Legend of the Iron Flower Box Set (Books 1-4) Read online

She paused, unsure how to put this in a way that couldn't be seen as an insult to the honor of the rank. "What if a candidate didn't think themselves worthy, then what? If they thought they weren't ready for the task?"

  "It might sound a bit arrogant to you, but I think we're usually able to judge whether someone's ready better than they can. We're used to seeing the potential in someone, especially the good ones who tend so often to underestimate themselves."

  That did sound arrogant. Rose wondered how many new captains had suffered through their early days in the post, or even made bad mistakes due to their unpreparedness, because of such an inconsiderate selection process. She grew very scared for the future she faced. Before, she'd just been worried about not seeing her friends, but now, she had to think about how well or poorly she might do in her new role. Poorly, it seemed, was more likely.

  "Okay," she said, unwilling to say something that might not go over well with him. She'd deal with it when—if—she was picked.

  #

  Niles' retirement drew closer, and Rose tried to push her worries to the back of her mind. Bert and Swain sometimes asked her about it when they had nothing better to talk about, but she brushed their questions aside. As the weeks rolled by, Rose grew used to the patrols so that she no longer looked at them as sources of boredom, but good opportunities to talk and have fun with her friends. One day, Rose and her patrol found a wagon broken and looted in the center of the road.

  "Hey, is anybody here?" Bert yelled. "Is anybody alive?" He was answered by a rock bouncing off his shoulder.

  "Cut that out!" Rose said. "We're not here to hurt you, we're here to help."

  Maybe it was her thick female voice which reassured their attacker they weren't more bandits or the like. A battered, disheveled woman emerged from behind a tree, her face streaked with tears. She ran in front of Rose and fell to her knees, saying between sobs, "H-help me, please! They took him, they took my husband—why did they take my husband? They tried to kill me, they slashed me, it hurts..."

  "Where did they wound you?" Rose asked with concern, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  The woman opened her robes, showing a shallow cut on her upper chest. "What happened?" Bert asked while Swain began to clean it. "Who are you, and who took your husband?"

  "The bandits took him!" she said as if that was an answer. "He's the mayor of Juren, and we were going to visit Gafald in the west, to discuss plans against the river raiders who make their evil on the Lukor between our towns. But they ambushed us, killed our guards, and took him away. Please, bring him back!"

  "How many of them were there?"

  "We need to report to Merrick first," Rose said before the woman could reply. "This is big." Jasper nodded in agreement.

  "I don't know how many there were," the woman said, "there didn't seem to be that many. But since neither of us is trained to fight, we knew we were outmatched, so we ran. But they caught us, and when my husband tried to fight, they struck him down and tried to do the same to me. Somehow, I got away..."

  It was Jasper who asked quickly, "Struck down? Is your husband dead?"

  "No, no, he can't be dead, he can't! B-but he was bleeding..."

  They questioned her some more, but there wasn't enough on which to judge whether her husband was indeed dead. But it seemed likely that if he was alive, his captors would try to ransom him. "We should get help," Rose said. "We don't know enough about these kidnappers to say whether we can take them."

  "She said there weren't many," Bert pointed out, "and we've beaten some bad odds. Especially you."

  "Your usual robbers aren't the same thing as skilled fighters." And Rose believed that if only a small group was willing to attempt something like kidnapping a mayor, they must have had some basis for their confidence.

  "You can't wait," the mayor's wife pleaded. "He's wounded, he might die. You have to save him!"

  "Kidnappers wouldn't let him die," Rose tried to argue. It sounded weak even to her.

  "We'll have to wait if you insist on help," Swain said. "There's only one quad on base right now, and they have to stay there on guard, as Merrick says."

  Good point. Help wouldn't be available for some time. "Did you see where they went?" Rose asked the woman.

  With her help, they found the kidnappers' trail through the forest. Rose wasn't sure what to do with the wife, and in the end they settled on taking her along, Swain playing temporary bodyguard at her side. Eventually, they could smell smoke in the air. "That's probably them," Bert said, and the group walked on to get a better look.

  They saw the rotund mayor tied to a tree, sitting down with a bloody rag over his belly. His captors had at least tried to do something for his wound, but it didn't look like it would be nearly enough. His eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell in an erratic rhythm. He looked half dead. His wife almost cried out, and Swain stopped her with a hand over her mouth.

  "He's hurt so bad," she whispered when he let her go.

  Two of the mayor's captors could be seen from here, a tall, athletically built man in his twenties and a large-jawed man of average size in his forties. Both wore swords, and looked disturbingly calm.

  "We've got numbers on them," Bert observed happily. "Why don't we rush them?"

  Rose shook her head. "I'd rather try and shoot them down from here. It's too risky if we charge, and they decide to hold the mayor at swordpoint."

  It was a good plan, and should have been the happy ending to the story. But when Rose and her friends fired, two at each man, the younger fell dying, but the elder only took a bolt in the arm as Jasper missed his shot. He drew his sword and scrambled to the mayor's side, doing exactly what Rose had feared. The kidnapper cut his bonds, then dragged him to his feet. Before anyone could reload or reach him, he was behind the nearly limp hostage with the sword at his throat.

  "You're going to let me go, or he's going to die."

  Rose froze. She'd never been in such a situation before, and did not know what to do. This was no normal fight, and she felt quite helpless. There was no move she could make faster than the kidnapper could slit the mayor's throat. Raising her hands, she said, "Please don't do this. He's hurt badly, he needs help. He's going to die if you keep him, and that'll be no use to you at all."

  "Shut up! He'll be fine! I already bandaged his wound; you can't scare me."

  Was he stupid? Rose felt like asking him, but knew she could only make the situation worse. Unfortunately, Bert asked for her, "What are you, a surgeon?"

  The man's sword blade brushed pale skin, and a bloody line appeared on the mayor's throat. Rose's heart almost stopped, then she saw it was only a scratch. There was still time. "We'll let you go, if you let him go."

  "You'll let me go if I don't." He started to back away.

  Rose stood there and watched, her hands shaking. They'd failed, and the mayor might pay with his life. She tried to think how to follow the kidnapper once he was out of sight, and somehow catch him off guard again. It would be harder this time, and time was running out. But before the two men could disappear out of sight, Bert cried, "Stop!" drawing his target's gaze.

  The giant's dagger flew—and sprouted in the mayor's throat.

  "Oh gods, I didn't mean..." As Bert's voice trailed off, the slack-jawed kidnapper released his dying captive, who slid bonelessly to the ground, and turned to run. Jasper's dagger caught him in the back, and he fell.

  The mayor's wife ran to his side, wailing in impotent fury. "You murderers, you fools! What did you do, why, why?"

  Barely hearing her continued cries of grief and rage, Rose fell to her knees and looked to the sky, wishing some god would come down and right the wrong of today. Nothing else would do; the mayor was dead, his eyes locked in a disbelieving stare at Bert. Rose couldn't fault her friend for trying when she'd been too scared to do a thing, but he'd tried and failed, and now they were all going to pay.

  A gasp of pain drew Rose back into the world, and she saw the mayor's wife fall, her e
yes glazing as she hit the ground. What?! She looked up and saw Jasper standing there with his sword bloody, shuddering uncontrollably at what he'd done. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he turned his sword as though he might fall on it. But he didn't kill himself, and instead dropped the sword and began to walk stiffly away.

  Moved to action by his murderous deed, Rose ran to him and shook him by the shoulders. "Why?! Why the hell did you do that?"

  He answered in a dead voice. "We were going to get in trouble. She was going to tell."

  So he'd silenced her. Rose punched him, knocking him down. "You're such a fool. You murderer!" And she was on top of him, choking the life out of his wretched body.

  Bert stopped her, pulling her off Jasper's coughing form. "Leave him. He saved us—me."

  "He killed an innocent woman! You want to just let him get away with that?" She couldn't believe her friend. He'd always seemed like a good person. But a good person wouldn't condone this.

  "I don't want to die."

  She knew what he meant. If he wasn't officially executed for killing the mayor, he might just have a planned accident. But this was totally wrong. Rose didn't know what to do or who to blame, so she just lashed out. Bert was down in an instant, his nose bloody. "Stop it, Rose," Swain said. "Beating on us will help nothing at all."

  "Us murderers, you mean?" She sobbed and shoved him, her conscience tearing her mind apart. "You and me too, you know. We didn't do anything. We didn't stop it." And her worse than him. She'd begun to think of herself as their unofficial leader, and when the stakes were highest she hadn't been able to make any difference. She sat and buried her head in her hands, crying. "Don't touch me!" she snapped as Bert patted her back. Did he have no regard for human life?

  She looked up at him, and saw the guilt in his eyes. He wasn't wicked; there was just nothing he could do for his crime. "Why did it have to turn out this way?" Rose whispered brokenly.

  "Bad luck?" Swain supplied.

  Jasper had his dagger out, playing at slitting his wrists. Rose shuddered as she found part of herself wishing he'd do it. She didn't want to have to bear looking at him every day, and reliving the memory of what he'd done. "You've got to take responsibility," she said.

  "And die?" The dagger edged towards his wrist.

  He'd killed a woman for no reason but to protect himself in the despair of panic, when he hadn't even been the one to mistakenly kill her husband. Normally, Rose would have thought he deserved to die. But he was her friend. "Then don't." Saying the words, she felt as though she'd died inside. But she grabbed his arm, and took the knife away.

  #

  Rose would not speak to her companions while they made their way back to the Watch House, and tried to avoid even looking at them as she struggled to pass the days. She thought she saw ghosts at the windows and in the bushes outside, and could no longer concentrate on anything.

  The image of the mayor's wife falling dead at Jasper's hand haunted her day and night, and sometimes she considered revealing his secret. But then she'd condemn Bert as well, Bert who had only tried to help and failed, and to a lesser extent herself and Swain. She hardly cared about any punishment she might face for her incompetence, but she wouldn't see Bert die.

  Things got worse when Merrick returned, and brought with him news of the mayoral couple's death. Most of the Watch House was shocked, except for Rose and her patrolmates. She almost broke down at the sight of their stoic faces. It wasn't right. They couldn't just ignore their sins. Merrick revealed how the kidnappers had been found dead along with the couple, and theorized that a failed attempt at rescue might have led to their deaths. Rose looked at her feet as he talked—and he caught her, recognizing her behavior to be strange.

  "What's wrong?" he asked after the briefing, walking over to sit by her side. "You look really upset."

  "It was a tragic thing, and more so if they did die for the fault of people trying to help them."

  He nodded. "I see what you mean. There's no justice to get for them, now that their kidnappers are dead."

  Except maybe on their true killers. She wanted so much to tell him right now. Instead, she said, "No, there isn't. It's all a shame."

  "Don't dwell on it too much. Tragedies happen every day, and if you get so worked up over everyone you didn't know, who you weren't even involved with, it'll destroy you sooner than later."

  But she had very much been involved. Though maybe it had been her lack of involvement at the end that had brought doom. "Merrick, what do you think hurts more, doing nothing, or trying and failing?"

  He looked into her eyes and blinked, surely seeing the depth of her hurt. Rose wondered for a moment if he might realize she'd been closer to the crime than she was letting on, but he didn't seem to as he said, "Doing nothing for sure. If I failed, at least I tried."

  That was what she thought, too. Except that if it had been her knife in the mayor's throat, how would she feel now? Worse, she knew. Would she even be able to go on? But he was right. She might have succeeded where Bert had failed. She'd let fear steal her chance, and perhaps everyone had paid the price. "We should all be so brave."

  "We should."

  And she would, she decided with self-directed rage boiling inside. From now on, she would always react. A choice not made was as good as picking the worst choice.

  #

  Rose kept seeing ghosts in the shadows, and could not bring herself to reconcile with her friends. She truly was alone now. Even the watchmen who hadn't been on the trip avoided her, disdaining her sullen state. She began to hate daily life, and dreamed of running away. The only thing that kept her here was Merrick's continued ignorant sympathy and friendship, which she deserved none of. Soon, there would have to be an end. She couldn't take this much longer.

  She could have counted the days until Niles' scheduled retirement on one hand when the quick tap at the door came. By now, she would have welcomed promotion, if only to escape her suffering here. It was a hasty knock, and she wondered if someone was in trouble. Before she even opened the door, she smelled blood, and knew something was wrong.

  But she only prepared herself to see a wounded or even dying person, and so her heart nearly leapt up her throat in horror when she opened the door. Four severed heads lay on the Watch House's doorstep, heads she recognized as belonging to comrades. One of them was Krebs. A note bound to each by their hair gave a hideous message in blood—"You're next."

  There were no dissenters as Merrick told them what they had to do, though Jasper still looked far too scared. They were going to hunt these killers down and avenge their dead comrades. Of that, there was little doubt. But what Rose did wonder was how they would find the killers of their fellow watchmen; she was not used to such things, yet.

  It was when Merrick told her just how they would find their enemy that she began to protest. Apparently, whoever had delivered the heads had left an obvious trail through the forest for them to follow, and even without much experience Rose was sure it had to be a trap. Merrick agreed, but didn't react the way she wanted him to.

  "We'll deal with it as it comes. If we know what's coming, how much of a surprise can it be?"

  "We don't what kind of trap it'll be. And they have to be confident, to even try such a thing."

  "Don't be a coward," Huey said with a smirk, as if inviting her to continue making herself look weak in arguing her case. But it was beyond their feud now, and Rose wished he'd see that. All their lives were at risk.

  "Merrick, please. Let's be cautious. We don't know how many of them are out there, or how good they are."

  "They're bandits," he replied in a voice quivering with rage, "and we're watchmen. They'll break like they always do."

  Yes, they were watchmen. And bandits could kill watchmen, as men could kill other men. Rose looked to her old friends for help, but only found the same outrage which blinded Merrick to the great danger they faced. She wasn't against seeking justice, herself furious at the murder of her comrades, but she didn
't want to see herself slaughtered too.

  Jasper tried to help her, saying, "Maybe we should ask one of the other Watch Houses for help."

  Merrick shook his head. "If we take the time to do that, we'll lose their trail."

  "But it's a trail to a trap."

  "And we know it, and we'll be ready."

  There would be no compromise today, and unfortunately the weight of numbers and seniority did not fall in Rose's favor. Here, only the worst of the House—and the man she knew a murderer—was on her side. She knew she was right, but apparently there was no changing Merrick's mind. Dammit, there had to be some way for her to protect her friends! But how? She would fight for them, she thought. That was all she could do.

  So she followed Merrick and the rest, imagining a score of ways they might fall to the enemy's plans. But none of them proved the way it would actually happen. The bandits did not shower them with arrows or catch them in some treacherous device, but instead charged straight out of the bushes as they crossed a river on the way.

  Bandits, Rose thought they were, but for a moment she wasn't sure if they were men. Their bodies were covered with foliage as though to pass themselves off as part of the forest itself, and it worked to some extent; they had hidden themselves long enough, and were poised to meet the watchmen when they stepped off the bridge. But Rose reacted before her comrades could and charged ahead, quickly striking at the first opponent she saw. She sliced through his side before he could react, yet the rest rushed right past her to engage her fellow watchmen. She turned, and saw a hulking bandit with two swords thrust a blade through Swain's mouth.

  Furious, she screamed and rushed that man. He ducked her first blow casually and began to circle her, smiling. "A girl? You really think you can beat the masters of the Lukor who will kill you all, and their master at that?"

  So he was the leader. "I've beaten a lot of things other people thought I couldn't. You won't be the first." Glimpsing the rest of the battle behind him though, she began to doubt. If anything, the watchmen outnumbered their attackers, and yet they were losing. These bandits moved so fast, it was as if they were somehow more than human...