A Promise of Iron by Brandon McCoy (the reading list .txt) 📕

night as Ros felled another. I dodged a thrust, sweeping Nahdril up as I turned around, severing the spear point. I kicked forward, knocking the creature off balance. He held a hand up to defend, but Nahdril was already in flight.

I roared like my ancestors of old as the two nearest me broke and fled. The rest followed, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Eight lay upon the ground, some still writhing in pain. Ros approached them one by one, ending their suffering with cold efficiency. I noticed he held a hand pressed to his side; then I saw the blood on his hand.

“Brilliant!” he called out with excitement. “Gods you are good, I’ll give you that. The prime doesn’t stand a fucking chance!”

No sooner did the words leave his lips did a volley of arrows rain towards the center. They fell harmlessly short, but we took the hint. We scampered away, back to the buildings as the horn in the distance sounded again. This time, it was not so distant.

“One of us needs to live,” Ros said as if considering it a viable option for the first time.

“Why?”

He smiled, his copper eyes dancing in the firelight. “To tell the story of Belen Heights!”

An arrow slammed into the wall to the right, and I pulled him back around the corner. Two more thudded, then nothing. We crouched to the ground and waited in silence. After a moment, he moved to peek his head around the corner; I held him back and pointed to my ear. He stopped and listened, then nodded. We heard stomping on the ground—heavy, many. The horn sounded a piercing note that twinned in the air with the roar of flame. They were upon us.

We moved around to the opposite end and managed to get a look at the approaching force. There were well over a hundred strong moving fast towards the burning granary. Golmere moved around the edges of the group in frenetic patterns like bees buzzing around a hive. At the center was a core of ten or twelve, marching in a spear wall towards the blaze. Behind the line stood a tall Golmere holding a bow made of black horns. He had one long ear and pale white skin. At his belt, he wore a longsword and a small bronze dagger with a pearl handle.

“That would be the prime then?” Ros asked. “Seems his size was no exaggeration. Let’s hope the rest was just nonsense and superstition.”

“He can weave,” I said flatly. “I saw it in Windshear.”

Ros took in a deep breath. “His calling?”

“Iron.”

Ros looked down at his sword. “I don’t suppose you have a spare truesilver blade lying around?”

“It’s the bow that’s dangerous. He has an arrow cast in iron. I saw him pull a boy away with it like a fish on a line.”

Ros nodded. “Anything else I need to know?”

“The boy he killed was a friend of mine,” I said.

He smirked. “A vengeful Ruk, perfect.” He leaned back from the corner and held to his side again.

“Is it bad?”

“Doesn’t matter; I am on borrowed time as it is.”

“Take off your jacket,” I said.

He didn’t move.

“Now,” I ordered.

Ros grunted as he peeled off his officer’s coat. Blood stained his white shirt crimson. I inspected the wound. It was deep. I cut off his sleeves at the shoulder and tied them together, wrapping them around his waist tightly.

“Try not to move when you’re fighting,” I said with a grin.

He laughed then winced from the pain. I peered around the corner.

“They are breaking off into groups,” I said. “We don’t have much time. Can you fight?” I asked.

He tapped my leg with his sword as if it was some form of competition. “Yes, I can fight.”

“So, do we have a plan?” I asked.

He looked at Nahdril. “I will charge in and create a distraction, while you sneak in behind and kill him.”

I paused to consider. “It may be just Rukish enough to work.”

He gingerly slipped his jacket back on. “I’ll die an officer,” he explained with a reverence I had rarely heard outside of prayer. “By your signal.”

I stretched out my hand. “It’s been an honor.”

He took my hand in his own. “See you in the next life.”

I pressed two fingers to my forehead, then slipped along the backside of the building.

Ros ran straight ahead, spinning Repent in front of him. An arrow sailed past, confirming his distraction was working. I heard the prime bark orders in his thick dark speech and watched as all but his retinue charged towards Ros’s direction.

I sprinted around the edge of the crates, using the light of the fire to shield me from their second sight. I didn’t bother to look back, but I knew Ros would be clearing the opposite direction. With the attention on him, I should be able to get close enough to engage the prime. I would need to strike quickly as I knew Ros would not hold their attention for long.

I reached a crate a dozen or so yards away from the center clearing where the prime stood. Ten stood with him; their attention focused across the way where Ros huddled behind a building. Golmere moved towards him in two groups, slowly now, uncharacteristically disciplined. In moments he would be surrounded. I had no hope of taking five down, let alone ten and the prime; It was hopeless. I thought of Lira and willed myself to stand.

Then I heard a sound coming from the west, something sweet upon the acrid air, something beautiful and terrible. It was the sound of twenty and one soft boots and flimsy sandals pounding upon the red soil. It was the sound of spears on shields, the sound of a few men charging as two hundred. The 3rd Militia had arrived.

Borton shouted orders high into the night sky as his men ran towards the blaze. They must have been in a dead run for over two miles.

“Double wall, veterans front!” he shouted as the men slowed and moved