Page 36 of Unrivaled
“Found his old man strung up,” Kaelson said, shaking his head.“They got to him.Can’t remember how.It was bad.I didn’t hear the details of how it’d been done.Always figured that’s a kindness when people keep it to themselves.”
Thomas nodded silently.Neither of them were drinking.I’d be lucky to get out before the candles burned low.
“The ones walking with Sean, they said it was the worst they’d seen.One of them was sick.Couldn’t do a thing about it, was just sick all over himself.Sean cut his papa down, got him covered up before his little nieces got home.That was the kind of man Sean was.”
I wondered if Audrey would mind terribly going to bed.If I had to do this, I’d rather have done it stretched out on the divan in front of her fire.These two, they’d be able to do this all night, I suspected.
“So, when they told me he’d deserted outside Wolfswail, I didn’t believe it,” Kaelson went on, his voice dropping a little lower.“I couldn’t.NotSean.He’d been missing, him and a couple dozen scouts.”
“Winter,” Thomas said, as if that explained everything.
“The first,” Kaelson agreed, glancing over.“Remember the sound of them?”
Thomas swallowed audibly, then drank.
“Wolves,” Kaelson told me.“That’s what we said to ourselves.Just wolves.Rumors flew, of course.What’s new, right?We were all jumping at shadows.But whenSeantried to run…”
“He lived?”Thomas asked, his voice flat.“He saw it and lived?”
“He saw it and lived,” Kaelson said, on a slow outbreath.“Anyone else and I’d’ve called them a coward.I saw his eyes.”He looked up at me and a chill went through me.“They weren’t wolves, boy.Not anymore.Mayhap not ever.They picked us off, any time anyone left the army.We were sitting ducks outside of the mages’ rings.”
Thomas blew out a slow breath and reached to fill up his cup.
“I saw a print, once,” Kaelson told me, as if this was life-saving information he was imparting in this moment.And mayhap he thought it was.Or mayhap he couldn’t tell what was now, and what was then.“Looked like it could’ve come from a wolf, except it was bigger than my torso.A single print, boy.We were terrified, that winter.”
Despite myself, I felt myself picking up the rhythm of the story, skipping ahead.I knew they’d taken Wolfswail.I knew both these two had been there.
What did Ylva know of these wolves?
“And yet,” Kaelson said, the edge of bitterness entering his voice.“And yet, when the Duke knocked on Wolfswail’s doors, they opened.”
“Why?”I asked.
Kaelson shook his head slowly.“I don’t want to know, son.I don’t want to know what had been done to the other towns after we rolled through.I don’t want to know what they were scared we’d do.”
Thomas lifted his cup.His hand shook.
“What he made us do,” Kaelson corrected, and his eyes were on me, but I wasn’t his audience.
I reached out and took the jug, topping off Thomas’ cup myself.
“He told Wolfswail if they let him in, he’d make them La’Angi citizens,” Kaelson told me, the words brisk.“They’d have homes and jobs.They’d be spared.But they had to open the gates.If they didn’t, he’d kill them all.Everyone.Man, woman, child.Dead.”
My belly clenched.
“They don’t tell you that part,” Kaelson added, with an almost friendly smile.“Don’t feel bad for not knowing.Well, there were people there who were even more scared of us than we were of those wolves.They came.In the night, in the snow, they came.Women, children, families.”
They both stopped to drink.In solidarity, I wrapped my hand around my cup.
“Can’t blame them,” Thomas said, without infliction.
“Never said I did.”Kaelson’s reminder was delivered lazily.“They came, and the Duke, he said, ‘Well, you’re traitors, aren’t you?Prove you’re loyal to us, and you’ll be rewarded.’They were given weapons and put on the front lines.They were the first ones in through the gates they’d left open.They helped us storm their own city.”
I struggled to imagine a world where that could happen.“And they fought?”
“What else would they do?”Kaelson asked me softly.“They’d brought their most vulnerable with them.”
“I was in the third wave,” Thomas said, and Kaelson fell silent.“They didn’t all fight.Some just walked in and died.But some would lift their weapons.They knew the people they were fighting, too.”I heard him swallow audibly.“One ahead of me…they fought someone who called them by name.They were crying.The Duke kept the infants.”
