Defenders of the Black Crown, #2, page 37
Around her, the men were quiet, transfixed on the magnificent flight of the warhawk.
As Samorr drifted effortlessly over the sloping hills, descending further into the valley, he let out a series of long screeches. He was indeed a braggart of a creature. Bell imagined he was gleeful at the scent of fear from his target.
“What’s this?” someone said from behind her. It was the same voice as before, so this time Bell turned to see a general, decorated in golden braids over his thick leather armor. He raised the layered face shield on his metallic helmet to reveal his round face, covered in thick reddish hair.
“General Vandy,” Bell said through her teeth.
Vandy pointed with a sneer. “Who authorized an attack?”
Bell shrugged, resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she focused again on Samorr. General Vandy stayed quiet atop his horse to her left and they stared out into the valley together.
As Samorr ducked lower, the fleeing guards began to scream. They were sprinting through open fields, seemingly desperate to reach the next grove of pines ahead. There were few places to hide, even once between the trees. Bell supposed the only salvation the guards could hope for was to fall into a Boen tunnel.
Samorr squawked and dove, nose first. His wings spread, flayed out on either side, and then he ripped them downward. It was only when Bell heard a blood-curdling scream that she saw the guard flailing a meter above the ground, held tight by Samorr’s talons.
Vandy squirmed. “Stop this, at once,” he whispered, fascination and fear coating his voice.
“He’ll stop soon enough,” Bell replied.
“He...he’ll put them down?”
Bell bit her lip. She couldn’t answer because she certainly didn’t have one. Though she feared for the safety of her bird, she couldn’t call him off. Her curiosity had won over now. She had to know what the warhawks were capable of.
Overhead, the remaining three birds screamed out either in jealousy, encouragement, or criticism of Samorr.
The hawk was nearly ten meters into the air, and the guard had stopped struggling, likely afraid of being dropped. The man appeared too large to be carried, but the warhawk defied gravity.
Bell heard several gasps as Samorr eclipsed the treetops. A few of the Edivans shouted words she didn’t understand.
“Stop this,” General Vandy pleaded, “you must stop this.”
Bell wet her lips, preparing to call the order for Samorr to stop. But then her attention drifted back to Hawk's Keep. The sight of her home stirred an emotion inside her that could not be sated or quenched. She wanted to deny that the men of Candor would ever abandon their posts. Hawk's Keep deserved guards who would fight to the death, tooth and nail, even with a full army descending upon them.
"They deserve to die," Bell said. She lifted her face and yelled to the sky, "Queen! Attack!"
The woosh of wings overhead was all the confirmation that Bell needed. She heard it before she saw the long shadow cast by Queen's massive form. With a screech, Queen was soaring through the open air, making a direct path toward where Samorr had the guard. In seconds, the two birds were circling one another in a showdown. Queen’s attention was on Samorr and Samorr’s beak was turned down to stare at the guard inquisitively.
As though worried the guard would be taken before he could be eaten, Samorr pecked violently at the guard, whose screams echoed through the valley.
The Edivans began to shout.
“No,” Vandy murmured in disbelief, barely audible above the commotion.
Bell sneered and watched as Queen dropped from the sky to grab another guard. The female bird was not making a show of her stalking, as Samorr had done. Queen was efficient. When she swooped down, the guards screamed, but Queen didn’t taunt them. She grabbed the smallest of the men by the shoulders, tossed him up two meters above the ground, and caught him again. She had one talon on his back and the other around his neck as she drifted higher. Queen was no more than ten yards into the air when the small man went limp. At the instant he stopped resisting, Queen hunched around him, convulsing, and her muscles rippled beneath her feathered body. Suspended in flight, she flayed her talons in opposite directions.
Queen’s body blocked Bell’s view, and for a moment she didn’t know the status of the guard. But by the collective screams and cries from the Edivans, Bell was certain the guard had been killed by her bird.
Even Samorr appeared transfixed, hovering in mid-air. The male bird bent back to peck his prey again, and Queen turned.
That was when Bell saw it. In one talon, Queen held the man’s body. In the other talon, she held his head, ripped cleanly away with most of his spine dangling behind it. With a disinterested squawk, Queen tossed the two pieces of the Candorian carelessly, as if casting aside the bone from a mutton leg after a meal.
Queen began a rapid dive toward another guard before the dead man's body and head even hit the ground.
Samorr seemed as transfixed as everyone else by the sheer power and strength of Queen’s grasp. Unable to compete, Samorr twisted his body toward the sky and flapped with fervor. In seconds, he was a furlong above Ediva’s army, among the clouds.
When Samorr dropped the guard from that height, the body flailed and flopped, like an old doll. The guard was plummeting, sure to die, and no one could save him.
Around her was a steady commotion. The men were scrambling—some were off their horses and running ahead, perhaps to get a better view. A few pushed past her and her rouncey groaned in protest of being shoved this way and that. Bell remained focused on the skies.
“Stop this, at once,” a new voice said, stern and familiar.
Bell didn’t need to turn around to know it was Micha, and he sounded furious.
“I can’t call them off,” Bell snapped, “it might confuse them. We don’t want them to attack the wrong—”
“You can stop this, and you will.”
Bell cringed. She wiped her hands on the royal purple dress she wore, frustrated with the dried mud and days’ worth of sweat that had soaked into the beautiful fabric.
Out the corner of her eye, Bell saw Micha dismount and rush toward her. The soldiers cleared the way, squishing against each other on the narrow path.
“I gave you an order, as King!” Micha snarled. In two strides he was beside her, and he reached for her wrist.
Bell jerked her hand away and twisted. In the distance, Queen and Samorr had each disposed of their second guards and seemed to be in competition, racing to go after their third.
Micha withdrew his shortsword.
“What’s that for?” Bell balked, “Are you intending to slit my throat, in front of all your army?”
There was a dull hum to the air as she stared defiantly at him, and he stared back. His cheeks inflated with every breath, as though his rage was boiling out from under the surface and he couldn’t release it fast enough.
“We’ll kill your birds,” he whispered, “you know that, don’t you?”
She knew he wasn’t lying, and the realization washed over her, along with a pang of agony.
Bell searched for them without taking another second to consider it, and called out in her loudest yell, “Samorr, Queen, return!”
The screeches of her warhawks were punctuated by the scrape of metal beside her as Micha sheathed his sword once more.
“Please don’t hurt them,” Bell said, “this was my choice alone, they act on my command.”
She turned to Micha, desperate, and reached for his hand but he stared at her and blinked, his periwinkle eyes gone from outraged to cold.
“We will speak of this when we reach the keep,” Micha replied. He mounted his horse and returned to his position further within the ranks.
_________________________
There’d been no one to defend Hawk’s Keep. No one to resist them.
The Edivans had simply walked in and made themselves at home.
Bell went to the royal wing without thinking much of it, walked into her own chamber, and shut the door.
Her heart ached at the sight of everything in its place, as though her parents had expected her to return from an afternoon of hunting. But where had she been instead? Snatched up by a childish, demanding prince. Dragged across a foreign land. Mockingly overthrown by a brutal army, somehow enlisting herself to join her enemy.
Briefly, she speculated that she could sneak into Micha’s chamber, murder him, then methodically kill every general until someone put a stop to it. Of course, they would behead her, and then who would care for the hawks?
At the thought of the birds, she opened her chamber window wide and called for them. Queen shrieked a response from the treetops.
When the hawks arrived at the balcony, Bell beckoned them inside.
“I know, you hate being trapped, but I don’t trust those soldiers. They are afraid of you, especially after today. Stay in here and I’ll know you’re safe.”
Queen cooed in protest, flattening her wings against her sides and struggling to fit through the door. Bell wrapped her arms around the great beast’s neck and pulled gently to slip Queen into the room. The other three were not nearly as large and they followed without a struggle.
Bell took the furs from her bed and flipped them onto the floor, generating a cloud of dust in her wake. In a moment she’d created a few nests in one corner, though it was only enough for the two smallest birds.
“I’ll fetch more furs, you wait,” Bell said.
The birds stared back as if personally disappointed in her failed effort.
Bell sighed, shaking her head, and hurried out of the chamber. She walked with light steps through the hall toward her mother and father’s boudoir, already picturing their wardrobe stacked high with spare robes, furs, and coverings that would make for fine nests.
She rounded the corner and opened the door.
The first thing she noticed is that the candles were lit and the boudoir was not empty, nor cold, nor dark.
Then she saw the culprit. Micha was in a chair, holding a tome in his hands, lounging beside her father’s bookshelves. He was freshly bathed, shaved, and dressed in soft night clothes.
Bell slammed the door behind her and charged toward him. “What are you doing in here? Put that back! Get out of here, at once!”
Micha set the tome on the floor and held up his hands. “Oi, please, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. Get out of my father’s room. You don’t belong here. How dare you—”
“Bell, stop,” Micha rose from the chair and reached for her forearms. Bell slapped him away and shoved him as hard as she could. He stepped backward, but didn’t fall as she’d expected him to do. It only infuriated her more that she felt helpless to overpower him.
Bell pointed her finger at his nose. “I’m going to kill you. Do you understand? I’m going to murder you. I don’t care what happens to me.”
“Alright,” Micha said.
The next string of phrases out of her mouth were indistinguishable, the words a jumble of curses, insults, and profanities. Her hands flurried, slapping and punching Micha’s strong chest.
He backed away, his periwinkle eyes wide. His back hit the bookshelf and he stayed flat against it, arms limp at his sides.
Bell didn’t quit.
She leaned in and swung her right arm as hard as she could, punching again and again into his chest. Micha flinched. She could feel him flex, muscles tightened, to take each strike. She didn’t stop delivering them.
She wasn’t sure what else came out of her mouth, but she knew she was shouting, or crying, or screaming. Her voice echoed in the chamber and back into her ears and she realized her words weren’t meant for Micha at all.
They were meant for Sylas.
They were meant for her father.
“You left me. You left me. You fucking bastard,” Bell heard herself say. And the weight of it, all at once, came crashing on top of her.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t stand.
Her legs collapsed, shaking from the adrenaline, and she fell forward onto him.
Micha’s arms finally moved, wrapping around her shoulders and embracing her. He held her up to prevent her from falling as she let all her muscles go limp. Her rage drained from her in one movement, though she were a bladder of water that burst.
Mouth open, unhinged, she sobbed against his shoulder. Her tears and saliva soaked into his shirt and formed a pool there.
Micha muttered soft words into her hair. His hands were firm on her back.
Bell let everything go.
CHAPTER 34
SYLAS
HONOR IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN LIFE
Cames hadn’t survived.
He’d died in Isla’s arms, shivering, pleading to the Almighties for his life.
They couldn’t give him a proper funeral, and that was the worst thing of all. Isla sobbed for days, inconsolable.
The Hornes took Cames’s body when it began to smell.
It seemed to be the final straw that took Isla’s hope. She stopped trying to convince Sylas that there was anything worth living for, and she remained huddled into a ball at the far edge of the cave.
He didn’t know how many days had passed since then. He stopped going to the mouth of the cave to see when the sun rose and set. Everything was dark and grey, and time probably was passing quickly without Sylas tracking it.
The remaining few Candorians were in the same blasé state. All of them laid about, never talking, not planning an escape.
They were waiting for death. Sylas couldn’t tell if the smell of Cames’s body was lingering, or if all of them were inching closer to their demise and rotting from the inside out.
Besides dropping off food, the Hornes were rarely seen. Sylas knew enough about training for battle to recognize preparation when he saw it. They wanted an army. They wanted Boenaerya.
Part of him couldn't blame them; he wouldn't want to stay in rock tunnels either. But the Hornes had been in these islands for hundreds of years. There was no need for them to take any other land.
They didn't see it that way.
It could have been a fortnight. It could have been a year. Nothing much mattered beyond the cave. Except for one thing.
Sylas thought of Bell. He imagined her in a safe place, free, happy. She was his reason to go on. The image of her. If he closed his eyes tight, he could almost remember her smile. It gripped his cold heart and pumped life back through it when the rest of his body was frozen. His favorite memories of her; laughing at her coming-of-age feast, taking his hand when she nearly slipped into the lake, and riding on his shoulders home from a hunt. It was fading from his mind. Bell and Hawk’s Keep seemed further away with each passing day.
It was night when Lenon came and led Sylas and Isla from the cave.
"You are going to lead my army now," Lenon said.
Sylas didn't argue. He merely followed.
There was a long line of Hornes ahead. They led down the winding path along the rocks like sea serpents glistening in the orange moonlight. Lenon was at the back of them, with Sylas and Isla trailing behind. Ice cold mist came in all directions, from both the sea and sky, as sharp barbs of water droplets stung his cheeks.
As they descended further down the island, a sense of dread filled his stomach.
"You like to swim?" Lenon heckled over his shoulder.
Sylas remained silent, wondering if his lack of response would provoke a change in Lenon's demeanor. As far as he could tell, Lenon remained cheery and jovial, chuckling after bantering in Hornish with the warriors around him.
Around another rock, and Sylas saw a flat plateau. There were four men assembled there—three of them Hornes, the fourth likely a Calamytan.
"Here is the place," Lenon explained, gesturing.
Sylas stood on the flat space, eyeing each of the men, wondering what the purpose was of this meeting. Isla was quiet. They waited for a moment, all eyes on Lenon.
The Horne leader drew a breath and then chuckled as he let it out. "Do you two men know each other?"
Sylas stared through the darkness at the Calamytan, who eyed him in return. The man's face was distinctly marked by red stains, like bruising, and it was indeed familiar but only from a distant memory.
"No?" Lenon asked. "Why don't you introduce yourselves then?"
"I'm Sylas, Lord of Hawk's Keep. Son of Archer."
The other man squinted. "I remember you. You're the one who brought the boy to the Knight's Trial that broke his arm. And Finn, he was one of your knights."
Sylas cringed, feeling pain he couldn't hide. His voice cracked as he spoke. "Cames was the broken-armed lad. He was here captive with us, but he's...perished. I haven't any idea where Finn is now. The last I heard, he was running from Boens and perhaps they killed him as well."
"Maybe," the man grumbled, "but it seems the Boens aren't much interested in taking prisoners. They brought us to the Hornes as fast as they could. I reckon they aren't keeping anyone underground."
"How many men do the Hornes have, then?" Sylas said, eyeing Lenon with a suspicious glare.
The man scratched his chin. "I reckon forty thousand. A bulk of the Candorian army."
"No," Sylas shook his head, "that can't be. Where would they keep you all? How would they feed that many? That's impossible."
The man shrugged, and it was silent for a moment. Sylas turned and studied the side of the rock-riddled islands, scanning the sides. His eyes followed the shapes of the grey rock faces, jagged and biting as though they nipped at the air and the frigid sleet nipped back. Unforgiving, but riddled with pockets. Sylas supposed there were indeed enough pockets to hold at least half of Zander's fallen army. Would they have slain the women, children, and infirmed captives of Boenaerya?
"Do you remember me?" the Candorian man asked. "I suppose that the toll of war may have changed me."
Sylas studied him again and shook his head.
"I'm Sir Han'gahan. I was a knight to King Lyam. Then to Prince Zander, along with your charge, Finn. I charged into the battle against the Boens. The bastards pulled me underground and kept me there, pissing on myself, until they turned me over to the Hornes. I've been on these forsaken death rocks, ever since."
