Paladin's Prize (Age of Heroes, Book 1) (32 page)

Wrynne winced as Reynulf laid a crashing punch on her husband’s jaw that sent him reeling. But she needn’t have feared, for a few seconds later, Thaydor had wound an arm around Reynulf’s throat in a brutal wrestling hold and was arching him back like a bow.

“I know it was you who opened the North Gates,” he ground out, overpowering his opponent. “Tell them! You owe them that much, at least. Tell the men the truth, or I’ll break your bloody neck.” He wrenched him for good measure, but Reynulf, red-faced and grimacing, laughed at the pain.

“You think I’m ashamed of it?” he retorted with a wince. “Not at all! I’m proud of what I’ve done. For the glory of Xoltheus!” Reynulf grabbed Thaydor around the back of the neck and flipped him over his head.

Thaydor’s back slammed against the floor, and he gave an angry grunt. He immediately leaped to his feet, but Reynulf had already swept backward a few steps, grabbed his cast-off dagger, and held it to the throat of the priestess.

He began backing away, dragging his hostage with him.

Thaydor paused uncertainly. Wrynne watched, riveted.

“Careful, Paladin,” Reynulf taunted, breathing hard. “You don’t want an innocent to die needlessly, now, do you? Well,
innocent
is probably the wrong word.”

“Let her go.”

“I think she’s earned her place in Fonja’s heaven after all the cocks she’s sucked so dutifully down here, don’t you? Of course, if I cut this pretty throat of hers, your witch could simply heal her, I suppose. Still, it buys me time to seal the city. His Majesty wouldn’t want you to flee from his hospitality.”

“Reynulf, please,” the priestess whimpered, clutching the thick forearm that held her fast as the red knight dragged her slowly backward. “We’ve shared a bed. I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Thaydor apparently decided at that moment that Reynulf was bluffing.

“You always had a soft spot for a beautiful woman,” he chided. “How many times did I warn you an enemy would take advantage of it one day?”

“Thaydor!” Wrynne insisted, at the same time Jonty shouted, “Don’t goad him, he’ll kill her!”

“No, he won’t,” Thaydor said.

The woman whimpered, but Reynulf’s midnight eyes had narrowed with fury—apparently at being exposed for having some vague shadow of a soft side.

He clutched his hostage by her hair and shoved her at Thaydor when he lunged at him. Thaydor caught the woman as she stumbled into him.

Reynulf ran. Thaydor set her aside, but she fell anyway on her ridiculous spiked heels and landed in a sobbing heap.

Thaydor chased Reynulf out of the building.

Jonty let out a breath and strode over to help the woman up as Wrynne peered into the hallway down which her husband had raced off and disappeared, but there was no point in following. Gathering her wits as best she could, she swallowed her distaste toward the temple prostitute and went over to see if she could be of help. After all, the woman was still rather hysterical and had turned an ankle, as well.

A few of the other Fonjan temple girls crowded around their companion, however, and brushed Wrynne aside with scornful looks. They seemed as repulsed by the symbol on her necklace as she was at their life of willing exploitation.

They crowded around their friend.

Wrynne ignored their rejection and turned to Jonty. “Now what?”

He shrugged and shook his head, but to her relief, Thaydor came back a few minutes later, furious but unscathed.

“He got away, the coward. Disappeared into a crowd.” He turned to the knights, who still looked grimly shocked at what they had witnessed and the treachery to which Reynulf had confessed.

“
Now
do you understand what’s been happening around you? It’s as I told you!” Thaydor said fiercely to them. “Reynulf was following orders—just like the red knights always do. Do you realize what that means? It means it was essentially the king who let the Urms in the gate, knowing full well that some of his own citizens would die. The king who allowed me to be blamed for this crime. But the king is not himself. Another wields an unholy influence over him.”

“What are you saying?” one of the men asked darkly.

“Oh, for feck’s sake, you idiots,” Jonty burst out. “A coup has taken place right under yer idiot noses! If Reynulf’s confession wasn’t proof enough, ye have only to look at yourselves! Did you imagine ’twas a coincidence that all the strongest defenders of the land should be sent here to lose themselves in pleasure? Didn’t that happen to ring any wee warnin’ bells in yer great thick skulls?”

They stared at Jonty none too happily. Taking the rebuke from their former commander was bad enough.

“Who’s this?” one of the large, scary-looking knights asked Thaydor.

“He’s with us. He’s the bard, Jonty Maguire.”

“As if ye don’t know.” Jonty tugged at his jacket with an indignant huff.

Thaydor resumed. “So I ask you now, are you finally awake? Or have you ruined yourselves for soldiering for good here, lolling in the pigpen?”

They exchanged frowning glances with one another.

The large, Norse-looking fellow who had just spoken nodded. “We’re with you.”

“What would you have us do?” asked another.

“First, we need to get out of the city before Reynulf seals us in. We’ll retreat to the old citadel, the Eldenhold, to discuss the extent of the infiltration and plan our response. Let’s go.” He started marching away, but Wrynne grabbed his arm.

“Thaydor, what about my family?”

When he turned to her, his eyes were still dark with wrath, the indigo of a night sky.

“You said Reynulf probably knows by now who they are,” she reminded him. “We’ve got to get my family out of the city, too. Otherwise, the king may take them into custody and use them as hostages to force us to turn ourselves in.”

He nodded, while behind them Jonty beckoned to the group of knights to hurry up.

“We’ll send them to my father at Clarenbeld Castle,” Thaydor replied. “Don’t worry, the old War Hammer will protect them, considering he and my sister are under the same threat. He’s got twenty knights at his keep and hundreds of loyal foot soldiers among the local peasants he can call up anytime. They’ll be safe there,” he added a little more gently, touching her arm. “You tell them what’s going on, and I’ll put together an escort of a few knights to protect them along the way.”

“Thank you.” She offered him a faint, hapless smile. “Not quite how I imagined introducing my new husband to my family, but as long as they’re safe.”

He nodded, still seeming hard and remote in his leadership role. “Let’s go,” he said to her, then nodded at the bard and all his followers.

* * *

Meanwhile, a bruised, somewhat bloodied, and thoroughly furious Reynulf strode into the palace to tell the king what had just occurred.
What the hell have I got myself into?

Damn Thaydor. Overgrown choirboy and all his infuriating virtue. Yet…he had a way of putting things into perspective that made Reynulf want to scream.

Why
he had just given the paladin and his merry band of followers a small sliver of time to escape the city, Reynulf did not know.

He denied even to himself that he had done it. Perhaps because he was a survivor before he was a loyalist. Oh, he had ordered the city sealed, the gates closed, but he hadn’t rushed to it as quickly as he might have. He hadn’t even gone personally.

The chamberlain jumped out of his way and hastily ordered the doors opened before him as he marched down the long, narrow-windowed gallery to King Baynard’s receiving room. When he arrived at the guarded door to the square crimson chamber, the pudgy, balding, middle-aged monarch was chatting with some courtiers.

Fashionable fools.
They wore those stupid floppy hats that were all the rage, the two different-colored leggings, and the overlong, curly-toed shoes that were no doubt perfect for their idle existence but would have got an
actual
man killed.

Reynulf wanted to throw the lisping pair and their tittering lady friend through the window to get rid of them more speedily. The king seemed to read as much in his frank stare.

King Baynard IV of the House of Lionsclaw arched a brow, his crown winking in the sunshine.

The courtiers were dismissed and went tripping out, both escorting the velvet-gowned aristocratic lady in the strange, pointy hat.

Thank the gods
, Reynulf thought in disgust when the door had finally closed behind them.

“Bloodletter,” the king greeted him, beckoning him over and looking rather amused at his discomfiture amid the fashionable and highborn.

Which Reynulf was not.

Hell no. Everything he had in this life he had got for himself, thank you very much.

Far from being born into a line of national heroes or heir to an earldom, Reynulf didn’t even know who his parents were. And didn’t really care. He’d come up as an orphaned street rat, kicked around by life far more than his fair share, before he had found god in the Red Temple and learned to put his rage to good use.

“Sire.” He bowed.

“You have news for me?” the king asked.

Reynulf glanced over his shoulder to make sure the rich royal chamber was empty, but to his dismay, they still were not alone. The Silver Sage, the king’s top advisor, leaned in the shadows in cold, tranquil stillness.

Reynulf feared nothing, but the Lord Hierophant’s insipid smile and unfailing politeness never failed to send a chill down his spine. He looked at the king. “I would rather reveal it to you alone, sire.”

“Don’t be absurd. I have no secrets from Lord Eudo. What is it, man?”

He managed to hide his annoyance. “Thaydor’s here.”

“In the city?” the king exclaimed.

“Yes, sire. And he knows about the Urmugoths.”

“How could he know?” the sage snapped. “You said you left no witnesses!”

“I didn’t, sire!” Reynulf assured the king, ignoring the other man. “It has to be the woman. She’s some sort of seer or witch. But I haven’t even got to the bad news yet.”

Baynard looked at him in alarm.

“Thaydor sought out the knights at Fonja and must have given them one of his grand, ridiculous speeches.”

“Oh no,” the king groaned.

“I tried to stop him. I got there within minutes. Fortunately, I was just across the street offering my sacrifice for the Xolthean holy day tomorrow. I ordered the men to seize him, but they just stood there in complete insubordination!” he said, fuming. “Now they follow him. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”
Baynard shot up from his gilded throne and glared at him. The raised platform put him on eye level with Reynulf. “How could you let this happen?

“Me, sire? I’m not a sorcerer! I don’t control their wills.” He hesitated. “The new ways have made them lazy, just as I warned Lord Eudo that they would.” He sent the Silver Sage a glare. “I told you it was stupid to let them lounge about all day. But no matter. I’ll take care of it,” he said grimly, unsurprised at having to take the blame as usual for other idiots’ mistakes. “Believe me, when I get a hold of them, I will personally stretch each of the bastards on the rack until he screams for mercy. Of which I have none.”

“Save your anger, Bloodletter. You may need it.” Still cloaked in shadows, Lord Eudo sounded annoyed by Reynulf’s wrath.

The feeling was mutual. Reynulf couldn’t stand the old man’s preternatural calm.

“So…” The king sat back down slowly. “The paladin has stolen my army. If the majority of my knights have abandoned their oath of loyalty to me and put themselves under his command, it is certain the common soldiery will follow. Put that together with the troops his father commands—”

“And the love of the people,” Reynulf reminded them in a prickly tone.

The king turned to his advisor at the edge of the room, looking pale and stricken at the implications. “He must be stopped. We cannot have an uprising of these rebel knights!”

Eudo emerged from the shadows, robed in silver. “Not to worry, Your Majesty,” he soothed. Gliding over, he bowed. “I already have the answer in motion. Just give the word, and Sir Reynulf shall have a new army under his command within twenty-four hours.”

“What are you talking about?” Reynulf retorted. “You’re going to conjure an army out of thin air?”

The Lord Hierophant gave him a skin-crawling smile. “You’ll see. They can be in Pleiburg before noon tomorrow if you give the word, sire.”

“I take it you mean mercenaries?” Baynard replied.

“Of a sort. Yes. But we mustn’t frighten the people,” the Silver Sage added. “Once our new fighters arrive, I suggest we call the people together into Concourse Square to explain the situation to the public. If you spoke to your subjects, Majesty, I’m sure it would calm them, help them not to be afraid.”

“But mercenaries, Eudo?” Baynard hesitated, glancing from his advisor to his champion. “Doesn’t that make me look a little…desperate?”

“Unfortunately, I’m not sure we have much choice,” the sage said gently. “Are we to wait for Sir Thaydor to march in here and take your crown from you? That is what he wants, you know.”

Reynulf kept his mouth shut, but he doubted that was true. If these two really knew the irritatingly virtuous paladin, they’d have realized he had no aspirations of power whatsoever.

Hell, if it were up to Thaydor, he’d probably take his psalters and his poetry books, and retire to some peaceful hermitage like the girl’s woodland bower, which Reynulf had discovered near the waterfall.

“Who exactly are the mercenaries you’re thinking of hiring for us, Eudo? Are they trustworthy?” the king asked.

“Sire, mercenaries are not trustworthy by their very nature,” Reynulf mumbled before the old man’s advisor could reply. “They fight for gold,” he said in disgust. “They have no reverence for the art of war. No code.”

“Good Sir Reynulf, I’m sure His Majesty appreciates that hired soldiers do rather offend the sensibilities of the mighty warriors of Xoltheus. But, my dear lad, what choice do we have? Our knights have turned traitor. Fortunately,” he added, “every Urmugoth fighter is usually the equal of two or three human soldiers. Plus the fear they inspire by their appearance, reputation. I doubt we’d need more than a couple hundred.”