The Bloodbound (9 page)

“A
gain,” Erik said, wiping sweat from his brow with his free arm. He rotated his wrist, sending his wooden sword twirling in a humming arc. He crouched, waiting, his breath blooming in the cold.

Alix feinted left, then lunged right. Erik deflected, but he grimaced in pain.

“Your Majesty—”

“Don't say it. I've got to push through. Again.”

Sighing, Alix tightened her grip on her weapon. Wood it might be, but it was weighted with lead, and perfectly capable of breaking bone. More to the point, Erik's leg wasn't ready for the strain. He was going to hurt himself, but he would brook no argument. So Alix came at him again, and this time she didn't hold back. If the king insisted upon sparring, she was going to give him what he asked for.

The yard rang out with the dry cracking of staves coming together. Guards clustered on the ramparts and along the walls, watching. Though his leg was not fully healed, Erik was a capable swordsman, and Alix had had the best training gold could buy. They might not be as graceful as they would have been wielding bloodweapons, but they were putting on a good show, at least for those few privileged enough to keep the king's secret. The training yard was tucked behind the barracks, allowing the royal guardsmen to seal it off from prying eyes. Or it would do, if they were the least bit focused on their duties.

“You're guards, not spectators!” Alix called, pivoting to avoid a slash. It was all the distraction she could afford; Erik was coiling for another strike. She didn't wait for it to fall. She threw all her weight behind a single blow, bringing her sword down vertically at Erik's chest. The king crossed, shoved her back so hard she nearly lost her balance. He charged, trying to take advantage of her loss of footing, but she recovered quickly and twisted out of the way, swiping at him as he passed. His own momentum betrayed him, and Erik crashed to the ground, crying out as he landed on his bad leg.

Alix swore and fell to her knees beside him. “I'm sorry!”

“Gods' blood, woman!” He curled over his thigh, his teeth gritted in pain.

Her temper flared. “Well this wouldn't have happened if you weren't so
damned stubborn
!”

The king stared at her. Alix stared back, horrified.

Erik burst out laughing.

Alix dropped her gaze as the familiar blush spread over her cheeks. “I . . . don't know what to say.”

“I think that will do nicely.” He rolled into a sitting position. “I can't tell you how pleased I am that we've reached this stage in our relationship.”

“I believe I detect some sarcasm.”

“Sarcasm, dear lady? Whyever would you think that?” He accepted her help to stand. “What king wouldn't enjoy being knocked on his backside and scolded in front of his men?”

“It builds character.”

“Excellent. At this rate, I will be the very paragon of character in no time.”

Alix chewed her lip to get her smile under control. “In earnest, I am sorry.”

Erik shrugged. “I thoroughly deserved it. I should be more patient. I'm just so blasted tired of this leg.”

Alix couldn't blame him. It had been almost two months since the Battle of Boswyck, and still his leg gave him trouble. He walked with only a slight limp, but anything more demanding left him stiff and sore for days. Not that he let that rule him. He insisted on sparring every day, both to push his recovery and to ensure his skills didn't fall into disuse. Alix appreciated their sessions as well, for like the king, she wanted her blade to remain keen. But she wished he wouldn't let his frustration get the better of him.

“One upside of all this is that I might just emerge a better swordsman,” Erik said. “It's been so long since I had a bloodblade in my hand, I hardly remember what it feels like. By the time I get a new one, I'll be so accustomed to an ordinary weapon, I'll feel like Rahl himself when I take it up.”

Alix failed to see the upside in her king being without his best protection. Only one known bloodbinder remained in the whole kingdom, and he was back at the capital. If there were others, they hadn't come forward, either because they didn't realise how truly rare their talents were, or because they wanted to avoid being pressed into military service. The gods only knew how long it would be until Erik could replace the bloodblade he'd lost at Boswyck, and until then, he would have to content himself with an ordinary sword. No matter how finely crafted, how well balanced, it would feel heavy and ungainly in comparison, and on the battlefield, that could make the difference between life and death.

You're worrying too much
, she scolded herself.
Owning a bloodblade is a privilege, not a necessity. The vast majority of the Kingswords get on just fine without them, including Liam.

The thought brought fresh worries of its own. “Any word from the front?”

Erik accepted a towel from one of his knights. “Not for a few days. The enemy is probably still licking his wounds after last week's skirmish.”

Not a day went by that Alix didn't find herself thinking of Liam and the others, out there clashing with the enemy week after week. She imagined them sore and ragged, hungry and drained, their nights long and cold and full of dread. And then there was Rig . . . She hadn't had word of the missing Blackswords for over a month. The waiting, the not knowing, the hiding behind these walls, keeping secrets, while the war unfolded beyond the hills—it was killing her. Her guts felt like they were eating themselves from the inside out.

Her thoughts must have played clearly across her face, because Erik said, “I hate it too. That's why we need to keep at this. The sooner I'm well, the sooner we can be out there where we belong.”

She nodded. “As long as we're pinning the enemy down, that's the main thing.”

“For now. But if that host at the border moves . . .” He didn't finish the thought. He didn't have to.

“I hear Lord Brown is mustering again.”

Erik winced. “Farmers and millers and merchants.”

“They've had their two years of training, at least. That's the whole idea behind the King's Service, isn't it?”

“According to my great-grandfather's thinking, but those were different days. We don't—”

A pigeon leapt suddenly off the ramparts, wings whirring. Alix glanced up and saw a flash of metal in the sunlight. Her body was moving before her mind had even processed what she'd seen. She dove, tackling Erik to the ground just as a quarrel hissed though the air where he'd been standing.

“West wall!” she cried, covering the king with her body.

Guards burst into action. A silhouetted figure uncoiled from his crouch in the lee of the tower, dropping his crossbow as he made for the stairs. Alix craned her head to track his movements. Her men surged up the stairs and along the wall walk from both sides, cutting off the would-be assassin's escape. Alix watched as he contemplated a suicidal jump, ultimately hesitating too long and allowing himself to be overtaken. Swords flashed.

“Wait,” she cried, “don't—” But it was too late. Half a dozen swords plunged into the assassin's body. He crumpled.

Alix cursed under her breath. There would be no questioning him now. “All clear?” she called.

“All clear, Captain!”

Only then did Alix recall that she was lying on top of the king.

“This seems oddly familiar,” came a muffled voice from beneath her.

Alix looked down at him, incredulous. He was as bad as Liam. “It's not funny,” she growled, rolling off him.

He sighed. “No, it's not.” For the second time in the space of a few moments, he accepted Alix's help to stand. He dusted himself off and glanced up at the west wall, where the guards were already dragging the body away. “I will let you tend to this, Captain, and we can talk later.” So saying, he headed for the keep, donning the detested helm as he walked. Alix snapped her fingers and pointed at him, and a pair of guards hurried after.

She drew a long, steadying breath, willing her pulse to slow. She had always known that it was only a matter of time until the secret of the king's survival was discovered. They'd all known it, but they hadn't been sure how the Raven would react, how far he would really go. It seemed they had their answer.

*   *   *

Commander Ormond Wildwood
stuck his boot under the corpse and rolled it over. Bloodstained straw clung to the front of the dead man's tabard, obscuring his wounds, but there was no mistaking the livery: he wore the emerald-dyed linen of the Greenswords. The old knight frowned thoughtfully. “Don't recognise him,” he said, though that didn't prove much; the garrison commander could hardly be expected to know every man in his charge. Ormond glanced at his second, a stout man-at-arms called Jarvis. “What about you? Seen him before?”

Jarvis shook his head and spat in the dust. “No Greensword, that one.”

“One of yours, Captain?”

Alix suppressed an instinctive flash of outrage. The question wasn't entirely unfair. She'd had some of her guards put on Green livery, to make them less conspicuous on the walls. Kingswords milling around the bailey would not raise any eyebrows, but they had no business patrolling the ramparts. Disguising them avoided inconvenient questions from the rank and file.

She studied the dead man's face. It was narrow and ratlike, with prominent ears and a thicket of broken veins around the nose—distinctive enough for her to be sure she hadn't seen it before. “Not one of mine, either.”

Ormond unsheathed his dagger and slashed the dead man's tabard up the side, exposing boiled leather beneath. “No mail.”

“Chain mail makes noise,” Alix said. “He probably sneaked in overnight and stole the tabard from the barracks.”

“A professional, most like,” Jarvis said.

“Search him thoroughly, Commander,” Alix said. “And when you've done that, I want to know how in the Nine Domains he got past your guards.”

Ormond eyed her sourly. “You won't be staying?”

She could guess his thoughts. He was a knight and garrison commander, thirty years her senior and unaccustomed to taking orders from anyone but Lord Green. Well, that was just too bad. Alix didn't care one whit for his infringed ego. Half of her royal guardsmen were knights, and they had fallen in line when she'd made it clear she wouldn't tolerate anything less. Commander Ormond could bloody well do the same. “My place is with the king,” she said coolly, and she left him.

Her hands balled into fists as she walked, and her strides grew longer with each step. She managed to hold on until she was inside the keep, but as soon as she reached the seclusion of the study, her temper broke free.

“Damnation!”
She punctuated the oath by kicking Lord Green's chair over. Finding that surprisingly satisfying, she looked for something to throw, but a tiny, timid voice in her head reminded her that she was a guest here. So instead she paced the room like a caged animal, tugging at her braid and swearing under her breath.

Questions roiled in her mind, and though she had no answers, all the possibilities pointed to negligence on her part. Who had discovered the king's secret and betrayed it to the Raven? It could have been anyone—the spy they'd caught, a castle servant, one of the Kingswords. Even her own guards could have let the information slip in a moment of indiscretion. And then there was the question of how the assassin had managed to get past the royal guardsmen—in broad daylight, for gods' sake!—and get a shot off before he was discovered. Only his own clumsiness had exposed him. If he hadn't startled that pigeon . . . Alix shuddered. Then her guardsmen had killed him outright, leaving no possibility of interrogating him. She'd let it happen. Her incompetence was all too obvious.

She growled out loud, grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes. Where there was one assassin, there would be others. That was a certainty, a law of the world as firm and immutable as death itself. From this day forward, everything would be different.

“You're too hard on yourself.”

Alix turned to find Raibert Green leaning on the door frame.

“You saved the king's life. You did your duty.”

“Barely. It was luck as much as anything.”

He shrugged, his thin face wise and weary. “We all rely on luck, every day of our lives.”

Alix took little comfort in that. “How is he?”

“He waits for you. He'll put on a brave face, but he's shaken. Be gentle with him.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Tether your temper, Captain. It will do the king no good to see you like this. Take a cue from him and project confidence, even if you don't feel it. Keep your doubts about your performance to yourself.”

Alix paused. He had a point. What the king needed from his bodyguard was reassurance, not a reminder of how close he'd come to being murdered. She blew out a long breath. “Thank you, Lord Green. Your counsel is steady, as always. The king is fortunate to have you.”

“He is fortunate to have you too,” Raibert said meaningfully before leaving her.

She found Erik in the solar, sipping wine. He looked small and vulnerable in that grand room, its high ceilings stretching into shadow, its long table crowding him against the hearth. Firelight illuminated the reddish gold of his hair, cast the velvet of his doublet in a soft ruby glow. He was perfectly situated amid the sumptuous accents of the room, as fragile and beautiful as any of them, but so much more valuable. Alix felt the weight of her duty more heavily in that moment than ever before.

Erik poured a second cup of wine and pushed it wordlessly across the table. Alix pulled out a chair and sat. She took the cup, sipped from it.

“I might wish for something stronger,” Erik remarked.

“I'll drink to that,” Alix said, and she did.