He tried not to think about Nimue. I tried to save her. I asked her to come with me.
“I might have something,” Druuna said, fingering a gold denarii. Druuna was a priceless resource in the trader port of Rue Gorge, placed strategically between the foothills of the Iron Peaks and the River of Fallen Kings. Her area of expertise was acquiring sword escorts for illegal caravans. “I’ve got some wagons of exotic items, dyed silks, rare spices, I don’t know where from and I don’t want to know. Need to cross the Peaks. They’ll only pay for one sword, so it might be dangerous. Leaves tomorrow. Interested?”
“Done,” Arthur said without hesitation. He wanted nothing more than to put the Iron Peaks between him and his shame.
That night he drank too much ale and slept poorly.
The next morning he met the traders he was meant to accompany, Dizier and his wife, Clothilde. They were travelers, judging by their colorful foreign clothes and their heavy accents, and talkative about all things but the contents of their five wagons, which were heaped with blankets and straw.
Arthur couldn’t have cared less. He was eager to get moving into the mountains before nightfall. Most thieves were too lazy to climb into the Peaks and would instead ambush on the road out of Rue Gorge. He and Bors had done it a dozen times back in towns like Hawksbridge.
Luckily, Dizier seemed just as eager to get on the road, and by midday they had loaded their supplies, left Rue Gorge, and were only ten miles from Doroc’s Cross, which spanned the River of Fallen Kings and marked the journey into the Iron Peaks.
From his position at the back of the convoy, Arthur spied two Red Paladins atop a wagon—a checkpoint—down the road. Red bastards are everywhere, he thought. He noticed Dizier’s posture change and a series of nervous looks between him and Clothilde.
A squeak turned Arthur’s head to the wagon beside him, the last wagon. Was that a sneeze? He sidled closer to the wagon, drew his sword, and with the flat end of the blade lifted the corner of a set of heavy carpets.
A terrified Faun child looked back at him. Her small antlers had been sawed off in what Arthur assumed was a sad effort to make her easier to disguise. He looked back at the road and the Red Paladin checkpoint fast approaching. He looked at the five wagons he hadn’t bothered to inspect. Gods, are they all hiding Fey families?
Dizier glanced back at Arthur as though reading his mind. The traveler’s eyes were strained and worried. Arthur cursed his bloody luck. He turned and looked over his shoulder at the empty road behind him. If it came down to a pursuit, Egypt could outrace them. And that would leave Dizier and his cargo to the mercy of the Church, and there was very little question of how that would play out.
When Arthur turned back around, Dizier was waving his hat to two Red Paladins in a friendly manner. The paladins approached on their skinny horses. The caravan gradually rolled to a stop. Arthur missed the first bits of conversation as he numbly whickered Egypt forward toward the front of the convoy. There was little to distinguish the Red Paladins up ahead. They both seemed to be young and ugly. One of them had a tonsure that flowed into a patchy black beard filling his cheeks and neck. The other kept his brown locks neatly trimmed. Both of their exposed pates were sunburned.
“What goods are you moving?”
“Just carpets, my brothers. Very, very fine. A family tradition. Four hundred knots per finger. I can make you a very nice deal.”
“We don’t want your gypsy rags. Get down from your horse. We’ll have a look.”
“No need for that, my good man.” Arthur rode up. “I’ll vouch for them.”
The Red Paladins regarded Arthur with dead eyes and curled lips. “No one asked you, friend.”
Dizier watched them intently.
The bearded paladin turned to Dizier. “Get off your horse.”
“Don’t move, Dizier,” Arthur advised. He turned to the paladins. “Why doesn’t Dizier here make a Church donation and we’ll be on our way?”
“Here’s how it goes, boy,” the clean-cut paladin said to Arthur. “We look through these wagons, take what we like, and you shut that shithole of a mouth.”
The bearded paladin added, “There’s been a lot of hedge pigs and blood beaks getting secreted through these hills.”
Arthur knew those vulgarisms for Tusks and Moon Wings. “Well, that’s not us, brothers. Just carpets and a desire to reach the foothills before dark. These roads can be dangerous at night, as you know.”
“You’re a real funny one.” The clean-cut paladin drew his sword. “Lose the steel, boy.”
“I—I have gold,” Dizier sputtered.
“Aye, the field is yours, sir,” Arthur said as he unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it on the dirt road.
With a smirk, the clean-cut paladin dismounted and picked up Arthur’s sword. He snarled at Dizier and Clothilde. “Get down, both of you. Now.”
As the clean-cut paladin walked past Egypt’s saddle, Arthur drew a dagger from his boot, caught the Red Brother by the throat, and jammed the blade into the back of his skull, giving it a twist as he whispered, “I send regards from the Wolf-Blood Witch.”
The bearded paladin fumbled for his sword as Arthur yanked the dagger free, flipped it between his fingers, and threw it hard, spearing him under the chin. The bearded paladin gurgled and clutched his throat, blood flowing between his fingers, as his horse turned in nervous circles before rearing and dumping him onto the dirt.
Arthur dismounted in a flash and retrieved his sword. “Help me!” he shouted to Dizier as he grabbed the clean-cut paladin by the boots. Dizier helped Arthur drag the bodies to the side of the road. Arthur’s eyes darted in the direction of Rue Gorge, praying for time. He took Dizier’s arm. “Dump the saddles and take their horses. Get to Doroc’s Cross. Once you’re over the river, you’ll be safe in the hills.”
“Wh-what about you? You’re not coming?” Dizier asked.
“There’s no time. I’ve got to clean this up. Hide the bodies before the next shift and hope they assume the post was abandoned. If the Church hears that paladin blood was spilled here, they’ll tear down the Iron Peaks looking for you.” Arthur took Dizier’s shoulders. “Go. You’ll be safe.” His eyes drifted to the wagons. “And so will they.”
Dizier’s eyes welled with tears of gratitude. “Born in the dawn.”
Arthur smiled grimly. “To pass in the twilight.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
A TOP A HIGH CLIFF IN the minotaur Mountains, the Weeping Monk dipped his arrow into a bucket of pitch at his feet, then fed it to a burning torch stuck into the dirt. Arrow alight, he lifted his longbow and fired high into the air. The flaming arrow soared three hundred feet across the gorge and landed in a pasture of wheat far, far below, within a hundred yards of several more arrows, which had lit the entire field ablaze.
Drawing another arrow, the Weeping Monk repeated the process, pivoting his foot a few degrees to face another set of farms just to the west. Already, dozens of cones of smoke were visible across the Minotaur Valley.
Nimue felt a pit in her stomach when she smelled the burning wood. What at first appeared to be a thick mist in the rolling hills of the Minotaurs was, she realized, actually smoke.