Page 36 of Untempered
I stood, frozen. I was a dead man. I was a walking dead man already. But I’d been a dead man for decades. I heard the howl of snow, the far-off baying of a pack of wolves on the prowl, felt the bite of cold so fierce it made my toes burn.
The young chap swore, glanced around, walked toward me, and put out his hands for the wheel to lift the gate.
I shoved my shield into his mouth. His teeth shattered. His head hit the stone wall behind us, leaving a bloody mark. I spun, unsheathing my sword. I was a dead man. I’d been dead since the last time I’d stood by.Wind, snow, a woman’s grunts of pain. The man to the other side of me ran at me. My body answered when my brain couldn’t. Steel rang like funeral bells. Running steps.Weeping.Snow.
“Thomas, what are you doing?” Disbelieving, furious snarls. His swing cracked my shield. I threw it at him, charging. My feet found purchase on the stone walkway. Why was it dry? Where was the snow? I felt my sword bite fabric, flesh, and bone. I planted a foot on his chest, ripping it free. I was as strong as an ox. He fell, blood spurting from his leg the way it was spurting from my chest. The snow should’ve been red. There was no snow.
I turned and saw a familiar face red from the effort of turning the wheel. The wheel I’d walked away from. Defended.
“Don’t stop!” Mikus’ words. Not for me. For the familiar man backing up, baring steel. I was a dead man. I lifted my sword, and he fell back a step. Beside the familiar solider was the boy whose face I’d smashed, sitting in a rapidly widening pool of his own blood. Stepping past him, I raised my sword, and the familiar solider raised his shield.
I thrust my weapon deep into the chain, jamming the gate only a fraction open. The scream of steel on steel, the grind of the mechanism thwarted, echoed through the quiet city. It was just open enough that the pressure from the weight of the gate would make that a time-consuming job to undo.
More time-consuming than killing me.
Something in my heart eased at that sight. I looked up at the man wearing the same tabard as I, and wished I’d kissed my wife before I’d left this morning.
He stared at me in utter disbelief for a moment, then another. “What’s—” but Mikus fell silent. Hooves on cobblestones—at a hard pace. The man before me lost attention for a moment. I charged. Dry stone. Power. He hit the wall. Smashed my head with the inside of his shield. His sword clattered on the stone below. Should’ve been softened by snow. I drove my forehead into his face, felt the gush of blood from his nose. Shoved him over, ripping my tabard out of his hands as he overbalanced.
“Get the damned gate open!” Wade was shouting. Boots. Running.Snow. Wolves. I glanced down. Wade had the maid, threw her over his saddle. She moved with the liquid quality of the unconscious. He anchored her with a hand possessively on her rump.
A gale was screaming in my head, wailing. I ran. Good, dry stone. My heart pumped behind me where it stayed, lodged in the stones. The top of the stairs. Spears.
I grabbed one. Lighter than usual. The wood was cold in my palm. Damp. No ice. I was dead already but still breathing. Then a big man, his hair dark and shoulders wide, burst into view on a huge fuck-you horse, a tourney lance in his hand with its gaudy red and black paint and no real tip. He rushed past Wade and sent him sprawling back. He hit an unsuspecting Mikus with the lance. It shattered into a million pieces, and his beast trumpeted in fury.
“Oh, shit,” someone breathed, from the stairs, as the big knight’s horse struck the air with its hooves, majestic and terrifying in the pre-dawn gray.
The knight was down on his feet. The lady was struggling to hers. He grabbed her like a sack of potatoes and threw her up onto the horse. My heart pumped blood onto the stones. I felt the hot spurt of it, the splash of where it misted over my boots. I didn’t look down. There was no hole in my chest. Not that was visible. Wade was coming at the lady from behind, his eyes full of fury. Mikus was drawing his sword.
“Get the cursed gate!” someone shouted from the stairs.
My spear snapped forward. Snow screamed as my attention narrowed. The clamor of combat came from below. A woman’s shouts. Ahead of me, the men dodged, bringing up their own shields. Time. I was a dead man. But I could buy time. I fell into the flow of combat. High, low. Faces, thighs. Avoiding shields, searching for gaps, keeping them down on the stairs where they couldn’t flank me. Someone shoved forward from behind in their fury to progress. I opened the man at the front’s thigh up as his shield was raised too high. He fell back. Flurries of snow swirled around me as I moved. I could feel it kissing my skin. Those shields, that staircase, those men, were my world. Someone came at me with their sword. Tried to knock aside the spear. I changed my grips. Let the spear dip. Deflected the sword. Freed a hand. I grabbed my knife. Stepped forward, sliced down. He screamed. Staggered back. Clatter of sword on ground. My spear leapt as he fell. Stabbed. Short, sharp.Keep the head free. Air, into my lungs. Icy.
“Enough!”
The word cut through the storm, the snow, made the men before me halt. I didn’t look away from them. I knew, deep in my guts, whose voice that was. My knees went weak. I didn’t blink.
“Kill them,” I heard him order.
I was a dead man. The men before me fell. Crossbow bolts punctured shields, helms, chests, guts. They fell, bags of bone and betrayal. I could smell the pine forest, the snow, the freshly emptied bowels.
They were dead. The spear shook in my grasp, suddenly as heavy as the stone wall itself. I stood to attention. The wood bit into my hand as I tried to stop my spear from clattering in my shaking grip.
Below me I saw the Duke nod. Sullivan stepped forward. Mikus turned to run, trying to dive beneath the cracked gate. Sullivan came up from behind him as he crawled on his belly in the mud. They’d fought together for more than a decade. Sullivan brought a mace up, over his head, and down on Mikus’ spine.
Beyond the twitching limbs of Mikus, the little lady was standing, her hands still tied, covered in blood. Her maid stood in front of her, swaying on her feet but with a knife in her hand. Wade was on the ground. He only had one eye now, his face still and lifeless.
“As the two of you may know,” the Duke said, his words crisp, “There has been some unrest as of late. This is a poor time for me to be two knights short.”
The little lady swayed. I watched her, struggling to understand what the Duke meant or who he spoke to.
A curled finger. Crossbow bolts were replaced around him, the sound echoing in the silence. I was one of the two he was talking to. Everyone else was dead or with him. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was a desert. A glacial desert.
“Don’t,” the little lady gasped. “Please, Your Grace. Spare them.”
“Sir Chay of West Grenvale. Thomas. You both seem to be useful men to have about. How do you feel about continuing to defend this duchy as you have this morn?”
I tried to speak, but it just came out as a croak. The crossbows were trained on us. The knight with the big horse and long name, and me. The maid staggered, but was grabbed by the little lady. The bloody knife skittered across the cobbles. The Duke waited with outward calm I knew wasn’t to be trusted. I cleared my throat, and managed, “I will gladly serve.”
