Page 125 of Given to the Black King

My body remembers those hands holding my hips in the orchard court. The thought comes at the wrong time and refuses to leave.

I grip the stone wall.

Osk’s household riders form near the center.

Thirty. Perhaps forty. Better horses than the men around them. Heavy armor. They point directly at Torgan.

Marrek sees them too.

“They mean to pull him down.”

Torgan sees them.

He moves away from his thinnest rank.

Draws them after him.

My stomach drops.

The riders hit.

Horses close around black armor. Lances strike. One glances off his horn. Another catches beneath his shoulder plate and drives him sideways.

Men pile over the place where he falls.

I lose sight of him.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Three.

Four.

The world becomes that empty patch of ground.

His true name tears out of me.

“TORGAN!”

The shout carries from the wall. Black-country soldiers nearest the tower flinch at hearing the sacred name aloud, but none repeats it.

Every head near me turns.

On the field, something moves beneath the riders.

Torgan rises.

The name hits him before the next man does. His shoulders lock. His head snaps toward the tower, and both fangs bare with a wet flash. For one fraction of a heartbeat he waits for the words I do not add.

No summons.

A rider reaches him from the side. Torgan catches the man by the breastplate and throws him into the mud.

His claws are red. His sword is gone. For three strides he moves with the same impossible old-blood speed that lets him run prey down on the moor. He does not need the blade yet.

A horse wheels away without its rider.