Queen of Fire

As expected, they just stood regarding him in silence. Varitai were conditioned to respond only to orders given by their officers and there was no chance they would follow his commands. However, they were still compelled to look in his direction as he scurried away, halting and beckoning madly. “Come! Come! Or I’ll be flayed!”

 

 

A tired-looking Free Sword sergeant emerged from the gatehouse, rubbing bleary eyes and buckling on his sword as he took in the sight of the desperate slave. “What the fuck do you want?”

 

Frentis nodded to the others and slipped from their shadow, crawling closer under concealment of a low pile of blackened bricks, no more than fifteen feet from the gate.

 

“A revolt, Honoured Citizen!” Thirty-Four said to the sergeant, an impressively convincing whine colouring his voice. “Please! Oh please!”

 

“Shut up,” the sergeant said wearily, moving towards Thirty-Four, clearly puzzled by his clothing, mean even for a slave, and the sight of his sword. “Who gave you that? Give it here!”

 

“Certainly, honoured sir,” Thirty-Four said as the sergeant reached for his sword, drawing it in a single fluid motion and flicking the blade across the man’s eyes. Thirty-Four stepped nimbly past him as he collapsed to his knees, screaming and clutching at his face, killing a Varitai with a thrust to the neck then turning and running. Six Varitai took off in pursuit, one falling dead with Frentis’s throwing knife in his throat, two more quickly hacked down by Davoka and Draker.

 

Frentis hefted a spear dropped by the Varitai he had killed, hurling it at his onrushing comrade with enough force to pierce his breastplate. Thirty-Four skidded to a halt, pivoted and delivered a precise cut to the leg of the Varitai chasing him, Draker’s blow nearly decapitating the slave soldier as he fell.

 

“Stay close!” Frentis ordered, scooping up a fallen blade and charging for the gate, a sword in each hand. The five remaining Varitai formed a tidy defensive knot, impassive faces behind levelled spears. Frentis threw his left-hand sword at the one in the centre, the blade sinking into his face just beneath his helmet. Frentis leapt through the gap, slashing left and right, the others moving in to finish those he wounded. A pain-filled yell drew his gaze and he found Draker on his back, parrying thrusts from a Varitai’s spear, a newly earned gash on his forehead. Davoka moved to help him but the outlaw proved his hard-won skills by rolling under the Varitai’s guard to stab at his groin, spoiling the accomplishment somewhat by proceeding to bring the slave soldier down with a series of frenzied blows, obscenities flowing from his snarling lips in a torrent.

 

“Raise the gate,” Frentis told Davoka, making for the steps leading to the parapet. He found two Free Swords there, youthful faces aghast at the carnage they had witnessed below, pointing their swords at him with trembling hands.

 

“Fight or run,” Frentis told them in Volarian. “You’ll die today in either case.”

 

They ran, sprinting away across the parapet without a backward glance. “Tell your comrades the Red Brother’s here!” Frentis yelled after them before turning to pull a torch from a stanchion. He hopped onto the battlement and waved the torch back and forth, peering into the misted fields beyond the walls. A few heartbeats later he saw it, a single torch flaring to life, burning brighter as the bearer came closer, and two thousand Renfaelin knights resolved out of the mist at full gallop. Banders was clearly visible at the head of the tight column, his faux-rusted armour catching the rising sun, Arendil and Ermund on either side of him. They thundered through the gate without pause, the clatter of steel-shod hooves on cobbles rising to a deafening pitch as they charged along Gate Lane. A few Varitai came running from the western quarter to oppose them, a single company managing to form ranks across the lane before being smashed aside by the tide of horse and steel.

 

“Brother!” Frentis looked down from the gatehouse, finding a grinning Ivern there, mounted, with Frentis’s horse at his side. “The Blackhold awaits!”

 

? ? ?

 

The squat fortress was already in uproar when they got there, two Varitai lying dead at the main gate and several more inside. They were obliged to fight their way into the courtyard as more guards came rushing from a maze of shadowed doorways, mostly Varitai with a few Free Swords showing none of the cowardice of their comrades on the wall. Sollis took his brothers up the stairs and into the upper levels, clearing the archers from the parapet and sending their own arrows down on the defenders below.

 

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