Bronwynn looked at him with sadness in her eyes. “Yes, Locky. You’re a boy. Now go.”
His temper rising, Locky shouted, “I’m no damn boy, Bronwynn. You’ll see. You’re not the only girl in Armengar. I don’t need you.” Awkwardly he stepped through the door, slamming it behind him. Tears of humiliation and anger ran down his cheeks. His stomach churned with cold fury and his heart raced. Never in his life had he felt so much confusion and pain. Then he heard Bronwynn shout his name. He hesitated a moment, thinking the girl might want to apologize, or afraid she might simply want him for some errand. Then she screamed.
Locklear pushed open the door and saw the girl clutching her ribs while she awkwardly held a dagger in her hand. Blood poured down her arm and along her side and thigh. Before her crouched a mountain troll, his sword upraised. Locklear’s hand flew to his rapier as he shouted, “Bronwynn!” The troll faltered as the boy leaped toward him, but even as Locklear raised his own weapon, the troll’s blade came down.
In blind rage Locklear slashed out, cutting the troll across the back of the neck. The creature staggered and attempted to turn, but the boy ran it through, the point of the rapier finding a place under the arm where no armour protected the creature. The troll shuddered and its sword fell from limp fingers as it collapsed to the floor.
Locklear stabbed it one more time, then was past it to Bronwynn’s side. The girl lay in a pool of blood and instantly Locklear knew she was dead. Tears ran down the boy’s face as he cradled her in his arms, hugging her close. “I’m sorry, Bronwynn. I’m sorry I was mad,” he whispered in the dead girl’s ear. “Don’t be dead. I’ll be your friend. I didn’t mean to shout. Damn!” He rocked back and forth as Bronwynn’s blood ran down his arms. “Damn, damn, damn.”
Locklear wept aloud, his pain a hot iron in his stomach and groin, his heart pounding and his muscles knotted. His skin flushed, as if hatred and rage sought to leach through the pores of his skin, and his eyes seemed to burn inside his head, suddenly too hot and dry for tears.
Then the sound of alarm brought him from his private grief. He rose and gently placed the girl upon the bed they had shared the night before. Then he took his rapier and opened the door. He took a deep breath, and something froze inside him, as if mountain ice replaced the burning agony of the moment before.
Before him a woman held a child as a goblin advanced, his sword upraised. Locklear stepped calmly forward and ran the goblin through the side of the neck, twisting his sword savagely, so the creature’s head fell from his shoulders. Locklear looked about and saw a brief shimmer in the night air, and suddenly a moredhel warrior appeared before him. Without hesitation Locklear attacked. The moredhel took a wound in the side, but managed to avoid being killed by the boy. Still the wound had been serious and Locklear was a swordsman of above-average skill. And now he had come to command a cold, controlled rage, a disregard for his own safety that made him the most fearful of opponents, one willing to take risks because he didn’t care if he lived. With astonishing fury the boy drove the moredhel back to the wall of the building and ran him through.
Locklear spun about, looking for another opponent, and saw another form appear in the street a half block down. The boy ran toward the goblin.
Everywhere in the city, the invaders suddenly appeared. Once the alarm had been sounded, the defenders had dealt with them, but a few goblins and moredhel had joined in force and were now fighting from pockets within the city. As the invasion of magically transported warriors reached its peak, the army outside the walls attacked. Suddenly there was the risk of enough soldiers being pulled from the walls to deal with the teleported soldiers to allow those without to find a point of defence they could breach. Guy ordered one reinforcement company to the point of heaviest attack upon the wall, and another off the wall to aid those in the city. Hot oil and arrows quickly turned back those at the wall, but the constant appearances within the city continued. Arutha fought off numbing fatigue and watched his father’s most bitter rival, wondering how the man found the reserve of strength to carry on. He was a much older man, yet Arutha found himself envying Guy his energy. And the speed with which he made decisions showed a complete understanding of where every unit at his disposal was at any time. Arutha still couldn’t bring himself to like this man, but he respected him and, more than he cared to admit, even admired him.
Guy watched the distant hill, the place where Murmandamus oversaw his army. There was a faint flicker of light; after a moment, another; then a third. Arutha followed Guy’s gaze and, after witnessing the lights for a time, said, “That’s where they’re coming from?”