by Jon Kiln
“You thought I would neglect you. That was it?”
He heard her breath catch and then she said, “That’s not what I was saying.”
“I offered to leave that all to be everything else you needed, first and only.”
“That’s not why I brought this up. And I think we both know that the Elite Guard never really leaves a man. We both saw that in my father. You were already becoming more like him then. You are even more so now.”
“So that was it,” Nisero confirmed.
“Now you are just sadness without the humor, Nisero.”
“Dreth offers you happiness and no humor, which is enough to make the soldiering tolerable.”
“And there are the teeth,” Arianne said, amused. “He has nice teeth.”
Nisero leaned back onto the pallet. “Hmph. I was hoping you were going to say you had made a terrible mistake and you will spend all your years pining for me.”
Arianne let out a hearty, high laugh. “I’m not much of a piner. More of a resenter really, and even that is something I grow tired of and hope to outgrow.”
“You seem to be growing quite a bit these days,” Nisero pointed out.
“If that is a shot at my weight with this pregnancy,” she warned, “you better start reevaluating your life choices in a hurry.”
Nisero opened his mouth to answer, but a shout from outside cut him off.
“Arianne… Arianne… come on out, please, dear.”
Nisero jumped to his feet and put his hand on the hilt of his sword before he registered that it was Berengar’s voice.
Nisero made eye contact with Arianne.
“Should we both go out?” he wondered aloud.
“He only called me,” she said.
“Why would he do that knowing we both were here? Why not just come in?”
“Maybe he has someone with him,” she proposed, “but does not want to reveal you are here yet.”
Nisero nodded and waved her on. “Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”
She turned and waddled up the corridor. Nisero stepped into the storage room doorway and leaned his head out. He saw the opening of the front door, but did not see any sign of Berengar outside.
“Arianne, come out, please,” Berengar called again.
“I’m coming. Be patient,” Arianne demanded back.
Nisero listened, but did not hear anything else. He stepped out of the storage room. He moved across the hall and put his back to the wall around the corner from the the missing front doors. As he listened, he saw the cow near the corn fields though the open wall.
Nisero heard Arianne shout. “What are you doing here? What is this, father?”
Nisero rolled out and stepped around the corner of the wall. He saw Arianne’s back as she stood just outside the doorway. Berengar stood a little farther on with a uniformed soldier. The man had curly, black hair and a close cropped black beard. From his garb, Nisero could tell he was a high ranking officer.
Lieutenant Nisero clutched the hilt of his sword until his knuckles tightened. He glanced over at the cow chewing and the chicken pecking. He looked back at Berengar. Was this a friend or treachery? Why would Berengar have called his daughter out first? To clear her out of the inn before they came in to claim bounty on Nisero himself?
Captain Berengar wouldn’t do that. But he had been angry when Nisero had brought his daughter into his troubles. Berengar had said himself that one never knew what a man was capable of until he was under the right pressures. Did even Captain Berengar have his own pressures? Was that limit his daughter and unborn grandchild? With impossible odds ahead at the prospect of helping Nisero, was it not worth risking what remained of his family in Berengar’s eyes?
Nisero was not sure he was up to fighting his former captain and friend.
“What are you doing here, Dreth?” Arianne stepped towards them.
“Are you not happy to see me, wife?”
“Did you spend the day finding him instead of trying to clear up the other misunderstanding, father?”
Dreth turned his eyes on Berengar beside him.
“You have to go home,” Berengar directed. “I will try to find Nisero and help him find justice, but you need to go with your husband now.”
“He must have told Dreth that I left,” Nisero muttered to himself. “He wants to get her clear of this. That’s good.”
“Find him?” Arianne said. She turned her head to look back into the inn over her shoulder.
Nisero gritted his teeth. “Don’t give it away, woman.” He moved against the corner and peered around.
“I will, Arianne,” Berengar promised. “I will find him. He will get his opportunity to face trial and answer for what he has done.”
Dreth held his hands out in front of him. “What were you thinking going with him in the first place? He is a dangerous man. He is wanted for treason against the King. He is a murderer and an assassin. You could be imprisoned just for having traveled with him.”
“He’s innocent,” Arianne objected. “He was framed for the crimes. They tried to kill him the night they killed the other Elite Guard. He escaped and that’s why he was accused of the crimes by those that really committed them,” she tried to explain.
“Arianne, stop.” Berengar reached for her shoulder but she shrugged him off. “This is pointless. Just go with your husband while you still can.”
“Yes,” Dreth said, “stop it now. Whatever this nonsense is, it most definitely stops this instance.”
“You would participate in helping criminals in killing an innocent man, Dreth? Is that it?”
“Arianne,” Berengar breathed.
“If you were not heavy with my child, I would not let that sort of talk stand,” Dreth said in a low tone.
Nisero stepped out from around the corner and gripped his sword again.
“What sort of talk is that?” Arianne huffed. “The truth?”
“Enough, woman. I am your husband.” Dreth growled and took a step toward her.
Berengar gripped Dreth’s elbow. “Easy now,” he cautioned.
Dreth turned and glared at the older warrior.
Arianne took a step back toward the doorway. “And how exactly would you see that my truth talking would not stand? If you are implying that you would raise a hand to me, you will awake with your throat cut and a few other tid bits too. Doubt that not.”
“I have never raised my hand to you ever, Arianne. Why would you think such a thing?”
“I know no other way that you could possibly silence me.”
“I’m not trying to silence you. I just mean that…” Dreth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Never mind. Arianne, do you have any idea which way this Nisero went? Did he give any indication which way he was trying to go once your father refused to help him?”
She started to glance back again at the inn, then stopped herself. “He didn’t kill those people, Dreth.”
“Stop it,” Dreth hissed and held out his hands. “You have to cease saying that. You will be heard and someone will report you.”
“Who is going to report me? Who will hear?”
“Just take her home, Dreth. She doesn’t need to be out here,” Berengar said.
“What are you doing?” Arianne’s voice became high and frantic.
Nisero took a step forward in the hallway, but stopped short. He bit down on the insides of his cheeks.
“Your father is right,” Dreth agreed. “We need to go home.”
“You go home,” she retorted. “I have work to finish here.”
“Arianne.” Berengar spoke through the tight line of his lips.
Dreth looked over his shoulder at Berengar and back at Arianne. He dropped his voice, but Nisero could still hear him. “Is he inside? I have men over the hill waiting for my signal to take him.”
“Father, how could you?”
Berengar clenched his fists by his sides. “You were coming here to take my daughter, your wife, home. That was all. You ag
reed to come alone.”
“They suspected you were a traitor, old man,” Dreth said without looking back, “and you did your best to drag me and my family down with your treacherous friends. But I won’t allow it. You will tell me now woman, is that dog here?”
Arianne turned and ran back inside, holding her stomach. “Nisero, run. Run away now!”
Dreth raised his fist and waved it in the air. Berengar darted to the left and disappeared from Nisero’s sight. Nisero ran forward and wrapped Arianne up in his arms.
She cried into his chest. “What are you doing? Run away.”
Nisero saw the figure charging toward him as a shadow outlined in the light. He turned Arianne aside and pushed her away to arm’s length.
Nisero took the impact of Dreth’s charge in his chest, knocking him backward and off balance. He took three punches to the face with his hands down from trying to keep Arianne clear of the attack. They slammed into the corner hard enough to splinter boards in a puff of dust.
Arianne screamed. “Stop it! Don’t hurt him!”
Dreth reached for the short sword at his side. Nisero locked his hand over Dreth’s wrist. Dreth drove his fist up into Nisero’s throat, knocking his head back against the broken wall. Nisero felt the cuts on his neck open with sharp stings. Nisero gripped Dreth’s wrist harder and Dreth rolled his forearm into Nisero’s throat, cutting off his airway.
Arianne pulled Dreth’s short sword from his sheath. As spots spread in Nisero’s vision, he saw Dreth smile. Part of Nisero’s air starved brain thought Arianne might actually plant the blade between Nisero’s ribs to save her husband, but instead she threw it aside.
She yelled something that echoed in Nisero’s ears, but he couldn’t make out the words.
Dreth reached for her. “What do you think you are doing?”
Nisero pushed off the wall and slammed Dreth through a small table along the wall of the crooked stairs. Dreth’s elbow went through a board in the wall and Nisero sucked in a gasp of air.
Dreth raised a knee into the lieutenant’s gut and pressed back. Nisero turned and flipped Dreth over his hip, slamming the man into the floor. The boards broke through around him from the impact. Dreth clawed to try to arrest his fall as Nisero pressed him down into the dark pit.
Arianne called, “Don’t drop him, Nisero.”
Nisero groaned and grabbed the front of Dreth’s uniform in both fists to keep him from falling through. Dreth swung and connected with the flat of his knuckles over Nisero’s mouth, sending a flash of light through the lieutenant’s vision.
Nisero saw that the floor opened on a shallow cellar about the height of a man instead of a full basement.
Dreth showed his teeth and drew his fist back for another shot as Nisero held the man’s weight aloft. Nisero tasted metallic in his mouth and he spit blood out into Dreth’s eyes. Dreth cried out and used his hands to wipe out his eyes instead of hitting Nisero again. Nisero let him go and the man fell through to a low thump on the cold ground under the inn.
Nisero spun on his heels and ran back through the hall.
“Nisero, you dropped him!”
“It wasn’t far. Help him out after I’m gone.”
“I’m going with you,” Arianne asserted.
“That’s insane. Just-”
Nisero stopped and stared out the holes in the walls beyond where they had taken their meals. Soldiers charged through the fields, high stepping as they pushed through the tight rows of the corn stalks. The cow and chicken ran in opposite directions to get out of the way.
Nisero turned and ran up the hallway, past the storage room.
“Nisero, wait!”
“Tell them I had abducted you,” he shouted. “I threatened to cut your belly, if you didn’t obey me.”
He turned hard to the right and slammed through a door jammed out on its hinges. It gave a few degrees of a turn and he scrambled out.
A man rounded the building on a horse. Nisero pulled up short and reached for his sword hilt.
Berengar was pulling a horse behind the one he rode. “Let’s go.”
Nisero mounted up and wheeled the steed around. “Through the trees. They are approaching from the fields.”
“Why did you bring her again?” Berengar asked, incredulous.
Nisero looked back as Arianne grabbed both their legs. “I can’t stay. I think he will turn me in for helping you.”
“Why did you bring him, captain?” Nisero questioned. “He almost killed me.”
“I thought he was good for his word and would take her back to safety. I didn’t know he suspected me of double play. We need to go or we are caught.”
A rough voice from inside screamed. “Arianne! How dare you?!”
Nisero reached down and took her by the arm. He leaned back and pulled her weight up onto the horse. She held on and the men kicked off, riding hard through the trees. Nisero heard shouts behind them, but he did not dare to turn back. He kept his eyes forward as they charged on horseback through the thick terrain.
“I thought you knew how to avoid detection, father.”
“Not now, girl, please. Turn right. Up along this ridge,” Berengar instructed.
He wheeled around and Nisero followed on his flank, with Arianne holding on behind him.
“Did he look hurt after you dropped him?” Arianne spoke into Nisero’s ear.
He kept his eyes forward, watching the ground as they rode up the rise of the ridge. “What?”
“Was Dreth hurt badly?”
“I think he got in better shots than me in that fight.” Nisero licked the inside of his teeth, tasting blood still, but fought the urge to spit. His old scratches on his neck still stung.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “He is still my husband. I believe he is a good man. He was just angry because he thought I was siding with you against him. Maybe I was.”
Nisero ground his teeth together, feeling pain in the front of his gums. He remembered watching through the inn from the hallway and wanting to come out to defend her from Dreth more than once. Some of that could have been jealousy, but Nisero read threat in the man and those instincts were pretty honed in him.
“I think he was fine,” he finally said.
Berengar glanced over at Nisero and then back to the ridge that was beginning to curve. “What’s that you say?”
Arianne pressed Nisero further. “How can you be sure after you dropped him through that hole?”
“I had time to look. It was barely more than the length of a man. It was a mild drop. At worst it stunned him for me to get away… for us to get away.”
“What are you talking about?” Berengar asked again.
“There could have been nails in the boards that fell through and he might have been hurt more badly than we thought,” she went on.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Nisero said. “You should have let him have his short sword and run me through, if you wanted him to win.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” She lowered her forehead against his back and Nisero felt bad for having said it.
Berengar still was not sure what they were discussing, but felt the need to explain himself. “I didn’t know he had set me up to lead those men to you. I thought he would come for his wife and be gone. We could then slip away before he was any the wiser.”
“When he ran inside to beat my skull in,” Nisero said with a small smile, “that might have served as a warning that your plan had gone awry, captain.”
“Noted. I figured you’d put him off long enough to get out the back. I thought I would serve better by having horses ready.”
“Maybe next time I’ll get the horses while you take the beatings,” Nisero offered.
Arianne raised her head. “We stand no chance if we are going to lie to each other. Betrayal is what wove this situation. We can not stand for it between one another. That was a bad move, father.”
“I thought I could trust, Dreth. Getting you clear of this was t
he best for all of us. If it had worked, that is. We didn’t want to end up in a situation where we were all fugitives and fleeing for our lives.”
“Well, that is exactly where we are.”
They rode in silence for several moments. The ground sloped down away from them on both sides. Trees gripped the ground with thick beds of leaves washing down along the way.
Berengar pulled up in a break in the trees and stood on his stirrups. Nisero leaned forward in the saddle to stare down. He felt Arianne lean against his back to do the same thing.
The scant cornfields of Berengar’s secret property spread out below them. The inn seemed small and barely fit to stand, looking down from that distance. Men crisscrossed around on the grounds of the property. It looked like the equivalent of a division of men.
“Are any of them following us?” Arianne asked as she watched the soldiers scurry about.
Berengar raised his hand over his forehead, shielding his eyes from the sun. “I don’t think they tracked us up this ridge yet. By the time they do, we’ll be gone.”
“Maybe we should get moving now just to be sure,” Nisero suggested.
“Hold on,” Berengar said. “I need to see something. The men that came with Dreth to take the inn were on foot. We should be fine for now.”
“What is it you are trying to see?”
Berengar stopped and pointed out across the fields. Nisero followed his finger out over the land. He did not see what he was pointing at, but then Nisero spotted the horses. It was a small group of riders, but they were out on the main road. They were definitely military and they were cutting across diagonally.
“That’s what I thought,” Berengar confirmed. “They are coming across to cut off our path.”
Arianne was looking at them too. “Do they know we are on this ridge?” she asked her father.
“No, I don’t think so. I think they are looking to block the trail along the back edge of the property. Not knowing the land here at all, I imagine they see the ridge as a natural barrier to their advantage. They won’t realize that this trail over the top exists until they investigate further… if they bother.”
“And by then we will be gone,” Arianne said in relief.
“Do you see anyone you recognize, Nisero?” Berengar asked suddenly.