Behind The Wooden Door (10 page)

“We should wait for Tristan.” Cormac’s words sounded hollow.

Those were the only words spoken for an hour. Tommy lit the bonfire for light and warmth, but nothing seemed to warm the cold we all felt. Tristan saved his brother but lost his best friend. How much longer would Hawk have had if we would have just left things alone?

The butterfly had found us. It fluttered around the three of us and landed on Hawk’s body. It was as if it was keeping guard of the dead body. Hawk wouldn’t wake up again, though. He had been captured by death and the black wings of the butterfly.

Voices came from the forest behind us, but no one turned. I didn’t want to see how many men were left. I didn’t want to turn and see everyone but Tristan. Tommy’s eyes watched as they filed in. His eyes locked on one person.

Tristan walked past me and sat beside his bother on the tree trunk we used as a bench. He stared at the body of his dead best friend and for a moment, I thought he would cry. He didn’t though. He didn’t even move.

“Where’s some alcohol?” Tristan’s voice was as hollow and flat as his cousin’s when he finally spoke.

Cormac reached behind the tree trunk and held two bottles he found in the tents earlier. He handed one to Tristan.

Tristan uncorked one bottle with his teeth and poured the clear liquid over Hawk’s body.

“Ready?” he asked looking at his brother and cousin.

They nodded silently.  The three of them grabbed large sticks and lit them aflame before they drank the other bottle. Alcohol still on their breaths, they stood on either side of Hawk, and like dragons, blew consuming flames onto his body.

I turned my head away from him. I couldn’t watch the flames eat away his flesh, and neither could Tristan.

He moved away from the smoke and crackling fire and walked toward the forest. I felt helpless. Tristan wouldn’t want to be comforted, but I couldn’t just sit and watch Hawk turn to ashes.

I followed after the man I loved whether he wanted me to or not.

The diamonds of the sky shone brightly upon the world as it would any other night as my story began to turn into its own tragedy. Hardly half the men returned from the attack, and Artair was sure to know how much weaker we were than he and his men. Hope for Rattonim was dying like the embers of morning fires, yet the stars still shone as brightly as the night the soldiers had arrived.

Tristan’s figure was doubled over as he grasped a tree for support.

“Tristan?” I shuddered at how small my voice was.

“Go away, Lanie,” he said. He straightened up a bit more. “You don’t want to see this.”

But it was too late. His body bent forward again as he vomited repeatedly. I moved toward him and rubbed the small of his back at a safe distance.

We stayed like that until he had nothing left in him. Tears ran down his cheeks, but I didn’t know if it was for his friend or the strength his body had just been d
eserted of.

He moved us away from the tree and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“It wasn’t supposed to end like this,” he whispered into the night. “I’ve been fighting with Hawk for four years. Hell, he’s lived with me and Tommy since our first war together and this…this just doesn’t seem possible, Lanie.”

Hawk was more his brother than I’d ever realized. I could think of nothing to say to him, but Tristan didn’t want me to say anything.  Nothing could change the fact that Hawk was dead. And nothing I said would ever bring him back.

We held each other as the distant sound of crickets echoed throughout the night air. In his embrace, everything felt perfect. The world disappeared into nothing.  It was just me and him and a calm stillness.

“We need to go back,” he said.

He unwrapped his arms from my body and slipped his hand into mine. I didn’t want to go back to where only ashes remained, but Tristan had nowhere else he could go.

Hand in hand, we reentered the campground. Cormac had gone, but Tommy lied on the ground and stared up at the sky. His fists clenched by his side and jaw set.

“Where’s Branton?” he asked as we passed by him.

Tristan hesitated before he spoke. He kept his eyes on the ground. “He’s gone.”

Too many amazing soldiers had fallen in one night.

Tommy closed his eyes. His face scrunched up like he were in pain. “Ahck nosh ah sonten. Ahck wilnt revern zaunt; Ahck wilnt revern zaush.”

So many emotions lingered on his words. Hate, love, and sadness all at once.

“If you had remembered that, they may still be alive.” There was only anger in Tristan’s voice.

Tommy slowly rose from the ground. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me. If you had acted like a real soldier, Hawk wouldn’t have had to been a motherfucking hero! If it weren’t for you, he’d still be alive!” Tristan yelled and pointed at the slowly dying fire that had once been Hawk’s body.

Tommy’s fist collided with Tristan’s face in an instant. Tristan stumbled backward but quickly regained his composure. He lunged forward at his little brother, and they both fell heavily to the ground.

None of the other soldiers tried to help, and I knew there wasn’t any way I could stop them.

I didn’t have to do anything though. Cormac rushed from one of the black tents, and through flying fists and angry yells, he was able to pull Tristan off of Tommy.

But Tommy didn’t stay down. He punched Tristan in the stomach, and Tristan fell to his knees out of breath.

“We had a plan,” Tommy growled through bloody teeth. “But you were so damn arrogant that you couldn’t stand not being the hero for once, could you?”

Tommy spit a mouth full of blood on the ground in front of Tristan before he turned his back on all of us and disappeared amongst the on-looking soldiers.

Tristan’s breath came out in sharp pants as he pushed himself up. Of course, Tristan wouldn’t remain on the ground. Most definitely not in front of his soldiers. He refused to look at me when he walked past and went into his own tent.

I pushed the flap of his tent open and sat down beside him in the darkness.

“I told him! I told him we weren’t ready!” Tristan said.

He wasn’t talking about Tommy anymore. No, now he was talking about the man who had demanded the attack. The real killer. My father demanded the premature battle. Now over half of his hired men were dead.

Tristan stroked my hair and pressed his lips to mine. He didn’t deepen the kiss though.

“This war won’t last forever, Lanie. It’s going to end sooner than later,” he said and pressed his forehead to mine. “And I’ll leave.”

The blood in my veins froze. My body shook as I tried to stifle the sob that wanted to burst past my lips. In the back of my mind, I had always known he would be leaving me, but I had just now gotten him. I couldn’t bare it if he left me. How could I live another day of my life without him? What would I have worth living for? A father who loved his money more than me. A skeleton of a mother below the soil of the garden.

War was his life, and forever would be, and he would have no room for a spoiled princess.

He kissed my forehead and pulled away from me. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair before saying, “And I want you to come with me.”

CHAPTER 14

Before the sun had risen, I was back in my bedroom. My father catching me in the soldiers’ camp again would not go over well. Especially not if he caught me in Tristan’s tent.

Everything in the world was silent.

The first peek of sunlight filtered in through the arched window. Did dragons cause the sunrise as they did the sunsets? I hoped they did as I stared out at the orange and yellow sky.

A calmness fell over me as the fire-filled sky grew brighter. The war was close to the end. I could feel it. Tristan and his men may have lost a lot of their soldiers, including Hawk, but they could still pull through this. I wondered if Hawk was blowing fire into the sky with the other dragons. Maybe this sunrise was a signal from him that this would lead to a new beginning.

Tristan wanted me to leave with him. He wanted this to be a beginning for us. He was willing to take me away from all the madness and hatefulness I’d known since the death of my mother, but did I have it in me to leave Rattonim? I wanted to go with him. I wanted to be with him, and I knew he couldn’t stay in the kingdom with me nor would he.

I wouldn’t survive in his land, though. In Rattonim I had never had to fight for anything, and fighting was all he knew. If I left with him, I would no longer be a princess. No, I’d be a peasant in a sea of commoners and warriors.

The only thing I had ever wanted growing up was my mother’s crown. I wanted people to adore the diamonds shining in their silver base when the sun hit it. That had been my dream. If I left with Tristan, I would never get to be queen and would never take my mother’s place.

But was being queen what I wanted now?

A door slammed from somewhere outside. I tiptoed to my bedroom door and listened.

“These damned soldiers are going to ruin everything! Who the hell does he think he is?” My father’s angry yells bounced off the stone walls of the corridor. “Attacking Norric without even a warning to me! He was supposed to be the best! You said he was the best!”

“Your Highness, I hadn’t the faintest idea he would pull a stunt like this. You can’t put me to blaaaa–” I didn’t recognize the other man’s voice, but it drowned in pain.

“I
can
put you to blame! You’re the one who recommended these bastards!” My father’s voice only sounded as crazy as this when he felt he had lost control. But my father had never been in control of the war or Tristan.

The man cried out in pain once more then the only sound was my father’s boots as they stomped down the corridor. I cracked my door open. A frail older man slumped against the wall. Red fingerprints contrasted with the pale skin of his neck. Of course my father would only attack someone who was much weaker than himself.

My father rounded the corner, and my instincts told me just where he was headed. I moved quickly down the hall after him. He had his sword unsheathed, but I knew he wouldn’t do anything with it. He was too much of a coward for that.

How he heard my footsteps over his violent marching I don’t know, but he turned to face me.

“Do you know what those damned assassins have done?” my father barked.

I shook my head. He never needed to know that I had led ‘those damned assassins’ to my cousin’s castle. If he did, he’d have an axe with my name on it for the executioner.

“They attacked Norric in the middle of the night. They got themselves slaughtered. You can say goodbye to Rattonim because of that godforsaken Aissur!”

My father kicked one of the tall, bronze candelabrums. The red candle fell to the floor and extinguished on the cold stone. The melted wax dripped to the floor like blood.

“I’m paying that selfish, ignorant bastard more gold than I pay all of the men in Rattonim. And for what!? A destroyed kingdom!”

No one would have been injured or slaughtered if my father hadn’t commanded the earlier attack that had gotten Tommy and Hawk captured in the first place. He didn’t see it that way. My father would never take the blame that was rightfully put upon him. Of course none of this was his fault in his eyes.

My father kept forward at a quick pace.

“Father, he’s been fighting for many years now. I’m sure Aissur knows what he’s doing,” I said as I followed behind. “Father, what do you plan to do to him? He was merely doing his job and trying to win this war for us.”

My father ignored my pleas of reasoning and pushed through the huge doors of the castle. The sunlight no longer seemed hopeful. It felt as deadly as the flames that had consumed Hawk’s lifeless body. Tristan wouldn’t tolerate my father’s hateful criticism, he wouldn’t apologize for attacking Norric, and he most definitely would not take kindly to the sword in my father’s hand.

My heart beat faster in my chest until I could hear its insane rhythm in my head. Very few of the soldiers were out of their tents. They wanted to mourn the loss of their fallen brothers alone or try to find a moment of peace in their dreams. Some of the men who sat beside the fires disappeared into their tents at the sight of my crazed, red-faced father.

“AISSUR!” my father bellowed.

I didn’t dare breathe as I waited for Tristan to exit through the flap of his tent. Anxiety shot through me as I anticipated what might happen. I imagined Tristan walking out with his sword held high ready to fight to the death. After he’d murdered my father, he would announce to everyone how he was taking Rattonim for himself and that Norric would be next. He and I would rule together and destroy any enemy who may be foolish enough to threaten us.

But Tristan came out unarmed. He pulled one of his black shirts over his head as he walked to us. He didn’t bow to my father or me, but I didn’t expect him to. My father didn’t deserve Tristan’s respect.

“What the hell makes you think you have the right to plan an unorthodox attack? You should have consulted with me first,” my father growled between clinched teeth. His sword shook in his hand.