Black Moon Draw (29 page)

We start off at a jarring trot that turns into a smooth canter. The man leads us out of the pass into the forests on the other side. His horse takes off when we hit a path through the forest, and I hold on for dear life.

The forest opens to reveal a wide dirt road running atop a cliff overlooking the ocean, and I lift my gaze from the horse’s mane to stare at the dark depths of the ocean. A full moon’s light manages to filter through the mists overhead and reflects off the waves far below. They appear black, and I’m astonished to see the subtle glimmer of purple, green and blue beneath the surface of the ocean.

A cold wind sweeps up the cliff and over me, piercing the thin clothing and taking my breath away. I shiver and huddle closer to the horse’s neck, unable to take my gaze from the ocean stretching to the horizon.

Black Moon Draw is incredible. From the rolling emerald hills to the jagged mountains and imposing white cliffs beside great oceans, I can’t imagine anywhere so breathtaking.

I’m led back into the forest. The man slows our pace and winds among trees, crosses clearings and takes us once more back to the cliff, only to return to the woods.

When my captor slows us to a halt, he passes me a homemade canteen with mint water. I drink deeply, tired from the combination of fear, cold, and travel.

He pulls my horse abreast of his as we enter another field. The horses are snorting and blowing hard from the pace, radiating heat that buffers me from the cold night.

“You are well?” he asks.

“More or less,” I reply. “Just another night getting kidnapped, I guess.” I listen to the sounds of the night, the movements and cries of animals, waiting to hear the Shadow Knight crash through the forest after me.

“You are safe, Naia.”

How the hell does he know my name?
“Who are you?” I ask, handing back the drink.

He lowers his hood, his gold-tan eyes visible in the dim light of the forest.

“Westley!” I exclaim. “
You’re
the Desert Knight’s son?”

“Aye.” He offers a small smile. He looks much better than when I saw him last. His eye has healed, and he’s no longer gaunt and pale.

“But . . . how . . .” I try to wrap my mind around the coincidence of finding him in the bench seat of the Red Knight.

Disney Princess.

It all clicks. “Omigod!
You’re
the one who was supposed to marry Dis . . . uh, I mean, the sister of the Red Knight!”

“Aye.” There’s sadness in his features.

“The Red Knight held you prisoner to what? Make sure you didn’t ruin his plan to marry off his sister?”

“In part. It was to keep my father in check as well.”

“What a total asshole!”

Westley chuckles. “’Tis a form of negotiation. When a man opposes you, you ensure he has a reason to cooperate. I went to reason with the Red Knight when he gave away my love to another man. ‘Twas foolish. He wisely captured me for his purposes.”

Their sense of checks and balances in this world is barbaric. The Red Knight must have something on everyone, if the Shadow Knight didn’t blink about being imprisoned in his own dungeon and a boy held hostage for a year believes his captor to have simply outsmarted him.

“So is it a good thing I freed you or not?” I ask, puzzled by his calm acceptance of the situation.

“Aye. Your act saved your life this night and possibly that of the Shadow Knight,” he replies. “Though I will ask you never to tell my father that.”

“You seem really nice to be the son of a warlord.”

“I am forever in your debt. You saved my life. Were you any other battle-witch, my men would have killed you on the spot.”

I shudder at his words. That even a lovesick teen in this world is dangerous reminds me that I’m a very long way from home. It probably doesn’t help that I know his name and am allegedly a witch with the ability to put a hex on him.

“I will keep you safe as long as I can,” he adds. “War is about to erupt on the soil of Black Moon Draw.”

“Hence the ambush. Did you defeat his armies to get here or just sneak into the kingdom?”

“We were helped by someone close to the Shadow Knight.” The answer is vague, but it makes dread sink into my stomach. “We knew his armies were sent forward, to Brown Sun Lake, and positioned ourselves here.”

I was wrong about the Betrayer. It’s not the Red Knight, who is more of a politician. There’s someone else who turned on the Shadow Knight.

“I have heard rumors you are not the battle-witch as foretold,” he says carefully.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I haven’t figured out how to unlock my magic consistently. It’s probably why the Shadow Knight didn’t perform the ritual between a Knight and his battle-witch.”

“There is no ritual.” Westley laughs softly.

“What? The Red Knight said there was.”

“Sounds like a ploy of his. I learned much from watching him the year I spent his prisoner.”

The Red Knight has had a few surprises up his sleeves for sure. He’s lied to me more than once, and I start to think these Knights are a little smarter than I initially gave them credit for. The largest army may prevail here, but there’s intelligence and cunning behind the actions of these sword-bearing brutes.

“If you obey my father, he will not have reason to hurt you.” Westley’s urgent whisper reaches me. He pulls both of our horses to a halt. “He will be distracted by the war soon. Do as he says for now, witch.”

More forms melt from the forest on the other side of the field, soon filling the clearing with men on horseback.

Visions of what the long dead Desert Knight did to the warrior queen Naia play through my thoughts. The Shadow Knight thinks his mortal enemy also knows how to kill me.

I’m not interested in being used against him and less interested in being dead. I’m assuming I’m alive because the Desert Knight wants to use my magic. I’m in trouble either way, no matter which I use magic for. Whatever I should feel about Westley kidnapping me, I’m grateful he at least takes his life debt seriously.

The man at the center of the approaching riders flings himself off his horse and strides towards us. I recognize him from the rooftop of the Red Knight’s fortress.

Size runs in the family.
While he may be in his prime,
The Desert Knight isn’t much smaller than the Shadow Knight.

“Any trouble, son?” the Desert Knight asks the kid beside me.

“Nay, father.”

He yanks me off the horse and grips my chin a little too hard. Sensing danger, I decide to listen to Westley and stay quiet instead of protesting.

“Fully recovered from your fall, I see,” the Desert Knight observes. “I have never seen a battle-witch heal so quickly. Is your magic awake, witch?”

“Not consistently,” I reply.

“A sennight with the Vulture will fix that.”

“Father, we need her magic now. Black Moon Draw will not wait a day to send for his armies,” Westley says quietly.

The Knight releases my chin and lifts the medallion off my chest. His eyes match his son’s, though his features are heavier, seasoned, and deeply lined.

“Danger has a way of awakening the magic, does it not?” Westley adds. “We keep her with us in battle.”

“You left me a foolish boy and returned a wise man. I should give all my sons to the Red Knight to train.”

Westley says nothing. I stay quiet. The Shadow Knight was frustrated by my inability to use magic but willing to give me somewhat of a breather, perhaps because of his family’s history and his faith in the curse and legend.

I’m not sensing any intent to offer leniency in the hardened face of the warrior before me. If his son fears him, I don’t have a chance.

“Very well. You do not leave her side!” he ordered his son. Releasing me, he stalks back to his horse.

Westley nods towards my horse, indicating I should mount. I do so with little grace and watch the Desert Knight wheel his horse and head back to the tree line. Westley takes my reins without addressing me, and we follow his father through the throngs of Brown Sun Lake men.

I can feel their eyes on me and purposely stare straight ahead, clutching the saddle nervously.

I had hoped to find someone in this place capable of reason instead of war, but after meeting the Shadow and Desert Knights, I don’t think a peace summit or discussion is going to happen between the two enemies. They’re too hardened to want to work together, their blood feud fueled by a thousand years of repressed anger. It’s not going to get fixed in the two days we have left.

Watching the back of Westley’s head, I start to think there’s one button here I can push, one man who might be a tad more reasonable than the overbearing Knights of this world.

I just have to wait for my opportunity to talk to him alone once more. In the meantime, I need the Heart to start working on command. There has to be a key, something I’m missing. I begin to go over past instances where it flared to life.

My mind keeps going to the Shadow Knight and how angry he was. Why does it hurt to think of him?

There were two passageways through the mountain range isolating his fortress from the rest of the world. One was used by the people and visitors who wanted to reach the secluded, well-fortified hold at the seat of his kingdom. The other was for use by the Shadow Knight’s army commanders and messengers only, an expedited means of facilitating important news to and from those in the hold.

No one outside of his inner circle in Black Moon Draw knew the location of the secret pass between mountains, the one the men of Brown Sun Lake had taken him and the witch through. It was his second sign that aught was not right with the welcoming party, one that warned him more than the Jackal-headed man was a threat before revealing himself.

Brown Sun Lake had armies on his land and the means to pass through the mountains and destroy Black Moon Draw before his warriors returned. If the armies of Brown Sun Lake were this deep in Black Moon Draw, they had moved with help from his own people. There was no other way for them to hide such an enormous amount of warriors pouring into his lands, if someone were not actively suppressing any word of it.

Worse – Brown Sun Lake armies were between him and his warriors. Even if his messengers reached his men, there was a very good chance that Brown Sun Lake captured the hold on the cliff before help arrived. His enemy had a bargaining chip he would do anything to recover: the battle-witch needed to break the curse.

Frustrated and furious, the Shadow Knight defeated his enemies a couple of candlemarks after the battle-witch left the pass. He had no way of knowing how large the army waiting for him at the other end of the pass was. He turned back and tore out of the narrow path towards the fortress, mind racing.

He had miscalculated, stretched his armies out across the realm, marching steadily towards his final battle with his main enemy, only to learn the older, wisened, wily Desert Knight had circled behind and cornered him.

There were no warriors in his hold, and he doubted his former ally at White Tree Sound was going to help anyone but the victor.

The Shadow Knight wanted to roar in anger, most of which was aimed at himself for being too arrogant in battle and assuming he had the upper hand against an enemy like the Desert Knight. Instead, he hunched over the horse’s neck and urged it to run faster along the foothills towards the cliff where his hold sat.

Attack at shadow moon. Capture the Heart.
The messages conveyed by the Desert Knight to the Red Knight now made sense. The shadow moon was the first night after a full moon, called such because it stayed out all day and disappeared soon after nightfall.

He had dismissed the warnings as improbable out of what appeared to be sheer pride, for no one had ever taken the hold at Black Moon Draw. Tomorrow was the full moon, which meant his kingdom fell the day after, taking with it the entire realm, engulfed by a curse he had no way of stopping without the battle-witch.

The other thought torturing him was one he did not entirely expect.

His battle-witch left his side and protection
willingly
. He offered her the kingdom – and she left him. Was it her prediction that he died in the upcoming battle? A sign she did not share his feelings? Or was she acting out of fear for her own safety, mayhap frightened by the idea of facing the curse?

Why did it matter why she chose to leave?

For the second time in recent days, he experienced a cold jolt of what could only be fear.

It seemed impossible for him to have been so thoroughly routed before the battle with his enemy even began. With no army and no battle-witch, a city void of people, and two days before the end of the world, his chances of saving his realm had never seemed bleaker.

Determined, he swallowed the desperation creeping into his thoughts and began to think about what advantages he still held.

I will go down fighting.
There was no longer any reason to maintain what restraint he had.

His resolve lasted until he set foot into his hold and saw the empty streets of his home. He had ventured thrice before to his city. Knowing what was there did not make it easier to visit. Dismounting, he stood on the smooth stone road leading from the gate into the heart of his city, dread settling deep into his soul, rattling him in a way he had never experienced.

The streets were silent – but not empty. Men, women, and children – frozen in place the day the battle queen placed a spell upon the realm – crowded the streets, merchants’ alleys, and domiciles of the city. A hundred thousand souls and not a one of them were alive.

He wove among them, taking in their features in the moonlight. For a thousand years, they had been statues, waiting patiently for their ruler to rescue them. From the tiniest babe held against her mother’s bosom to the guards on the wall, each was perfectly preserved in the white stone of the cliffs.

Not even a small contingent of living men guarded a haunted city filled with stone inhabitants. No one living had occupied the city for almost a thousand years, the magic contained in the hold at its center turning anyone who remained more than a day or two into stone. Any man who managed to escape before then went mad, and no one who entered the hold at its center had ever left.