Hope (30 page)

"Enough, Garrent. What did you want to see me about?" he said with a touch of anger. He
was
in fact busy.

"It’s something we should discuss in private. Here, let’s go in the back room. It should be secure from wandering ears." They walked into the back where vast majorities of the Knighthood’s extra weapons were stored. "We have a problem. Pick up a sword from the rack. Any sword."

Lanclor picked up a sword randomly and held it, waiting for Sir Garrent to direct him.

"You can’t tell, can you?" Garrent drew his own sword and held it upright, in readiness. "Swing your sword against mine and see what happens."

Lanclor could tell that something was wrong. He confirmed it when the blade of his sword shattered upon impact. "What the hell? What’s going on?"

"My thoughts exactly. I tried selecting some other swords and they’re all like that. If you pay close enough attention, you’ll feel the difference in how they’re balanced. All of the crossbows have partially cut strings. I would never have noticed if I hadn’t been going through the extra weapons we were planning on loaning to the Royal Guard. We’re lucky we gave up on the crossbows, or we would have been facing a Daemon horde with nothing but broken strings and startled knights."

"The Preservation spells should have prevented this from happening. How is this possible?"

Sir Garrent paused a moment and took a deep breath before speaking. "Sir Lanclor, I believe someone is trying to sabotage the Knighthood."

Kathryn gathered her fruit and bread, looking around the meal room for a place to sit. She usually just followed Hal, but he was in R’kelo for the week. There were open spots at some of the tables with one table empty except for one lone knight with black wings.

After the Red River Battle, most of the other knights gave her shy smiles and included her in polite conversation. She wasn’t in the mood for polite conversation. The change in the demeanor of some of the knights—those who were bad-mouthing her less than two months before—made her uncomfortable.

Kathryn placed her tray on the table and looked down at Sir Lanclor. "Good morning, Sir Lanclor."

"Good morning, Lady Kathryn. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" The open mouth flap of his helmet showed his smirk.

"You’re just so charming I couldn’t resist." She sat down next to him and noted a smile replaced his smirk before he looked down at his meal.

Kathryn was halfway through her meal before she realized the other knights were staring at them and the usual ruckus of the meal room was now a pool of hushed voices. She shook her head and brought the last of her bread to her mouth.

"They’ll be talking about this for months you know." Sir Lanclor said with amusement. "Lady Kathryn, the brave knight who annihilates Daemons and challenges the great Sir Lanclor."

Kathryn snorted. "Don’t flatter yourself. I just saw your table as the lesser of the evils."

Sir Lanclor straightened. "I think you’ll find you chose wrong."

"Oh please. I prefer your blunt honesty to their honey-coated insults any day. The only reason some of them don’t call me an undeserving Earthling anymore is because they now know I can annihilate them with one spell."

"Fear is a powerful thing." Sir Lanclor closed his mouth flap and gathered his tray.

If everyone feared her, she’d never have anyone. Kathryn piled her utensils upon her tray. "It’s also lonely as hell." She stood up and left the table without a backwards glance. Depositing her tray on the counter next to the trash can, she exited the meal room.

"Lady Kathryn, wait." She glanced back to see Sir Lanclor hurrying after her. He caught up to her in a few strides and fell in beside her. "That conversation didn’t end like I intended."

"Oh, really? What was your intention?" Kathryn regretted the bitterness in her voice.

Sir Lanclor sighed in frustration. "You surprised me. I usually have time to think before I speak."

"You think before you speak?" Kathryn exaggerated her look of surprise as she glanced his way and his eyebrow turned down in disapproval. She heard him growl deep in his throat before responding.

"You are the most frustrating woman I’ve ever known." He clenched his fists but remained by her side.

"Thank you. I try." She closed her mouth flap and smiled beneath her helmet.

"Our paths separate here." They stopped at an intersection and he gestured toward his workroom. "I’ll see you in the library this afternoon." He hesitated, and then started walking down the left corridor.

"Be safe, Sir Lanclor." Kathryn started down the right corridor.

"Be safe, Lady Kathryn. And Lady Kathryn?"

"Yes?" She turned to meet his gaze.

"Breakfast? Same time tomorrow?"

"Sure." She nodded and watched him turn to continue up the hallway, disappearing around a corner. Frowning, she continued on her way trying to figure out why there was now a spring in her step.

"Good morning, Sir Lanclor." Kathryn placed her tray on the table and sat beside him a week later. The other knights around the table smiled at her and continued their various conversations.

"Good morning, Lady Kathryn." Sir Lanclor smiled and tossed his roll to a knight across the table who then tossed her apple to him. "I heard drill didn’t go so well yesterday. Something about Artemis bolting towards a stallion?"

The other knights chuckled then quieted as Kathryn glared at them. In just a week, others had arrived at their table and had grown comfortable enough to engage in conversations with them both.

"Artemis likes him. She just forgot I was on her back is all." Kathryn missed the protection of her helmet as her cheeks blazed. She no longer saw the purpose of wearing it during meals. Others had adopted her opinion, but some knights around their table preferred anonymity.

"Well, it’s a good thing she gave you the opportunity to get off of her back before she entertained him." Sir Lanclor tightened his lips in an attempt to suppress his laughter. He failed after only a few seconds and joined everyone around the table except Kathryn.

"Yeah, laugh it up." Kathryn snatched the fruit from Sir Lanclor’s tray. "She’s not getting any of these today." Placing the fruit upon her tray, she hid her smile with a piece of bread.

The laughter died down and everyone continued the meal. She could tell Sir Lanclor was trying not to smirk at her between his bites of cheese. Frowning, she remembered her unease and wiped her mouth with her napkin.

"Sir Lanclor, have you seen Hal this morning?"

Sir Lanclor’s eyebrows rose and he grunted. "Now that you mention it, no. He’s never late for a meal, so I would have expected to see him this morning."

She lowered her voice. "He wasn’t at dinner last night and he’s not in his room either. I’m getting worried. It’s just not like him to miss a meal and I assume he would have paid me a visit after he got back from R’kelo."

"Meet me in my workroom this evening. I’ll speak with Hook and Garrent and see if they know where he is." Sir Lanclor’s voice was low and the other knights didn’t seem to hear him.

Kathryn nodded. "I’ll be there."

Drewton held his sword at the man's throat. "Vikten, I suggest you start talking and start talking now, before I give you a permanent smile."

Mikael watched from the doorway, protecting Drewton’s back.

"I have nothing to say to you. Now put your sword away before my men return and I’ll consider forgiving your intrusion. As you can see, I’m in the middle of important business." Vikten gestured toward the two terrified prostitutes crouching in the corner behind the bed.

Drewton pressed the blade ever so slightly against Vikten's throat and a trickle of blood began to run down his neck. Vikten winced at the cut, but still maintained his look of hatred. "Who hired you to disperse the hit contracts for the knights?"

"All right, just get that damn sword away from me." As he pulled his sword away, Vikten suddenly fell to the floor and started convulsing. Cursing, Drewton wiped his sword, returned it to its sheath, then reached toward Vikten to try to halt his convulsions. Mikael hastily closed the door and knelt to assist Drewton with Vikten. Before their hands reached him, he had stopped. Vikten's dead eyes stared up at the ceiling as foam and blood trickled from his mouth. The smell of a Death spell emanated from him and Drewton quickly withdrew. He herded the prostitutes out of the room, then heard the sound of footsteps.

Drewton pulled Mikael to the wall behind the door. "Lak’oth vin’tes’malor." Drewton cast a Chameleon spell over both of them and they blended with the wall as the door opened to reveal a dozen of Vikten’s mercenaries. "Boss? Boss, what’s wrong?" one voice shouted—the voice of an unintelligent man.

"Idiot, he’s dead, that’s what’s wrong. He told him not to talk about it. Even talking about it to a prostitute could lead to death. Let that be a lesson to all of you. With Vikten dead, that leaves me in charge since I was his second."

"Bullshit! You may have been his second, but I command the men!"

Before a full-blown brawl erupted, Drewton and Mikael slipped out the door and left the scene. Nobody marked their passage, but they chose to take an indirect route back to Drewton’s barracks. Drewton wasn't sure who the mysterious "he" was, but he had a feeling he would find out eventually.

"You were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"You’re telling me." The bloodied knight hung by his wrists with the fine rope cutting into him. "What do you want anyway? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about an orb." His tormentor backhanded him, making his head hit the wall.

"I know you don’t know anything, but this is just too damn fun. You knights think you’re so high and mighty, but you bleed just like everyone else. Your wings only give me other appendages to cut off."

As the tormentor grabbed his saw off of the table, the knight began to struggle against his bonds. The tormentor gestured to his comrade and the man cleared the shadows to stand next to the knight. "Turn him until his back is to me. I’ll give him a reason to scream even louder."

"No, Goddamnit! I don’t know anything! Why are you doing this?" The knight writhed in an attempt to break free.

"Isn’t it obvious? Pleasure, of course," the knight’s tormentor said with relish as he positioned the saw at the base of the knight's right wing. "I wonder if you can still fly with only one wing. By the way, I thought you knights only worshipped the Goddess. No matter."

Before he could begin sawing, Drewton stuck a foot of blue steel through his throat while his friend from the shadows had a less elegant blade through his. A third man, hiding in the corner, fell to the teeth of Mikael’s dog. Drewton cringed at the thought of teeth ripping into his throat. Too close to dying at the hands of the Daemons for his taste.

"I’ve never wanted to kill any man as much as him." Mikael said as he cleaned his sword, then patted the dog’s side.

Drewton cleaned his own blade and nodded. It took all of Drewton’s willpower to just watch as his men got into position. They had received word that Vikten’s former squad had captured a knight. It wasn’t hard to track them to this warehouse on the east edge of town, but it was necessary to secure the area before taking them out. Vikten’s soldiers may have been stupid, but they were still skilled swordsmen.

"Pevet, I need your skills over here. Hurry." Drewton called as he removed the knight's bonds and lowered him to the wooden floor.

"I’m here, sir. Let me see him." Pevet placed his hands upon the knight’s forehead to Assess his condition. "Mel’int ent’bel’ak." Pevet had picked up the healing arts many cycles ago while he dated a healer. While the relationship hadn’t lasted, he had found he loved healing and increased his skills as best he could. Having a healer in Drewton’s squad was a lifesaver, literally. "There’s a lot of damage, Drewton. I don’t have the skill to fix him, but I think he’ll make it to the castle without bleeding to death."