Only the Valiant Read online

  “We need to find somewhere else that’s safe for you,” Genevieve said.

  “For both of us,” Sheila replied. “You can’t just go back to Altfor. Not after this.”

  “He would hunt us down,” Genevieve said. “And as his wife…”

  “What? You’re safe?” Sheila asked.

  That was a part of it, because it seemed that Altfor wasn’t going to risk breaking the laws of the kingdom by harming his own wife. But there was more to it than that.

  “I can do more good as his wife than I can running,” Genevieve said. “I’m going to have to go back at—”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, because in that moment a wave of dizziness overcame her. She staggered, and she might have gone down to one knee if it hadn’t been for Sheila supporting her.

  “I’m all right,” Genevieve said. “I’ve just… it’s just running away like this…”

  “Are you sure that’s all it is?” Sheila asked.

  “What do you mean?” Genevieve asked, still leaning on her sister. They made their way to a rock by the stream, sitting there together.

  “Well, you’ve been married to… to him for a while, haven’t you?” Sheila asked.

  Genevieve nodded.

  “And you’ve both been…”

  Genevieve nodded again. “I am his wife.”

  “Not that he cares much either way,” Sheila said. “But do you think maybe… maybe you could be pregnant?”

  Genevieve shook her head. “No, I can’t be.”

  “Can’t be?” Sheila countered.

  Genevieve paused then. Of course she could be. She’d slept with Altfor enough times, because once she’d agreed to it, her husband had been eager for it. That had stopped recently, after she’d found out about Moira, and Sheila, and all the rest of it, but before that…

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “Then the next thing we need to do is find out,” Sheila said. “Find out if you’re carrying that monster’s child.”

  Genevieve knew how to do it, of course; it was something that all the women of the village learned, when the nobles descended whenever they wanted and took what they wanted; who they wanted. There was moss that would shimmer blue when it came into contact with the urine of a pregnant girl, when it would just wither when that girl wasn’t with child. There were other ways too, known to some of the older women, but most of those sounded like stories made up just to frighten the younger ones.

  It took a while to find the moss, and longer to use it. Genevieve and Sheila sat waiting when it was done, watching until finally, with the kind of sick certainty that Genevieve should have known was coming, the moss started to shimmer blue.

  “I… I’m pregnant,” Genevieve said, barely able to believe it.

  Sheila hugged her tight. “It will be all right. There’s still the root. Eat that, and there will be no more child. You’ll be free to stay, or go, or do anything else you want.”

  She said it so simply, in the matter-of-fact way of that could only come in the villages where the nobles preyed on those they chose.

  “Did you… did you use the root when Altfor…” Genevieve couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Sheila nodded beside her. “I wanted to make sure. The moss didn’t say anything, but until I had, I felt as though there might still be some part of him buried inside of me, growing.”

  Genevieve held onto her sister then. “He told me about what he did, Sheila. He boasted about it to try to hurt me more and make me do everything he wanted. I’m so sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” Sheila said. “It’s him who needs to pay for it, and he will.”

  Genevieve shook her head. “He’s the son of the old duke and the nephew of the new one. Men like Altfor don’t pay for what they do.”

  “He will,” Sheila said. “I’m going to kill him.”

  She sounded so certain about that, as though she was saying that the sky was blue, or that thunder would follow lightning. Genevieve couldn’t see how she could be that certain, though, when nobles had taken girls and raped them here for as long as anyone could remember. There was no retribution for it, when their victims weren’t of the noble class.

  “How do you plan to do it?” Genevieve said.

  “I don’t know,” Sheila replied. “But I’ll do it. I’ll kill him, even if it kills me.”

  “I don’t want you dead,” Genevieve said. She held her sister out at arm’s length. “Promise me, Sheila. Promise me that you won’t do anything stupid.”

  Her sister didn’t make the promise though, but only stood there.

  “What about you?” she asked instead. “When are you going to take the root?”

  “I…” Genevieve hesitated. “I don’t know if I am.”

  “But he’s—”

  “He’s my husband,” Genevieve said. “It’s not like I was caught up in some raid and left behind. This is his legitimate child, and his heir.”

  “So you’re going to go back and play the part of the loving wife?” Sheila asked.

  Genevieve shook her head. “He wouldn’t believe that. But this child… it will be mine as well as his and I don’t think… I don’t think I can do it. I want to keep the child.”

  “And will you tell him?” Sheila asked. “Will you announce it to the world, as the wife of the duke-to-be?”

  She made it sound like some kind of twisted play, and maybe, just maybe, that was what it was. What it could be, at least.

  “If I’m carrying his heir, that gives me a kind of power,” Genevieve said. “I can do some good. As the heir’s mother, I will have a say in how things are done. I can change things.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?” Sheila asked.

  Genevieve nodded. “I have to.”

  “Of course, there’s another side to that,” Sheila said. “You might be the mother to his heir, but he will still be the one in charge.”

  “Not if he’s dead,” Genevieve said.

  “Dead?” That seemed to be enough to catch Sheila’s attention.

  “Not yet.” Genevieve shook her sister. “It can’t be yet, you understand? But if he dies after the baby is born, then we have a chance to say what’s going to happen. We have a chance to change things, and make them better. I can raise my child how they want, and they can rule for everyone.”

  It felt so strange to be discussing it in those terms, to be putting it so coldly, but it was the only way that Genevieve could think of to make this right. She could never go back to being a villager, because Altfor would kill her rather than let that happen. She couldn’t have Royce, because she was Altfor’s wife. Her only hope to do any good in the world was to stay where she was and become more.

  Murdering Altfor would be a truly evil act, but if she killed Altfor at the right moment, it was the kind of evil that might still do some good. The world might actually change, and things might be better for all the people like her who might be the next to suffer otherwise.

  She had to do this, she had to be a noble wife and mother, no matter how much it hurt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Royce led the way down from the hillside, through the trees, with the others following along behind him as closely as they could. Lofen and Garet helped one another, while Raymond was almost level with Royce. Royce strode quickly, wanting to get out of there before any fresh threats came to them. Above him, Ember circled, the magic that connected them showing him that the Picti were still watching from spots within the trees. It would only take a moment for them to start attacking again, and then he and his friends would be lost.

  “Why do you think they aren’t trying to kill us?” Matilde asked. She was dragging along the Picti girl she’d knocked half-unconscious with a length of rope, like the prize of some noble out on a raid.

  “Let her go,” Royce said.

  “But she was trying to kill me,” Matilde said. “Maybe she can tell us things. Besides, I don’t see why only the nobles should get to t
ake all the pretty girls.”

  Royce sighed, then turned to the girl Matilde was dragging. “What can you tell us about the Picti following us?” he asked. “I can see them through my hawk. I know that they’re there. Why did they let us go when the stone screamed?”

  He turned back to Matilde.

  “She probably doesn’t speak any tongue but the Picti one,” he said. “And even if she understands us, she wouldn’t say anything without us torturing her. Do you want to start torturing people? Or dragging them off to be no more than slaves like the nobles do?”

  He heard Matilde sigh. “I guess not.” She cut the rope using one of her knives. “Go on then. Run away.”

  The Picti girl seemed to understand that part at least, because she scampered away to the edge of the trees. There, she paused, and spoke perfectly in the language of the kingdom.

  “We left because the stone only sings a song of pain for the worthy,” she said. “You are the one who was promised, who will give us back our place in the land. And girl…” She looked over at Matilde. “I think you are pretty too.”

  She disappeared into the forest before Royce or anyone else could say anything. He watched her go through Ember’s eyes, but she moved so quickly even the hawk couldn’t follow her as she was lost under the trees.

  “We need to keep going,” Royce said. He didn’t know who the Picti thought he was, or what they believed he was going to do for them, but this still didn’t feel like a place to stay. For one thing, there was still the risk that more guards might show up. If anyone had seen signs of the fighting, or been expecting them back, then there might be a whole company about to descend on their group.

  “We need to get to the old clan meeting place,” Hendrik said. “It’s far enough from the villages that no one will look for us there, but still sheltered enough that we won’t die up among the heather.”

  Royce started to nod his agreement, but then paused. “There’s something I need to do first; someone else I need to at least try to save, if he’s still alive.”

  “If?” Hendrik said. “You want to have another fight for ‘if’?”

  “I don’t want another fight,” Royce insisted. “But I don’t want to abandon a friend either. Mark was my closest friend back on the Red Isle. We’ve saved each other’s lives, and fought together when there was no one else.”

  “If he’s from the Red Isle,” Hendrik said, “I guess that tells us where you want to head.”

  “The pit,” Royce said. He nodded. “I’m sorry, I know how dangerous it is.”

  “More dangerous than you think,” the larger boy said. “The pit has been the heart of the rioting ever since you threw that spear. They keep putting it down, but fights spring up again. They’re even starting to tell mad stories in the chaos now, of a magical man with gray skin who killed a squad’s worth of guards without trying. Do you want to run into him?”

  “If it means a chance to kill him,” Royce said, his hand tightening on his sword. “I would charge straight into a battle if it meant that I got to kill him.”

  “Well, that’s exactly what we’ll be doing,” Hendrik said.

  “We?” Royce asked.

  Hendrik nodded. “You don’t think I’m going to let you go alone, do you?”

  “None of us will,” Matilde insisted.

  Beside them, his brothers seemed to be in agreement.

  “If you go,” Raymond said, “we all go.”

  Royce thought about the danger he might be putting them in, but only for a moment. “Then we all go.”

  ***

  They walked and ran, those of them with horses leading them so they wouldn’t leave the others behind. It seemed to take forever before they reached the small settlement where the fighting pit lay, and looking down on it, Royce could see that Hendrik had been right: there were still plenty of spots where violence flared up in the streets.

  “If we just march in there, we’re dead,” Raymond pointed out.

  Royce could only agree with that. If they went into the settlement that housed the pit as one charging group, they might make it out with Mark, but they might also find themselves in the middle of a fight they couldn’t win. At the very least, some of them might die trying to save him, and looking around, Royce had to ask which of his friends and his family he was willing to sacrifice just for the chance of getting Mark back.

  The answer was simple: he was the only one he could risk doing this.

  Royce settled down in the grass beyond the settlement, keeping low and trying to avoid being seen while he watched the patterns of what was going on below. There were guards there, and enough to potentially overwhelm his people, but not, he realized, enough to be everywhere at once. Where the sporadic patches of violence were breaking out, they were rushing to intercept, moving over to one part or another of the settlement by following the sound of whistles and shouts.

  Royce could use that.

  “I want most of you to cause a distraction,” he said to the others. “Hit and then run, without letting them catch up to you. Move among the buildings and draw them off, maybe see if you can emulate those whistles they’re using. Raymond, Garet, Lofen, I want you ready with horses to come in and get me and Mark.”

  “You make it sound like you’ll be going in there alone,” Raymond said.

  Royce had been expecting an argument about this part of his plan. “It’s the best way. There will be less chance of someone spotting me if I’m alone. Just… be ready if this goes wrong.”

  “We will,” Raymond promised him.

  Royce set off down into the settlement then, every step taking him closer to the space where the guards were still patrolling, looking out for trouble. He set Ember flying overhead, watching their movements, and just barely ducked back into the shade of an ostler’s doorway in time.

  He waited there, watching through his hawk’s eyes until he was sure that the guard was gone. He hurried forward again and then ducked into a stand of bushes while more guards went by. His hand tightened on the grip of his sword, a part of him wanting to strike out at men who would willingly serve men like the duke and his sons. Then he thought of Nicolas’s brother and relaxed his grip slightly. Perhaps some of these men were serving because they thought they didn’t have a choice, or because it was that or starve on a farm somewhere, or even because they had thought that they might be able to do some good as a guard.

  Even so, he was grateful for the moment when he heard shouting in the distance, and the men ran off to try to deal with it. Through Ember’s eyes, he saw men rushing toward the spot where Hendrik, Matilde, and the others were attacking. He wouldn’t have long; he had to move now.

  Royce ran in the direction of the pit, and found the interior worryingly empty. There were bodies left on the floor where someone had attacked, but otherwise, the place seemed deserted. Instinctively, Royce avoided the areas where the nobles might sit; he wouldn’t find Mark in those. Instead, he headed down to the cages and the pens, where ordinarily, men and beasts might have been chained, waiting for their turn.

  They were empty though, and bloodstains suggested some of what might have happened to any men left behind. In that moment, Royce started to feel any hope that he might have had fade.

  “You! What are you doing there?”

  A guard came out of a side tunnel, raising a club. Royce could have pulled back, but instead, he was on the man in an instant. He grabbed the guard’s arm and twisted, wrenching him to the ground.

  “Where is everyone?” Royce demanded.

  “If you’re looking for someone, you’re too late,” the guard said. He seemed to be enjoying that fact. “We cut their throats and threw them in the body pits. Just like we’ll do with you!”

  He shoved Royce back and came up with a knife in his hand, lunging for him. Royce spun aside, drawing his sword and cutting in one movement. The guard fell, almost cut in two.

  He knew that he should leave then. There wouldn’t be much time, because there was only so
long that the others could keep their distraction up before one of them got hurt. Even so, he couldn’t leave before he’d checked. He had to see for himself that Mark was gone, or it would always haunt him.

  He made his way through the surroundings of the pit, looking for the spot where the guards had dumped the corpses of those they’d killed. Royce’s nose told him the way even before Ember’s eyesight picked out the spot from above.

  The mound of the dead was horrific to stare at. There were men there, and women, criminals and warriors of the Red Isle and more. There were limbs with no connection to bodies, and puddles of blood that turned the floor into a wash of red. Body after body had the marks of battle on it, while far too many of those nearest the top had simply had their throats cut.

  Royce collapsed to his knees at the sight of it, slipped in the blood, and forced himself back to his feet again. He knew in that moment that Mark hadn’t survived, because no one could hope to—

  “Royce!” The voice was little more than a croak, the sound of it only audible because of the awful silence of the rest of the place.

  “Mark?” Royce called out.

  “Royce!”

  He hurried forward, not caring about the blood now. He had to steel himself to plunge into the horror of the dead, looking where his eyes demanded that he couldn’t look, searching for his friend until…

  Mark lay among the horror of the rest of it, down beneath the surface of the pile, where he’d obviously been thrown in the moment when Royce had escaped. The wound in his chest was awful to behold, blood covering him, simply an absence there where some of him should have been. How he was still alive with that awful violence done to him, Royce didn’t know.

  For a moment, all he could do was stare at his friend, but then he knew that he had to reach out for him, pulling Mark from the pile of the dead even though he cried out through gritted teeth at the pain of it.