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Kel’s hands shook as she read the urgent report at the top of the pile of missives sent to New Hope. The fortified town had made it through the worst of winter, and the first tentative hints of spring were in the air. No one expected the Scanrans to just give up after last summer’s campaign, but all prayed for a swift and final defeat this year to send them back across the Vassa.
Kel herself certainly hadn’t expected them to make moves this early in the year, and surely the other Tortallan commanders were of the same mind. Even less did she expect to see Mindelan on the short list of besieged fiefdoms along the northern border. But there it was, in a clerk’s crisp clean handwriting, as if the sight of it didn’t send a dagger of fear between her lungs.
Neal and Merric, sitting with her in their headquarters, noticed her unusual reaction to the courier’s stack of messages. “Kel, what’s wrong?” Neal asked, standing to move around the table so he could read over her shoulder. He froze when he saw it as well, then gently removed the paper from her hands.
He said to Merric, voice soft, “Scanrans are active, there’s been attacks at a few fiefs so far - including Mindelan.” He passed the report to his year-mate and put both hands on Kel’s shoulders. “Kel, it’s going to be okay - your brothers are there, all of their fighters are there. Mindelan is not defenseless by any means.”
“And they’re getting reinforcements from Fort Steadfast,” Merric added, looking up from the report that he’d finished reading, continuing past the obvious offending line where Kel and Neal had stopped.
Kel looked up sharply. “From Steadfast? Then-”
Merric nodded. “The King’s Own. Lord Raoul is going.”
“I should be there,” Kel said, staring down at the table. “I should be with them.” She balled her fists to keep her hands from shaking further. She knew, somewhere in her mind, that Neal was right. She was just one knight; her presence would not make or break the defense of Mindelan compared to the men-at-arms commanded by her three knighted brothers and however many men Raoul would lead there. But she also knew that defending her home fief was her first responsibility as a noble, knight or no, woman or no.
Neal and Merric exchanged glances over her head. “Kel, we can handle the rest of the reports,” Neal offered. “You should go write home; we can send it along with the other mail.” Merric nodded his agreement.
Outwardly, Kel assented to her friend’s suggestion, returning to her room, pulling paper and ink from her desk drawer. Inwardly, though, she had no intention of writing a letter home. Writing as quickly as she could while keeping it legible, she wrote a letter instead to Lord Wyldon, all but begging his permission to be temporarily reassigned to Mindelan, just as long as it took for the Scanrans to be routed from the area, and then she would return to New Hope. She cited the capable defenses of New Hope through the fall, strengthened even now by their long hours of civilian training through the winter. She prayed that he would not see this as her wanting to desert her post, but her needing to fulfill her duties as a knight.
By the time she returned downstairs at headquarters, adding her letter to the pile that Neal and Merric had already put together to go with the courier, she had calmed down enough to converse again. She explained to them what she was asking of Wyldon, that she would be asking them to lead New Hope in her absence, if he agreed to it.
Neal started to argue with her, but Kel asked, “Wouldn’t you feel the same if it was Queenscove?” She turned to Merric as well. “Or you, if it was Hollyrose? If Lord Wyldon says no, I’ll stay here, I’ll write home, I’ll trust it to my brothers and Lord Raoul. But I have to ask.”
They both knew better than to argue with her further in this state, and the courier took her letter along with all the others.
---
The alert at Fort Steadfast came in the pre-dawn light, a messenger racing up to the fort on a swift black mare, signaled through the checkpoints, and directly to Lord Raoul. He called for Captain Flyndan Whiteford and his squad leaders, quickly drawing up a plan. He would personally lead five squads now - Dom’s, Aiden’s, Osbern’s, Qasim’s, and Volorin’s - while Flyn would follow up with the remaining squads of Third Company later in the day with the full supply train. First and Second Companies would remain at Steadfast, along with the two companies of the regular army who had joined them there.
He tersely briefed his sergeants as to the situation. “The Scanrans are on the move earlier than we anticipated. A number of northern fiefdoms are reporting attacks, and now we need to scramble to get where we’re needed. Third Company is going to Mindelan to add to their defenders.” He glanced at Dom at the mention of Mindelan, but quickly continued. “I would expect them to try to lock in their sieges as fast as they can, so we may need to break through their forces to get to the castle. They won’t have enough of a force to make it a prolonged siege like last summer, but this won’t be an overnight jaunt either. Your squads are with me in the first wave to scope out the situation and get there now. The rest will be with Flyn later today with supplies. Dismissed.”
The junior officers scattered to ready their men to ride. Sergeant Domitan of Masbolle shot one look over his shoulder at Raoul as he left, but did not delay longer. There’d be time to get more information on the ride to Mindelan.
He just hadn’t imagined this being the circumstance of his first visit to his lover’s home, he supposed.
---
Kel passed the week as best as she could - training her recruits, handling the usual disputes at New Hope, doing whatever she could to keep herself busy. She didn’t trust herself to be still and quiet for too long. She knew those around her were worried for her, but she just needed them to bear with her until the next scheduled courier delivery. She intended to keep her word - if Wyldon would not reassign her to Mindelan, she would do her duty to fortify New Hope against the likelihood of attack. But the uncertainty was making her edgy; she hated situations where all she could do was wait.
Finally, the appointed day came that the usual stack of messages was delivered to headquarters, bearing news from across the region, updates from each of the forts and towns that made up the border in this war. Normally, Kel waited for Neal and Merric to join her before she started into the reports, but she quickly scanned the pile for one that bore her name, rather than the general “Commander of New Hope” address. She found three.
Merric came into the office as she opened the first, from Wyldon. Seeing what she had in her hands, he busied himself with the more general reports, knowing she’d share what she needed to in her time. Neal slouched into the room a little later - he had been kept late at the infirmary the night before - and simply waited for Kel to speak.
“He says I can go,” she said, mind already turning over the things she’d need to do to make sure New Hope was positioned to succeed in her absence. She didn’t know how long she’d be gone, if it would be time to start the plowing or if they’d receive the new rotation of soldiers from the regular army while she was away. “I can go...” she almost didn’t believe it as she repeated it. On some level, she hadn’t actually expected Wyldon to agree, although her request was reasonable.
Neal nodded at the other two envelopes in front of her. “What are those, then?”
She held them up. “One from Raoul and one from Dom,” she said. She quickly did some math, thinking about how fast they could have traveled from Steadfast to Mindelan. “They’ll have been there for about a week now, but these would have to have been written a few days ago.”
Hands hovering over the envelopes, she decided to open the one from Raoul first. She smiled at his note that he had “encouraged” Wyldon to let her join them at Mindelan, and tried to fully absorb his tactical notes about the situation they faced there. It was not a large siege, but enough of one to be difficult. He was confident they’d break it before long, but of course, another trained knight who knew the area well would help it go even faster.
She set that aside for the moment, then opened the envelope from Dom. She had generally taken his letters as more personal mail and waited to open them until she was alone - and often that winter she was glad she had, given the contents of his more amorous letters - but she knew this would be his impression of the situation at Mindelan. Over the course of the past few months, she had become generally aware that Dom was being trained and evaluated as Flyn’s replacement for when the captain retired, though no one would say it in as many words.
Indeed, she found she appreciated his rational eye on the situation, though there was little actual strategic information that Raoul hadn’t included. He included, rather, some notes as to his impression of Mindelan itself - he wouldn’t have seen much of it during the royal progress a few years ago - and of her family, who he was meeting for the first time. The actual news was sandwiched between his warm assurances that he was doing his best both to defend the fief against the Scanrans, and to make a good impression on her parents and brothers, which very nearly made her laugh for the first time in a week.
“I need to get ready to go,” she said to Neal and Merric, turning her attention back towards the matter at hand. “What do I need to do before I leave so you can take over?”
---
Sir Anders of Mindelan, heir to the fief and in charge of most of its day-to-day operations - Piers still being much needed in the Tortallan diplomatic corps - greeted the Knight Commander of the King’s Own and his men when they arrived at the castle. Mindelan’s men-at-arms had done a good job of holding off the besieging Scanrans long enough for the first half of Third Company to get to the gates, where they could join forces with the defenders.
The two other knighted brothers, Inness and Conal, joined them from within the castle, and though Dom did his best to keep his mind focused on the work at hand, he couldn’t help but feel some natural curiosity about this place and these men. He had known, of course, that Kel was the youngest of a large family, but he felt it acutely with the distance in years between her and her oldest brother. Anders, he noted, walked with a slight limp - he vaguely remembered Kel mentioning something once about an injury in the Immortals War, and he wished he’d been paying closer attention.
Raoul introduced his sergeants to the three knights; Raoul had, of course, met the family previously when Kel was his squire. Dom tried not to kick himself over time wasted, time he could have been making himself part of her life, but this was hardly a new mental refrain to him in the past months. He shook the hands of each brother in turn, firm, but not testing.
He was trying to surmise how much any of them might know, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw Conal gesture slightly towards him, a quick point of a thumb, to which Inness responded with a single nod. It was a single moment and both brothers resumed their normal stances alongside Anders before Dom could have turned his head to look at them directly. “Aha,” he thought. “Here we go, then.”
Anders beckoned for Raoul and the squad leaders to follow him, as he said “Our guard captain will see that your men are situated. We can review the defenses in the library.” The library he led them to was much grander than Dom had expected for a small fief. Baron Piers was already there, standing over a map of the area spread out on a heavy oaken table. He barely seemed to notice their entrance until Anders pointedly cleared his throat. “Father, the King’s Own have arrived from Steadfast.”
At this, the baron looked up from the map and then smiled widely. “Ah, Lord Raoul! I trust our unwanted guests didn’t make it too difficult for you to get here.” He shook each of their hands warmly.
“Well, your men opened up quite the door for us,” Raoul quipped. “Unwanted houseguests can be so rude; we’ll be sure to send them on their way before they overstay their welcome.”
“Perhaps you and your men can help me crack this nut then,” Piers said, gesturing back to the map he had been poring over. He explained the conundrum they faced; the Scanrans had found the one spot in the valley they could wedge themselves into where it would be difficult to make any attack on their flanks, but Mindelan’s men would be squeezed through a narrow pass between two hills in order to make a headlong assault. “The lone choke point in the valley, and I’m afraid they found it by sheer dumb luck,” he summarized.
The brothers gave updates as to the status of their fighters, their numbers and positions, placing markers on the map as they did. Dom tried to visualize where the men of the Own, as heavy cavalry, would do more good than the fief’s own foot soldiers. The choke point was a problem, to be sure.
Piers, though he was no warrior himself, had an appreciable grasp of tactics - Dom wondered if it came with the territory of diplomacy as well, when diplomacy went awry. The conversation went on as they fine-tuned their strategy, reviewing possibilities to lure the Scanrans out of their defenses. Raoul sent a disguised runner out to meet Flyn’s group on the road, telling them to hold where they were and prepare to come in over the hills instead. They could disguise the supply wagons as a merchant caravan and see if that would tempt the greedy Scanrans to abandon their post.
Finally, Raoul asked the question that Dom had not yet figured out how to raise himself. “Is Keladry coming from New Hope?”
Piers sighed and said simply, “I hope so. I’ve written to Wyldon, and she’ll have received the alert along with all the other fortifications.”
Anders nodded and added, “If she can, she may be able to rendezvous with Captain Flyndan’s group on the road and join their attack; we’ll need someone with those squads who knows the area.”
Conal, however, shook his head. “I don’t see the point in dragging her all the way out here from New Hope. What is she actually going to do?”
Dom opened his mouth, then closed it again as Inness immediately spoke up. “You can’t seriously still think she wouldn’t be helpful. She fought as much as we did last summer. And in worse circumstances, even,” he added meaningfully, alluding to the escapades across the Vassa last June.
Anders, in his soft-spoken way, said “It will be important to her to defend Mindelan, just like it is to you or me, Con.”
This had the sound of a well-worn argument between brothers; Dom recognized it well from his own disputes with his older brother at Masbolle.
Conal held up his hands, as if to defend himself from his brothers’ words. “Hey, you know it’s not about her being a girl, being our little sister. She’s barely had her shield for a year, and we don’t actually know what happened last summer, it was all kept very quiet. If it was any other second-year knight, you wouldn’t care if she was here or not.”
Piers interjected here. “She isn’t any other second-year knight; she is your sister, she belongs to Mindelan, and she should be here. That’s final,” he said, taking a stern paternal tone that Dom hadn’t heard in his voice yet.
Dom felt in his gut that he should hold his tongue, but he couldn’t help himself. “I was there last summer, Sir Conal. I helped Kel attack Castle Rathhausak and bring five hundred refugees back from Scanra. I’d be happy to answer any... lingering questions you may have.” He kept his tone light as he spoke, making the offer sincerely, but he knew the other man would see through the facade of cheer to his true intent.
His inner voice was screaming at him, “She doesn’t need you to defend her, much less against her own family! This is not what you’re here to do!”
Conal did not meet his gaze at first, glancing first to his older brothers and father before turning back to this interloper. A warning glare from Piers - and Dom had the feeling Raoul would deliver the exact same look if he turned to him now, which is why he didn’t - clearly cowed Conal from whatever more confrontational response he may have wished to make. “Why don’t you join us for drinks after dinner, Sergeant Domitan, Lord Raoul?” he said in the end. “I think we’d all be interested to hear about Kel’s adventures since we saw her last.”
Raoul looked back down at the map, with the planned movement of troops they’d laid out. “I think we’ve done what we can here for now. We’ll wait for word from the runner that Flyn is waiting on the other side of the hills; we need to know that he’s in place before we can do anything else.” He tactfully ignored whatever he felt had just passed between Dom and Conal.
With agreement, the group dispersed, and a footman came forward to show the commanders to their rooms. Space in the keep was cramped, so the squad leaders would be three-to-a-room, only the Knight Commander got his own. Dom didn’t mind; he had certainly had much worse accommodations in his time with the Own. When the door was safely closed behind them, Qasim crossed his arms and asked Dom, “What was that really about?”
Dom mirrored his posture and said, “What do you mean? It was exactly what I said.”
“Correcting misconceptions? About the Rathhausak mission, or about your relationship with Kel?” Qasim prodded.
Dom always appreciated his friend keeping him honest. “Why not both?” He leaned against the door. “If they don’t see her as a warrior in her own right, or an adult who doesn’t need her brothers’ approval to live her life, why shouldn’t they be corrected on both fronts?”
Qasim relented, but said, “You’re walking a fine line there, my friend. Think about what she’s going to walk into when she gets here. That’s all.”
---
There was a Tortallan runner waiting for Kel, just off the road between Steadfast and Mindelan. He had seemed to appear seamlessly from the woods, the effect of the disguising charms the army messengers wore to travel safely between fortresses. He passed her a dispatch bearing Raoul’s seal, which she cracked open and read quickly. He and five squads of Third Company were holding strong inside Mindelan; Flyn and the remaining five squads were getting in place off the road to attack the Scanrans from behind, where they’d least expect it. She knew exactly where they were, one of the few weak points of Mindelan’s defenses.
Lord Wyldon’s message had formally placed her under Raoul’s command, as a relief defender to Mindelan, which was what she had hoped for. She had worried, after she’d sent her letter, that he would place her under her older brother’s command as a member of the Mindelan household. Not that she mistrusted Anders, but she knew her brothers would try to keep her safe and out of the way, and that wasn’t what she was coming all this way for.
With Raoul’s orders, she’d be delayed in getting to Mindelan and seeing her family, but she would be part of the big push to clear out the worst of the Scanran group and get them out of their safe hiding spot, and all considered, she much preferred this way. She thanked the runner, who gave her the general idea of where Flyn’s group was encamped, then went on his way back to Mindelan to report that she had arrived.
Kel kept her sparrows on alert around her, scouting just in case the enemy had somehow stumbled upon Flyn’s camp before she found them. She knew she was close when they returned to her, peeping cheerfully and making the hand signal for friends. The camp scouts found her before she found them. She identified herself to them - they were newer recruits, ones who hadn’t ridden with her the past few years - and one of them brought her back to the camp, circled by the wagons.
She almost thought she wouldn’t have recognized it when she saw it, they’d done such a good job disguising themselves as a merchant group. Flyn emerged from his tent to greet her. “Lady Knight Keladry,” he said with a small bow.
“Captain Whiteford,” she said, a touch formally. She knew she had long since proven her worth to this man who had once doubted her, but she also knew he was a commoner among a group of mostly nobles and a little more formal respect would go a long way with him. “I met Lord Raoul’s runner on the road; they’ll know I’m here soon. He said I should come here to give this side of the attack someone who knows the area.”
“And I’d be glad of it,” Flyn admitted. “We’re going to send one squad with the wagons to try to act as bait to draw the Scanrans out, then as soon as there’s a gap against the cliffs, the rest of us come down and attack from behind. But I’ll be damned if I can find a good way to retreat if it goes south for us. It’ll be tough to scramble back up these hills in a rush, and we’d leave ourselves too vulnerable if it comes to that.”
From where they were camped, they could easily reach a bluff where they could look down on the Scanran encampment. The Tortallans had a good position, but Flyn was right that it was a hard one to get in and out of; she almost wondered how they’d gotten the wagons to this point at all.
She joined Flyn and his squad leaders in his tent, going over the land for possible escape routes, and ways to foolproof their strategy. Kel had expected to feel some relief once she was actually in Mindelan; she hadn’t expected to feel it already. But here she was, able to plan for the attack, with men who’d had her back for years. This is exactly what she had trained for.
---
Though Raoul had excused himself, Dom had accepted the Mindelan brothers’ invitation back to Anders’ study for drinks after dinner. His nerves thrummed as if this was the real battle.
Inness was the first to speak, once the pleasantries had been exchanged. “So, Sergeant Domitan-”
“Call me Dom,” he insisted.
“Dom - setting aside Conal being an ass -”
“Hey!” Conal objected. The elder brother flicked a chess pawn at his brother before he continued. Dom stifled a laugh.
“Setting aside Conal being an ass... what did happen in Scanra? All anyone would tell us was that Kel’s refugees had been taken, but she crossed the border under cover and brought them back. Next thing we know, the killing devices drop dead. It’s obviously connected, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. What happened up there?”
Dom took a slow drink from his glass, considering how he would answer. If there were things Kel didn’t want to tell her family, he didn’t want to go spilling them anyway. But his instinct was to tell the truth. He didn’t think Kel was keeping secrets from her family, just that she legitimately didn’t think she was supposed to talk about her role in the rescue.
“About thirty of us joined Kel in the rescue,” he started. “Me and my squad, some soldiers who’d been with her at Haven, some of her year-mates in the knights, a couple of others. The refugees had been split into two groups - the adults were being sold to slavers. The children were being taken to that necromancer, Blayce. He was going to use them to make two hundred more killing devices.” Even now, Dom shuddered at the thought.
The brothers made the sign against evil, as one. “We caught up with the slavers first. We mostly traveled by night, covering our tracks, and we chipped away at the guards from the woods. Half the group took the adult refugees back to Tortall then. The rest of us kept going to get the children back. By the time we caught up, they’d been taken into Castle Rathhausak. The villagers there hated their new lord, all their own children had been taken already. They helped us plan a way in. While the rest of us fought his men on the ground floors, Kel went up to take out Blayce and his bodyguard, Stenmun.”
He took another drink, remembering the fear when Kel hadn’t emerged from the castle on her own, the dreadful wait for some kind of sign, until eventually he and Neal went back in to find her unconscious and bleeding out on the stairs. He decided to spare her brothers that particular image. “She was hurt pretty badly, but she killed them both, and we got her out of there. We torched the keep, so no one would be able to save any of Blayce’s work. Then we beat a fast retreat back to the Vassa. Well,” he amended. “As fast as we could with two hundred children and one healer stretched so thin he was barely able to keep everyone alive. It took about a week, all told.”
Anders let out a low whistle. “Our sister killed Blayce the Gallan...”
“She did,” Dom confirmed, a hot ember of pride in his chest. He told the story without embellishment, though he wanted in some ways to tell them much more - Kel’s fearlessness against a warrior like Stenmun, her insistence on saving every animal they came across down to the little gray cat, the way the children and refugees had trusted her so completely, had become fearless themselves when they saw her.
“How did you end up going along with her?” Conal asked, still suspicious. “You weren’t under her command at Haven.”
Dom raised his glass to the sky. “I believe that was the work of Mithros. When Lord Raoul got word of Kel’s plans, he sent my squad along as her reinforcements. The god’s own luck that me and my boys were the ones with him at Mastiff that day.” He tried to word it carefully, avoiding the issue that Kel had, in fact, run off on her own with no help at all. That, surely, they did not need to know. “But once we caught up with her, I took my orders from her,” he added, wanting to stress this point. “She’s a natural leader, if you never saw it in her.”
Conal smirked into his glass; Dom ignored it. Anders smiled more fondly. “We missed a lot of her childhood,” he explained to Dom. “All three of us stayed here when Father and Mother went to the Yamani Islands; only our sisters and our youngest brother went. And there was such a gap between us and Kel. I was already a full knight then; Inness and Conal were squires. She’s closer in age to my oldest son than she is to me.”
Dom nodded, sipping at his wine. “I understand why you’re protective of her,” he insisted. “I just know she’s a lot more capable than people give her credit for.”
Inness agreed. “No, I saw some of it on progress as well. Anders was stuck here, and Conal was serving at the border at the time, but I saw it. At the tournaments. She jousted against Lord Wyldon, twice.”
Dom suddenly remembered that Inness’ squire had been a... paramour, he supposed, of Kel’s at one time. No wonder he had seemed the least hostile to him at first. He raised the topic tentatively, unsure if he should direct things in this way at all. “Your squire, the Kennan boy, rode with us sometimes on progress as well.”
“Cleon was a good lad,” Inness said fondly. “He insisted on doing things very honorably,” he added, taking on a note of heavier meaning in his voice. “When he wanted to start courting Kel, he came to me directly and told me his intentions with my sister.”
“Oh?” Dom asked, the drink making him playful. “And how did you respond to that?”
Inness shrugged. “I told him if he dishonored her or broke her heart, I’d break his kneecaps. Everything was on perfectly steady ground after that.” Conal sniggered; even the seemingly stoic Anders tried and failed to hide a smile behind his glass.
Dom seized his moment - fortune favors the bold, he told himself. “Ah, well, as I am rather fond of my kneecaps, let’s hope there’ll be no dishonor or heartbreak in our future. Though,” he added jocularly, “I think you’d have to get in line. Alanna the Lioness made the first claim to my life, should anything happen, and Raoul himself the second.”
The boldness paid off; this remark earned him a warm laugh from all three brothers. Inness refilled their glasses.
“At least this one is less useless than Orie’s husband,” Conal smirked to his brothers, with a gesture at Dom. “I think if we asked him for help with a siege, he’d send his regrets in the form of a bad poem.”
Dom snorted. “If it’s bad poetry you want, you’d have to ask my cousin, Neal. I’m sure I could oblige if you give me some time, but it’s better for us all if I don’t.”
“Why didn’t you go for the knighthood, then, Dom? If you’re not a man of letters,” Anders asked, politely, but firmly. Dom figured it was a fair enough question; he wasn’t the first to ask and he wouldn’t be the last.
“My older brother is the knight of the family,” he said simply. “We had such different temperaments growing up that I never considered anything he wanted to do as an option for myself. I could’ve gone to the royal university - my father wanted me to - but I never had the patience to sit at a desk all day. The King’s Own let me be a warrior, but make my own path.”
Conal’s sarcasm rose again. “Oh, so not only is he shaming our sister, but he’s a younger son, won’t even inherit his fief to make a name for her.”
Anders interjected before Dom could. “Con, where do you live, again? Remind me? Oh, that’s right: here. With your big brothers and your parents.” Conal sunk into his chair, a clear sulk on his face.
Inness came to stand behind Conal’s chair, taking his younger brother by both shoulders and shaking him around a bit. “Oh, buck up, Con - you still might not be the last Mindelan to get married; Avinar probably isn’t settling down any time soon.” He turned back to Dom and explained, “Our youngest brother. At the university, for now, at least. He’s changed his course of study... four times? He might be there for life, at this rate.”
“Five times,” Anders corrected, lifting up a letter from his desk. “He wrote a couple weeks ago to notify Father of his plans for the new term.”
“You’ve still got time, if you want to beat Kel to the altar,” Dom noted a little darkly. “I apparently can’t get her there myself any time soon.”
At this, all three brothers turned to face him. “King’s Own doesn’t accept married men,” he reminded them. “And she says she has too much she wants to do before she’ll settle down.” He tried not to let his own hints of bitterness through in his voice. On one level, he knew that he had only actually been romantically involved with Kel for six months, half a year. But he also felt like they had already lived half a lifetime together and he hated knowing what he wanted and not being able to have it all.
“Hear that, Con? There’s hope for you yet,” Inness continued teasing his brother. On his way back to his own chair, he clinked glasses with Dom. “Hopefully she doesn’t keep you waiting too long. I don’t want to have to keep thinking about new brothers-in-law. Strange enough when it was my squire.”
The rest of the evening passed smoothly, even pleasantly, though Dom felt he’d had far more than he intended to drink by the time he made it back to his room. He thought he’d entered quietly enough, without waking the other two sergeants, until Qasim grumbled “I’m glad you’ve survived your ordeal,” voice muffled by his covers. Dom threw a pillow at him, then collapsed into his own bed.
---
Kel waited silently in the wagon, along with a squad of others from Third Company, crammed into the wagons, with their armor disguised under whatever ordinary non-uniform clothing they could find. The wagons clattered loudly over the hill, and two men of the Own drove them forward, loudly arguing about being lost and this not being the way to Mindelan. Kel had to give them credit for the performance.
They rumbled on, making a great deal of noise and bother, until they were just past the Scanran hideout. Then, on cue, one of the men thrust his weapon out to crack one of the wagon wheels, forcing their fake caravan to a sudden halt. Now the fake argument escalated, while Kel and the rest of the men listened closely for the approach of the Scanran raiders. She prayed they’d be foolish enough to come forward from their camp, enticed by the lure of merchant loot to sweeten their trip home.
The Scanrans flooded out of the woods, war cries ringing in their ears, axes in hand. In the space of a breath, the King’s Own leapt from their wagons, weapons drawn, revealing themselves to be much more than humble caravan guards. The Scanrans were not deterred though; Kel noticed one of their shamans hanging back between two burly bodyguards. Before he could realize he’d been spotted, Kel rushed him with her glaive, two neat chops ending whatever sorcery the mage had been preparing. She ducked between the two bodyguards, allowing them to ram into each other as they both tried to grab her.
In moments, the forward attacking Scanrans were distracted by the unexpected sound of battle behind them - the rest of Flyndan’s men had appeared from over the cliffs to force them even further forward. Still, they numbered only fifty or so men against a good many more Scanrans in total, as more were drawn into the fight who had not been part of the intended merchant ambush.
Kel’s goal, with her group, was not to take down the entire Scanran force from here, but to help shepherd them through the pass, to where the Mindelan men and the rest of the Own would be waiting to finish them off. No longer protected by the bottleneck, the Scanran raiders would be forced through it themselves, as the Own forced them forward, out of their cliff-shielded camp.
She could hear the clash ahead, where the first Scanrans to try to flee were already being met by the mounted warriors of the Own, who began to ride through into the valley in the gaps left by the dead men. She couldn’t look long, though; a berserker with a particularly nasty-looking axe had set his sights on her, and she swung her glaive about to fend him off while she shored up her footing.
She brought him down, but wasn’t quick enough to land the killing blow; he slashed at her calf as he fell, managing to slice just above where her greaves stopped to allow her knees to bend. She fell to one knee herself, gasping through the pain. Bracing herself with the long staff of her glaive, she managed to pull herself back up to her feet, sweat pouring off her face as she gritted through the pain. She made a quick sharp slash at the man she’d felled, keeping him from doing any more injury to her. She tried to take a step forward, and barely managed it.
She quickly assessed the situation in front of her, then slid down, hoping the bulk of her fallen enemy hid most of her form as she tried to staunch the bleeding of her leg. She stuffed the greave with two handkerchiefs, lending her additional stability as her knee wobbled. Already the adrenaline surge was kicking in, though she knew she’d feel the pain much worse later. Peering over the fallen Scanran, she sized up where she could move to in as few steps as possible to make the most impact.
Dom was in the next wave of Mindelan defenders to make it through the pass through the gaps they’d created, as he thrust his sword at a rampaging warrior, forcing him to the ground, where his horse reared and stomped on the man’s ribcage. He murmured soothingly to his steed as she danced, hooves seeking steady ground again. He scanned the field ahead of him, now able to get a clear view of what had been the Scanrans’ camp.
A nasty whisper at the back of his mind noted that he could not see Kel among the attackers, but he forced it from his thoughts. He had work to do, and so did she. He urged his mare forward, spotting a nice clump of Scanrans who had worked a few men of the Own back against the cliff face. He rode them down; they never saw him coming as he unpinned his allies to rejoin the fray.
As he wheeled about, he spotted Kel dragging herself to her feet with her glaive; in the blink of an eye he noted the blood-soaked cloth around her right knee. He rode over to her, wordlessly leaning over to offer his arm and swing her up behind him on the saddle. As he leaned over, an arrow grazed his exposed side; a breath earlier and it would have reflected off his breastplate. He winced as he sat upright, a quick gush of blood squeezed from his side.
Both Kel and Dom, atop the horse, whipped their heads around to see where the arrow had come from. A lone Scanran archer had managed to scramble up the cliff, and was now firing down into the valley, like shooting fish in a barrel.
“Take my spear,” Dom said through gritted teeth as he swung the horse around to take them both out of the worst of the fighting. Kel took it and swung around to face behind them, a single breath to aim, then cast the spear up to take out the archer before she was out of range. She used her glaive to fend off attackers from behind, as Dom took them away towards the safety of Mindelan’s healers.
She hated to leave even one of them alive, but she knew the plan was never to take them all today. If the Own could establish a camp in the spot where the Scanrans had set up, then they’d have a much easier time clearing out the surrounding forest over the coming weeks. Better to get to the healers now, and come back stronger, than to lose too much blood now and not be able to join the defenses for a month.
Dom reined up the horse as they approached the healers’ tent, being coordinated by Ilane’s iron fist, with the assistance of her daughters-in-law. “Hey,” he said, leaning back, catching his breath and feeling her doing the same behind him. “It’s good to see you.” He felt her laugh, back-to-back with her, before he heard it.
---
The men-at-arms who had been spared the worst of the day’s fighting did a sweep through the woods for escaped Scanrans, before the Tortallan forces fell back to the keep. The general opinion of the commanders was that they had done enough today, that they had so reduced the Scanran numbers, that the greater concern now was little pockets of raiders, no longer a coordinated siege effort.
When Kel and Dom had been seen to by the healers - Ilane teasing her daughter about the plethora of nearby fans, to mask her own worry - they were sent back inside the castle. Piers somewhat apologetically directed Kel to the guest wing, where he had had a room made up for her - her own room having long since been reassigned to one of her growing nieces or nephews. She hugged her father tightly, then waved off his concern - she was nearly asleep on her feet and any bed at all softer than the stone floor sounded heavenly. And if Piers noticed that the sergeant was following his daughter, in the opposite direction of his own room, he held his tongue.
“I’m so sorry,” Kel said through a yawn, “I want to talk to you, but I don’t think I can stay awake.” Already she was sitting on the foot of the bed, pulling off her boots.
“Gods, no, I can’t right now. Just let me hold you,” he said. They gingerly arranged themselves in the bed to avoid their new hurts, and were asleep within a minute.
It was the middle of the night by the time Kel began to stir awake, mostly from the deep pangs of hunger she always felt after a healing. She couldn’t quite bring herself to move, though, enjoying the comforting weight of Dom’s arms around her. She did adjust her position slightly to ease the pressure on her knee, and either he was already awake or this was enough to rouse him.
He pulled her closer, arms tight around her. “Don’t go,” he said, voice muffled in her hair.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said teasingly. She realized her mistake as she felt how heavily he was breathing, chest rising and falling sharply. She turned around to face him. “Dom, what’s wrong?”
He took a moment to find the words, trying to steady himself but not really succeeding. “We’ve fought together before,” he said, knowing he was starting from a nonsensical place, but unable to do otherwise. “You’ve seen me get shot at before, you didn’t go to pieces. I carried you out of Castle Rathhausak.”
Kel started to put together where he was going. “It’s different now, isn’t it?” She rested one hand against his cheek.
“It shouldn’t be,” he insisted. “We’re the same people we were last year. I don’t know why I’m reacting like this now.” His blue eyes searched her face.
“You didn’t when we were out there,” Kel pointed out. She weighed how to say what she thought, not wanting to be dismissive, but having a hunch. “You’re tired and hungry from a healing. Maybe you got a bit of an extra shock today, but I think as long as we hold it together out there, we’re doing pretty well.”
He paused, trying to assemble his thoughts enough to find what to say next, but he was interrupted by the rumbling of his stomach. Kel raised an eyebrow at him and he buried his face in the pillow. “You’re right,” he said, barely audible.
“Come on,” she said, standing up from the bed. “We can go raid the kitchen. Then if you still think you want to worry about it, I can tell you about how I cried when the fight was over, when you took that arrow to the shoulder in the first year of the war.” Her tone was light, but earned her a look of fully blended despair and love.
Each taking a candle from the room, Kel led the way to the kitchen through dark, empty hallways. Dom trailed behind, trying to take in this different side of the castle. On a countertop, a bowl of apples had been left out, alongside two loaves of bread and a tray of cheese wedges. Kel sighed with pleasure. “I’m glad some things haven’t changed.”
“Big fans of midnight snacks in this family?” Dom teased, trying to hide the hint of raggedness that remained in his voice.
Kel rolled her eyes. “My brothers nearly got a cook to quit when they were younger. Mama started asking her to leave out a tray like this every night just to spare everyone the hassle. I’m sure my nephews are the same way now.” She bit heartily into an apple, letting the juice run down her chin a bit.
Dom laughed. “I can imagine - my brother and I were bad enough and there were only two of us.”
“How did things go with my brothers?” Kel asked. When she hadn’t been consumed by worry over the past week, she had spared a thought for how Dom was fitting in with her family, and she was extremely curious.
“Oh, I think we understand each other perfectly well,” Dom said lightly. “Conal thinks I’m bringing shame and dishonor to you. Inness threatened to break my kneecaps. I think Anders likes me though.”
Kel groaned. “I’m sorry about them. If I’d had a chance to tell them not to embarrass me, I would have, but I’m sure they would’ve just doubled down on it then.”
“Oh no,” he protested. “We had a great night! If my sister wasn’t already married, I’d be stealing the kneecaps line.”
She covered her face with her hands, then looked up. “Did Conal really say shame and dishonor? Are you shaming and dishonoring me? I can’t say I feel shamed or dishonored.”
He spread a thick layer of soft butter on a slice of bread. “Listen, if I wasn’t starving, I’d be doing some shaming and dishonoring right now. I’m worried you deserve much more dishonoring than I’ve been providing.” Kel flushed a deep red, which he took great satisfaction in. “Mithros,” he said reverently as he bit into the bread.
“Feeling better now?” Kel asked innocently, after he’d downed a few bites.
“No, I feel a little ridiculous if my deep fears for your safety in battle can be assuaged with food!” he exclaimed, gesturing theatrically. “And what’s this about you crying over me TWO years ago?”
She decided he was himself enough to withstand a little more. “In the moment, I was calm, I was rational! I had told myself, I don’t think that’s fatal, I think he’s going to be fine,” she said, with an assumed air of nonchalance. “But that night, after we got word that you were okay, and I was back in my tent, I cried with relief. I had been so worried. And then I felt guilty, because I didn’t cry in the moment. Like if I really cared about you, I should’ve been unable to carry on.” She sidled over to him. “Sound familiar?” She waited, taking another bite of her apple.
His hand had frozen as he had prepared another slice of bread. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “It seems a little unfair that I didn’t know this was happening two years ago, and now you have to help me see when I’ve been an idiot.”
“We can’t ask each other to take less risks out there, Dom,” she said, keeping her tone even, but knowing he’d see she was serious. “If we’re going to do that, we both might as well quit now. But I’m not ready to do that, and I know you’re not either.”
“No,” he said reluctantly. He shook his head a little at his own folly. “I don’t want that.” He stood next to her, hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder. “But I think I can reserve the right to get a little emotional about it afterwards.”
She smiled at him and he felt a deep warmth of reassurance spread through his chest. “I think I can live with that,” she teased. He put one arm around her as they finished eating.
“Did my brothers show you the view from the tower?” Kel said as the thought occurred to her. “It’s the thing visitors to Mindelan always want to see.”
Dom shook his head. “No, by the time the idea came up, we’d uh, had a little more to drink than I think any of us planned. And before that, I would’ve worried they wanted to push me out of it.”
She narrowed her eyes a little, ready to reproach, then dropped it. “I haven’t been up there since I was little, but it’s beautiful at night,” she said, wiping her hands on a cloth rag. “Follow me.”
“I’d follow you anywhere,” he thought to himself.
Kel did better than she expected herself to with the tower, once they reached the top. If she didn’t look down, just across at the mountains, she could appreciate what she had once seen in it. She didn’t linger too long at the window, though, preferring in some ways to watch Dom take the landscape in.
He was appropriately struck by it. “It’s beautiful,” he said in a near-whisper. “You can see halfway to Steadfast from up here,” he noted. “If I’d known, I would have stayed up here until I could see you on the road.”
Kel laughed. “Yes, a great use of time. My sisters used to come up here and play at being princesses locked in a tower, like in the storybooks we had as children.”
“Not you?” he asked.
“No, I wouldn’t have come up here for anything. I don’t think I even could have come back up here until a few years ago.”
“Back?” Dom pried. “So you did at some point?”
Kel made a wry smile. “When I was four, just before we left for the Islands, Conal held me out that window. Wouldn’t bring me back in no matter how much I screamed. That’s why I was afraid of heights.”
“He what? ” Dom exclaimed. He tried to keep his voice low, but failed, his outrage echoing through the interior stairwell. “Where are his rooms? I’ll fight him now, forget what I said earlier!” His tone was light, a playful jest at being her champion, but he was sincerely appalled on her behalf.
Kel tried to quiet her laugh, but the sparkle in her eyes pleased Dom.
He kept going. “It’s not too late for any of it; you wait here, I’ll run down and try to climb up the outside.” He caught her hands as she laughed, and drew her back towards the window.
She let him pull her close and said warmly, “I think I’d rather you stay right here.” She kissed him in the moonlight turned blue by the mountains.