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Chapter nineteen

Aldric

“ H ere, Your Highness.” Calix shoved another waterskin into his hand.

Aldric rumbled some word of thanks and splashed some over his head. While the lukewarm droplets trickled down through his hair and seeped under his jerkin, he flicked another quick glance toward the Elmorian box where the queen sat with the rest of her court.

His hackles rose when his eye locked with hers again.

After nearly two decades in exile out in the misty hills of Blackrun, he had forgotten what it was like to be pinned beneath the blade of a lady’s disdainful gaze. Especially a lady as prim and polished as the Queen of Elmoria, flashing beneath the sunlight in all her gold and jewels.

“That queen keeps staring at you, boss,” Rakon observed.

Aldric shrugged and looked away. “She’s just never seen a dwarf before.”

After a life raised in the Drakmori court, he was used to it. The looks. The whispers. The subtle barbs.

Beck was the only one who hadn’t treated him any differently.

“Eisway’s up next for the joust,” Calix announced, and Aldric dutifully turned his one-eyed gaze back to the list to watch.

Tayn had already been disqualified, but Eisway had made it to the final round. He was to ride against the Elmorian champion next—some young man with a straight nose and shiny armor who looked as if he had never seen a single moment of battle in his entire life.

“Do we want to take bets?” Rakon asked.

But Aldric frowned when he reminded, “We don’t bet against a brother.”

Calix tilted his head, a single eyebrow arched. “You honestly think that pretty man is going to best Eisway ?”

Aldric shrugged. “There has to be a reason the queen selected him as her champion. Unless this whole tournament is simply one…” Unbidden, his attention wandered back toward the Elmorian box.

The queen still watched with all the keen-eyed attentiveness of a falcon.

Aldric looked away and took a healthy swig from his waterskin before finishing, “…large ego stroke for my brother’s benefit.”

“His Majesty hardly needs anyone else stroking his ego,” Leif groused, earning a round of chuckles from the other Sons .

The blare of a horn lured all eyes back to the list.

Eisway and the young Elmorian knight spurred their horses forward, racing toward each other from opposite sides of the tilt. Clumps of sandy dirt soared through the air, kicked up from their horses’ hooves. Their lances lowered. The crowd screamed.

Aldric’s heart thundered in time with the cacophony.

“Come on, Eisway…” Sven whispered as the two lancers slammed together in a harsh clash of wood on metal. Both were aiming for the shield attached to their opponent’s shoulder. Both struck true.

But only the Elmorian champion shattered his lance in a glorious spray of wood chips and faded paint. The force of the impact sent Eisway reeling.

Suddenly boneless, his Son slumped backward off his horse and crashed into the dirt in a heap of limbs and dull plate.

The Elmorians cheered for their easy victory.

But Eisway lay still.

Aldric’s jaw tightened. “Kyn,” he barked, though the medic was already launching himself through the ropes barring them from the tiltyard. Calix ran close behind and the two sprinted toward Eisway’s body, which still lay motionless.

“Think he’s all right?” Rakon asked, a thread of worry in his voice.

“Let’s pray he is,” came Leif’s equally quiet reply.

Aldric held his tongue.

A great tension, palpable and heavy, rose like the mist haunting the low hills of Blackrun until Calix raised his fist in a confirmation Eisway still lived. The sigh of relief from the Sons who were left on the sidelines was a collective one.

Even Aldric felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders.

It took both Kyn and Calix working in unison to hoist Eisway up and drag the fully armored man back to where the rest of them waited. When they got close, Rakon moved forward to help the three of them back through the ropes.

“I’m fine,” Eisway rasped from within the confines of his helmet. “Stop fussing, Mother.”

“I think you have me confused with soft hands over there,” came Calix’s dry retort.

When they finally lowered Eisway to the grass and pried off his helmet, Rakon loomed over him to provide a bit of impromptu shade and Aldric passed off his waterskin to the lad.

Blood soaked the right side of Eisway’s face, though Aldric couldn’t yet discern just where it was all coming from.

Rakon tilted his head at the younger man. “You all right?”

Leif asked, “How many Crows do you see, boy?”

Kyn shushed them both. “I need more water so I can clean this wound.”

While the other Sons hustled to get Kyn what he needed, Eisway finally looked up at Aldric. A grin split his injured Son’s bloodied lips. “You’re up next, Father…make him hurt for me, yeh?”

The corner of Aldric’s lips twitched upward in reply.

He was planning on it.

“Bring me my helmet,” Aldric called out to Calix, and his second-in-command hurried to comply .

But no sooner had Calix passed the piece of armor into his hands than he threw back his head and sang that blasted song of his again. “Oh, the Crow and his mutts, even down on their luck—”

Rakon picked up the tune and joined in with, “—can still bring a man low.”

Aldric thinned his lips and shoved his helmet onto his head. He ignored the lot of them and moved off toward the pitch, his practice glaive already through the harness across his back.

But the ridiculous song followed.

“So kiss your women and hide your children, because here comes the Crow. ”

If Aldric had originally known Calix spent most of his life working as a bard and pickpocket down in the Violet District of Falwood, he never would have let the man join the Twelve Sons in the first place.

The pickpocketing, he didn’t mind. It was a useful enough skill.

But bards were just a different breed of creature altogether.

The moment Aldric stepped into the arena, a chorus of boos and laughter greeted him. He let both roll off him like raindrops from a roof’s eaves.

The boos were to be expected. And the laughter? Something he was painfully familiar with.

Everyone loved to laugh at the little man with the big polearm .

Right until the moment he speared them with it.

The sun was hot. The breeze was lacking. Overheard, the usuri chirped in the midst of their play .

Unharnessing his glaive, Aldric braced its butt against the ground and waited for the Master of Ceremonies to find him some lesser opponents to fight for the benefit of the crowd. He just assumed the queen’s champion would need to catch his breath after the joust.

When he spied the fresh-faced lad himself jogging toward him sooner than expected, though, and without so much as a helmet or weapon to his name, Aldric tilted his head to the side and watched the young knight’s approach with his one good eye.

The Elmorian side of the stands erupted with cheers at their champion’s arrival, and the knight flashed them a pretty smile in reply. Sir Dacre , this boy was called.

Not a terribly bright lad, if he expected to fight him without a helm.

“Your Highness,” the knight greeted him with a polite dip of his head. “Pardon me, but I just came to inform you our match will not be proceeding.”

Behind his own helm, Aldric indulged in a slow blink. “What?”

The younger man lifted his voice and repeated his words at a louder volume. “I said our match will not be proceeding—”

“I heard you the first time, boy,” Aldric snarled. “This is the queen’s doing?”

He sliced a fresh glare toward the woman in question.

There she sat, frowning at him as ever.

Sir Dacre offered a smile that was no doubt supposed to be apologetic and swiftly glanced away. Only then did Aldric realize what was truly happening, now the stench of the knight’s discomfort sought to smother him right then and there.

Here was an able-bodied man afraid to fight someone born different .

The foolish boy pitied him.

Finally, the knight confirmed Aldric’s suspicions with a quiet, “Well, no , Your Highness. Her Majesty wants the match to proceed as planned. But I fear I’m just not comfortable fighting a…a, well…you know.” The coward couldn’t even bring himself to say it. “It just wouldn’t be sporting.”

Aldric tightened his grip on the pole of his glaive. “Sporting?” he echoed while shifting his stance. He lifted the weapon and changed his grip to a two-handed one. “Well, you’re right about one thing, boy.”

The Elmorian champion’s eyebrows knit together with obvious confusion.

“…This isn’t about to be sporting .” Aldric punctuated his words by dropping his glaive low and throwing the entirety of his weight behind the swing. When the polearm cracked against the side of the knight’s left knee, the man buckled and pitched to the ground at Aldric’s feet.

The crowd erupted into a medley of gasps, boos, and even a few cheers.

“Is this the best Elmoria has to offer?” Aldric roared as the younger man scrambled back to his feet. “Or are you all too afraid to fight the little man? ”

When next he looked toward the stands, it was to find the Queen of Elmoria on her feet and glaring straight at him. Pure venom shone within the depths of her eyes.

“Someone bring me my sword,” Dacre shouted the moment he regained his footing. Dirt now dusted the right side of his pretty face.

Aldric squared himself up and waited for the younger man’s retaliation. Elmoria’s champion was tall, broad, and clearly knew how to handle a lance.

He was eager to see if the boy could handle a sword just as well.

“Murder him, Tristan,” the older knight who brought the pup his sword said, and Sir Dacre nodded his agreement.

They had both still forgotten his helmet, though.

“You’re going to regret that, old man,” Dacre bit out during his advance, his blunted bastard sword wielded in a two-handed grip. “I was trying to be polite.”

The young knight made his first lunge, pressing in close. A dangerous move.

Clearly, this boy had never fought a shorter opponent before.

Up close was where Aldric had the biggest advantage. He could see Sir Dacre’s core, his legs, and easily judge his every movement.

But the other man could only see the top of his head.

Aldric easily swept away the incoming blade. “Manners will get you killed on a real battlefield, boy,” he advised.

His glaive sang through the air when he thrust forward with its blunted tip into the space just below Sir Dacre’s breastplate.

The lad grunted from the impact of the blow .

Thrust, parry, block. Thrust, parry, block.

Only once did the boy slip past his guard and land a hit on his left shoulder. The force of it rattled his teeth.

Sir Dacre was good. Clearly a well-trained fighter.

But he fought by the book. He utilized formal stances and strategy.

Not once did he press his obvious advantage and circle to Aldric’s blind side.

That was a mistake.

When next Sir Dacre lunged for him, Aldric hooked his glaive’s blade under the lad’s right armpit. The knight was already off balance.

Aldric just wrenched him further.

The knight staggered, bald surprise stamped on his face. Before Dacre could recover, Aldric side-stepped and cracked the length of his polearm against the back of the other man’s knees.

Elmoria’s champion fell. Again.

And the fight was over before it had even properly begun.

A discordant melody of cheers and boos heralded his victory.

Aldric basked in both equally.

Shouldering his glaive, he turned to face the Elmorian royal box yet again. When his one-eyed gaze locked with the queen’s, he greeted her tense expression with a mocking bow.

Better luck next time, perhaps.

“Aldric! ”

That scream came from somewhere behind him and it came a split second too late. Before he could react, something hard and heavy thwacked against the side of his head.

Aldric reeled. His helmet careened free.

Far away, a triumphant roar swelled. The muffled sound mingled with the pounding of blood in his ears and the ringing of his skull. Aldric staggered. His vision was a haze of dark spots and dry earth.

The latter approached too swiftly.

No .

He refused to lose. Everyone always expected the little man to lose.

Gritting his teeth, Aldric caught himself by bracing the butt of his polearm against the ground. Dark spots still swam across his one good eye. His breath hitched. His stomach churned. His head throbbed.

But he ignored it all in favor of shifting his weight to his back foot. His body twisted. He faced the now upright knight.

And he punched the foolish boy straight in the gut with his glaive, hitting that soft spot beneath his breastplate again.

Dacre leaned into the blow, pain written on his features. And Aldric misjudged the swing that followed.

He meant to crack the boy’s shoulder and drive him to his knees. He just wanted the Elmorian to submit. He wanted him to concede defeat.

Instead, he hit Dacre with all of his might across the side of the knight’s unprotected head. He crumpled instantly .

“Tristan!” a woman screamed while the boy thrashed on the ground like a person possessed. His limbs shook. His eyes rolled back into his head.

Aldric stood there, dumbfounded.

Where was Kyn? Kyn would know what to do.

He turned to call for his Son to help when the Queen of Elmoria herself suddenly shoved him out of the way. He stumbled and nearly fell all over again, the ground pitching dangerously beneath him.

“Don’t you dare touch him!” the queen snarled, as protective as a mother usuru with a hatchling. She dropped to her knees next to her fallen champion and pleaded, “Tristan? Tristan, answer me.”

But the boy didn’t answer. He said nothing at all, not even once he ceased his thrashing. In the wake of that spasm, the young knight lay there between them. Silent.

Still.

Aldric drew in a ragged breath and looked away. Kyn and Calix raced toward him. His Sons would be there any moment.

In what time he had left alone with the queen, he managed a hoarse, “I’m sorry.” But when he looked back her way, he found her gazing at him with such hatred, the sheer heat of it made him take a full step backward.

“You killed him,” the queen accused through trembling lips.

Aldric shook his head. “No.” He hadn’t meant to kill the boy. He hadn’t wanted to kill the boy. Dacre couldn’t be dead .

“Your Highness,” Kyn gasped when his men reached him, breathless in the sweltering heat. “Your Highness, you’re bleeding.”

He barely registered the words. His attention was still wholly devoted to the Queen of Elmoria—the woman who glared at him and uttered the word he hated most in all the world: “Monster.”

In an instant, Nerina Reef fell away, and Aldric was back in Drakmor. In Falwood. In his father’s study. Watching King Warwick strike his name from the House Hargrave family tree.

“Be gone from me, monster. You’re no longer welcome here.”

The feel of hands gripping his shoulders pulled Aldric back to the present. The hot sun. The still breeze. The cry of his usuru.

“We need to find you shade,” Calix snarled while he and Kyn bodily tugged him along, away from the crowd now swarming the arena. “That’s a nasty cut you’ve got.”

The queen was gone. But her accusation chased him all the way from the tourney grounds into what cool relief the jungles of Nerina Reef provided.

Monster .