King Dom Comes (20 page)

"Are you done ignoring me?" he asked bluntly.

"Are you done treating me like a child?"

"You behave like a child, you deserve to be treated like
one."

"Well, you behave like a self-absorbed dictator, and
deserve to be ignored."

Dom's glare at the chuckling men silenced them. He turned
back to Shannon. "This behavior is unacceptable. I do not know how you
managed to charm my men, but you have not done the same with me."

"Are you jealous that I have a greater gift of
persuasion than you do?" Shannon narrowed her eyes at him, in turn.

"If your goal is to entice me to jealousy, it will not
work. It will not behoove you to go in that direction."

"If I do so, it is because you provoked me."

"Woman, must you always try for the last word? Why must
you always give me a headache?" Dom growled.

Shannon leaned into him, her nose barely touching his.
"I'm a banshee. That is what I do."

Dom met her gaze, and tried to penetrate her mind with his
gift. Nothing, as usual.

"I can feel you trying to get into me," she
informed him.

"You will feel me getting into you. Don't you worry
about that," Dom retorted.

Jorje cleared his throat, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
"Beg pardon, Sire, but the sun is waning and it appears as though a storm
approaches."

"I have herbs and vegetables to collect, unless you
don't want anything to eat this evening. I will return when my basket is
full," Shannon announced, snatching the big basket from the carriage and
prancing away without even looking back.

"Captain! Keep an eye on her. If she so much as steps
outside of the range of hearing your call, blister her hide right then and
there, and then bring her back for me to finish up."

"If I may say something, Your Grace," the knight
began. "The length of this journey—"

Dom interrupted. "No, you may not say something,
Captain. She is behaving like a spoiled child again, and I have little patience
for it. Take a handful of men with you to hunt. Have them keep a watch on her
as well."

"Yes, Your Grace," the large man bowed. "We
will protect her."

The sky rumbled overhead as the six men traipsed after the
lithe wood spirit. The feelings Dom was experiencing were new to him.
Loneliness, fear, uncertainty… these were all things that had awoken within his
heart the moment he had met the banshee. His inability to persuade her with his
gift was disconcerting as well. Perhaps it was for the better, he sighed, as he
stacked wood for the fire. Better she come to me and obey me out of love and
respect, than by magic.

Several hours passed, and the sky grew darker with the fall
of evening and the summer storm. A bolt of lightning cracked loudly, sizzling
through the air, and fat drops began to fall to the forest floor as the men
hurriedly pitched the tents and blocked the fire from the wind and rain. Dom
looked into the forest, riddled with anxiety. Shannon was a
banshee—nature would not harm her. Except for snow and ice, he reminded
himself. Where was she?

"Stay here and guard the camp. I am going out to find
Shannon."

"Sire, she is with the Captain. Do you have need to
worry?" a young guardsman asked with concern.

"These roads are thick with thieves and passing
soldiers. If she is taken…"

"Then she will keen. Allow me to go with you," the
man said, buckling his sword to his waist.

"No. I need you to stay here in case they return, or if
there is trouble," Dom said, looping his sword belt behind his shoulders
and jogging in the direction that the group had traveled.

Despite the pattering sounds of rain drops and the rumbling
of thunder, the forest was thick with an eerie silence—as though it was
holding its breath in anticipation of something. Dom's heart started to pound
as he followed the signs of travel; broken twigs, trampled grass, an overturned
rock. The trail grew more difficult to find as the rain pelted down on him,
soaking his clothes and boots.

The trail ended at the base of a short cliff. Dom looked
around in confusion. Where had they gone?

"Looking for someone, Your Majesty?"

Dom spun around to face the torn visage of a middle-aged man,
backed by several dozen armed men. The leader's face and crippled left hand
were mangled with scars, and his right leg was twisted at a grotesque angle. He
wore mismatched armor with an unidentifiable coat of arms on his bent body.

Before Dom could speak, he was stripped of his weapons and
forced to the ground, with his arms bent painfully backwards. One of his
captors grabbed a fistful of his hair, and made him watch as a man pushed
through the crowd with Shannon, bound and gagged, stumbling by his side. He
shoved her roughly to her knees and grabbed her braid to tilt her head back.
The edge of his broadsword glistened in the rain as it touched her throat.

"What is this insult?" Dom demanded, as one by one,
his guards were shoved to the ground behind her.

"Insult, my liege?" the maimed man repeated, his
eyes never leaving Dom's face as he ran his filthy hand through Shannon's
loosening braid. "Truly, I am the one insulted. Do you not recognize
me?"

"Release her. She cannot breathe," Dom demanded,
watching the terror registered in Shannon's eyes.

"My friends here do not care to hear her scream up
close. I am told that she does that quite often, doesn't she? I would not have
imagined you to be a man tolerant of adolescent temperaments."

"Ours is an arranged coupling. By my father." Dom
squinted. He lowered his voice and tried to focus his mind, without success. He
was too agitated. "She is just a child and needs to learn self-control and
grace. Please remove her gag."

"No. I already suffer from head pain, and need not
expose my men to that discomfort." The man lifted his mailed hood to
display several large indentations in his skull. "We have been following
you for some time now, d'Gavril. It was difficult to identify your route, you
know. You are very good at staying hidden in plain sight, but we do not get
paid until we bring you—or your corpse—back home."

"Why are you following me? What offense have I caused
you, that you use my house name?" Dom asked, subtly eyeing Shannon as she
worked the cloth from between her teeth.

"What offense, he asks?" the man said to the large
band, while continuing to glare at Dom with absolute hatred. "He does not
know to whom he speaks! Do you, boy?"

Dom bristled at the disrespect. He made another attempt to
focus his anger and redirect it to the rogue sell-swords, and failed. The tip
of the sword against his eye, and the edge of the sword pressed to Shannon's
neck, were too distracting. "I do not," he muttered, through clenched
teeth.

"Look at me when you are speaking to me, boy!"
Dom's head was yanked back again by the man behind him. "Do you recall a
certain situation, in which an army of nearly five thousand men went dancing
off the side of a cliff? Do you remember that?"

"I do. The Ottoman army that tried to seize my castle
and my lands. They were destroyed."

"Not all died on that tragic day, Lord d'Gavril."

 
"My title
is—"

"Yes, yes, the little boy who plays a grown up king!
Wouldn't you like to know how it is that some of us are still standing here
today? We fell upon the bodies of those who went before us. Some fell on the
rocks below, and others landed on mounds of broken flesh. The cushioning did
not spare us from injury, but it was enough to keep us alive." He paused
to walk in front of Dom's kneeling body, and stared into his face. "I want
to know what spell you cast upon us."

"I cast no spell."

"The horses were spared. Every single one came to a halt
at the cliff's edge, and then ran away after their rider stepped over the side.
How is that not a spell?" The man grew angry, and pointed at Shannon.
"Is this the witch you used to destroy my army?"

"Mistress McCleary is no witch, nor did I know of her
when you attacked my lands," Dom said through his teeth.

"How did you do it?"

"I did nothing. It was your own conscience that sent you
over the side," Dom said. He doubled over as a metal-booted foot kicked
his ribs. The men holding him jerked him upright once more, and grabbed hold of
his hair anew. His interrogator punched him in the jaw with his good hand,
splitting Dom's lip.

"I intend to kill each of your men, one by one, before
your very eyes. Their deaths will be slow, and quite brutal." The Ottoman
snapped his fingers, and was handed a leather skin roll. He opened it to reveal
a collection of knives, scrapers, forceps and long pins. "When I am
finished flaying each of them, I will start on your pretty little consort. I do
think we should all enjoy her treats first, don't you? I wonder how long she
will survive after entertaining thirty men." He looked up into the sky as
the thunder rolled angrily overhead. "Let us seek shelter before we
entertain ourselves. Bring them to camp," he ordered his men.

Dom's anger and fear intensified, and his eyes darkened. The
rain turned into hail, and the sky to a vivid charcoal gray. Shannon looked at
him, her eyes filled with unspoken terror and surprise as the wind picked up
and began to whip wildly, threatening to uproot trees. He stared back, and
released his gift. To her. For her.

***

Shannon felt her fear and doubt melt away as she gazed at Dom
for strength. How was it that she could feel the sweet, alluring, and very
pleasurable taste of his persuasion? It was wonderful! Why had she resisted it
in the past? She felt filled with peace, and began to hum softly.

"Is she singing?" the leader barked.

"She is a little touched in the head," Dom stated.
"That is why she screams so often."

"You should put this mongrel out of her misery. Move it,
girl," the man said, kicking her in the rear.

Shannon began to laugh into her gag. Dom's gift left her
feeling as though she had consumed an entire bottle of good wine. Irritated
with her joviality, the man slapped her harshly across the face, and sent her
flying to the wet ground. The impact of his hand was just enough to dislodge
her gag.

Shannon smiled up at him and put her bound hands upon the
dirt, bracing herself as she unhinged her jaw. Guided by Dom's gift, she
released her cry upon the band of men. One by one, they erupted in flames,
screaming in agony as the fire slowly consumed each of them, unquenched by the
powerful fall of rain. Her guardsmen rolled away from the roaring human
bonfires, seeking the safety of distance as they struggled to cut their bonds
with fallen swords.

 
The Ottoman
leader laughed at the sight, seemingly unfazed by the bitter stench of burning
human flesh. He turned his knife to her cheek and clamped her jaw shut,
tightening his hand around her throat. Dom panicked. Why was he not affected by
Shannon's keen? He cut his hands free using the fallen sword of one of his
charred captors, then steadied it upon the man.

"Your
fight is with me. Be a man and turn your sword upon the one you hate."

"I hate anything that is not of God," the man
chuckled, putting the edge of the blade to Shannon's left ear. "Especially
witches."

Dom's scream echoed through the woods as the blade sliced
across the breadth of Shannon's throat. She stared down at the blood dripping
down her body, looked at Dom in confusion, and then fell over in a lifeless heap.

"By the gods, no!"

The Ottoman was not left standing for long, as Dom plunged
the fury of his sword through his heart. He pulled out the blade in a twisting
motion and swept it across his enemy's neck to sever the head clean from his
shoulders. The surprise upon the face of his enemy was quickly buried in the
mud as the head rolled down a hill and lodged in a trench.

The rain continued to pour, and rivulets of
water mixed with blood trickled through the cool, leaf-littered ground. Dom
fell to his knees, gathering Shannon's quivering body in his arms, and began to
sob. His let his tears fall upon her to mingle with her blood.

"Sire?" Jorje touched his
shoulder. "Please…"

"She is gone," Dom wept. "I
could not save her."

"Your Grace, please listen to me. Your
gift. Use it. Heal her."

"I cannot heal more than a tiny
scratch, let alone death."

"D
omitri, "Jorje
squatted down beside his king, "her heart still beats. Allow me... allow
us, to tap into your gift and be your strength. We can add strength to you
through our bond and our faith in you."

"It will not work."

"Your Grace, it is time you cease
trying to do all on your own. Our bloodlines hold the key to her life, but you
are the door. Try, before the window of time is lost."

Dom studied his captain with eyes filled
with hopelessness. Shannon lay limp in his arms, her pulse thready, and her
life's blood slowly draining from her body in tiny spurts. He nodded, took in a
breath, and closed his eyes.