Still. She liked to exercise her horse herself. That surprised him, somehow.
Bode, a soldier with perpetually rashy skin, an impish smile, and a missing finger was making an inventory of the castle’s supplies. It was a task Niel had hoped would be done by now, but apparently required a half-dozen soldiers, endless re-counting,and quibbling over what had been included already and what had been left out, as well as what would be good to eat and what would taste like punishment.
He was ready for another meal at mid morning.I eat at an acceptable time, he could picture Lady Blackfell saying.At noon. He couldn’t bring himself to drag her back into his presence just for a mid-morning snack. What kind of soldier couldn’t ignore his hunger for a few hours?
“Lord Niel,” Kerr called from behind him. Niel turned in the hall he was walking down, not ten paces from the kitchen, and frowned at the grim look on Kerr’s face.
“Don’t tell me she got out,” Niel said, thinking again of Lady Blackfell and her horse in the yard.
“They’re here,” Kerr said, without asking Niel what he meant. “The Queen’s army.”
“How many?” Niel’s appetite vanished.
“Can’t say yet. A lot, looks like.”
“Fuck,” Niel muttered, and made his way back out to the wall to look.
He’d known, of course, that it was inevitable. He’d felt his brother Corin breathing down his neck all along the flight from Ironcliff through the mountainside. It was a miracle the Queen's army hadn’t arrived prior to this. But the moment Niel had decided to stay in the castle and keep the lady safe from her husband was the moment he’d known the army catching up wasn’t just a likelihood. It was a fucking guarantee.
The wind blew strong along the wall, needles of ice that prickled his skin and cut through his clothes like they were nothing. The good fur cloak was back in his room, where it did him no help. The town lay beneath him, the valley stretching around them. To the south, past a wide field, rose the slope of a hill covered in black Kettalist firs, their boughs glazed with snow.
A column of soldiers stretched between the town and the hill, ten wide and hundreds deep. His throat tightened as he watched tents unfurl and banners rise at the base of the town. Niel rested one fist on the cold stone wall and stared as more and more and more men poured over the lip of the hill.
“That’s that, then,” Kerr said behind him. “No leaving until your father comes. If he comes.”
“He’ll come,” Niel said grimly. “He’s not going to let his only remaining heir die.”
The Duke of Mount Eyron needed Niel. There was no treaty with the Aronthians without an Eyron to offer up in marriage.
The Aronthians needed Eyron blood. It was Arevon blood, really; the old dynasty, but the Mount Eyrons were direct descendants. The ancient treaty that kept the immortal Hulder restrained, and a human monarch in charge of the country of Enar, depended on it, because the treaty was between the Hulder and the Arevon bloodline. Niel's family had held the throne since the founding of the country. When Aronthia eventually conquered Enar, Niel or a relative would need to remain on the throne, even if only as a figurehead. Otherwise, the Hulder would be free to reclaim their lands.
It didn’t mean the old dragon wouldn’t let Niel sweat, though, for getting into this mess. His father would be blistering mad when the messenger bird arrived in Eyron with the news that Niel had holed up in Blackfell.
“Let’s just hope he gets here before the provisions run out,” Niel added.
“Little late to worry about that, my lord,” Kerr said conversationally. “At leastyoucan leave, either way.”
“Come now,” Niel said. “You must think lowly of me, if you think I'd flee to safety and abandon my command.”
With the Unicorn cloak he'd won at a tournament last year, he could move unseen when he needed to. But invisibilitywas a coward's resort, and he wouldn’t use it to abandon his men. He wouldn’t even use it to sneak into the town and cut Lord Blackfell’s throat, as much as he wanted to. Niel was a warrior, and with the necessary exception of tricking his way into Blackfell, he preferred to crush his opponents head-on, with weapons in their hands.
A flag was quickly being raised in the town below, the royal insignia. A blank flag with a pair of crossed black spears rose below it.
“Well, if it's that or death… that’s the armies’ flag,” Kerr said, drawing beside Niel and squinting at the flag amidst the sea of rising tents. “No commanding knight?”
“Worse,” Niel growled. “A commanding knight without a flag of his own.”
As if Niel’s words had summoned him, a figure emerged from the base of the town. Niel’s eye was instantly drawn to the knight below him. The man was a hulking armored giant, on a massive black war horse.
Even with his features covered, Niel recognized his brother instantly.
He folded his arms and rested them on the castle rampart, staring grimly down below. Corin lifted his helmet’s visor with two fingers, tilted his head back, and peered up at where Niel leaned over the wall.
“Really, Niel?” Corin’s voice boomed up at him. “Blackfell?”
Niel didn’t answer. He could see Kerr shifting out of the corner of his eye, the captain eyeing the number of men that now blocked their escape from the castle.
“Come out,” Corin called. “The Queen will grant you mercy for a surrender. If—”
