d like you to stop hurting me.
Whether by chance or because he heard her thought, Rogan withdrew from her mind. Since the Temple, parts of her mind had been packed away behind a block of some sort—not a conscious shield, but hidden away where he wouldn’t notice them.
It was the only way she had been able to hide her hate for Julianne, Adeline, and all the others he had given his attention to so freely.
She wished he would let her go, cut their bonds. She could be free. I could wander the countryside or settle on a small farm. I could kill the mystic bitch, or your little lover, or even all of Muir. Or perhaps I’ll find myself a husband and raise some goats for milk.
Snapping back out of her reverie again, Donna realized Rogan had been talking the whole time.
“...the army will crush them, and she will be mine,” Rogan said.
Donna nodded, not caring what he was talking about. Probably war on Tahn. He spoke of little else lately.
“And then, the old man will be dead, I will own both cities, and Adeline will be free to marry me.” He threw himself back into the big chair. “What a wedding it will be, Donna. But we can’t do it without you.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, voice choked.
Seeing her distress, Rogan jumped up in a rare show of pity. One hand cupped her face. “Donna. Oh, poor, sweet Donna. I know how much you adore me, but don’t you see? You can never be mine.” He tapped her temple. “You’re broken, dear, darling Donna.”
“Yes,” she croaked. “I’m broken. You need… someone better.”
He cradled her in his arms and let her sniffle into his coat. His face by her ear, he whispered to her. “I will look after you, my pet. You will always have a place by my side. Just... don’t make me discard you, like the others did.”
A chill ran down her spine. Discard? she thought. No, you killed them on a whim.
She closed her eyes and inhaled his smell, wondering what she wanted most—to make him proud or to make him die.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Julianne called a halt once the sun had crept high enough that it sparkled through the dense forest trees. “We’ll find an out of the way spot and rest up. I don’t want us running into anyone who might take word back to Muir,” she said.
Mathias sat, hands on his knees, and stared into the distance as his eyes turned green. A few minutes later, he stood and pointed. “There’s a bit of an outcropping that way,” he said. “It’ll provide cover from the elements and hide us from the road.”
They headed for camp, covering their tracks as they left the road and used fallen branches to disguise their makeshift shelter.
It wasn’t long before Marcus and Julianne were stretched out side by side.
“Annie cooks a mean breakfast,” Marcus said, rubbing his stomach. “Or do we call that dinner? I’m surprised you told her we were leaving, though.”
Annie hadn’t been there when they left, but a parcel wrapped in cloth w
as sitting by the door. It contained a loaf of bread, cheese, cold meats, and a little jar of hot bean mix that had been just as delicious eaten cold.
“I didn’t.” Julianne rolled over to face him. “Damned if I know how she does it, but she figured that one out on her own.”
“Well, I’m not game to ask how,” Marcus commented.
Jakob came to sit by them. “Mathias is sending his bird now. He said to come find him if you need another message sent back to Tahn.”
“No,” Julianne said. “They can manage on their own for now.”
“You don’t think we should tell them about the trouble we ran into?” Marcus asked.
Julianne shrugged. “You really think Garrett can’t handle a dozen men? He's got Tahn locked down like like a virgin in a whorehouse and—”
Marcus sputtered a laugh. “You and whorehouses,” he said. “Anyone would think you want to go work in one.”
She shrugged. “Some of my best friends work in a whorehouse, thank you.” Marcus stared, slack-jawed, and Julianne burst out laughing. “Ok, fine. ‘An acquaintance’ of mine works in one. Or, she did.”
Dropping back onto his blanket, Marcus groaned. “That's it. I’m never going to the city with you again. Or even a mid-sized town. In fact, I’m taking you back to the Temple when this is done because I know damn well there are no prostitutes there to give you bad ideas.”
“Are you sure about that?” Julianne asked, as innocently as she could manage. A moment later, she was laughing again. “Oh, Bitch take me. You are so much fun to tease,” she whimpered as tears ran down her cheeks.
“I’m going to sleep,” Marcus said grumpily.
“It’s always the ones that complain the loudest that need a good mistress the most,” Jakob mused.
“Stop making it worse, you brute.” Marcus pulled his blanket over his head and turned his back on them.
Unable to prod him into any more reactions, Julianne eventually gave up. Rather than go straight to sleep, she drifted into a light, restorative mediation.