The Lethal Flame (Flame Series) (8 page)

Chapter 4

Cyrille half carried Damien as his brother’s weak legs struggled to help.  Up the stone stairs Bryce led the way, his sword at the ready should anyone try to attack their little group.  Cyrille’s gravelly voice cut through the fear that resided within the hall as he commanded those who cowered in the corners to show the way to the master chamber. As soon as they were within a secure chamber he set Bryce outside the door and franticly tore his brother’s armor from him.

“Stop this nonsense,” Damien grumbled once but Cyrille was sure he was delirious. 

A sword had cut into his side, up underneath his mail laying the skin open.  He was covered in his own blood and a deep fear settled in on Cyrille as he watched his brother’s face grow even paler.  A wound to his thigh also bled rivers of his brother’s blood and he felt weakness threaten his own legs.  Was this what it was like for Damien when he had rushed from the dungeon to find his brother burning at the stake?  Did he feel a desperation bordering on insanity?  Cyrille would kill, maim or torture anyone to insure his brother would live but he knew it would do no good.

Had Damien felt this useless desperation? Cyrille felt the desperation so cleanly he made a pact with the devil for his soul if he would but heal his brother while Damien’s desperation had filled him with a deep rage to see every person responsible for his brother’s pain extinguished by his blade.  While Cyrille had fought for his life Damien did the only thing his brother knew how to do, he searched the countryside to find those who had imprisoned them, destroying everything those men held dear before he ended their lives. 

Cyrille cut away the shirt and gently moved it away from the wound.  Deep, damn these rebels’ hides he thought wadding a corner of a blanket and pressing it against Damien’s side.  His brother writhed beneath him, his strength was ebbing.  The two of them had spent a lifetime wrestling and fighting one another, and he had no doubt his brother was losing too much blood.  “How are you doing Damien?”

“How bad is it?” his teeth clenched against the pain.

Cyrille thought of lying to him but he could not do that to his brother.  “It’s deep,” was his only reply.  His own eyes looked back at him and he read the fear there.

“Edwin!” Cyrille bellowed for the squire.  Immediately the boy opened the door.  “Get the seamstress, have her bring a little needle and several different kinds of thread.  Also bring a lot of ale, send those two things to me then get Roland here and let me know the situation.”  As the boy turned Cyrille added, “and watch your back the rebels are still afoot.”

“Cyrille,” Damien’s voice came to him in a near whisper.  Kneeling by his side he placed a hand on his arm.  His head turned and haunted eyes looked back at him.

“You’re okay brother,” Cyrille said but his voice sounded too much like a plea.  “I burned at the stake and I’m still here.  No sword is going to lay you down.”

A weak smile was his only reply.  His brother’s eyes drifted closed and Cyrille had the urge to scream at him to open them.  How could he go through life looking as he did without the image of what he once was to remind him he wasn’t a monster?  His hands tightened on his brother’s arm giving it a little shake. 

The door burst open and Cyrille had his sword drawn ready to slice the intruder in two.  A young woman gasped nearly fainting as he stopped his attack toward her.  “She is the seamstress’s apprentice,” Edwin explained behind her.  Cyrille stepped forward and grabbed the woman by the arm pulling her forward, his blade pressed against her chest.  “Sew him as neatly as you can.”  He turned grabbed the large tankard of ale from Edwin and dumped half its contents on the gaping wound.  Damien nearly rose from the bed, a gasp escaping him.  “Get more,” he said to Edwin indicating the ale.

“I can’t sew him,” the woman replied franticly trying to back away.  Without hesitation Cyrille pressed the blade of his sword to her neck again.  “If you cannot you will die here.”  Was this what it was, was this how easy it was to kill all those men innocent but not.  Was this how Damien survived knowing in the end all those he held dear would be safe? 

“I’ll try.”  His blade pierced the skin bringing a gasp. 

“You will do more than try.”

The young woman’s head bobbed up and down franticly and would have cut off her own head if he had not drawn the sword back.  He let go of her and pushed her forward.  With shaky fingers she pulled a needle from her apron and tried to select a thread.  Looking over her shoulder he selected one that seemed finer than the others and told her to use it. 

Roland arrived with a bucket of ale in his hand and a dipper.  “How is the take over?”

“Not going as smoothly as they do with Damien out there,” he replied moving toward the bed clearly uncomfortable with the state of things in the room. 

Cyrille paused a moment and studied the man before him.  He had no doubt Roland was creating more fear than calm in such a situation for he welcomed death, invited it in and offered it a place at the head of his table.  No man, woman or child who was unlucky enough to cross Roland’s path would be immune to his blind rage, to the death that was his constant companion.  But Cyrille could not be concerned with the fate of the rebels, he had one job and that was to see his brother lived.

“Hold him down,” Cyrille said.  As soon as the other man had hold of his brother he poured another ladle full of ale onto the wound washing away the fresh blood.  “Wash the blood away with this and you better do the best job you have ever done.  Roland watch her.”

He fled the chamber and went down to the courtyard searching out Landry.  The prisoners yelled and screamed at the troops who formed a human fence around them.  Someone would try to rush through the lines but would invariably be caught and thrust back into the prisoners.

“Kill the next man that tries to break the line!” Cyrille demanded in his gravelly voice.  The effect was not as authoritative as his brother’s same threat but in the end was more menacing and served the same purpose.

Unfortunately no one challenged him for they all stepped back.  A seamstress was in the keep trying to sew his brother back together and these rebels were still trying to cause trouble.  “Who raised arms against the king this day?” he demanded and the image of the Lady Keri standing over his brother with a bloody sword flooded him.

He plucked the nearest man from the group and plunged his sword deep.  It was funny because he thought the act would give him satisfaction but it only left a bitter taste in his mouth.  “Hang them all,” he declared unwilling to take the chance of another rebel getting through their defenses and slaying them when their backs were turned.  This was why Damien did it, because he had to.  A small fight ensued where several of the prisoners were killed before they had a chance to meet the rope.  In the end it was all the same and Cyrille took over his brother’s job and he had to wonder again at the kind of men they had both become. 

The need for revenge had changed Damien far more than the damage to his body had changed Cyrille.  Cyrille had once loved women, any size or shape he could not wait to find himself between their legs.  It wasn’t just the sex but everything soft and feminine.  He liked to make them smile, to see their eyes fill with softness for him.   He was still the same optimistic man he had once been but he chose not to see his reaction on women now.  Damien didn’t seem to understand he had resigned himself to a life of celibacy when the first woman had reacted to his scars.  He still insisted on bringing him women and sometimes after a battle when he still wanted a fight that had long ended, the fear in those women fueled him and he was not proud of what he did.

Damien had witnessed the way women shunned his brother, how society no longer accepted him. The hate and Cyrille guessed the fear that had resided in Damien had found a permanent place there.  Now he fought as a man driven by the fear that his failure as a commander would mean the death of his men.  Truly it did, as it always had, but when Damien had broken from the dungeon to witness his brother ablaze Roland told him he had snapped and no one could stop the blood bath that ensued for days afterward. For Damien that space in time in their lives had forever altered his soul.  He was commander now, for the King of England, and the title came with duties not the average man could carry out.  And no one could stop him from carrying out his orders to kill the rebels, for Damien said his weakness could mean the rebels attack again and the next time they could be the victors. 

Cyrille knew the sacrifice his brother made for him and for all his men by doing the things he did.  Cyrille had never had to kill a man outside of battle.  When Richard had sent them to ensure his control over England with a list of barons suspected of treachery Cyrille had not considered the implications, what would ultimately have to be done to ensure the King was victorious.  He was thankful the lord of the keep had died in battle and his family fled.   The order was not only to kill the rebellious lords and their soldiers but the lords’ families as well, in order to send a message.  Here there had been four small children all under the age of 10, how could he have possibly carried out such an order?  It was a small number Cyrille had to hang but each one he felt insured him a place in hell, while praying for forgiveness.

He considered sending for Roland again, and would have if it was the Roland he had grown up with.  But the new Roland was far different and each life that ended at the end of the man’s sword did not help to end the man’s rage but fueled it.  Cyrille feared the man was truly
mad and he quickly shunned the thought for the question raced into his mind if Roland was mad what did that make his brother?

Cyrille stayed by his brother’s side throughout the night, remembering their childhood in between the prayers and pleas that God not take him.  By dawn the next morning Cyrille gathered half his brother’s army and rode toward Featherstone to see their journey ended.

~   ~   ~   ~

The noise was driving him crazy.  The steady sound of metal on metal drove into his brain and made him open his eyes.  The light was piercing and Damien could only lie there and wonder where he was.  He could feel little of his body, which seemed to be floating in a haze of semi consciousness.  Was he dead?  No, he didn’t think he would have the dull pain building in him if he was.  He tried to move his head but the effort was too much.  He sensed he wasn’t in danger so allowed for the extra time to get his senses about him.  Richard had sent him to take control of those lands whose lords supported John.  They had made it as far as Langley.  No, that wasn’t right because that’s where Lady Keri was.  He remembered Haltwhistle, being pulled from Phantom and she fought with him, at his side, saved his life even. 

He tried to move again but his eyes grew heavy before he could.  Later he shook sleep off again to see it must be nighttime.  The sun was no longer washing everything in its light but a soft glow of a candle flickered off the high ceiling.  “You are awake,” Roland said from somewhere beside him.  He turned his head and found him slouched in a chair pulled up close to the bed.  “I knew one sword wouldn’t take you out of this world.”  Damien heard a great deal of the old Roland in his voice, a man who was concerned for his friend, a man with compassion.

“Ale,” he managed to croak out, barely able to open his mouth.

Roland scrambled to his feet and helped get a couple dippers of ale between his lips.  Things seemed much better now that he could swallow and get the knot out of his throat.  “Cyrille?” he asked testing his throat.

An uncomfortable silence fell between the two men.  “Where is my brother?” he asked and was surprised to hear the authority of a commander echoed in his voice despite his weakness and the hammering in his head.

“He went on to Featherstone.”

“When was this?” Damien asked struggling to sit up despite the stabbing pain in his side and the flame that felt it was travelling up his thigh.  He refused to look down, he had work to do and could not do it if he knew the cause of so much pain driving through his body.

“Three days ago.”

“Has there been any news?”

“No, he ordered us all stay here with you and he would be back as soon as the victory was his.”

With a roar as much for his anger at his brother’s foolhardiness and as a defense against the pain Damien swung his feet from the bed.  “Get my horse ready,” he said as he teetered and the room tilted wildly.  The man began to hesitate but one look at his commander reminded him who was in charge and he left the chamber.  “Edwin!” he bellowed drinking another dipper of ale.  The boy was immediately by his side, concern etched across his tawny brows. 

“Get me my mail.”  In the end Damien mounted Phantom without it and with only his squire at his side they thundered toward Featherstone.  Concern mingled with anger.  Not only had his brother foolishly put himself at risk but he had split Damien’s men, weakening them.  Along with the anger was the concern that no news was bad news.

~   ~   ~   ~

The rats kept coming at her.  She could hear them.  How long had she been here?  Time was meaningless but her hunger knew no bounds so she knew she had been here days.  Was it days, or weeks?  She focused on the skitter of little feet beside her as she kicked out.   She felt the scrape of claws as the vile beast tried to defend itself before it was propelled away from her. 

She panted, the exertion tired her.  A pain stabbed through her shoulders and she called out in agony.  Was she the only one still alive down here?  She had heard many voices when she was first brought down but they had ended.  Were they dead?  If they were why didn’t these damn rats go to them she wondered as she kicked toward another.