Page 2 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

“Michael.” The boy’s own bloody hands gripped his brother’s shoulders tighter. The red fingerprints left behind were barely noticeable against his brother’s ragged homespun cotton shirt. “Slow down. What’s going on?”

“Soldiers.”

His brother’s crying sharpened into shallow, panicky breaths, like he couldn’t quite expand his lungs big enough. The boy pulled him into a tight hug. “What soldiers?”

The word was nearly lost in the sobs as Michael’s body shuddered. “Cerls.”

Relief and terror warred in his veins. Relief that the mines wouldn’t collapse and terror it wasn’t exploding crystals; terror, to hear that word outside of his father’s old stories.

Living on the border always came with its dangers, but Cerls had not attacked Ravenhelm in his lifetime. The last skirmish had orphaned his father and forced him into the mines, but that had been sixteen years ago.

The boy pulled back. “How many?”

But all Michael could do was cry. He made an odd choking sound as blood dribbled from his mouth.

The boy froze. “Are you hurt?”

Michael finally removed his hands from his stomach, revealing a growing stain on his dirty wool shirt.

Not rusty. Not dried or speckled or small.

Red. So much red.

The boy’s heart leapt into his throat. “Where’s Ma?”

“Told me to run.” Michael coughed, more blood sliding from his lips to his chin as he shook his head. The boy wiped it with his shirtsleeve. The scarlet streak stood out against the Zuprium dust coating it.

No.

He couldn’t worry about her. He couldn’t worry about the piece of his soul that just ripped away and died with the knowledge that…no, he couldn’t even admit it. He could grieve later. Michael needed him.

The boy blinked back the stinging tears in his own eyes as the sobs overtook Michael again; he stood and grabbed his pickax, gritting his teeth. “I’ll be back.”

“No, Brother!” Michael’s voice broke on the last word. “They’re still out there!”

He was only ten, for stars’ sake.

The boy shook his head. “You need a medic.”

He’d heard there was one in Stoneset, a woman who could heal almost anything. He’d also heard she was going mad, but she was Michael’s only chance. His mother had treated a few gut wounds over the years without success. All she could do was ease the passing.

A kindness she probably hadn’t been given herself.

He looked around. This would be the safest place for his brother to hide, away from the town, but if he didn’t get him to the woman in Stoneset…

No. No. No. He needed Michael. Without him, the boy didn’t know what would become of himself. He’d be a shell.

He’d have nothing .

The Cerls were looking for anything that could make them a quick hunder. Ridiculous they thought they could find that here. Of course, there were those who believed the Zuprium they mined could do more than make decent blades and flashpistols, but they were the real crazy ones.

The boy tossed his pickax aside and grunted as he picked up Michael, trying not to jostle him too much.

His brother whimpered. The boy’s already aching arms protested, but he would not leave his brother here to die alone in the mines.

Not if there was a chance the Stoneset woman could save him.

Gossip said she was Yalven, but he didn’t believe such slop.

They were just a bedtime story told to keep naughty children in line.

He left his pickax and trekked up the tunnel. There, new sounds met his ears: screams and wails, guttural noises he couldn’t place. He froze, pressing himself against the wall. Michael moaned at the sudden movement.

“Broth—Brother…”

“Hold on.” The boy couldn’t mask the fear in his voice. It was tight and precise, like it’d been squeezed from his throat. “I’ll fix this.”

His brother’s life leaked from his side, and by the time the boy figured out how to get to Stoneset, it’d be too late.

But the boy would try anyway.

As gently as he could, the boy lowered his brother to the ground. “I’ll come back, I swear.” He arranged Michael against the wall in the most comfortable position he could think of. “I just need to find something, or someone…I’ll be back with help, and you’ll be fine.”

As if he could make it so simply by saying it.

“No, no…” Michael sobbed. He reached, but his arms were too weak; they dropped without finding the boy. “Don’t go!”

The boy wiped away his brother’s tears and stood, the blood clinging to his skin and clothing as if it were his own. He willed courage into his limbs and strode forward, turning at the mine entrance, the sun blazing and hot on his pale face. “I love you, Michael.”

And then the boy was off. The morning had been crisp, but the late April day had turned into one of heat and the promise of summer beauty.

How horrifying the contrast. The shouts had died down, and the ground no longer shook, but the destruction around the last bend in the tree-lined path made the serene spring day feel like a mockery.

Soldiers. Blue jackets. Triple diamond tattoos everywhere he looked.

Cerls.

The fear in his veins ran cold like the mountain snows, like his family’s tiny cottage when the fire went out in the dead of winter.

The blacksmith’s arm lay at a grotesque angle, a Cerl above him wiping blood from a sword.

He sprawled at the edge of the village in the middle of the road.

Sickness rose up in the boy’s throat and choked any scream he might’ve let loose.

He flung himself back into the trees and hid behind the largest one. His breaths came in squeaks and wheezes. Why were they here? What had his people done to justify this? The previous attack had happened because the marauding bandits needed supplies, and Ravenhelm just happened to be closest.

Those men were not bandits. They were soldiers; Trips , as everyone called them, or thrice-blasted Trips if his father got to ranting.

The boy needed a plan. Even if he hadn’t left his pickax behind, it wouldn’t have done him any good against a Cerl’s sword. He needed a horse and cart to get Michael to Stoneset fast as possible. It was nearly a full day’s walk with a clear sky and no soldiers at your back.

The boy forced himself to look around the tree again, bracing for the death and destruction. He scanned the village for the enemy, purposefully avoiding looking directly at the dead littering the roads and alleys he’d known his entire life.

But his eyes caught on one of the mine guards closest to the tree line. Red hair. Too many freckles. Only a handful of years older than the boy himself. His crossbow lay halfway underneath his body where he’d fallen. Blood stained the grass.

The boy could use the crossbow. It would be lighter than the pickax. He was just strong enough to use it properly.

The boy looked back toward the village. He spotted a few of his fellow miners among the dead, their bodies lining one of the alleyways closest to him that ran between the tavern and village hall.

Only a few soldiers remained. Two of them sat atop horses. Smoke and flames licked the rooftops of most cottages. The two with horses seemed to be looking for something.

If the boy could grab the crossbow and bolts and make his way to the edge of the last cottage, he could ambush them. He’d hit them with the bolts and steal their horses. He’d run down anyone else who tried to stop him.

Then he’d hitch them both to a wagon and carry his brother to safety. A rudimentary plan, but it was the only one he had, and the only one he’d get.

He didn’t have time to try for a better one.

Holding his breath, the boy crept to the dead mine guard and slid the crossbow and quiver from his limp grasp. The wood clung to his hands, sticky with congealing blood.

Swallowing the bile in his throat, the boy wrapped one hand around the crossbow and grabbed three bolts from the quiver.

“May you find your place among the stars,” the boy whispered as he left the guard’s body and snuck to the nearest cottage. His heart pounded in his ears so loudly he couldn’t hear or feel anything but the incessant beating.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

He pressed against the cottage wall and willed his heart to calm enough to make his hands stop trembling. He could do this. Kill the two soldiers. Steal their horses. Get Michael to Stoneset.

He’d never killed anyone before. He’d thought about it when his father flew into one of his rages, but he’d never acted on that instinct.

Thump-thump.

He didn’t know how close the soldiers were. He could only hear his heart. He leaned forward and around the corner of the cottage.

The soldiers were closer now, but the boy couldn’t understand what they said. The school mistress didn’t teach Cerleze. Why learn the language of the enemy? That thinking was probably the reason why the village had been destroyed in the first place.

Where were the troops from Achilles? Sure, Ravenhelm hadn’t warranted much of a military presence, and no one sane wanted a station out in some byway mountain village, but there’d always been a few soldiers who rotated in and out every few months to keep the peace.

Those with the Fogs tended to get rowdy, and of course, the Cerls had always been a looming but unlikely threat.

Where were those soldiers now? Had they perished? Or had they run at the first sign of trouble?

The boy fitted one of the bolts into the crossbow with fumbling fingers. He managed to slide it into the groove at last, pulling it back, swallowing the grunt of effort that tried to escape.

He needed those horses. A mule and the boy’s faulty footsteps would be too slow. The horses looked mountain-hardy and surefooted…they’d made it here in the first place, hadn’t they?

He looked to the Cerls next.

He’d been hunting before, but those had been animals, and he’d needed to eat. It was one of the only good memories he had of his father before the Fogs had coated them in pain. But killing squirrels and the occasional deer wasn’t anything like slaying a person.

Michael’s pale face and blood-soaked shirt flashed in his mind.