“Wheat!” someone else shouted.
“As violets, orwheat?” the pimply idiot suggested.
I felt a headache coming on, but nodded for him to go on. I knew better than most that if you didn’t allow a Starlakianwarrior to finish a poem, the sulking would make you wish you had.
“If any flow’r on any plain could match your sweet bouquet, I’d fling them all into the sea, or burn them all away.” He grinned, his nose wrinkling up as if he were acting it out. It was almost… cute. “If anyone should mock your pits, or shame your filthy shirt?—”
Alexios was laughing silently, but so violently, I worried he’d burst all the blood vessels in his face. “Well done, warrior,” I said, hoping he’d stop. The second stanza was usually the one that delineated the horrible fate that would befall the poet’s enemies, and I wasn’t sure I could keep from laughing along with my valet.
Thankfully, he was either out of rhymes or breath, or both.
“I’d cut him down and teach the knave just what it means to hurt.” The poet bowed low, then threw himself back on the ground, on his knees. “My lady. I beg your forgiveness. I offer you my life to do with as you will. I lifted a weapon against you. Give me the chance to cleanse myself of dishonor, by serving you for the rest of my days. I swear I will obey your every command. I vow it on my honor and my line.”
I blinked. He’d tried to get a hit in, but he hadn’t managed it. The one who’d gotten the lucky slice in was Pig Nose. He was kneeling in the mud, too, his gaze fixed on the ground before him, his hands folded in prayer and his lips moving as he quietly recited the Final Prayer for Fallen Warriors, though none of the others joined him. They’d moved away, acting like he was already dead.
Goddess’s bunions, I’d forgotten how dramatic they all were.
“I’ve got an idea. Let’s pretend none of this happened, hm?” I reached down to help the kid up, but before I touched him, the sounds of approaching hoofbeats had us all turning.
Goran’s massive black warhorse was the first to emerge from the tree line, followed by the rest. All of the others, it looked like, or at least there were no injured warriors riding face down on their mounts.
“Goran.” I breathed his name, stepping toward the group as they rode closer. A hand on my arm stopped me. Alexios’s face was troubled, and he dropped back into one of his more subtle fighting stances. I peered around. I guess we had incapacitated a good number of his fighters.
Oof.Ones he might need, if the Mirrenese army was coming.
Goran reined to a halt in front of me. “What happened here?”
I took a breath to answer, but the pimply Alpha shocked me by beating me to it. “Warlord Goran, we acted dishonorably toward the Omega. I offered the first insult. I accept full blame and my life as recompense for the offense.”
“It wasn’t that bad a poem,” Alexios muttered. My lips twitched.
“Acted dishonorably, you say.” Goran’s jaw clenched.
The poor kid’s lip trembled, but he nodded. “I… raised an axe against her, ah, companion. The little guy.” Alexios hissed out a breath.
“You attacked a guest in my camp?” Goran’s eyes fell on my bandaged wound. “Youcuther?”
The boy shook his head frantically. “No, sir.”
I tilted my head at the praying man. “To be fair, I think he was caught up in the moment. And it was a very small wound. I’m fine. We were just agreeing to a new slate,” but Goran was already dismounting and pulling his sword, stopping beside the pig-nosed Alpha who’d cut me.
“Zander of Thornblade village,” Goran muttered, his jaw still clenching. “You raised your sword to an Omega. You drew her blood and broke your most solemn vow. You understand your crime?”
He stopped praying long enough to answer. “I do.”
“May the Goddess have mercy on your soul.”
I didn’t let myself close my eyes as Goran raised his sword and sliced the warrior’s head from his neck. We stood in near-silence for a long moment, the only sounds Alexios’s muttered prayers and the warriors’ breathing, before Goran faced the others again.
“Dustin of Warrior’s Ridge. You admit you raised a weapon against a guest in our camp?Myguest?”
The pimply-faced youth nodded, but the other two redheads who’d started the fight also stood at attention, their legs shaking so hard, it had their leather armor creaking. One of them admitted, “Warlord, we were mocking her as well. We thought… We did not understand who she was.”
“No. We knew she’d been the Warqueen. We knew she’d left you and th-thought she deserved our insults,” Dustin admitted, his voice cracking. His body trembled in the cold gust of wind that hit us all.
“Warrior.” Goran’s voice was filled with menace and more than a hint of Alpha power. “Warqueen or not, there is no excuse. You saw a woman in our camp, one I sent here to keep safe, and youinsultedher?”
“Y-yes, my lord.” He closed his eyes.
