Page 24 of A War of Crowns

At his side, Leif dug a finger into his ear and asked, “What was that about bones?”

“I don’t know,” Aldric quietly admitted.

Behind him, Eisway asked, “What are we going to do with them, Father?”

Aldric didn’t know that either. He had killed his fair share of women over the years. Countless Kunishi shieldmaidens. Women armed with blades and bravery.

The only shieldmaiden he saw before him, though, was the woman the old man had called Akemi.

And he wasn’t about to kill her in front of the children.

“You shouldn’t have come here,”Aldric suddenly snarled to the old man as a hot wave of irritation burned its way through him. Now he was faced with an impossible decision while all his men watched, waiting to see what he would do.“If you are mere refugees, why have you been raiding our villages?”

“Lies,”the woman named Akemi hissed.“We have raided nothing.”

A brief wink of steel was all the warning Aldric received before the shieldmaiden suddenly dove out from behind her father. She lunged for him, a dagger drawn.

Time seemed to slow.

“No!”the old man screamed and dove back between them with his spear. A bowstring twanged. The elderly Kunishi dropped like a stone with one of Calix’s arrows now piercing his chest.

And Akemi came for Calix, with all the rage of a Kunishi shieldmaiden, to claim her family’s blood debt.

“Murderer,”she shrieked.

Gritting his teeth, Aldric barreled straight for her. The woman was taller than he was, as all women were, and he ducked easily beneath the swing of her blade.

But not quickly enough.

His cheek burned in the wake of her dagger’s passing.“Stop,”he commanded her as he dove out of the way of her next strike.

But she didn’t stop.

“You’re just another of the Bonesinger’s puppets,”the shieldmaiden accused. The strange word made even less sense in that context than the first.“Where you go, death and darkness follow.”

Steeling his jaw, Aldric punched the woman’s midsection in a sharp jab that lured a breathless gasp from her lips. “Rakon!” he shouted, bringing the large man to his side.

Looking grim, Rakon wrapped his arms about Akemi and lifted her clean off her feet. With her arms now pinned, Aldric pried the dagger from her fingers.

But still, she struggled.

“May the Underworld swallow you whole,”she screamed at him over the sounds of the other women within the tent, desperately trying to shush their crying children.

“Easy there, little wildcat,” Rakon rumbled to the woman caged within his arms. The big man leveled a tired look down at him. It was an exhaustion Aldric felt all the way down to his bones. “What are we doing with her, boss?”

“Let her go,” Calix suggested from where he lingered in the entrance to the tent, his bow freshly drawn. “And I’ll make quick work of her.”

“No,” Aldric commanded over his shoulder.

“But she drew blood,” Calix protested.

“I saidno,” Aldric roared and the children’s cries grew all the louder for it. Turning his attention back to the shieldmaiden, he demanded over the sickening sound of their sobs,“Tell me more about this Bonesinger.”

She answered by spitting in his face.

His right cheek stung when he swiped it clean, his blood joining her spittle on his gauntlet. Blood for blood. The Kunishi way demanded a life for a life.

The shieldmaiden wouldn’t be satisfied.

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