I fill my cup of ale and go over in my head what I can say. They already know why I’m here, what more can I tell them?
“Is the princess your girl?” he says with a smile, leaning forward, smooching the air.
“Nah, it’s not like that, she’s more like my sister. I grew up with them, her family looked after me when my uncle...” Iza looks away as my words trail off. “They taught me everything, to read, to swim, to make things with wood. After she ran, I told her I would look after them, and I didn’t. I... I let them down, let her down.” Kaleb pats me on the shoulder. These guys have become like another family.
I’ll find them, and kill the sons of bitches who took them.
Ronan sits quietly in the corner, further away from the rest but always listening. “What about you, Ronan?” I ask, “Why do you do it?”
Ronan leans forward, staring into the fire. He doesn’t talk for a while, just stares and drinks his ale. “I do this because I should, because, like Arel said, power should come with consequences, and it never does. That’s as good a reason as any.” He takes a drink, his eyes darting around us all. “I don’t know why guards are sniffing around, but I do know letting them get what they want is not an option.”
A whistle shudders through the trees, excited murmurs surround us as we down the last of our ale, reaching for our weapons, gearing up for a fight.
“I’ll leave you some this time.” I wink at Arel, picking up my bow and arrows, and sheathing a sword at my side.
Voices up ahead send shivers down my spine, anticipation making me restless. Sidling around a corner, a group of Zury soldiers rest by some rocks, holding their hands out to a small fire. Twenty of them maybe. I nock my bow and wait for Ronan’s signal while everyone else gets into position.
I keep my arrow trained on one guard with stripes on his lapels—a general I think, commander maybe. Take him out, and the rest will lose their shit. A bird-like whistle echoes throughout the pass. Ronan flaps his hand down, and I let my arrow fly, hitting directly through the leader’s eye.
The silence surrounding him is blissful. His comrades stare at his stagnant body for a second, processing what has happened, their eyes follow as he slumps to the ground in a heap. Cries erupt from the soldiers as they scuttle around for their weapons. We jump out of our hiding places, meeting their swords.
I stay at the side of the rock with my bow, aiming an arrow at the surprised unit as they try to ambush any of ours. One down, two down. The vibrating sound of clanging, groaning and slashing floods my ears. Worried I’ll run out of arrows, I make them count, patiently waiting for the right moment to take down my targets.
I follow the Unbound, keeping an eye on who is where, how many are fighting. Is this a fight we will win?
My eyes flip to Ronan, he easily fights two guards, but it’s the third sneaking up behind him that catches my attention, my arrow trains on him. Ronan slices one across the face, then swinging a dagger from its sheath, he throws it into the guard’sneck. Straightening up to take stock of the battleground, he doesn’t notice the soldier behind him.
The guard lifts his sword above his head, and I let my arrow loose, lodging it in his throat. Gurgling he falls to the ground with a loud thump. Ronan nods in thanks to me before lunging at his next victim.
Kaleb takes on three guards at one time, swinging his double-sided glaive, slicing and stabbing. For a big guy, he moves with such finesse with his most favoured weapon. Even three on one, Kaleb slices through them easily. To his right, Izaac parries one soldier, with Aron at his back, and together they fight like one. When one moves, the other follows inherently, never allowing their backs to be unguarded.
Iza stabs a guard with a rapier, twisting him around and using him as a shield against another guard. Tossing her human shield to the side, she slides along the ground, thrusting her rapier upwards into the guard’s crotch. Bile rises in my throat.
A grunt to the left shifts my attention back to Kaleb, who lies on the ground, unable to reach his glaive, with a guard towering over him. Before the soldier can raise his weapon, I shoot an arrow into his hand. He screams, holding his hand in front of him, blood bubbling through the hole. Smirking, I nock another arrow, letting it fly into his neck.
Arel shouts from nearby, “Stop messing about.” He spins around, thrusting his sword behind him into a soldier’s gut. Yanking the bloodied sword out he points it in my direction, blood paints the snow-covered ground, dripping from his sword.
“What? You told me to leave you some.” I loose another arrow into a guard rushing up behind Arel.
Looking out at the pile of bodies scattered across the ground, a river of blood melts the snow beneath the corpses. Ronan kicks a guard away from him, trying to free the Katana lodged in hischest, before wiping it on a dead body that’s slumped over a rock.
Kaleb is hunched over but doesn’t appear to be injured.He spits blood onto the corpse of the maimed guard. “Twat caught me from behind, hit my head.” He kicks the dead body.
Iza gathers up some weapons from the guards, pulling out a note from one’s pocket, she hands it to Ronan.
Arel saunters over, bending down to loot the bodies as he passes. Twirling a sword with a carved thistle on its hilt, he says, “I do like a thistle.” He balances the blade on his finger. “This will do nicely.”
“Gather up the weapons and anything useful you can find. Any gold or coins go to Caelan for the upkeep of Nu’cov,” Ronan announces. “There will be more guards coming, according to this.” Tossing the note into the fire at his side. Izaac yells for Ronan. Aron lies hunched on the ground, his hand covering a weeping stomach wound.
“I’m fine,” Aron grunts. “Just cauterise it and I’ll be good to go.” Izaac presses a piece of ripped fabric onto Aron’s side, trying to staunch the wound. But blood still seeps out.
Ronan holds his dagger over the fire until the blade flashes an angry red. “You sure about this?” he asks. With a nod from Aron, Ronan shoves his burning hot dagger onto his wound. Aron screams until he passes out.
“Arel, Wyatt, take Aron back to Nu’cov, he’s going to need Seema’s help. Izaac, you need to stay here.”
Izaac protests, but Ronan takes him to the side, reassuring him while we try lifting Aron’s unconscious body. Hooking his arms around our shoulders, we hoist him up, straining to keep up his dead weight.
Izaac begins to walk with us, Ronan puts a hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do for him. Let them getAron to Seema.” Izaac resentfully nods, looting the bodies with the others, as he watches us walk away.
