Blood Tempered: Book 1 of the Sword Monk Saga

Blood Tempered: Part 32

Caida watched from the ramparts, heedless of the occasional arrow that flitted by. Part of him was numb to the violence spread out below him, and watched with with an academic sort of detachment. Another part longed to unlimber his greatsword and wade into the fray, to lose himself in the song of a singing blade, to drown all his doubts in the blood of enemies.

But he did not know who in the courtyard below were enemies. He doubted any of them were, Roumnans or mercenaries. He had sworn to defend the defenseless, to protect those who could not protect themselves. Who among the killers below qualified?

None of them. Not even the princess he had been sent to rescue.

Perhaps especially not her.

She stood in the open door of the keep, not twenty yards from the melee at the barricade, face expressionless. Jaga Khun stood beside her, his oversized armor gleaming in the hot morning sun, and his face was frankly worried.

"Oy, monk!" came a call from down the line of the battlement. It was the grizzled veteran, Korbo Dogrun. "That line won't hold much longer," he said, indicating the struggle going on at the barricade. "We'll be retreating to the keep any time now. Once the door's closed, they won't be letting anyone else in."

Caida simply nodded.

"What I mean is, maybe you should be making your way down that far ladder while you still can." And then Dogrun went back to shooting arrows in Roumnan backs.

One last chance to walk away, to give up the farce of a quest he'd been sent on. If he retreated with the others, he had to admit to himself that he was committed to the princess. And it would not be because of orders from his abbot. Or he could stay on the ramparts and deal with whatever happened after that.

A great shout went up from below, The Roumnans had broken through the barricade and the melee was spilling out into the clear half of the courtyard immediately in front of the keep.

"Now or never, brother!" Dogrun shouted, dropping his bow, drawing his sword, and picking up his buckler from where it leaned against a merlon. He rushed past Caida towards the ladder closest to the keep, a half-dozen others at his heels.

After a moment Caida drew his greatsword, and followed.

He descended to the courtyard and walked towards the keep's stout, iron-banded door with his sword nestled in the crook of one arm. Around him swirled the battle-tide, a dozen life-or-death struggles, warriors doing their damnedest to slay each other. Snarling faces, frightened faces, slack dead faces appeared and disappeared around him as he walked. Steel rang on steel, steel punched through leather and flesh with oddly muted ripping sounds. Men grunted, screamed, cried for mercy or their mothers.

All Caida's senses were heightened; The dance of death all around him was what he had trained for, for more than half his life. He was effortlessly aware of every swirl and eddy of the struggle that might conceivably bring violence into his personal sphere of influence.

Not a single soul offered him violence. Caida walked on, as if in a dream. Or a nightmare. He could not tell which it might be. And when he entered the keep, he saw her standing on the stairs, and she saw him.

She raised an eyebrow. Smiled.

Caida turned away.