“Like hell, asshole,” she said, and fired.
37
Luckily for Roy, he had passable reflexes. Enough that he dodged sideways, toward Gwyn’s table — and her crossbow-bolt speared him in the shoulder, rather than nailing him in the heart.
“Ahhhhhhh!” he screamed, his body rearing up, his voice echoing horribly through the too-small house. “Owwwww!”
Gwyn flinched and ducked backwards, waiting for the almost-certain onslaught of soldiers, barging through her front door — but nothing happened. Not beyond Roy’s stiff body, taking one staggering step toward her — and then collapsing down onto her kitchen table with a dull, heavythunk.
Gwyn stared down at his limp form, his rolled-back eyes — and then reflexively reached a hand to his throat. To where his pulse was still fluttering, but he surely wasn’t awake… and that was most certainly the first trickle of his blood, pooling out from his shoulder onto the table.
“Gwyn!” said a familiar voice, and when she blankly blinked up, it was — Stella? Yes, Stella, rushing out of the bedroom door, with only a shawl hastily thrown around her shoulders. And behind her, there was Silfast’s huge bulk, striding out fully naked into the kitchen, until they both halted by the table, staring down at Roy’s sprawled, bleeding body.
“You didn’t,” Stella gulped, her eyes wide, “killhim. Did you?”
Gwyn was feeling curiously distant, detached, her eyes now fixed to that crossbow-bolt still embedded in Roy’s shoulder. “No,” she heard herself say. “But he captured Hannah, and he’s been pursuing our women, and our orcs. And, he threatened to attack me. To terminate myson.”
Gwyn could hear Stella’s faraway gasp — perhaps she’d neglected to mention about her son? — but she ignored it as she turned and picked up the second bolt, lying so innocuously, so conveniently, beside where the first had been. “So,” she continued, her voice someone else’s, as she set the bolt in place, pulled the lever back. “I really ought to finish the job, don’t you think?”
Stella hitched forward, her hands clutching Gwyn’s arm, her head wildly shaking. “Y-you don’t need to, Gwyn,” she said. “You can — think about it.”
But Gwyn wasn’t thinking, didn’t want to think, wanted to fight back, face this, finish this. And she drew in a hard breath as she raised the bow again, should she shoot Roy in the heart, or maybe the neck —
“Woman,” cut in a deep voice, Silfast’s voice — and when Gwyn’s eyes darted up, he was frowning down toward her, his huge arms crossed over his still-muddy chest. “You are Bautul. And thus” — his eyes hardened on hers, dark, challenging — “you must first ask. Does this serve the Bautul. Does this serve our mountain. Does this serve your mate, your son. Does this honour the goddess.”
Gwyn twitched, shook her head — surely getting rid of Roy would help, surely it would keep him from harming anyone else, ever again — but Silfast barked a low growl, vicious enough to raise the hairs on her arms. “You must ask,” he insisted. “Does this honour your goddess.”
Something was distantly shouting, somewhere in Gwyn’s head, and she thrust it away, gritted her teeth. “You’re a fine one to talk,” she hissed back at him, “especially with the reckless way you run your training. You think maiming half ourclanhonours our goddess either?”
Silfast loudly harrumphed, but his brow had also furrowed, his mouth thinning. His eyes flicking back to Roy, who was still gazing empty-eyed toward the ceiling, the blood still trickling from his shoulder.
“I should never kill one who cannot evenseethis,” Silfast said flatly. “This does not honour the goddess.”
The distant shouting was rising again, whirling, struggling to escape, and Gwyn grasped for thought, for truth. “Well, then what about maiming orcs who aren’t ready!” she shot back. “Orcs who might develop lasting injuries, that then prevent them from fighting at full capacity against horrid men likehim” — she glared down at Roy — “in the future! Does that serve Bautul? Or the goddess?”
Silfast kept frowning, his eyes now sweeping balefully between Gwyn and Roy. While his huge shoulders rose and fell, his folded arms shifting against his chest.
“I shall speak to the goddess upon this,” he said finally. “But only ifyounow speak to her uponthis.”
He angled his head down toward Roy, toward Gwyn’s crossbow-bolt pointing at his heart. And Gwyn was staring again too, as the distant shouting in her skull seemed to come closer, rattling against something important. The Bautul, those injuries, the blood, Eyolf and Iyolf, Joarr…
So she somehow jerked a nod, and clutched her hand at the table. Much the same way she would have touched the altar back in the garden, and she closed her eyes. Breathed. Listened.
There was nothing at first. Only the urgency, the chaos, therage, the combined breaths and shifting bodies around her. But this felt so familiar now, the inhale and the exhale, the way her thoughts sifted and settled — and behind them, the distant shouting seemed to be suddenly audible, screeching through her skull.
I hate Roy, for what he’s done to me. I hate him for trying to take this life away from me. I’m trying to make my own way, I’m trying to fight you, to defeat you…
To fight. To defeat. To be that kind of Bautul. But… there was another kind too, wasn’t there? There was Joarr’s kind.I seek new way. I alter my means. I run with what the gods drop upon me. I shall no throw this man’s death into the fray…
And wait, Gwyn had forgotten that, somewhere, hadn’t she? She’d all but asked Joarr to kill Roy, all those weeks ago — and he’d refused. On account of his kin, he’d said. Maybe even his clan.
He’s found a new way. He had. And maybe — maybe Gwyn could trust him, one more time. She could trust the goddess. Trustherself. Shewas.
She felt her hand lowering the bow, felt her breath shudder out slow. And felt both Silfast and Stella exhaling beside her, and yes, surely that was relief, flaring through their eyes.
“Wise woman,” Silfast said firmly. “Now we shall again hide in this room, whilst you, mayhap, tell these men” — he cocked his head toward the door — “how your betrothed has assumed grave falsehoods of you, and sought to harm you. Mayhap speak of how you maimed him for your safety, but you yet bear no wish to cause him lasting harm. Mayhap you also tell them how they have captured a woman you care for, and how you shall not bear such affront against the women you serve. Ach?”
Oh. Gwyn blinked at Silfast, at his glinting black eyes, because that was… a good plan? A sensible plan. Trust the goddess. Trust herself. Trust… theBautul?
