Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“With pleasure,” I mutter.
After a short distance, the whistle he makes is loud as a pig squeal. Peeking up from around his elbow, I see two men peer out at us from the guard tower on the right. It’s the pair of farmers who took Mr. Cavenish back home the night before.
“Oy,” one of them shouts down. “What are you on about—”
“Lower your planks,” the knight commands.
The two glance at each other as if wondering whether they heard that right. “We’ll do no such thing,” comes the reply. “Move on.”
“You will open your gate and lower the planks right now—”
“Move on!” the other guard shouts as he points a musket out of the arch. “Your body may be covered, but your head is not and I never miss—”
“If you do not lower the bridge this very moment, I shall return with an army and tear your village’s irrelevant collection of sticks and stones to the ground. And may I further point out that I am a member of the court of Prosperitus, so I do not recommend you pulling any trigger in my presence—unless you want to be in the gallows before dawn.”
Roaring from the crowd rumbles through the night, and I swear I can feel the heat of that fire, too.
“I. Am. Waiting,” the knight snaps.
A moment later, the farmers disappear and the great bridge begins to come down with the sounds of heavy chains clanking through gears. The planks are still falling in that controlled way when the knight spurs his steed on, the warhorse leaping up and riding the end of the descent into the short tunnel between the towers.
As we emerge on the main thoroughfare and the knight hauls back on the reins, the guards are already raising the bridge up again, and for once, the Gauntlet is not the source of rowdy noise. Lantern light bleeds out of its foggy windows, but there are no shadows passing in front of the bubbly glass on either of the floors. The place is empty because people are gathering pitchforks to go after me—
Hide.
“Keep going,” I say over the clapping of the horse’s impatient stomps. “Down this lane to the square. I need to see the crowd for myself.”
Before I upend everything and make Mare die alone, hungry and in pain, I should verify it’s truly me my fellow villagers are protesting. Maybe they’re mounting a defense over demons? This is probably false optimism talking, but when the knight surges on, I take it he agrees with me.
Cleaved to his armored body, I shrink down to be as small as I can make myself. The row houses flash by, and the sharp rapping of the warhorse’s iron shoes echo like the warning something dire is afoot. As we come to the fringes of the crowd, the knight pulls back on the reins once again and the stallion minces in a jog.
No one pays us any mind. Attention is focused on the platform in the center of the square. The boy who ran off is up on it with his father, his uncle, and his grandfather, the frantic light from the bonfire agitating their already animated bodies and faces. Tears stream down the child’s face, but he has a slight smile under the theatrical sobbing, as if he’s delighted by the drama and unable to comprehend the loss of his friends and the rage of the adults he’s inciting.
“—working unlawful magic. She must be killed!” The father, a heavily built laborer, picks up the boy. “You heard him!”
He shakes the lad, like a music box that must be primed to function, and then the son’s higher voice quiets the crowd.
“The Pox girl said she cursed us, all of us!” The boy speaks what he’s obviously already spoken faster and faster, the words running together, the excitement of youth mixing with a first taste of power. “She killed Thaddeous and Fergus! She was going to kill me with her magic, but the Fulcrum’s black band attacked her!”
“The Fulcrum is weakened because of her!” The father takes over. “We were wrong to use the dark magic she plied us with—she is the reason the demons are free and why we are endangered! Who here will stand with my blood so that we may spill hers and save us all!”
The crowd yells and stomps so loudly the ground shakes and the stallion rears up and hooves at the smoky air.
Having gleaned what I required, it’s time to cut loose from the knight. I take advantage of the jostling and slip off the back of the saddle. As I disappear into the shadows, the knight wrenches around, and searches for me while trying to control his mount.
I used him only to get inside the wall.
The truth is, he’s better off without me, even with his threats of bringing an army here. He doesn’t have anyone else with him right now and if that crowd gets ahold of him? But moreover, I cannot be the solution to whatever problem brought him here in search of me, especially not after tonight. Mare was right. Representatives from court must have come here at some point, and overheard whispers of what I’m able to do.