Page 43 of The Threadbare Queen

The safety of the Cervantes was more important than this.

“Which noble?” he asked.

They looked at each other again, and Massi let her arrow loose. It embedded itself into the tree behind the men, the fletched end of it poking between them.

He could see them look down at it, and by the time they looked back up, Massi had another arrow notched.

“Lord Cynera.”

“I have a message for Lord Cynera.” Luc saw a hunted look come into both men’s eyes at the notion of delivering a message when they had clearly failed in their mission. He didn’t think they would take a message to Lord Cynera. They’d head straight back to Fernwell and quietly join the ranks of wall builders under Captain Eckhart.

He sighed. Looked over at Rafe. “Can you get me some parchment and something to write with? These idiots aren’t going to give Cynera anything. We’ll have to deliver it ourselves and then be off.”

Rafe nodded and wheeled back toward the pack horses that brought up the rear.

“What about these two?” Massi asked into the silence that fell. “We don’t trust them to deliver a message. We can’t trust them at our back. It’s best we kill them.”

“I swear. I really swear, we will go straight back to Fernwell.” Raymon looked like he was about to faint.

“It’s just . . . we were angry that we lost so easily. That you just walked into the city and took it.” Gert rubbed over his heart nervously. “We wanted to fight back.”

“Easy? Did you talk to the soldiers camping in squalor not an hour from here?” Kikir asked. “The ones I met on the plains in battle and defeated before we crossed the Bartolo and made our way to Fernwell? Or how about the magic flares your brave Queen’s Herald hid in the hills, to burn the whole country down, including your own villages and towns?” His disgust was clear.

“We didn’t think any of that was true, at first,” Raymon said.

“At first?” Luc asked.

Raymon gulped. “We’ve spoken to those men you mentioned, at that camp they’ve made. But even when we knew most of the stories were true, we’d already said we would . . .” He heaved in a breath. “Stand watch and shoot whoever from the Rising Wave came past.”

“How many of you are there?” Revek had been watching the trees and their surroundings the whole time.

“Twenty. It isn’t a fighting force. We’re meant to keep to the trees and shoot down on you. Lord Cynera thought you’d exact reprisals at the villages you passed, and that would help him stir up discontent.”

“You were fine with that, were you? Reprisals in the villages caused by your actions?” Massi looked like she was no longer amused.

“I don’t . . .” It was as if the idea had simply not occurred to Gert. His voice trailed away.

They really were idiots.

“You will hand your weapons to Kym and walk in front of us, calling off your friends until we get in sight of Cynera’s manor house. If one more arrow is let loose, whether it lands or not, Massi will shoot you, if I don’t hack off your heads first.”

So they made their way, almost slower than he could stand, through the trees and copses to the east, with Gert and Raymon calling an end to their mission.

Massi and two other members of the unit who were excellent archers loosed a few arrows each when it looked like someone didn’t want to lower their bow, so three came down from the trees with injuries.

Luc had finished writing his message, a little rough because he’d penned it while riding, by the time the manor’s gate was in sight.

They had herded the whole twenty Kassian soldiers ahead of them.

Luc gave a whistle to call a stop. He moved ahead of the Kassians and turned his mount to face them. “You can go in with me and explain what happened, or you can go your own way. I can tell you now that the nobles are about to lose everything. If they promised they could pay you, they were lying. If they promised they could offer you land in exchange for services, they were lying. And anyone who attaches themselves to the nobles will go down with them. Am I very clear?” While he was speaking, everyone had stopped jostling and murmuring to each other to watch him. He hardly had to raise his voice at all.

There was a beat where no one moved, and then one of the men turned and started walking back the way they’d come, through the horses and the Rising Wave unit, into the forest toward Fernwell.

His action seemed to spur the others, and within a minute, no one was left.

“Rafe, find someone light and fast to go back to Fernwell and let them know about this; about the possible danger to anyone in the Rising Wave who passes this way if we haven’t found them all, or if some of them creep back here to do Cynera’s bidding. But wait until I come out from delivering my message. Let’s see what Cynera has to say.”

He studied the unit before him for a moment, noting with pride the easy, confident way his people sat on their horses, weapons drawn, just waiting for his word.

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