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 on, 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 he
r. 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 was 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.
As her mind emptied, she stared at the soft, crinkled leaves on the ground by her face. Each edge was crisp, the veins showing clearly where the soft fibers of leaf had worn away with age.
She felt the vibration in the ground before she heard Mathias stomping back. He paused by her side, and through her connection with the world around her, she felt his eyes on her.
She rolled over and stood, motioning him away from the sleeping men.
“What is it?” she asked in a low voice.
Mathias handed her a small, rolled up bit of paper. She unrolled it and read the words scrawled in tiny print. Do not kill Rogan. His magic will kill others when he dies.
“A death spell,” Julianne muttered. “There’s more than one way around that, you cunning bastard.”
Death spells had been studied in the Temple extensively, but only by the most trusted mystics there. A death spell cast by a mystic would trigger an action, feeling, or belief when the mystic died.
Most mystics knew of them, and even used them—a feeling of calm and peace that would unravel in loved ones when the mystic passed into the next realm, or in one pranksters case, three days of his friends bursting into cabaret songs at random intervals.
Selah had kept notes on more insidious applications, and how to counter them. In most cases, simply knowing in advance meant another mystic could bind the first spell and neutralize it.
Of course, the death spell would only be triggered if the target knew the mystic was dead. Hiding the death from the person affected could work, or at least buy time for counter measures. So could certain counter-spells, though they were harder to formulate.
“Shall we reply?” Mathias asked.
Julianne had discussed the initial message with him—that rescue was coming, but lacking any details that may give them away.
She shook her head. “No. We continue as planned.”
Mathias nodded and withdrew. Julianne watched as he disappeared into the trees. A moment later, a rustling in the leaves drew her eyes up over
head. Mathias had climbed into the branches and was now lying along one, draped comfortably despite being at least forty feet off the ground.
“Druids,” Julianne said, shaking her head. “Strangest bunch of people I’ve ever met.”
She returned to her own bedroll and settled back into her meditation.
Chapter Fifteen
Bette stretched her arms up, feeling her back lengthen with a satisfying crunch. By her calculation, it had been a good day and a half since she had seen a bed, and the cracks of sunlight splintering the dawn sky were an unwelcome reminder of that.
“And ye found nothin’ else?” she asked Francis.
He shook his head. “Just the fight at Sharne’s, and that one sighting of another man.” He paused. “I know Gerard can be an idiot, but if he says he was sober, he meant it.”
Gerard was the only person who claimed to have seen another man, and Bette still wasn’t certain he hadn’t just seen Sharne’s attacker. Still…
“It’d be plain stupid for him to come alone. Makes sense there were two, and if Gerard saw one, well, he saw one.” She poked her head outside and bellowed. “Garrett!”
“Aye, hold yer knickers, woman.”
Bette tapped her foot impatiently. “How far away did ye say that wee army was?”
Garrett clicked his tongue. “On foot, a little under an hour?”
“For you?” she asked, “Or for someone whose ass is a little further from the ground?”
Garrett scowled. “Just because I’m not a clobberin’ giant, doesn’t mean I’m slow.”
“Aren’t all rearick your size?” Francis asked, genuinely curious. Looking now, he realized Bette was, indeed a good couple of inches taller than Garrett.
“All of ye, stop pokin’ fun at me bloody height!” Garrett seethed. “Just because I’m short for me size, doesn’t mean I can’t kick both yer asses.”
The fact that Bette had beaten him in more than one fight was irrelevant. This was his honor at stake.
Ignoring him, Bette turned to Francis. “Assume they could run here in half that. They came at sundown, so it’s likely they’ll come back under cover of night if they return. Ye think ye can extend that wall a little?”
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