The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(10)

I froze.

The damp air distorted the cry, turning it ghostly, but it was Mael’s voice—followed by a grunt of pain and the muted clashing of blades. My heart hammered in my chest as I eased around the corner of a goat shed, peering in the direction of where the noise came from. The fog had grown thick, and I saw ghost-dancers whirling in the heart of that silver pall.

Mael and Aeddan.

Their shadowy forms grasped and grappled with each other, pulling apart and lurching together. The fog suddenly cleared enough for me to see Mael’s face as he charged toward Aeddan, the circling blurs of his two swords clearing the air before him. The blades rang as they met with Aeddan’s, locking up in the space between the two brothers as they tried to overpower each other. Suddenly, Aeddan reared back and head-butted his brother sharply. Mael reeled away in pain, blood running down his face. The fog swirled, hiding them from my sight again.

When it parted once more, I saw Mael, blades held high above his head, charging at Aeddan. My heart hammered, and I heard myself whisper, “Mael.”

There was no earthly way he could have heard me.

They were too far. It was only a whisper.

And yet, his swords—slashing downward to block his brother’s attack—faltered. For just an instant. It was enough. Aeddan was right there. Charging forward, his blade thrusting for Mael’s heart—

NO!

My scream echoed silently inside my own head, but Mael’s shocked cry alerted Durovernum’s wall sentries. I heard a shout and the sound of running feet.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

I clung to the wall of the goat shed as Mael’s eyes locked with mine. He opened his mouth, and a dark gout of blood bubbled up and spilled down his chin. Aeddan wrenched the dagger out of his brother’s flesh, and Mael collapsed. He fell on his face in the mud, horribly still. Aeddan’s teeth were bared in a grimace, and he looked half-mad.

“Brother,” he croaked. “Maelgwyn . . .”

Then he turned, searching to see what it was that had fatally distracted his brother. His eyes found my face in the darkness.

“Fallon?”

The shouts of the sentries were closer now. Aeddan glanced wildly over his shoulder and then back at me. For a moment, he hesitated. Then he bolted into the fog, running in the direction of Durovernum’s wall. In an instant he’d disappeared, swallowed whole by the night.

The world around me turned red.

If Aeddan managed to escape Durovernum that night, he would vanish into the forest and run all the way back to his own halls deep in the heart of the Trinovante lands, where he would be safe. A murderer . . . but safe. I angrily wiped the tears from my eyes as I began to run, heading in the direction Aeddan had gone. That wasn’t going to happen, not while I drew breath. When I reached the town wall, I scrambled up the mud-slick earthworks and tumbled gracelessly down the other side. Crouching, I peered at the ground. Aeddan had left a clear trail of footprints in the muddy earth. As I stood, a thick drift of clouds swept over the full moon, like snuffing out a flame. It didn’t matter—I knew which way to go. The forest in front of me was hung with shadows, but I plunged into the trees, following the path of freshly broken branches that marked Aeddan’s way. He was headed toward the cart path that would lead him to the main road.

He was running like a coward. A murderer.

The sword I’d stuffed inside my bedroll rattled in its sheath as I ran, the sound keeping time with the single thought that repeated over and over in my head.

Mael’s dead . . . Mael’s dead . . . Mael’s dead . . .

I stumbled blindly on, deep into the forest, with one singular purpose: vengeance. It was only after I had run far longer than it should have taken to pick up the cart path that I realized I was lost. I stopped and listened. Over the plashing of rainwater dripping from the forest leaves and the rasp of my own breathing, I could hear another sound.

The sound of rushing water.

No.

I was near the river. I had gone in the exact opposite direction from where I’d meant to go. I cursed loudly, then clamped my hand over my mouth. Aeddan could be somewhere nearby. I’d be a fool to alert him to my presence. The only way I wanted him to know I was there was when he looked down to see my sword in his guts.

Cautiously, I pushed through a screen of saplings and found myself at the broad bank of the River Dwr. A break in the clouds spilled down moongleam, and I looked down to see my reflection staring back at me from the dark water, green eyes glowing like the eyes of the cats we kept to kill rats.

And I will kill a rat this night, I thought.

I wrapped my heart in fury to keep the despair at bay as I knelt on the sodden grass of the riverbank to retrieve my sword from my bedroll. Before I could reach it, the moon disappeared behind the clouds again. As the river turned back to blackness, I caught the glimpse of a shadow looming up behind me in the reflection. I spun around, thinking Aeddan had found me first. My hand went instead for my dagger, only to remember I’d left it lying in the embers of my home fire.

It wasn’t Aeddan.

A broad-shouldered man swung his fist like a mallet at my head. I fell, consumed by a dark red tide.

? ? ?

When I awoke, I knew from the motion of the wet planks beneath me that I was on a boat, gliding silently down what I guessed was the Dwr.

Out of the cauldron and straight into the flames, I thought as a cold dread pierced the nausea that already knotted my guts. This was the second time I’d been hit on the head in less than a day. I groaned and opened my eyes.