David Farland - The Golden Queen

Yet there was nothing Everynne could do to dissuade the unyielding devotion of men like Gallen and Veriasse. So Veriasse sat at her feet, waiting to die. Everynne hated her lot in life. But it was her fate. For she had been born a queen among the Tharrin.

Gallen and Seamus had no warning before the attack. The road from Clere to An Cochan was usually well empty by that time of night. Both moons were down. The heavy rains had dampened the dirt road, leaving a thin glaze of water so that the stars reflected off the mud, making the road a trail of silver between columns of dark pine and oak.

They were near the edge of Coille Sidhe, so Gallen moved cautiously. Once, he caught sight of a flickering blue light deep in the wood. Wights, he realized, and he hurried his pace, eager to be away from the guardians of the place. The wights never attacked travelers who kept to the road, but those who wandered into the forest couldn’t count on such luck.

Just over the mountain, the land flattened out into drumlins, small hills where the shepherds of An Cochan kept their flocks. Gallen was eager to reach the relative safety of human settlements.

One moment Gallen was walking the muddy silver road, leading Seamus’s old nag through a ravine while Seamus hunched in the saddle, singing random songs as a man will when he’s had too much whiskey, when suddenly half a dozen voices shouted in unison, “Stand! Stand! Hold!”

A man leapt up from the margin of the road in front of them and waved a woman’s white slip in their faces. The horse whinnied and reared in fear, pulling the reins from Gallen’s hand, dumping Seamus off backward. Seamus landed with a thud, shouting, “Ruffians, blackguards!”

The nag leapt off up the side of the ravine, her hooves churning up dirt as she galloped through the hazel.

Gallen was wearing his deep-hooded woolen greatcoat to keep out the night chill, but the coat had slits at his waist that let him get to his knife belt quickly. He palmed two daggers, not wanting to show his weapons until the robbers got in close, then spun to get a better view. The robbers surrounded him, swirling up out of the brush. He counted nine: three up the road toward An Cochan, four coming behind on the road from Clere, and one more on each side of the ravine.

Seamus sputtered and tried to find his way up off the ground. The old man was nearly blind drunk, and he yelled in a deep brogue, “Off with you thieves! Off with you varmints,” and the robbers all swirled toward him shouting, “Stand and deliver!”

In the starlight, Gallen could hardly make out the soot-blackened faces of the robbers; one of them had curly red hair. They were big men mostly, down-on-the-luck farmers sporting beards and armed with knives, the kind of aimless rogues you often saw sloughing around alehouses in the past two years. Drought one year and rot the next had thrown many a farmer out of work. Gallen made out the gleam of a longsword. Another young boy held a shield and a grim-looking war club.

Old Seamus began cursing and fumbled at his belt in an effort to pull his knife, but Gallen grabbed Seamus’s shoulder, restraining him. “Don’t be a fool!” Gallen warned. “There’s too many of them. Give them your money!”

“I’ll not be giving them my money!” Seamus shouted, pulling his dagger, and Gallen’s heart sunk. Seamus was the father of seven. He could either let the ruffians have his purse and watch his family suffer, or he could fight and probably die. He was choosing to die. “Now back me, will you! Back me!”

Dutifully, Gallen stood back to back with Seamus as the robbers closed in. That is what Seamus had paid him for. Three shillings, Gallen realized. I’m going to get killed this night for three shillings.

The tall man brandished his sword. “I’ll be thanking you to drop your purses, lads.” From his accent and curly red hair, Gallen estimated that he was a Flaherty, from County Obhiann.

“I beg you sirs,” Gallen said, “not to go making free with our money. I’ve got none to spare, and my friend here has a wife and seven innocent children.”

One robber laughed. “We know! And Seamus O’Connor just made forty pounds while hawking his wool at the fair. Now out with the loot!” he shouted angrily, waving his knife. “An’ if you give it to us casual, we won’t hurt you so bad.” Gallen watched the men close. One of their number must have seen Seamus’s money at the fair and waited until the old man got on this desolate stretch of road before setting the ambush.

The robbers had them circled now, but held off a pace. Gallen thought of running. It was only a mile over the hill to An Cochan. A bead of sweat rolled down Gallen’s cheek, and his heart was hammering. He glanced around at the circling men in their dark tunics. Seamus was growling like a cornered badger at Gallen’s back, and Gallen could feel the old man’s muscles, hard as cords, straining beneath his coat. Gallen wanted to stall, hoping that even with his mind all clouded by whiskey, Seamus might see that it made no sense to leave his family orphaned. An owl soared over the ravine.

Seamus began swearing and shouting, “Why do you have your faces blacked, you ugly bastards? I’m not a child to be frightened by a sooty face! Off with you! Off with you!”

Gallen half-closed his eyes and wondered, If I were the greatest knife fighter in the world, what would I do?

In an instant, it was as if a familiar mantle began to fall over him. Gallen’s muscles tightened into coils and the world moved into sharper focus. Gallen felt the blood pounding hot in his veins, and his nostrils flared wide, tasting the night air. He sized up the ruffians before him, and though it was dark, subtle shades of light began to reveal details about each man. They were breathing hard, the way men will when they’re afraid.

Nine men. Gallen had never fought nine men, but at that moment it didn’t matter. He was, after all, the greatest knife fighter in the world.

Gallen tossed his head back so that his hood fell away, letting his golden hair gleam in the starlight. He chuckled softly and said, “I must offer you men fair warning. If you don’t back away and give us the road, I’ll have to kill you.”

One robber gasped, “It’s Gallen O’Day! Watch him boys!” The men swarmed around Gallen and Seamus faster, moving warily, but none dared venture in too close. The tallest robber shouted, “Take him, boys!”

Gallen didn’t worry about the robbers at his back. Seamus had his knife out, and even though he was drunk, no sane man would try to tangle with him. Instead, Gallen sized up the five men to his front and sides. Two of them hung back half a pace-cowards who didn’t want to look it. Another man stood close in, but he was tossing his knife back and forth between his left and right hand, hoping that the sight of it would strike fear into Gallen. Another robber was stocky, with an unsightly bulge under his cloak, and Gallen realized it was a breastplate; this robber breathed heavily and bent low to the ground on legs that were tense, ready to spring. The last of the five closest was their leader-a tall man with a longsword who likely would avoid joining the fray with such a weapon for fear of lopping the head off one of his own men.

Gallen heard the scuffling feet of a robber lunge behind. The robber grabbed Seamus’s arm and tried to throw him to the ground, but Seamus twisted away at the last moment and made a stab. The robber yelped in pain, and hot blood splattered across the back of Gallen’s neck.

“Take that for your trouble!” Seamus jeered, as if he’d won something, and then more robbers surged behind. A sharp blow from a club sent Seamus to the ground.

Gallen had been watching the man who tossed his knife from hand to hand. The knife was in the air, and Gallen leapt up and kicked it away, disarming the robber. He whirled and kicked an attacker off Seamus, slashed another across the throat. The lad with a club raised his shield to protect his face, and Gallen could have dropped beneath the boy’s guard and lunged past, run to win his freedom. But Gallen knew he had to keep the highwaymen from slitting Seamus’s throat.