Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) (14 page)

A loud crashing sound boomed to his right, and he ducked instinctively, then ran to his left. Now at least he was moving! He tripped over something—a root—and fell face-first into the wet dirt. He scrambled to get back up, spitting pine needles, his face raw and chafed, blood trickling from his forehead over his left cheek. He couldn’t see and staggered forward, one hand outstretched before him, one hand pressing down on his brow. He swallowed and tasted blood and earth.

Dizzy and disorientated, he bumped into a tree and steadied himself, still clutching his face. The sword of a man with an unkempt beard whacked into the trunk beside him. It stuck. Owen glanced at the blade that had nearly chopped into his side then across it at the man, rank with fumes of mead on his hot breath. He grinned at Owen, revealing two incisor teeth filed to sharp points. Owen stepped back. Still grinning, the man tugged at his sword. Bark rained down, but the sword remained stuck. The man frowned at his hilt. Owen sprang at him with his paring knife, slashing it across the man’s face before running back into the fray.

Where was Shade? Where was the prince? Owen tried to listen for their voices in the din. He zigzagged between the trees, slipping on the pine needles and wet, rotting leaves, stumbling over roots and stones. Footsteps thudded behind him, but he didn’t turn around to see whether the Toothman had managed to pull his sword out of the trunk. Or perhaps he had decided to kill him with some other random weapon, like his bare hands around Owen’s neck. Owen ran straight through a line of five archers. One of them shouted out. If they turned to shoot at him and missed or just didn’t bother, he never knew. But archers? What was going on? He was going in the right direction at least. He could tell because the noise was becoming louder. Shrieks heralded death and pain and steel—and lots of it.

Before him, a huge man bellowed with rage and knocked back another man with his shield. As the other man hit the ground, the giant warrior impaled him on his spear. Owen stopped mid-step and nearly ran back in the other direction. But he knew where that would lead him: straight to his death. The man before him, he knew that guy at least. It was Garreth. His hair was gray stubble under his hood, and his face was broad and covered in pockmarks broken only by a huge scar that swept from his jaw across his left eye and beyond his hairline. The left eye was blind white and bulged out of its cavity. The scar slit this eyelid into two pieces, and the tissue had pulled apart as it healed, leaving the eye open even when the man blinked. It was fascinatingly revolting to look at, but right now Owen was so glad to see it he didn’t care. Garreth was the closest thing to a captain of the prince’s rabble of men. He shadowed Shade Padarn like a mother hen and always stayed close to the prince. If he didn’t turn and kill Owen now, he was probably Owen’s best bet for survival.

“Garreth!”

The huge man turned and sighted down his spear, aiming at Owen’s heart. Owen’s first impulse was to curl together, but he straightened and held up his hands, though his voice broke as he called out,

“It’s me, Owen! I’ve lost Shade Padarn!”

Recognition flickered across the old face. It wasn’t pretty to watch. Garreth was also the man Nora had dunked under the icy waters of a river just before she left. Obviously, Garreth remembered only too well. The warrior grunted.

“Where’s your sword ‘n’ shield, boy?” His voice was like gravel.

“I’ve got this,” Owen answered, holding up his small paring knife. Seeing Garreth’s expression, he wished he hadn’t.

Garreth picked up the sword of the man he had just felled and pressed it into Owen’s hand. The hilt was covered in blood and sticky. Owen nearly let it fall. The sword was a heavy piece of crap, not well made. The metal was inferior, and the steel was nicked badly and so brittle it would probably break under one hard blow.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Garreth rumbled as he grabbed Owen and shoved him half behind his huge body. “Stay behind my shield. Kill anything that comes before it. Got it?”

Owen nodded and stumbled after the older man into the dying chaos. The tide of the fight was ebbing already. Only minutes had passed since Owen had woken. Garreth smacked his shield against anyone in his path toward the main campfire, cursed them to their faces and jabbed them with his spear. But in the small clearing that was their campsite, those left standing were those of the Hunted Company. Those who stood alone with bloodied sword and shield in hand took a breather or were looting the bodies of whoever had attacked them. It was ghoulish, Owen thought and shuddered, looking away. A corner of the fight still raged over by the main fire, where a short line of shields was pressed tightly together, the men behind them hacking and slashing at the attackers before the wall. The prince was making his stand there, brow furrowed in concentration, but his eyes were shining with ferocious joy. Next to Bashan fought Shade. Blood was spattered across his young face, a stark contrast with his blond hair and beaming eyes. Those eyes. Steel gray and merciless.

They’re enjoying this,
Owen thought and swallowed hard. Distracted by the sensation of horror crawling over his skin, he never noticed the hand that slid around his ankle and toppled him to the ground.

A rough hand was holding him down, clasped around his throat. Owen couldn’t breathe. He opened his eyes and saw the Toothman bent over him, lips parted in a demonic grin, flashing those pointed teeth. He was muttering words in a tongue Owen didn’t recognize. He struggled against the hand that held him down, pummeling the arm with his fists. Voices rang out behind them. Shouts. But all Owen heard was the crescendo of the man’s incantation. His own heart beat louder than the mad screech the man howled as he raised a golden dagger high above his head, as though it were an offering to the moon. Owen’s lungs burned, aching to inhale. He had to breathe now, and he kicked up high, hitting something hard. But it wasn’t enough to free himself from the deadly clutch. The sounds were muted now, growing dim. All he saw was the arc of the golden dagger curving toward his chest. He was going to die. This was a moment when even grown men called for their mothers.

Owen curled up into a ball, one hand on the forearm of his attacker, the other raised as if it could ward off the blow that was certain to come. And if he’d had breath, he would have screamed his sister’s name.

N
ora adjusted the strap of
her bag again. Her right arm was swaddled in a makeshift sling, the shoulder wound still oozing. Food for three weeks, extra clothing, it all had to be carried on her left shoulder. Didn’t matter. It would get lighter fast. The dull ache in her shoulder turned into a sharp cutting pain, and she winced as she hoisted the bag up a little. In a long row of stupid ideas—leaving Owen, killing a number of marauders with a kitchen knife, grandstanding the vicious bastard who had injured her—this was probably the stupidest. There was no way she’d make it across the Plains during winter in this condition. No way she’d find Owen before her meager food supply ran out. She didn’t even know where he was. There was nothing for it, though. If she tarried, her betrothed would come riding up on horseback to save the daring damsel in distress. And she couldn’t hold with that. One step at a time. One step, then another. That was all she could do.

Her original plan had been to sneak down the path of the Ridge, go over the slab of stone that served as a bridge across the brook, and then walk into the woods until night fell. No one would find her there. Especially not a horse rider.

She scrapped that plan after walking just a few steps beyond her garden, sweat running down her face, every footstep shaky business. New plan. She and Owen had often burned charcoal near a small crag, a hiding place. It was close enough to home for them to wheelbarrow the fresh coal back. As children, they had often climbed into the split rock and weathered the winter storms under the crag’s protection, huddled together safe and dry, yet still able to peer out and watch the charcoal clamps for telltale wisps of smoke.

Her goal was clear: find Owen. It was a deceptively simple goal but included a rattail of other smaller tasks to carry out first, like get dressed and get food, difficult because she had to raid for supplies while the busybody baker’s wife wasn’t looking. But it wasn’t impossible. The baker’s wife stood motionless in the village square before the inn. She had been doing so for a long time. Nora waited to see whether she would come back inside after a while, but she didn’t. Nora had considered knocking out the poor woman who was so intent on getting Nora married. It would have been satisfying in a swift retribution kind of way. But grabbing hold of the coaler’s shovel with her left hand had felt awkward and cumbersome. And now, she was into the woods, unsure of her way other than the next few steps ahead.

Nora slung the heavy bag into the split before scrambling in herself. Her right shoulder banged against the rock as she squirmed. Nora groaned, the pain blinding her for a moment
. Now just breathe, breathe the pain away, wipe the sweat from your brow and push a little harder, Nora
—and she was inside. Autumn winds had swept in a carpet of brown crackling leaves. She maneuvered herself so as to sit and stare out of the opening in the rock, arranging a wolf’s fur around her shoulders to keep her warm. Wounded and shivering with exhaustion, she hadn’t come all that far from the Ridge, from her home, but she was hidden well enough away that the riders wouldn’t find her here. This was a place only coalers knew. It was safe and dry and though she meant to stay awake and keep watch, she fell asleep and dreamed of flames and blood, blades and the thunder of hooves.

She woke late the next morning, stiff and aching, a wight waiting for her.

Nora stared at Master Telen Diaz, who sat cross-legged before the entrance to the cave, blinking out of his meditation, his black pupilless eyes now fixed on her face.

“Good morning,” he said.

She stared.

“You look like Death herself,” he said. “How badly hurt are you?”

He watched her throw her bag out first, then wriggle out of the split rock, the pins and needles in her feet making for an inelegant landing. She collapsed in a heap on the leaf-covered woodland floor and slowly managed to stand up, leaning against the rock wall behind her. One-handed, she pulled the strap of the bag over her head and glared at him, trying to snatch one of the many responses that welled up in her throat. Her right elbow caught on the rock before she could decide which profanity to hurl at him, and she winced in pain, a short moan escaping her lips.

“So, you plan to travel across the Plains in near winter all on your own, unable to use both your hands.” Diaz rose in one effortless movement, dusted himself off, and shouldered his backpack. She hated him already. “Reckless, yes. Stubborn, definitely. However, I did not take you to be stupid. I was obviously mistaken.”

He turned and made to leave.

“That’s it?” Her voice was hoarse. He paused and looked over his shoulder. “That’s all you have to say? Where’s Owen?”

“Perfectly safe.”

“With Prince ‘Let’s Torch Moorfleet’ Bashan?”

Diaz shrugged.

“Owen is safer than you. And if you truly do want to find him, you’re going to need help.”

“Your help?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you and your help, Diaz!”

Diaz sighed and looked up at the gray skies as though praying for strength.

“I would prefer you call me ‘master.’”

“And I’d prefer you call me ‘queen.’ But you and I both know that’s never going to happen.”

Diaz held on to the strap of his backpack, one knuckle tapping his upper lip. Was he smiling? It was hard to tell with those large black eyes, so unlike a human’s.

“Go home, Noraya Smith. Heal and be well.”

He was gone in an instant, leaving her alone. For now. Because that was the thing with the wight, Nora thought. He had followed her all this way, had looked out for her in secret, and had waited for her to wake this morning—all to tell her to stay put? Who was he fooling? She shook her head and sat down, leaning against the rock. Breakfast first. He could wait and catch her again later.

*     *     *

Three days later, Nora approached
the hillock poised at the brink of the Plains, cold and aching. Winter was coming on stronger now. Huddled into the gray wolf’s fur, she staggered the last few steps under the nearly bare trees, puffing white wisps before her. The cold numbed her feet, every step jarring her. The wind clawed at her relentlessly. She rested against the tree where they had first met, where Diaz had held a dagger to her throat only two weeks ago. Gods, it seemed a lot longer. But here she was, still just Nora. Beyond the trees, on the hillock, she half expected to see Owen’s silhouette. Instead she saw the orange light of a fire and smiled. He remembered, too.

She pushed away from the tree, nodding at Diaz in tired greeting and sat down, warming her shaking hands over the fire. Her fingers were stiff as though frozen at the joints. The master wight sat at the fire, fingers intertwined in his lap. With his large black eyes, he watched her shiver and rub her hands together. Then he cocked his head.