Page 93 of Seducing the Sorcerer
He was going to die. So was Morgrim.
What had Aramella said? “Think of it as war.” It was war. A whole country’s freedom was at stake. And in wars, ordinary people had to do terrible things.
He cocked the gun to check there was no trick to it. The ker-click made him jump even though he’d been expecting it.
He was a groom. Not a soldier. He’d punched people, but only in self-defence. Should he fly back to the palace? Get someone who knew what they were doing, some crack shot army assassin type who’d think nothing of it? Ah, but that would take hours. A boat could arrive to pick Morgrim up while he was gone.
His palm was wet on the pistol grip and he wiped it down his leg to dry it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Morgrim was over there on that headland. Maybe hurt. Despairing. Afraid.
A spark of anger lit in Fenn’s belly, revulsion that anyone should be put through that, but especially that it should be done to Morgrim. Who might be a ruthless schemer, but who used his power to protect ordinary people.
And it wasn’t just that.
He pictured Morgrim that night in the stable yard, his hair glittering with rain, trying for dignity because he didn’t want to be caught running away. And afterwards, Morgrim handing him a handkerchief without interrupting and kissing him, and saying, of all Fenn’s lost horses, “of course they were yours.”. He pictured, too, Morgrim sitting with him in the pub, stiff and awkward, apparently unsure of the etiquette of having a pint with a friend. And then afterwards in that cavernous bedroom in the tower, Morgrim’s battered hands shaking on the hidden buttons of his robe, so beautiful and so desperate for someone to take control and be his master for once.
Something cold and grim washed through Fenn. Morgrim needed help. He needed magic. He needed Fenn to be ruthless for him.
Right.
Fenn would get Morgrim back or die trying.
He took another deep breath, opened his eyes and stood up.
Squab was gone.
Fenn felt a flash of panic, looked around wildly. Nothing but trees. He took several deep breaths. All right. Nothing bad could have happened to it. His immediate plan didn’t call for it. It would come back when he needed it. Of course it would.
He began to creep around the harbour. The breeze was weaker on this side of the island and he daren’t risk shaking a tree or snapping a fallen twig. A nasty feeling of being watched began to grow between his shoulder-blades.
It wasn’t true. It was nerves.
He was about halfway along the headland, by a low stand of twisted pines, when something made him look up. A big black shape was falling out of the sky like a stone.
The horse.
It was going to hit the ground like a tonne of bricks.
Fenn ran, tearing through the undergrowth.
He felt the horse land. There was a scream and a thud and a hideous crunch.
He burst out into a clearing. Squab lay on its side on the ground. Jasper stood staring down at it, his back to Fenn, a gun in his hand. Had Jasper shot Squab out of the sky? Ah, but there’d been no shot.
Apart from Jasper, there was nobody else in sight.
Fenn dropped his gun and barrelled into Jasper, throwing him down across Squab, grabbing Jasper’s gun. Jasper must have pulled the trigger as he went down because a shot rang out and the gun kicked in Fenn’s hand. But Fenn was three times Jasper’s size and much stronger. Fenn wrestled the gun away easily and stumbled up. He risked a glance around and still saw nobody. Jasper lay sprawled across Squab’s flank, gasping. Fenn had winded him.
Was Squab dead?
Oh, Gods, there was a man under Squab. He lay on his front, hidden from the thighs up by the horse’s bulk, but he wore black and green guardsman’s breeches and black boots. Fenn kicked one of his feet. No movement. Dead?
Jasper managed to turn himself over. His face was white and horrified and he closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to look at Fenn. Fenn pointed the gun at him and risked another glance around.
Still no other men that he could see.
There. Black robe. Morgrim.
He lay at the foot of a tree, ankles bound, arms tied back, gagged. Blood and hair were all over his face and his robe was mottled beige with dust. His eyes were wide with alarm and recognition. Alive.
