AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Several exhales later, the leaves quavered. The horses reemerged, plowing through the vegetation, the animals’ coats glazed in a silvery nighttime sheen. Their muzzles puffed, tufts of undergrowth sank under their clopping hooves, and the knights astride them kept quiet. They circled the hollow, too exposed to signal one another, knowing an onlooker would see it.
Instead, their eyes skewered the offshoots.
I braced one hand on an overhead branch and held still, my joints fixing in place and my breath compressing. Always, jesters decided when they wanted to be seen and when they didn’t. Be it a fortress or a wilderness, I could own the spotlight or melt into the environment.
Nevertheless, my face wrinkled into a frown. Something wasn’t right. And about one second later, I realized the problem as I scanned their bulky forms.
Two males. There were two males present, but …
My pulse seized at the same time the knights’ shoulders hunched, and their grips loosened on the reins.
One of them shook his head in resignation. “Shit,” he muttered. “Who the bloody hell vanishes into thin air?”
“Let’s move on,” the other replied, growing agitated. “Remember what the Court Jester had said.”
“Bah. Fuck superstitions. This forest arouses visitors, it doesn’t haunt them.”
They steered the horses away. For good measure, the men scanned the hedges, never once raising their eyes to the canopy—until the scarlet ribbon untethered and slipped from my wrist.
It could have been any of the other cords affixed to my arm. But it wasn’t.
I kept it close, tightly knotted. Only the battle with those guards in the tunnel could have eased the binding.
Nicu’s ribbon fluttered like a plume, the color bleeding through the darkness. One of the knights must have caught sight of it in his periphery. The horses grumbled, wheeling around once more under the riders’ command. Broadswords flashed at their hips, and the men’s fists landed on the hilts. As they peered closer at the object, recognition caused their eyes to widen. Whilst they didn’t know the ultimate significance of the bracelet, most at court had been privy to rumors about the ribbons, and everyone had seen me wear this one.
In slow motion, the knights swung their legs off the horses and lowered themselves to the ground, boots thudding as they landed. Small crossbows were harnessed to the equines, the instruments customized to eject those Winter darts that had flown my way. Yet for this present skirmish, the men required more sizable weapons.
They approached the keepsake whilst ripping out their swords, steel ringing through the wild. One of the men used the tip of his blade to scoop the frayed accessory off the grass and raise it to a beam of moonlight. My molars ground as the pair cast the object thunderstruck looks, then craned their heads upward.
Their eyes wandered, but the miserable sods would wait me out, assuming I didn’t die of thirst before then. Either way, my son’s ribbon slumped over the sword, in danger of being sheared in half or taken from me, like they’d tried to take him.
I clenched my eyes shut. “Motherfuck.”
And then I jumped.
My feet smacked the ground between them. The men sprang apart, the ribbon slipping from the first one’s weapon. I twisted and pitched to the grass, my legs propelling and clipping each of them in head.
The men groaned and staggered as I popped upright, but they recovered quickly. I swerved from an incoming sword, snatched the hilt mid-rotation, and maneuvered it to block the other knight’s weapon. The blades crossed, the noise slicing through the air. Over the weapons, my opponent’s eyes reflected shock because my hood had come undone, my face lurching from the fabric.
I slammed my head into his skull, then pivoted in the opposite direction, taking the second sword with me. Spiraling behind its owner, I rammed the hilt into his tailbone. He careened forward whilst his partner charged.
Swords weren’t my craft, but I had wielded them to entertain the court before. I spun the weapon between my fingers, confusing the soldier and blocking his thrusts. Despite the haze, he maintained expert footing and quick reflexes. His knuckles cuffed my profile, blood spraying the grass and pain throbbing across my jaw.
We clashed and parried, his armor against my thin clothing, the sword in my grip nevertheless slicing open his cheek. Crimson spurted as he groaned, momentarily veering from me.
A hulking weight launched my way from behind. I chucked the sword to a spot where it stabbed the ground beside the tree, then lunged into a series of single-handed backflips. My legs scissored the air, my boots punching the second knight’s chest. The impact sent him flying whilst I kept flipping past him and snatched the ribbon from the grass.
Vaulting upright, I retrieved the sword, whisked behind the trunk, and knotted the ribbon around my wrist, then braced the weapon. Footfalls pounded toward the tree. This was going to take a bit more ingenuity and freedom to move.
I tugged the cords of my cloak. The garment dropped from my shoulders as I choked the weapon, then whirled in their path. As I did, the same harrowing fact resurfaced, the realization that had struck me earlier.
Two males. Presently, I clashed with two males.
But there’d also been a female.
34
Briar
