No way to fight them all, and nowhere to flee.
“Surrender,” Evidalle called out, his voice no longer quite so musical as it had been before Brasti shot an arrow through his hand.
I wasn’t above trying to take Evidalle or his young bride captive in order to escape, but they were too well protected behind their guards. In fact, had this been one of the King’s game boards, you’d have come to the inescapable conclusion that we were well and truly buggered.
“Falcio?” Kest said. “They’re getting ready to—”
I cut him off with a wave of my hand. The problem with games of war is that they’re deceptive precisely because they presume that there are rules to be followed. But this is Tristia, after all, and corruption runs deep in the bone.
“Everyone shush now,” I said, taking a step toward the guards. “I’m about to be impressive.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CHANGING THE GAME
“I come to you with a remarkable offer,” I said, my voice warm enough now to give it the air of command the moment called for. “A chance to control your destinies—at least for the next five minutes.”
My eyes drifted from the rows of the Margrave’s men to the Knights who were now standing in front of their nobles, preparing to shield them from the battle. “I propose you sail this lovely boat back to shore and allow us to take Lady Cestina’s sister away from here; that way everyone gets to walk away alive.” I gestured to where Margrave Evidalle and his charming bride were huddled together. “If it sweetens the deal, at this point I’m even willing to let those two marry each other.”
“He’s stalling,” Captain Squirrel announced. “Prepare to strike on my command!”
I ignored him, focusing my attention on his soldiers instead. “Reconsider, gentleman, or I promise by every God and Saint dead and living that you’ll end up bleeding all over the Margrave’s lovely wedding barge, which will quite ruin the ceremony.”
“Shouldn’t the wedding be off anyway?” Kest asked.
“I thought it had already happened,” Brasti said. “The cleric said a prayer a—”
“You’re ruining my speech,” I said testily.
“Sorry.”
Captain Squirrel took a step toward me, brandishing his long curved blade. “There are more than twenty of us and only three of you, Trattari. A smarter man would—”
“Four,” Chalmers said, irritated. “Am I being ignored because I’m a woman?”
“There are a great many women in the Greatcoats,” Kest observed. “Some rank among the finest fighters you’ll ever meet. Quillata, for example, was devastating with a—”
“Kest?” I said.
“Oh, sorry. You’re still giving your speech?”
“Yes, actually.”
“By all the Gods and Saints, will someone damn well kill them?” Evidalle shouted.
The guards took another step toward us, which irritated me no end. No one ever lets me finish a speech anymore. “Gentlemen, you’ve sorely misjudged the situation. You didn’t think we’d come here alone, did you?” Before he could answer I shouted to the Knights standing behind the line of guardsmen, “Sir Henrow, Sir Evan, Sir Floris, the order is given! By command of Valiana, Realm’s Protector, and Aline, heir to the throne of Tristia, attack!”
The rear line of guards spun around, fearing an assault from behind, and at the sight of a lot of men in armor with drawn swords facing them, Captain Squirrel screamed, “The damned Knights have betrayed us!”
In fact, none of the Knights had moved, probably because, to the best of my knowledge, there was no Sir Henrow, Sir Evan, or Sir Floris present—and even if there had been, as likely as not they’d be siding with the guards. However, since the Knights were all from different houses, they didn’t know each other, or who might be hiding among them—and as soon as the Margrave’s guards started raising their swords and shouting, the Knights instinctively moved into position, apparently confirming that this was all an elaborate trap.
“They’re going to attack—protect your Lords!” one of the Knights shouted.
I could have kissed him.
“It’s a trick, you fools!” Lady Cestina screamed, but her warning was too late: the Knights, trusting each other more than petty guardsmen, had formed up into a solid line, while the guards had split into two separate groups, half ready to fend off the Knights while the rest came at us. We were still outnumbered, of course, but with the guardsmen all in disarray, their tactics were useless—and the noble guests were helpfully shouting incoherent orders at their Knights and at each other while reaching for their own highly decorative weapons as they tried in vain to make sense of who was actually fighting whom.
“Interesting,” Kest noted absently, taking a short step to the left as one of the guards made a thrust for his chest. As the man overextended, Kest grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him off-balance, using his own momentum to send him tumbling over the railing and into the water. “Was the bit with the Knights part of your plan all along?”
“Of course,” I lied.
Chalmers ducked under an opponent’s wide slash. “So it’s true what people say about the great Falcio val Mond.”
“What do they say?” Brasti asked.
“That he talks people to death.” She rose up and drove the heel of her boot into the knee of her attacker and the man obligingly screamed, but the slightly awkward move left her unprepared when, despite the crack of his kneecap, the man managed a glancing slash across her right arm. The thin leather parted under the force of the blow, leaving a line of blood in its place.
“You need a better coat,” I said, piercing the man’s good leg and kicking him off the point, sending him falling backward.
“This was the best I could afford.”
“Then you should stop crashing weddings,” Brasti suggested, slashing his sword across the chest of one of the guardsmen. The cut didn’t get through the leather cuirass but it did make the man stumble, and Brasti kicked him hard enough in the belly to send him sprawling to the deck. “I quite like this barge, though. Do you suppose the Margrave would consider letting me borrow it once he’s done with it? I was thinking of asking a certain former assassin to marry me.”
“You want to propose? To Dariana?”
The idea sent such a chill through me that I nearly got eviscerated by an ax. I countered with a thrust to the man’s hand and got lucky; his weapon went crashing to the deck while he fled out of the way, leaving someone else to come forward and try to finish the job he’d started.
Even Kest seemed perturbed by Brasti’s sudden revelation. “You do realize that, other than Trin, Dariana is quite possibly the deadliest woman alive?”
“I can’t very well spend the rest of my life letting the two of you try to get me killed, can I?” Brasti replied. “Time I let someone else have a go.”
I knew their strange relationship—she a former assassin with a jealous streak and he congenitally incapable of fidelity—had somehow continued despite the natural order of the universe, but I had no idea Brasti might ever seriously consider matrimony—to anyone.