Page 113 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“This is your king,” Dane said, his voice ringing out through the crowd, the perfect orator. “This is the man that kept you locked down in your barracks as the Reavers began their attack on our land. This is the man who refused to send out soldiers to assist when some of your homes were destroyed by those bastards.”

The crowd’s silence broke then, a rumble of discontent building. No; more that it was being released publicly for the first time.

“This is the man who finally allowed the army to ride out, to try and fight these monsters…” The crowd’s rumbles turned to snarls. Soldiers shifted restlessly; their anger unable to be contained. “And when he did. Did he fight valiantly by our sides? A brother-in-arms, willing to lay down his life for yours?”

A single glob of spittle, shooting out over the crowd and landing on the dirt beside the king, that was the start of it. What control Dane had over them broke, shouts ringing out: accusations and jeers. He watched them, not flinching for a second as the mob raged, gestured, cursed and spat. He let them go like a parent might a child in the midst of a tantrum, waiting until they quietened again. But when they did, there was a taut awareness about every one of them, their eyes trained on the bleeding king. They knew more was to come and that their wish for recompense would be met.

“When I went across the border into Grania at my father’s behest, I found far more than their coin for our ore.”

When Dane turned around to stare at me, the hard shell I’d wrapped around me threatened to crack. Because he did so with an emotion I knew burned between us, but right now it was a bright, harsh thing that hurt. Dane loved me and I loved him. I knew that as sure as I knew my heart would keep beating, but somehow it made me ache. Tears formed; they seemed to well at the corners of my eyes, ready to be shed in a moment’s notice and I hated that, forcing myself to blink them away.

“Some of you have been two-souled since you became a man. Some of you are new to it. But you’ll all share a joy me and my brothers were blessed to experience. You’ll find her, or him. That other half of your soul, walking around in the body of another. Every other person pales in comparison to them. They’re all you want to look at, touch, scent. They fill your lungs, your mind and your heart in ways it's impossible to explain. You love them, but it’s then when you realise that the word is too puny to describe what rages in your heart. They’re everything to you. Darcy is mine and my brothers’ mate.”

He turned back to the crowd.

“But more than that. Darcy is a queen. Born from Queen Eleanor’s line. Left to moulder in some Granian lordling’s estate. You’ve seen what she can do, how she fights. She duelled the leader of the Reavers himself, trying to slay the bastard before he could redirect the bulk of his forces towards Snowmere, where our women and children are waiting. She fought so fucking hard and long, against a man several hundreds of years old, who slew the wizard Nordred himself…”

There was a pause for effect. Dane held the crowd in his hand right now, every eye trained on him.

“And what was her reward?”

When Dane’s hand snapped down, when it dragged his father up by his hair I gasped. Some primitive instinct, the same one that had stopped me from executing my own father, kicked in, aghast at the casually cruel way he handled the man. As though he was nothing, worthless. As though he was just like those criminals on execution day, my father’s hangman handling them with the same kind of brutality.

“For us to be tied up and bound within a tent. For the Wolf Maidens to be abused, forced back and then restrained when they refused to stand down.” My eyes flicked sideways then, seeing Selene and her Maidens standing as a group in the crowd, sporting way too many bruises on their faces. “The ‘loyal’ men of the spoilt lordlings, the same ones who’d refused to send aid to any of you, used their number to tie us up and keep us out of the way, so that my father could claim Darcy.”

He dropped his father like a sack of potatoes, that same hand shooting out to point to me.

“He knows what she is.” Dane shifted then, his eyes dropping to the ground. “He knows who she is to us, his own sons. He knows we would die to protect her, fight anyone who sought to break our bond, but we weren’t even given that chance. He had us bound up in a tent like common criminals. And our only crime? Being an impediment to his pursuit of power. He would kill us either way. We weren’t of use to him anymore, but he would slaughter our mate at the same time he dispatched us, or…? What did he say, Rath?”

“The old queen would be executed and Darcy would be made queen. He would get more sons, stronger sons on her, whether she was willing or not. He mentioned rape.”

It was odd, to hear the story of what had just happened told by someone else. My ears rang with the subsequent silence, my head wobbling on my neck as I tried to process it, my fingers going to my brow when it started creasing, rubbing at the wrinkles there, but they wouldn’t go away.

“Ulfric is no father,” Dane pronounced, all of the well-practised polish gone from his voice. It was ragged, raw and that’s what drew me forward. Weaving through the people within this circle of shame, finding my place by his side. Dane turned towards me. I’d come too soon, spoiled his moment, but I couldn’t stop, not when I heard the frantic rasp of his breaths. “He is no fit king.”

He leaned into my space, his mouth hovering over mine, but not able to close the gap, not yet. He was forced to turn back to the crowd, his eyes flashing a brief apology.

“That is the proposition I put before you, the protectors of Strelae. That my father be stripped of his rank and meet his fate. What say you?”

Dane had achieved his goal. The crowd roared their disapproval at the king, their screams and shouts making clear what they thought of their former sovereign. So when Ulfric was hauled to his feet, when he tried to shout back, then beg and plead, his cries falling on deaf ears, when he was led over to an impromptu chopping block, a log having been dragged into the circle in preparation for this and Axe moved to stand before him, not one man said no.

“Axe.” Suddenly I was standing before him, my hand on his arm, feeling the nervous thrum there in the thick muscle, seeing his eyes go wide. “I can do this for you.” And as I said the words, I knew I could. I’d be able to raise the axe, sever the bastard king’s head from his shoulders without feeling a thing but a faint sense of relief. That damn fluttering noise rose and rose inside my head as I saw myself doing just that.

“I know you can, lass,” he replied. “There’s not much you can’t do. I stand in awe of you every damn day. But this? This job falls to me.” He tried for a smile but failed. “Perhaps the gods knew that when they moved my parents to name me after a weapon.”

“Son… please…”

Every word cost Ulfric an inordinate amount of effort, but he forced them out, even as Dane shoved him down, Weyland’s foot coming to rest on his father’s spine, keeping him there. At some point someone had bound the man’s hands back, just as he had done to mine. Perhaps the same ropes were used, some disembodied sense of curiosity inside me wondered. My lips twitched, only the knowledge of how inappropriate stopping me from smiling.

“How would you have responded, Father, when I begged you for mercy?” Axe asked, all the warmth bled from his voice. “Or would you have neglected to attend my execution? Would you have had one of your nameless flunkies to drag us off, dispatch us neatly and quietly, away from anyone who might care. At least you get to go out the way you came in, with an audience of the people you sought to rule.”

His massive arms flexed before he drew his axe up and some dark part of me thrilled at the way the blade gleamed, despite the gore accumulated on the edge.

“Look away, lass,” Gael told me, trying to turn me to do just that, but I didn’t. Just like on execution days, I watched the blade come slamming down, bludgeoning the king’s spine, breaking it before the edge cut all the way through, severing Ulfric’s head from his shoulders.

Is this enough? I asked the goddess.

The blood of kings is always sweet on my lips, she replied, but no. You gave me something unwanted, unloved, like the scraps from a meal thrown to the pigs.

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