Chapter 40 Betrayal
Weakness drags down the entire group. It’s better to cull it out and use them to support the rest of us. It’s practical. And once in a while, someone is eaten for revenge. — Prince Eater, undocumented
The Approach ot Hilltown
Gil halted the Armored Grays a kilometer from one of the side bridges into Hilltown, swung down from his saddle, and walked over to where Alec was dismounting. As he walked, Gil looked at the rear guard, tipped his head down to scratch his forehead, and then said, “Alec, leave your crossbow on your horse. We’re only going to be here a moment.”
“Why are we stopping?” Alec asked as his feet hit the ground.
“I want to go over the plan again,” Gil replied, stepping directly in front of him.
Alec instinctively assumed a guarded stance and reached up to grab the saddle in case he had to swing back on.
“What have you done, Gil,” Declan Connolly demanded loudly as he folded up a small telescoping field glass he had been looking through and hooked it onto his belt. “The portcullis is already open and there is a detail of Magi Soldiers waiting just on the other side of the gate.”
As Declan spoke, a sword from one of the Grays in the rear guard pierced through his back, through his heart, and out his chest.
“Figgict!” one of the Grays shouted as he raised his own sword and raced at the soldier who had killed Declan. Another Gray embedded a war axe into his head before the defending soldier’s horse made it halfway there.
Realizing the trap too late, Alec started to swing onto the horse. Something heavy hit the back of his head and as Alec lost consciousness, Gil Braeford said loudly, “Excellent work. Prince Jon will be easy to get cornered on that roof. We can try using Mulrian as a bargaining chip to get him to surrender, but I think we’re looking at a fight to their deaths.”
THE OUTSKIRTS OF HILLTOWN
Annie, Tom, and several of Annie’s Rebels waited in a small, boarded-up pub with a closed sign on the door while sentries did their best to remain out of sight while covering all the entrances and exits.
“I don’t like this,” Annie said for the sixth or seventh time. “Gil was supposed to signal us. It’s been too long.”
“What do you want to do?” Tom asked, stepping close to her and resting one hand on her arm affectionately.
“I’m not sure,” she replied with a shrug that removed his hand.
“You need to be sure,” Tom countered. “You’re the leader. If you can’t decide what to do, who can?”
“I know. I know,” she agreed as she turned and paced across the floor with her back to him. She stopped when she reached the wall and stood there examining it as if somewhere on it was the answer.
“I’ll go look for him,” Tom said at last. “If I can’t make it back, I’ll at least send word, so you’ll know where things stand.”
“I’ll go with you,” Craig told him. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
Annie turned slowly and looked both men over from head to toe before asking, “Are you sure? It’s dangerous.”
“It might be,” Tom agreed. “But we can’t wait here doing nothing. Someone has to reconnoiter.”
“I’ll go upstairs and get ready,” Craig settled the debate as he left the room.
Tom walked over to Annie and slid his arms around her waist. Instead of returning the embrace, Annie’s back stiffened more. Tom stroked her arm and rubbed her back until she relaxed as much as she was going to, and then he whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she replied, as if from habit. Tom kissed her forehead, strolled over to his weapons, and started strapping them on.
Five minutes after Craig left the room, SnakeIn’s aviculturist appeared with a red messaging bird in a small cage attached to a baldric. She nodded respectfully to everyone in the room and then strode up to Tom.
“This is designed to be worn from the left shoulder to the right hip so that you have easy access to your sword,” she explained. She pointed out two metal eyes on the opposite end of the cage top and continued, “But if you need it worn the other way, simply refasten it. The leg bands are in this sack tied beside the bird door. Blue means ‘all clear.’ Green means ‘successful.’ Red means ‘send help.’ No band at all means ‘all lives in jeopardy and is meant to be used only if it becomes clear that no one in the scouting party will survive.”
“I understand,” Tom said calmly. He accepted the baldric, held the cage up so that he could examine the large bird inside, and then slipped the baldric over his head. The aviculturist leaned down to coo at the bird, and then patted Tom’s shoulder reassuringly as she straightened. She met Craig returning as she left, so the innkeeper stood to one side to allow her through, and then entered the room. Tom nodded to him and said, “Let’s go.”
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Tom’s gaze moved around the room as he made eye contact with all the Rebels. He paused to study Annie although she kept her shoulder to him and her eyes on the ground. He sighed and the two men left by the back entrance of the pub.
They avoided the main street to ride cautiously down narrow lanes. The path took them between dirty tenement buildings, dying gurygum trees, and tall, spikey crakonut plants. Aggressive Hilltown Rats, cousin to the pasture rats who had feasted on Jon’s ankles, scurried into the road, stopped to judge whether the two men would make a worthy dinner, and then darted away in disappointment. The clop of their horses’ hooves echoed in the stillness around them. No birds sang from wires or rooftops, no children played, and no passersby gossiped. Overhead scavengers circled on air currents, diving only occasionally. Tom was acutely aware that everything had grown abnormally quiet.
“I loved crakocrako with I was young,” Craig commented idly.
Tom held one gloved hand up in warning, and then remembering that he wasn’t traveling with another soldier, said lowly. “We’re in trouble here.” He opened the small bird cage and allowed the red messaging bird to freely fly home.
“Why did you do that?” Craig asked with annoyance. “Now we can’t get a message back to Annie.”
“No band on the bird means we’re dead,” Tom replied. Craig’s eyes flew open as Tom continued, “Ride back as hard as your mount will run.”
Tom took his sword from its scabbard and set his stallion to a gallop. Shouting and yelling erupted from behind several buildings and a band of Grays broke from where they had been hiding.
“Go, Craig! Now!” Tom bellowed, hoping that the innkeeper behind him would obey. “Ride.”
Instead, the innkeeper headed after Tom with his sword drawn. He had ridden only a few meters when the blunt side of a quarterstaff caught him in the shoulder and sent him to the ground. As he fell, he realized that Tom’s horse was on its side with an arrow in its neck and Tom was valiantly exchanging blows of his sword with two opponents. As the world faded, Craig heard the Grays shouting, “Huzzah!”
Half an hour after Tom and Craig left, the aviculturist came running into the pub holding the bird. Tears streamed down her face as she repeated over and over breathlessly, “There’s no band. She came back with no band.”
Annie hooked her crossbow onto her back, took up her polearm, and said, “Move out. If anyone encounters Gil Braeford, kill him on sight.”
She pushed the front door of the pub open so roughly that it slammed into the wall. She stepped onto the front steps of the building, put her fingers to her lips, and whistled shrilly. A moment later an answering whistle came back, and then several more, and soon a stampede of Annie’s Rebels came from every direction.
TARA CITADEL ARENA
Holy King Harrison and Ava Most Revered sat together on a raised dais watching the procession of Grays approach with their helmets removed as a sign of respect.
Even from the parapet, Jon could tell that the king was deathly pale and barely able to sit upright. His left arm was in a sling and large bandages could be seen under the king’s shirt and jacket. Jon shook his head sadly, realizing that Annie’s spies had been right. His father was dying.
As gasps rose from the spectators, Jon turned his focus to the main gate where the Magi Soldiers were escorting Armored Grays into the Courtyard. Jon collapsed weakly against the stone wall, unable to tear his eyes from the hostages being towed behind the horses. Alec’s wrists were tied together by a rope that Gil Braeford had knotted to his horse’s saddle. Behind him clopped two horses with the bodies of Declan Connolly and another Gray across their backs. Tom Jarek and Craig Docherty, their wrists tied like Alec’s, followed those same horses. The three prisoners continually stumbled and struggled to adjust their gait so they wouldn’t be dragged to their deaths. Shock burned through Jon’s limbs, his heart throbbed wildly, and his throat went dry.
“Figgict,” Rory said. “After all the promises and posturing and pledges, Gil is turning them over to the magi.”
Liam set down his quarterstaff and strode to the parapet to stand beside Jon and Rory. Instead of crying out or swearing, the youth calmly lifted one of the crossbows loaded at Jon’s feet and speared a bolt through the brain of the horse towing Tom Jarek after it. In a flash of movement, Liam dropped the empty weapon, seized the next loaded one, and buried a bolt through the head of the horse towing Craig Docherty. The weight of the falling horses jerked both Tom and Craig off their feet and Grays quickly surrounded them.
The thwack of Liam’s crossbows jarred Jon back to reality. Magi Soldiers and the Kings Guards raced from the perimeter of the dais and arena, the first group converging around the Most Revered and the second around the king. As they scoured the rooftops looking for the shooter, Jon yanked Rory and Liam down behind the merlons. Crossbow bolts arched across the parapet and fell harmlessly behind them.
“Aim for the riders, not the horses,” Jon instructed. “The only chance they’ll have is if we eliminate enough soldiers and Grays that they leave without our families.” He took a deep breath and declared, “Fire at will!”
Jon peered out to reassess the battle, Alec was twisting and spinning along the ground as Gil pushed his mount harder. Jon shouldered the next crossbow, tracked Alec’s hands for several seconds, and then speared a bolt through the rope just beyond them.
Alec rolled sideways several meters before he could stop. He rose slowly and limped toward the crowd while he struggled with the knot still securing his hands. Several Grays and Magi Soldiers rushed to subdue him again. A wooden staff struck him on the shoulder and knocked him back down. As Alec staggered to his knees a volley of deadly accurate crossbow bolts seared past him, taking down the Grays and Magi Soldiers directly surrounding him and halting the advance of the others. A brief look revealed that Captain Brady, his friend Barry, and several other Royal Archers, were defending him. He rose and hobbled toward them. From every corner of the Courtyard, Annie’s Rebels poured into the battle and attacked more of the Grays and Magi Soldiers.
Between the legs of the novitiates and magi holding back the spectators and underneath the weapons of soldiers, ten-year-old Grace McCreesh darted around the skirmishes and ran to Alec. In one small hand, she clutched the sharp rigging knife, and in the other the wooden kitchen mallet. At her waist was a small belt holding the boning and paring knives. Running beside and behind her was Lachlan O’Hara and all of Alec’s students, now calling themselves the Holdingfree Fighters. Most of them wielding quarterstaffs, but one student brandished a war axe, and half a dozen gripped swords. Holdingfree Fighters quickly formed a blockade between Grace and the Magi Soldiers. As the conflicts roared around her, Grace calmly pressed the rigging knife’s blade through the ropes binding Alec’s wrists and then pressed the handle of the knife into the palm of his right hand.
Gil Braeford wheeled his horse around, clutched the back of her shirt, and plucked her into the air as if preparing to toss her to the ravenous Prince Eaters. The ropes dropped from Alec’s wrists just as Gil spurred the bay stallion forward. Grace arched her arm back and slammed the mallet into the side of Gil’s helmet with every ounce of strength she could muster. The force of the blow shook her arm and caused her to drop the meat tenderizer while Gil swung his head back and forth trying to clear the confusion in his brain.
©2022 Vera S. Scott