David Dalglish - Dawn of Swords

They had already sealed their fate, however, for Soleh Mori never forgot a face.

When Pulo ushered her down the alleyway from which the sobs were issuing, Soleh stopped short. Jonn and Roddalin stared at the ground, where a uniform of the City Watch lay in a pile. Beyond them Soleh could make out the backs of four men. Lying nearby in a pool of blood, his neck slit from ear to ear, was a minstrel Soleh had often seen outside the gates of the castle, peddling his songs of praise to Karak for coppers. The sobbing intensified, accompanied by baritone grunts. Soleh took a step forward, shrugging aside Pulo’s hand when he tried to stop her.

Between the backs of the standing men she spotted a flash of cream-colored flesh. She took another step forward and heard laughter. A woman’s hand slipped between the feet of the onlookers, but the men kicked it away. The woman’s screams grew louder, the pain in her voice setting Soleh’s blood to boil.

Although Soleh could be timid and prone to outbursts of panic in private, out in the city, where her duty as a mother and wife ended and her duty as Karak’s Minister began, she was something else entirely.

“You stand in the shadow of our god!” she roared, her voice launching from her throat like a boulder from a catapult. “Cease at once and face Karak’s justice!”

The four onlookers whipped their heads around, staring at her first in surprise, then with dark intentions. Pulo, Jonn, and Roddalin surrounded her, swords drawn in her defense. The men’s eyes took note of the burgundy capes and the expertly crafted swords, and they backed away, revealing the horrible scene beyond. The woman’s face was so beaten and swollen Soleh couldn’t tell how old she was, but the smoothness of her flesh, where it was not gashed and bruised, suggested she was quite young. She was naked and shivering, and when the man slid off her, she drew her legs to her chest, concealing her breasts with her knees.

The man who’d raped her tried to hastily pull up his breeches. His face was flustered and angry, his beard coated in spittle. Soleh noticed that his knuckles were bloody.

“Come, lass,” said Soleh, and the girl gazed up at her through one eye, the other swollen shut. She began to pull herself across the ground until a booted foot slammed into her side, stopping her mid-drag.

“What the fuck? ” the bearded man growled. He focused his gaze on Soleh, murder in his eyes. Even from where she was standing, she could smell the alcohol on his breath. His friends tried to grab at him, but he shrugged them aside.

“Bren, that’s the Min-” one began, before the man stopped his tongue with a fist to the face.

“Who do you think you are?” Bren said, grabbing his shortsword off the ground and repetitively sliding it in and out of its scabbard, revealing a few more inches of gleaming, sharp metal with each stroke. “You think your boys with their weapons frighten me?”

Soleh met his stare without flinching.

“Release the girl, or suffer Karak’s wrath.”

“No.”

“Are you of the Watch?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

Soleh held her head high. “Then I am your superior. If I order you to release the girl, you release her. If I order you to fall on your sword, you slide the tip into your belly as quickly as you can. Do you understand?”

“Fuck off.” Bren drew his shortsword completely from its sheath and turned to his cohorts. Only one of them came forward to join him, drawing his blade as well. The other three sank further into the darkness of the alley and slipped away.

The rapist threw back his arm and hacked downward with his sword, attempting to drive the point through the chest of his weeping victim. Pulo closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and steel clanged against steel. Jonn and Roddalin weren’t far behind. Her guards’ foes may have been ungainly brutes, but they handled their weapons with skill. Parry after parry, thrust after thrust, they held off her escorts’ attacks. The alley was filled with grunts, yelps, and the clanking of steel on steel. Yet for all their skill, the two could only defend. The moment they tried to attack, they found themselves overwhelmed by a coordinated offensive. Bren suffered a gash on his upper arm, his partner a slash on his thigh, and yet Pulo, Jonn, and Roddalin had not even suffered a scratch, and the thin chainmail over their chests and the silver vambraces on their forearms were as shiny as they’d been earlier in the morning. Even so, it was a chaotic ballet, one that allowed the naked, violated girl to crawl across the dirty ground and into Soleh’s waiting arms.

When the girl was safe, Roddalin ended the fight, drawing his dagger from his belt. Sliding sideways past a thrust, he dropped to one knee, and his dagger swept through the heel of Bren’s ally, severing the crucial tendon there. The man collapsed screaming, clutching at his leg. Jonn silenced him by hacking through his neck, spilling blood over his tunic and his purple sash. The man was dead an instant later.

Bren wasn’t so lucky. Pulo struck the man in the forehead with his pommel, and then looped his cutlass around like an oarsman, burying the blade in the man’s crotch. He yanked it free with a revolting plop , and the rapist backed into the wall, his cries shrill. He grabbed at his severed nether parts, blood spurting between his fingers and darkening his breeches. Soleh watched him suffer, the rage in her breast slowly abating. When she gave a nod, Jonn took off the man’s head with a single swipe of his sword.

Holding the shaking girl in her arms, a half-disgusted, half-satisfied grin crossed Soleh’s lips. Adeline would have been proud.

They waited as more members of the City Watch arrived, summoned by the commotion. They were members of the old guard this time, men she recognized. They whisked the raped girl to safety, hunted down the three remaining men, and cleaned the bodies out of the alley. Soleh made sure to confiscate the coin purses of the criminals, the living and dead alike. She emptied their contents on the blood-splattered ground of the alleyway. Silvers and coppers bounced and spun on the cobbles. She stared at the contents of each in turn, particularly the crest adorning each coin, and then up at Pulo.

“This is Connington swag,” she said. Pulo nodded back at her, his expression dire. She shook her head. It had been the Conningtons who had accused another of hiring a rapist to strike against their family. Now they were lending coin to the kingdom to lure those same types of men into the Watch. She wondered who had suggested these bastards-the brothers, or the king.

When the mess in the alley had been cleared, Soleh handed four of the five sacks of gold to the victim, who thanked her mightily before Roddalin took her away to be treated for her wounds. Soleh then hurried to the castle. The streets were more crowded with curious onlookers now, but all it took was one glance at Soleh’s hard expression for them to clear a path. She stormed through the portcullis and into Tower Justice, telling Captain Gregorian she was canceling the day’s docket. The poor, overworked man looked less than happy about it, but he bowed and acquiesced, barking orders at the rest of the Palace Guard to stow the prisoners away once more.

Soleh felt for him, but she had more pressing matters to address.

She crossed the courtyard and burst into Tower Honor, still dragging Pulo, Jonn, and Roddalin along with her. She stormed into the King’s Court, but the room was empty. Karl Dogon, King Vaelor’s personal shield, informed them that the king was ill and would be receiving no visitors. No matter how much Soleh demanded, the man would not cave. “Sickness is sickness,” he said with a dismissive wave. Furious, she scoured the rest of the tower, seeking out Cleo or Romeo Connington, or both. One of them was always lingering about the castle somewhere, sidling up to the king or the royal Council, trying-often successfully-to curry favor for his mining and weapons trades or toss more unfounded accusations on Matthew Brennan.