And with all the strength I possess, I throw it, scabbard and all.
As soon as it leaves my fingertips, rough hands grab me, yank me back, but I watch the sword fly. It spins in a circle through the air, sailing over heads, traveling faster than the running guards.
Until it lands far to Kellyn’s left.
Doesn’t matter.
The guards have already reached him.
“Petrik!” I scream. “The sword. Get Kellyn the sword!”
Understanding, the scholar bolts for where it landed, leaving Kellyn to deal with the soldiers alone.
“Great. Just bloody helpful of you!” Kellyn screams to Petrik’s back. With two hands, the mercenary flies toward the first guard, cutting him just below the armpit, where the chain mail doesn’t extend. He goes down.
Two more reach him at the same time. Kellyn sweeps his blade back and forth in front of himself, not letting them advance. He loses his balance on the next pass, and as one of the guards takes the opening, I call out.
But it was only a feint.
Kellyn takes off the guard’s arm and spins in the same move to get behind the second one, stabbing him in the back.
The lead guard growls. “Will someone please do their job and end those two?”
All but the guards restraining Temra and me take off into the fray. The one shouting orders backs toward us. “Get them saddled.” Temra and I have our arms wrenched behind our backs, and we’re yanked toward the horses.
And then Petrik has the sword. He tosses it to Kellyn, who has to drop a hand from Lady Killer’s hilt to catch the broadsword.
“I already have a weapon, you idiot! What good is this thing?”
“Kellyn, use it!” I shriek at him as someone hauls me into a saddle. “And, Petrik, run! Get as far away from Kellyn as you can!”
To my amazement, both listen. Kellyn drops his longsword and puts Secret Eater in his good hand. With his left, he reaches up to remove the scabbard and tosses it to the ground.
I can hear the magic humming to me from here. Maybe it’s my imagination that the sword glows at being released from its confines after so long, but I swear I see it sparkle in the sunlight, and Kellyn adjusts his grip at the unexpected weight. It’s only a broadsword, after all, designed with the potential to be held in one hand.
Meanwhile, Petrik looks over his shoulder while he runs from Kellyn, waiting to see what’s about to happen.
“Start swinging!” I shriek. One of the guards slaps me up the side of the head.
“Not another word,” he says.
Kellyn looks around in confusion at the soldiers who haven’t quite reached him. “What, now?” I can only imagine what he must be thinking. How could a sword that reveals secrets be of use to him in his current situation?
“Yes, now!” Temra says.
Perhaps because he simply wants to test the weapon out, or because he wants to try to intimidate the oncoming soldiers, maybe he’s humoring Temra—I don’t know—but Kellyn starts swinging.
The first three soldiers grab at their middles before sinking to the earth, blood dripping from slashes in their stomachs. Kellyn looks at the blade before meeting my eyes. Then I notice his eyes turn inward, as the secrets of the soldiers crowd his mind.
He comes to as another guard reaches him. He holds Secret Eater high in the air and brings it down, cutting the soldier in half from head to toe. The sword continues down, cutting a heavy swath through the earth. Kellyn has to pull it out with a few tugs.
I feel my stomach turn over as I watch the destruction caused by the blade I made.
I want to close my eyes, to pretend I’m anywhere else. But I force myself to watch. I should see this. See what I’ve done.
The rest of Kymora’s soldiers are soon to follow. They fall to Secret Eater in waves, helpless to get anywhere close enough for a fair fight.
The last soldier tries to hold up his bastard sword against the strike that doesn’t even reach him, but his sword splits in two, as if it were made of butter. The strike goes so far that the power of the blade bites into his neck, hitting the major artery. Blood shoots everywhere as he dies.
When Kellyn turns to me, I realize I’m not being held by our enemies any longer. They’ve run. Same with the ones holding Temra. Only the one in charge remains. She’s at her horse, though not mounting.
She fiddles with something before coming up with a loaded crossbow. It fires before I can blink, before I can call out a warning to Kellyn.
And either instinct or something else compels Kellyn to raise the sword high and bring it down. The wave causes the arrow to splinter as it hits an invisible force. The guard tries again, but her second shot is met with the same result. Finally, Temra pulls one of my never-dulling daggers she still had hidden in her tunic and finishes her.
As soon as it’s done, as soon as all our enemies are gone, Kellyn flings Secret Eater away from himself. He collapses to his knees and vomits in the grass.
And as if that were the last thing my stomach needed to see, my gut rolls again, and I follow suit.
* * *
When Kellyn finally composes himself, he resumes standing and looks toward me. “What in the twin hells is that thing?”
“That’s Secret Eater.”
“Horse shit.”
“It—it has long-range abilities.”
The line of Kellyn’s throat is so tight, you could run a bow across it and make music. He stares after where he discarded the weapon. “That’s what Kymora is after. You lied to me.”
I shake my head fiercely. “I never lied. I didn’t tell you everything, but I didn’t lie. She does want me to make magical weapons for her army, but I also ran off with the one she commissioned. Don’t you realize what she could do with it? What anyone could do with it? I had to keep it safe. You were a stranger. We couldn’t trust you. What if you ran off with the weapon and left us?”
“Dammit, bladesmith! I told you I needed to know what I was getting into. And now Kymora’s men have seen me.”
Temra scoffs from nearby. She toes the dead imposter, who still wears Kellyn’s face. “Clearly they’d already seen you. Otherwise, the cotton spinner couldn’t have done that.”
I’m not about to argue that that’s not necessarily true. We don’t know how her magic works. She could have made the cloth to match the face of whoever the wearer was looking at when putting it on, for all we know. But what we do know is that some of Kymora’s soldiers escaped. She’ll know soon just exactly where we are. And who is in our company.
“I don’t care! I shouldn’t be mixed up in all of this,” Kellyn says. “I have a life, a good life, and I wasn’t planning on losing it all while you three tried to play at being heroes.”
Kellyn bends over the dead body wearing his face. He moves his hands about the man’s neck and pulls upward. Off comes the mask. Once it’s no longer on the body, it morphs back into regular cloth. A monochrome of blues from navy to sky form the spectrum of colors on the fabric. Kellyn uses the nearest fallen sword to shred the thing to pieces.
Petrik winces at the destruction of the magical object. Then he looks up to Kellyn in astonishment. “We thought you’d sold us out to the warlord.”
“And run off with our money,” Temra adds.
Kellyn looks between Temra and Petrik before his eyes settle on me. “And you? Did you assume I had betrayed you?”
My mouth falls open. “I—” No other words will come out. I knew there was something off, but Kellyn’s angry stare prevents me from speaking.
“I see,” he bites out, fury still written in every aspect of his posture. He unties a purse from his belt and tosses it at my feet. “The money from the spear.”
I want to say something. Anything. But what is there to say? I can’t make right what I withheld from him. I can’t fix that Kymora knows he’s been helping us.