Shadowmoor (de Lohr Dynasty #6) (43 page)

After that, many of Bramley’s men were subdued or killed right away. The de Lohr and Netherghyll armies, working in a team, were a fearsome thing. Meanwhile, Maddoc had managed to make it to Daniel’s side. Daniel had a bloodied lip, and he’d taken a few blows, but he was whole for the most part. He’d been set upon by at least ten men, including la Londe, but in the years to come, that amount would increase to twenty or thirty men. And Maddoc would insist that he had single-handedly saved Daniel from death. But all of that aside, the real goal was to get to Bramley.

Leaving Maddoc to trade vicious blows with la Londe, Daniel went on the hunt for his target. The last he’d seen of Bramley, the man had been on the ground, sent there by one of Daniel’s heavy hits. But now Bramley wasn’t where Daniel had left him and as he emerged from the tumultuous gathering of men, looking like the roiling sea during a storm, he caught sight of Bramley between the area of battle and the keep.

And he had the missive in his hand.

Daniel was seized with fear when he saw that Bramley was closer to the keep, and kitchens and hall, than he was. Liselotte was over there, somewhere. The last he had seen of her was near the kitchens. He hadn’t had the time to seek her out when Bramley had been sighted so he could only pray she’d gone into the keep and locked herself in, but he couldn’t be sure. Wherever she was, he had to make sure he got to her before Bramley did. He broke into a run, heading for Bramley, but Bramley saw him coming. He had his sword in hand, holding it defensively.

“Stop where you are, de Lohr!” he shouted. “Come no further. This is my fortress now and you are commanded to leave. If you leave now, I will not tell Henry how you defied his command. Take your men and go!”

Daniel wasn’t in any mood for the man’s buffoonery. “I am not leaving,” he said. “And I have told you this before. Do you think you are the only one who had Henry’s ear? My uncle and father have far more influence with the man than you could ever hope to have. Right now, my men are killing every one of your men. Their bodies will be in a burning pyre outside of the walls by nightfall and you will join them. I am at an end tolerating you and your foolery. This will end today.”

Bramley seemed to be pondering what Daniel was saying; no more jesting, no more flippant attitude. The man was deadly serious, in every way, and Bramley struggled not to let fear get the better of him.

“You have no right,” he hissed. “You killed Brynner and for all I know, it was you who killed Etzel. It is you who have caused terrible tragedy to Shadowmoor, more than I ever could.”

“Lies.”

“I may have taken their food, but you took their lives!”

Daniel raised his sword. “I will not debate this with a madman,” he said. “I hope you are right with God, Bramley Roland Fitzroy, because you shall soon be meeting Him personally. You can explain to Him why you did what you did and how your deeds justified the end, how you bribed Brynner with drink to kill his own father and how you starved the people of Shadowmoor to the brink of destruction simply because you wanted what they had. Is that what you have always done? Persecuted those who have denied you? Your mother was not only a whore, she was an evil bitch as well to raise a son like you.”

He was saying it to deliberately provoke Bramley, to try to coerce the man to make a stupid move. But Bramley didn’t move; he stood there with a red face, his mouth working angrily.

“You know nothing of me,” he hissed. “You will not slander my mother, you bastard.”

Daniel raised an eyebrow. “It is not I who is the bastard,” he said. “I believe that title falls to your sister. Quite a family, Bramley Roland Fitzroy – a bitch for a mother and a bastard for a sister. And now a fool for a brother.”

Bramley, for all of his foolishness, seemed to sense what Daniel was doing. He was still red in the face, and still quite upset, but he held his ground. He didn’t move. After a moment, he held up the missive.

“That may be,” he said. “But I have been legally granted what you so badly want. What does that make you?”

Daniel smiled thinly; he could see they weren’t getting anywhere and it was time to end this. He was ready to be finished, with all of it.

“Your worst nightmare.”

With that, he charged Bramley, who tried to hold him off, but Daniel was stronger than Bramley was. Two crushing thrusts on Bramley’s sword and Bramley stumbled back, nearly falling. But Daniel didn’t let him rest; he continued to charge madly, beating Bramley down, hardly giving the man time to recover before he was dealing out several more blows that sent Bramley to the ground.

Now, it was getting serious as Bramley rolled away from Daniel’s thrust just in time to avoid being gored in the neck. Bramley grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it up into Daniel’s face, trying to blind him, but Daniel had been far enough way that the dirt didn’t make it into his eyes. He grabbed for Bramley, catching the man on the shoulder, but Bramley brought his sword around and narrowly missed cutting off Daniel’s left hand.

On and on it went as the two of them rolled through the bailey near the keep, viciously fighting. Bramley was a surprisingly strong opponent, much to Daniel’s displeasure, because he’d hoped to make short work of him. Somewhere, somehow, Bramley had been given decent training because he knew how to handle himself in a fight. As far as Daniel was concerned, it wouldn’t save his life – it would only prolong it.

The death watch began.

Most of the fighting in the bailey with the armies had come to a conclusion. La Londe lay dead of a sword strike to the neck, courtesy of Maddoc, while de Witt had come to a gruesome end when Caston gutted him. Nearly all of Bramley’s men had been subdued or killed, and those who were still attempting to fight were being cornered and forced to surrender. Dead and wounded littered the dirt of the bailey.

Maddoc, Caston, and Marc de Russe had made their way over to the battle between Daniel and Bramley, watching Daniel deal blow after heavy blow and watching Bramley grow progressively weaker. They wouldn’t interfere, of course, but it was rather astonishing to watch Daniel’s ferocity when dealing with Bramley. Daniel had always been a strong fighter, but this was different. It was more than fury behind his fight.

It was the love of a good woman.

As they watched the battle continue, they didn’t notice a slender woman with bronze-colored hair standing in the kitchen yard. Liselotte had been in the kitchen when the fight had started and she had remained there, terrified, until one of the servants told her that Sir Daniel was doing battle with Bramley over by the keep. Then, she could no longer stay away.

She had to see for herself what was happening and now she stood, watching Daniel deal Bramley a nasty beating. But as she watched, she found herself wishing he would simply end it with Bramley. She thought maybe Daniel was toying with him somehow, drawing out his death to satisfy his own sense of vengeance, and she didn’t like watching it one bit. What if Bramley got the upper hand? The mere thought terrified her.

But as she witnessed the beating, something more occurred to her. Daniel was intent to punish the man for everything he’d done, for the pain he caused. But the truth was that Liselotte had been dealing with that pain daily for the past four years. She’d always felt so guilty because of what Bramley had done to the people of Shadowmoor, as she’d once told Daniel, and as she watched Daniel fight on her behalf, there was something in her that felt the need to do her own fighting. As strange as it seemed, and probably as foolish as it seemed, she felt the need to settle this once and for all by herself.

She’d never had that chance. The chance to defender herself from a man who had done all he could to destroy her. He had never really wanted her; she knew that. He’d only wanted Shadowmoor and saw her as a simple way to achieve his end. But the truth was that she had only been his excuse, never his goal.

She’d been the victim of a petty vicious fool.

As she stood there and continued to observe the battle, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Gunnar standing there. He had two puppies in his arms, two following him, and then two goats that seemed to want to nibble on his pants. He kept pushing them away. But he, too, was watching the fight.

“Will Daniel win?” he asked.

She could hear the fear in his voice. “Aye,” she replied. “He will soon.”

Gunnar was mostly looking at Bramley as the man struggled against Daniel’s strength. “I wanted to kill him, too,” he said. “I would have killed him for you, Leese, if I was bigger.”

Liselotte put her hand on her brother’s head, comfortingly. “You are a very brave boy, Gunnar,” she said. “I know you would have helped if you could.”

Gunnar reached into his tunic, the one that Daniel had bought for him, and pulled something out of the pocket. It took Liselotte a moment to realize that it was her father’s dagger, the same one Brynner had used to kill him. Because it had been Etzel’s, Liselotte had given it to her younger brother as a keepsake. It had turned into Gunnar’s most valued possession.

“I was going to use this on him, someday,” Gunnar said. “When I got big enough, I was going to do it with Papa’s knife because it would be as if Papa killed him, too.”

Liselotte stared at the dagger, very sharp, and a thought occurred to her. Gunnar wasn’t far wrong; using the knife that had had belonged to Etzel, that Brynner had used against his own father at Bramley’s direction, would be sweet justice if the weapon were used to kill Bramley. It was a very old dagger, passed down through generations of the Lords of Shadowmoor, and as Liselotte stared at it, she knew what she needed to do. As clear as day, she knew. Generations of l’Audacieuxs were calling to her through that blade, telling her what needed to be done. For peace, for family pride, for everything, she needed to end this with her own hand. With Etzel’s blade.

She needed to reclaim their honor.

Taking the blade from Gunnar, she ordered the boy to stay behind as she began to move forward, towards the fighting. She could see the three big knights standing off to the left, watching the battle, but she couldn’t see Daniel from her position. The big keep was in the way. Therefore, she made her way around the keep, cautiously, to the other side where, suddenly, she had the men in her line of sight.

Daniel was dealing the man a fairly serious beating. When the sword wasn’t swinging at him, the feet and fists were kicking and punching Bramley all over the place. It was clear that Bramley was exhausted and terrified, and at this point he wasn’t doing much to fight back. He was simply defending himself. He was trying to get away from Daniel, stumbling away, holding up his sword to ward off Daniel’s powerful blows, but little more than that. It was clear that the battle was waning.

Liselotte knew she had to act quickly if she was going to make a difference in this battle, to exact vengeance again this man who had tormented her for four years. Quickly, she moved up to the corner of the keep, peering around the side to see that Daniel and Bramley were making their way in her direction. She watched their battle stall out several feet away as Bramley tried to crawl away and Daniel simply kicked him in the gut. She was eager for them to get on with it, to come in her direction so that she could deliver the death blow to Bramley. She was afraid that if she tried to make her move now that Daniel would prevent her from doing it. Therefore, she had to wait until they were very close so Daniel couldn’t stop her.

It was something she had to do.

More fighting, more kicking, and more crawling by Bramley, but the man had staggered to his feet and lurched in her direction, towards the keep. Liselotte ducked back, pressing herself right at the corner of the keep, just out of sight, but she could hear that the men were very close. She held the dagger tightly, praying for strength to do as she must, to seek vengeance for all that Bramley had done to her.

Then, the moment was upon her.

Bramley fell right by the corner of the keep, his upper torso exposed. Liselotte didn’t even think about what Daniel was doing at this moment; she had seen him kick and punch so much, especially when Bramley was down, that she expected more of the same. She lifted the dagger and threw herself forward, falling atop Bramley and plunging Etzel’s dagger straight into the man’s neck. Blood spurted as Bramley stiffened in what was the first of his death throes.

But what she couldn’t have known was that Daniel had been preparing to deliver the death blow, too. He had his sword lifted, preparing to strike, as Liselotte suddenly appeared from out of his line of sight, right at the corner of the building, and launching herself onto Bramley.

Horror filled him and he tried to stop his momentum as he brought the sword down; God help him, he tried as hard as he had ever tried for anything in his entire life. But he was moving too swiftly, and Liselotte was too close, and as she rammed the dagger into Bramley’s neck, he caught her on the right side of her torso with his broadsword.

Daniel would have cut her in half had he not been trying to stop his momentum, but it wasn’t enough to stop the blow completely. He cut her deeply, her screams mingling with his own, as Liselotte lay atop of the dying Bramley, bleeding heavily as Daniel realized what he had done.

After that, chaos reigned.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN