His fellows let out shouts of surprise, spinning to look around them, and Priest leapt down from where he’d somehow managed to climb on top of the inn’s roof in the confusion, landing in a crouch and firing another arrow almost in the same moment he hit the ground. The second missile’s path was as true as the first, and it buried itself in the stomach of one of the soldiers who’d turned to look.
Then with a shout of rage and fear, the two men rushed the archer, and Maeve didn’t hesitate, charging at their backs. She reached them as Priest was forced to parry one of the soldier’s blows with his bow, and she buried one of her blades in the side of the soldier’s throat as the second took him in the back, digging up into his chest.
She was just pulling her blades free when she heard a shout behind her and saw that another soldier had come up on them and was rushing toward Matt. Maeve let out a hiss, starting forward at a run but knowing she would be too late even as she did.
***
Matt had always imagined himself as a soldier, as one of the brave knights from the stories his mother had once read him. Knights who never felt fear and who always spoke about things like honor and courage and who would not hesitate at the thought of fighting a single man, who would not hesitate even if he faced ten times that number.
But if the last few days had not confirmed the fact that he was not one of those knights from the stories, then that moment in which he saw the soldier charging at him with a shout, his blade drawn and murder in his eyes, did it well enough. Matt did not feel brave, and honor was the last thing from his mind. What he felt, more than anything, was terror.
The soldier’s sword flashed toward him, and Matt raised his own blade, his hands aching where they gripped the handle tight. He let out a whimper of panic as the man’s sword came on, and he was just able to get his own blade up in time. But even though he managed to get his sword in line, he was not prepared for the brutal, shocking force of the impact as the two weapons met. Pain lanced up his hands all the way through his arms, and he stumbled, nearly losing his feet as his sword was ripped out of his hands.
The soldier let out a barking laugh. “Time to die, boy.”
Here, one of those knights would have said something brave, something to show that he was not afraid, but Matt’s throat was dry, and he could say nothing to show that he was not afraid, mostly because he was afraid. Terrified, in fact. He wanted to run, but he knew that, if he did, the man would cut him down before he’d made it half a dozen steps.
Yet, that was not the only reason he did not run, for as he stood there watching the soldier and his grin, watching him stalking forward, taking his time, something happened. The overwhelming fear Matt felt began to change, to shift within him, and he found that while he was still afraid, he was not just that. He was angry. Angry at himself for risking them all, for abandoning his post by the mage, angry at Cutter for bringing him here in the first place. But mostly, he was angry at the soldier in front of him, the man who looked so confident, who was staring at him as if he were a bug he meant to squish and doubted he’d have any trouble doing it.
So before he was fully aware of what he was doing, Matt let out a shout and charged forward. The man had not been expecting it—no surprise as Matt hadn’t been expecting it himself—so he didn’t get his sword up in time before Matt tackled him. The blade flew from the soldier’s hands, and then they were both tumbling across the ground, hissing and spitting and struggling.
But while his anger had helped to banish the worst of his fear, to dull the edges of it, no anger, no matter how consuming, could make up for a lack of skill and training, of strength. The soldier was on top of him before he knew it, and Matt cried out as the man’s fist struck him a hard blow in the face which rocked him, bouncing his head off the hard ground. The coppery, sharp taste of blood filled his mouth. He fought to dislodge the attacker, pushing against him, yet it was useless, for the soldier was too strong, a man grown with years of experience behind him, and he brushed Matt’s meager efforts aside with ease.
The man flashed him a bloody grin, his lip busted, perhaps, when Matt had tackled him, then he wrapped his hands around Matt’s throat and began to squeeze. Matt struggled beneath him, trying to dislodge him from his perch as his vision started to fade, shadows creeping into the edges of it, but it was no use.
I’m going to die here.
The thought was a shock to Matt, for out of all the things he had imagined, he had never imagined that, had never imagined that his decision to leave the mage behind would lead to his death. Perhaps he should have, but he, like so many youths, had thought, somewhere deep down, that he was invincible, that death was something that happened to other people. He realized now, as his vision tunneled and black specks began to dance in what remained, that he had been wrong. He had been a
