The Sword and the Sylph (Elemental Series) (20 page)

“Braden,” she called out sleepily, her
eyes closing in the process. “Braden, I love . . . you,” she said before she felt choked of life and her world turned dark all around her yet again.

Chapter 22

The battle raged all around him, and Braden noticed that though at first the element of air had come to their aid, it seemed to have subsided. He’d seen Portia atop the battlements earlier, calling out to the wind, but now he had no idea of to where she’d disappeared.

He wondered if she was in her invisible form or possibly in the armory where they’d set up a hospice to tend to the wounds of the soldiers. That was it, he decided. She must be helping Juturna heal the wounded with her kiss.

But then he looked around the courtyard seeing many bleeding and wounded men who were not being attended to in the least. He rushed to the armory and opened the door, seeing the bodies of many loyal soldiers scattered, broken and bleeding across the floor. Juturna was on her knees attending to one of the younger lads, and several of the servants and ladies of the castle assisted her. Still, no sign of Portia.

“Juturna,” he called across the room. “Have you seen Portia?”

“Nay, my lord,” she called back. “But I could use her healing kiss about now. There are too many wounded and I don’t know if I can help them much longer.”

“I would find her,” he called rushing from the roo
m. Once out in the courtyard he dodged an arrow coming over the wall, hearing the pounding at the gate as the enemy had somehow managed to lower the drawbridge and were now using a battering ram to try to knock through the portcullis just outside the doors.

“Portia, where are you?” he called, feeling in his
bones that something was wrong.

Then a breeze blew by his face and he closed his eyes briefly, thinking of his beloved wife. That’s when he thought he h
eard a faint voice calling that sounded an awful lot like hers. But before he could investigate this further, he was distracted yet again.

“Lord Braden, the enemy has nearly broken through the gate,” called a footsoldier. We are not sure how much longer we can hold them off.”

“Archers, use your arrows of fire to deter them,” he called out. “And get another brace against that door.”

“How about the
pot of boiling oil?” asked another soldier. “They are just about in position, should we drop it through the machicolations upon their heads, my lord?”

Braden looked to the heavy wooden doors
shaking under the weight of the battering ram from the other side. He knew the pot of boiling oil above their heads would not only burn but kill many in the process. Still, he also could not forget the promise of loyalty he’d sworn to Lord Solomon. Nay, the men on the other side of the door were not his enemies. The only enemies he had were the Klarens, and he could only hope by now every last one of them was dead.

“Nay, not
the oil,” he called out. “Just drop rocks through the holes instead, as I do not want to burn them.” His arm stung at his words and a shudder wracked his body just thinking of the pain he’d endured being burnt at the end of a hot poker.

“My lord?” the soldier questioned his choice.
“Are you certain?”

“
Aye,” he ground out, “now do as I say.”

“Aye, my lord,” said the man less
than enthusiastic by his decision.

“
Squire, find me a horse,” he called to the boy across the courtyard. “I am going to go out and try to stop this whole damned thing.”

“But you are one man, and they are many,” the soldier
beside him reminded him.

“Aye,” he answered, but if I don’t try to stop this once and for all, we are all going to lose our lives today. And that is something I cannot allow.”

* * *

When Braden took his horse out through the sally port,
the hidden door at the back of the castle, he was shocked to see the amount of fallen men on the battlefield as he approached. He’d never meant for any of this to happen, nor did he think he had a chance in hell of stopping it either.

But he and Lord Wolfe had convinced Lord Solomon into
calling a truce once before, he reminded himself. Perhaps if he were lucky, he’d be able to do it once again.

He knew exactly where Lord Solomon was when he saw his pennant in the distance. He fought off several men, taking them down with a
mere swipe of his sword as he furiously made his way to the large man. He approached just in time to see the Klarens surrounding and striking out. Lord Solomon was fighting three at once until Braden rode into the midst of the battle, taking down all three of the Klarens and saving Lord Solomon’s life.

“Sir Braden, so nice of you to finally show up,” said Lord Solomon with a slight grin. “Now if only you had done something to open the damned gate it would have helped.”

“Stop the fighting,” said Braden. “The people of Calila are not your enemies.”

“Have you gone mad?” asked the man, fighting off another Klaren as he spoke. “If you haven’t noticed, we are also fighting the Klarens who have joined with them.”

“Nay, the Klarens and Calila have not joined forces,” he said, fighting off a man as well. “The earl has died and Calila has a new ruler now.”

“I know. The countess.”

“Not the countess.” He shook his head in disgust. “His daughter and her new husband rule as the lord and lady of the castle now.”

“Husband? I didn’t know she was married.” Lord Solomon pulled his sword from the chest of a Klaren and wiped the blood from the blade on the man’s clothes. “Who
m did she marry?” he asked.

“You are looking at him,” said Braden, feeling a little like a traitor
once again.

“You? You are the new lord of Calila? I don’t understand.”

“’Twas the earl’s dying wish that we marry and rule together. I told you I love her, and this should prove it.”

“Then call off the
Klarens and we’ll put an end to this right now.”

“That I cannot
do,” he said sadly. “The Klarens do not heed my command.”

Ol
af shot forward out of the midst of the battle, and screaming at the top of his lungs he charged Lord Solomon. The man was caught off guard and Braden could see by the time he raised his sword he’d be dead. So he lunged forward, using his sword to stop Olaf dead in his tracks.

“My many thanks
for saving my life once again,” said the lord of Banesmoor, until he spotted the marking on Braden’s forearm. He pulled away and raised his own sword to Braden’s throat.

“You lied.
You are one of them after all. You want me to call off my troops so you can slaughter us, allowing the Klarens to defeat us and take our castle, don’t you?”

“
Nay. I speak the truth. I mean you and your people no harm.”

“Then why do you have the
mark of the Klaren displayed proudly on your inner forearm?”

“Because he is my son,” said Lord Muir, stepping in front of the men with his sword raised
high. “Kill him, Braden. Show him what a father and a son can do together to win this war.”

“Is this true?” asked Solomon. “I betrothed you to my daughter when you were naught but a Klaren
all along?”

Braden didn’t have time to respond, as a Klaren came forward, pulling a struggling girl up to them.

“Look what I found, Lord Muir.” He pushed the girl forward and Braden realized it was Lady Christabel.

“What are you doing here,
my daughter?” screamed her father, but it was too late. Lord Muir already grabbed her and was holding the sword against her throat.

“Surrender your castle and all your lands to me if you want me to spare your daughter.”

Lord Solomon’s face turned ashen. He looked to his daughter and Braden could have sworn he saw tears in the man’s eyes. This is the first time Braden ever really saw him show emotion. Then he lowered his sword slowly, holding it in front of him and releasing it, letting it drop to the ground. Braden had never seen a man look so defeated in all his life.

“All right
, just don’t harm her,” he said. “She is all I have left to remember her mother by.”

“Father, don’t do it,” cried his daughter, obviously seeing the severity of the whole situation.

“Nay, I won’t let you do it,” Braden screamed and lunged for his father. But before he could make it to him, several Klarens rushed forward, and Braden fought them like a wild man trying to get to his father and protect Lord Solomon’s daughter and lands as well.

He took down three of them and lunged for his father
once again, but he stopped when he saw the man’s eyes bulge and blood dripping from his mouth. Braden reached forward and pulled the girl from his grip, pushing her into the arms of her father for safety. Lady Christabel sobbed hysterically from behind him.

Lord Muir
fell forward into his arms, and that’s when he noticed the dagger sticking out of his back. Right behind him stood the stablemaster, frozen in fear by what he’d just done.

“Vance!” cried Lady Christabel
, pulling the man from his shocked state. The stablemaster rushed forward to join her and her father. Braden heard Lord Solomon’s sigh of relief.

“Sound the horn for retreat,” Lord Solomon
shouted to his herald. “Let us leave this bloody battlefield and go home already.”

Once the Klaren
s realized their leader had been struck down, the survivors of their army rushed off into the night as well.

Braden laid his father
on the ground at his feet, the markings on the man’s inner arm touching with Braden’s markings in the process. He held his father’s shoulders and head in the crook of his arm.

“I am . . . so sorry,” said his father, looking up to him with dying eyes.

“What?” asked Braden, disgusted by even being so close to the man.

“I didn’t want you to t
urn out like me,” he said. “I tried to change, but couldn’t. That’s why I let your mother leave.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Braden ground out. “You beat her and raped her daily. I hate you for what you’ve done. And I hate you for hurting me as well. All I ever wanted was a happy home and two loving parents.”

“I know,” his father said sadly. “I want that . . . for you, too. For you and your new bride. I wanted the same . . . but it was too late.”

“I can’t believe a word what you say, so don’t waste your dying breath
on lies.”

“I followed you
r mother to the church that day,” he told him, wincing in pain as he spoke. “I’d planned on asking her to marry me. But she’d . . . taken her own life . . . before I could get to her. I regret now . . . everything of my past.”

He stirred in Braden’s arms and his hand went to his pouch where he pulled something from inside. “Take this,” he said. “It is a . . . remembrance of
. . . your . . . mother.”

Braden took a strand of braided blond hair from his father’s hand. He recognized it immediately as that of his mother’s. He’d always tugged on her braid as a child and she’d opened her eyes wide making him laugh every time he did it.

“Where did you get this?” he asked his father.

“She gave it to me for luck . . . before a battle.
She never hated me, Braden . . . though I gave her no reason not to.”

“
And you kept it all these years?”

“I . . . loved her, son. No matter what . . . you think. But being a Klaren . . . I just . . . couldn’t
. . . show . . . it.”

He closed his eyes then and died right
in Braden’s arms. Braden lowered him to the ground and stood quickly, wiping the man’s essence from his hands on his hose. When he turned around, Lord Solomon was standing there silently. He noticed Lady Christabel and Vance riding atop a horse together toward Banesmoor.

“I heard every word he said.” Lord Solomon laid a hand on Braden’s shoulder. “You showed me people are not always what they seem, son.
I misjudged you, as well as the stablemaster, but I can see now that you both were loyal. Now gather yourself together and go tell your men that the battle between us is over.”

Braden looked down to the lock of braided hair in his hand, missing his mother
once again. Then he glanced back to his father’s dead and bloodied body lying in a heap on the ground. The once mighty and vilest man to walk the earth lay dead at the hand of not a soldier, but a mere groom who risked his life to save the woman he loved.

His father had said with
his dying breath that he’d loved Braden’s mother. Why would a Klaren waste his last words on something that made him look weak if it weren’t true. Mayhap there was a side to his father that remained hidden his entire life. Could Braden have misjudged him?

Nay, he decided, not after the pain and sorrow he’d endured by the man’s own hand.
He bit the inside of his cheek, not knowing what to think any more. He bent over and pulled the dagger from his father’s back. The same dagger he’d used to release himself from the crow’s cage and told Vance to keep.