Home > The Blacksmith Queen (The Scarred Earth Saga #1)(14)

The Blacksmith Queen (The Scarred Earth Saga #1)(14)
Author: G.A. Aiken

After a few seconds, he began screaming. Loud enough that everyone could hear. Everyone would know.

“War Monk! She’s a War Monk! WAR MONK!”

* * *

The first of the new soldiers came at her, his sword raised. Keeley gripped the end of her hammer with one hand, and the head with the other. She lifted her hammer up. The soldier began to bring the sword down, but then he screamed out, his back arching, his eyes going wide as a blade tore through his chest, and blood splattered Keeley’s startled face.

The sword was torn out and the body fell, revealing Caid the Amichai.

He barely glanced at her before he slaughtered the other soldiers who’d come for her. Slashing and stabbing with brutal efficiency. When the soldiers lay dead or dying, he returned to her and the gray mare.

He glanced at the gray stallion. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

Keeley nodded. “Are there more?” she asked, pointing to the soldiers at their feet.

“Many more.”

“I see. All for my sister?”

“Yes.”

“From where?”

“They’ve sent smaller units to surround your family’s farm. But the main force is marching head-on. They’ll be coming over that hill.”

Keeley hefted the head of her hammer onto her shoulder. “All right then.”

She started off toward the hill, but Caid’s voice followed her.

“I thought you wanted to see.”

“Wanted to see what?”

“What I really look like.”

Keeley stopped, realizing the gray mare was right beside her. Together they faced Caid.

He still appeared as a human but already she saw that his eyes were different. Glowing gold in the morning suns that had come up over the hill.

Then he began to grow . . . up. His torso lifted tall, stretching a bit, even widening. And beneath his torso, his legs went from human to horse. Even his kilt turned into a horse’s bridle seconds before two more legs appeared as that part of his body stretched and grew massive. Bigger than any warhorse she’d ever seen.

The gray mare pawed the ground with one hoof and her head swung hard, her long hair hitting Keeley in the face. But it didn’t stop her from seeing.

His body stopped growing, finally. But then, from the sides of his head . . . antlers. Not massive ones to herald he was a male, but big and strong enough to be weapons.

His mouth relaxed a bit and she saw white and long powerful fangs.

Caid stared at her with those golden eyes and waited. If he was expecting her to run from him—she didn’t have time.

“I have to do something,” she told him, starting again toward the hill. “I hope you don’t hate me when I’m done.”

She patted the gray mare’s neck. “And you too, my friend.”

* * *

Laila and her unit had gotten up before the suns rose. Together, they’d silently made their way to a nearby lake that Caid knew about. There, they’d discussed next moves. Especially if the family decided to fight them on taking Beatrix to the witches.

Her father’s original plan had been to just take the young woman, but her mother had stomped that decision into the ground. And Laila had agreed. Morally.

Now, though, as she moved through the crowd of mercenaries on horseback, she realized that to have just grabbed Beatrix would have been a very foolish thing indeed.

Not when the mother stood in front of her children covered in someone else’s blood and there were already two headless bodies stretched out in front of her nun daughter. The nun was taking the time to kindly—although stupidly—pray over them. Bad timing, but she was a nun, after all. Maybe she was required to do so by her sect.

The mercenaries began to ride forward and she went along. It was a gift given to her kind by the horse gods. They could blend into any herd of horses without being seen by human eyes. If they were smart. Sometimes her brothers . . . not so smart.

Laila pulled out her bow and quickly nocked three arrows, but before she could use them, the horses surrounding her suddenly reared up and began to panic. Had the nun cast a spell? Did nuns cast spells? Laila had thought all they did was pray and not have sex. And sometimes help the poor.

Confused, she kept her bow at the ready but moved along with the herd. It was when she was jostled to the left that she saw those headless bodies moving. Not the final death throes of men who hadn’t realized their heads were no longer attached to their bodies but moving . . . with purpose. Slowly, but surely, getting to their feet.

Then the nun ripped off her white robes and Laila took in a startled breath.

Oh, it had been a very good thing they hadn’t taken that girl.

Laila didn’t even need to hear the men screaming to know what she was looking at. To fully understand. What the “nun” now wore told her everything she needed to know—and what the woman had been hiding.

The full-length chainmail hauberk with that wide skirt, slit up the front and back for fighting and horse riding. Iron chausses on her legs and chainmail boots with iron spurs. And a black woolen cappa over the chainmail, slit in the front and rear like the hauberk. But on the front and back was a blood-red rune that revealed all.

Gemma Smythe was no chunky nun. She was a War Monk. A knight who’d dedicated her entire life and soul to one of the mighty war gods. Morthwyl, based on her runes. Not only making the woman a trained and very deadly warrior, but one who could also raise the dead to attack their enemies during battle.

The headless bodies pulled their swords from their sheaths and rushed their former compatriots, running toward them at full speed and attacking as soon as they were near. As if they could see them despite the loss of their heads.

They struck the horses nearest first, so that the poor animals dropped and the men on the ground were immediately torn open by the swords of the headless.

The other horses wanted nothing to do with those that were once dead and they immediately backed up and turned away from the running bodies, attempting to charge off but, in their panic, colliding with one another or with the trees.

A few of the soldiers, knowing the War Monk was behind the attack, forced their horses to move forward, their swords pulled.

Gemma yanked a long sword she had sheathed at her side, gripped the handle with both hands, and raised it high over her left shoulder.

Laila released her three arrows, taking out three of the mercenaries in the process. She moved forward, nocking three more arrows, but she was no longer part of the herd. Another scream went out from the mounted men.

“Centaur!”

One of them blew a horn that would call to others and Laila quickly spun around, using her now much-bigger ass to knock the horse that had been beside her to the ground. She raised her bow and let the arrows fly, taking out the horn blower in mid-blast and two other men in the process.

She walked backward until she stood beside Gemma. She glanced down at her, nodded her head. “Monk.”

Gemma gazed up at her with wide eyes. “Centaur?” She shook her head. “I can’t believe Keeley was right.”

“She was right about you too,” Laila admitted. “You’re quite the little liar.”

* * *

Caid ran after Keeley through the woods, briefly pausing when he heard the screamed “War Monk!” coming from off in the distance.

Keeley stopped, too, at that yell, and looked over her shoulder. But then she gave a short head shake and continued running. A few minutes later, “Centaur!” was screamed out, making Caid smirk, and then came the sound of a war horn. Keeley’s speed somehow increased as she suddenly veered off.

Caid was right behind her, until she reached a large tree and took a position there. Waiting.

Under his hooves, the earth moved and he knew more soldiers were coming.

Gods, had the princes sent an entire battalion to take down the family? That seemed . . . excessive.

Then again, all he’d heard for the last five minutes were the dying screams of men. None of women and children. So perhaps they knew something Caid and his cohorts did not.

The first of the mounted soldiers came over the ridge and that’s when Keeley moved, running out.

Caid went to grab her, but she was already gone. Thankfully, she didn’t jump in front of them. She ran out so that she was lined up with the first horse.

She raised her hammer high, pulling it back over her shoulder. Then, with a mighty swing, she brought the weapon down and into. . . the side of the closest horse. With a horrid scream, the horse’s hooves left the ground and its entire body slammed into the horse next to it. They both went down and the horses behind didn’t have time to stop. Instead they stumbled over the pair and fell, forcing others to do the same.

But none of that stopped the rest of the mounted riders. There were more coming over that ridge and riding straight for the house.

Keeley used her hammer to finish off the men whose horses had gone down, but quickly pulled back before any of the soldiers could come for her. She stood by that tree again, staring down the hill. Watching as the soldiers rode into the valley, over the small white fence, and into the first field.

The first group of mounted soldiers made it as far as the middle of that field . . . and then were gone. The healthy-looking crop they’d been trampling disappeared completely, the mounted riders and their steeds falling into the camouflaged pit.

Again, those coming in behind couldn’t stop in time and half the mounted platoon disappeared into the same hole.

Keeley went up on her toes and yelled out, “Da! Nowwwwwwwww!”

Caid came around the tree so that he could clearly see what Keeley was calling for. He heard it first. The counterweight, then the snap of the casting arm being released, and over the pigpen a large ball of fire flew into the pit of mounted soldiers.

The pit exploded into flames and the terrified screams of dying men and horses.

“You have a trebuchet?” Caid asked . . . because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Mum made it. She gets bored when she’s pregnant.”

“Huh.”

“It’s very handy.” Keeley gave a sad sigh. “But I hate hurting the horses.”

   
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