She was just stepping onto the street when a commotion a little farther down brought her attention to a trio of soldiers dressed in the uniform of the Palace Blues. Tarasque, like Tristan, but more arrogant somehow, meaner looking.
They were coming down the street directly between her and Tor.
She pulled her hood further forward and stepped back, shrinking against the wall near an alley entrance, keeping far away from the light.
Around her, she noticed the banter and jostling had fallen away as an oppressive, fearful atmosphere washed over the crowd. Many people, like her, had quietly moved to the edges of the street, giving the soldiers a wide berth until the soldiers’ rough laughter was the loudest sound on the streets.
Nim risked a glance up through her eyelashes, hoping to see how far away they were, and froze. They had stopped at the apple cart where she could see the mother, pale-faced, pushing her son, maybe five years old and dressed in threadbare browns, behind her back and stepping carefully away.
But the costermonger stopped her with a rough bark. “Oy! You’d better pay for that!”
The mother looked around confused, only to realize that her son still held an apple. She gave him a firm nudge, and the child, clearly reluctantly, started to hand it back.
Whether it was simply that he desperately wanted that apple or because of all the threatening grown-ups watching him, the boy fumbled.
Nim watched the whole thing as if in slow motion, the moment the apple started to fall. The child’s frantic attempt to catch it, the mother trying to help, and the inevitable crash to the muddy cobbles, where the apple smashed and sprayed mud and juice over the nearby soldiers’ boots.
There was a horrified hush as the lead soldier slowly looked down and then back up, filled with rage.
Before the mother could stop it, the soldier had her son by the collar, lifting him in the air and shaking him like a dog would shake a rabbit, while the boy wailed and sobbed.
“Please! Please, sir! It was an accident! Please!” the terrified mother begged.
The soldier just laughed and threw the boy to his friend, who caught him just over the ground and swung him back again as he wept for his mother.
She fell to her knees and desperately wiped the soldiers’ boots with her sleeves, trying to fix the mess as he held her son high up by his ankle, upside down, head toward the cobbles.
“What would you say the price is for new boots, lads?” the soldier asked with a vicious gleam in his eyes, his arms rippling with orange and burgundy scales.
The mother rocked back on her heels, face pale as bone. “Not new boots, sir, please, it’s just some dust—”
Before she could finish, the soldier opened his hand and dropped the boy, and she launched herself forward, only just managing to grab him before his head hit the hard cobbles. She was off-balance, on her hands and knees, head bowed as she frantically reassured her son.
“Do you know,” the soldier turned to his friends with a grin, “I think I’ll just take my payment now. Brastius, hold her.”
Nim’s heart thudded heavily in remembered panic and the horrified realization that this new breed of Blue Guards truly believed that they could do anything they wanted. Ballanor and Grendel had taught them that.
Before the woman could think to move, the second soldier stepped forward and dropped a knee onto her shoulders, shoving her face into the cobbles. She started to scream, a high-pitched, breathless sound of pure panic, as the first soldier slowly undid his belt.
Around them the streets were silent except for the mother’s distraught screaming. Most people cleared quickly away; those with no choice but to remain turned away their faces.
But Nim would not turn away.
She launched herself toward the woman at the same instant as Tor leaped forward, the horrified outrage that she felt, mirrored on his face.
Tor landed a solid punch to the jaw of the soldier holding down the mother before the man had even completely understood the danger he was in.
The soldier stumbled back, and Nim was able to pull the woman into her arms. She was breathing in short, panicked gasps, her whole body shaking as she cried out desperately for her son. Nim reached across to the boy and pulled him in against her body and held them both as the fight raged around them.
She could hear grunts and swearing as Tor, weaponless and dressed in casual clothes, battled the three heavily armed soldiers.
Sparks flew nearby as a sword hit the cobbles. Someone snarled a curse, and a different voice gave a sharp groan of pain. Nim ignored it all as she tried to pull the mother and her son away, but the woman was almost incoherent with her fear and seemed unable to stand, and Nim couldn’t carry both her and the child.
Suddenly, the sounds stopped, and she lifted her head to see Tor ringed by the three soldiers, all with their swords drawn and pointed at him.
All were covered in sweat and blood. The soldier Tor had punched, the youngest-looking, had a split lip beginning to swell. The soldier with the dirtied boots had a steady trickle of blood seeping from his nose. And Tor himself stood with blood running down his face from a cut over his eye and a viciously long gash threading down his arm.
There was nothing more Tor could do; he was surrounded, empty-handed and alone.
