Kingdom's Fall

Chapter 1, Part 2

In the seconds after the door swung shut, after the noise and confusion of the scuffle, silence reigned in the taproom. Motes of dust scampered in the long shafts of light. A pike hung from the ceiling where it had been inadvertently speared into a joint between two beams, wedged too tight to fall under its own weight. Kara stood at the top of the stairs looking down at the two peace men who remained. One was older, a broad-faced, florid man whose grin widened as he looked from Garven to Kara and back again. The younger one was Finbar. Barely eighteen years old, she had known him since they were both children. He was more muscle than brain, used to lifting bales of hay and doing whatever his mother told him to. He avoided Kara’s gaze. There was a numbing certainty in the blankness of his expression. He was one of the peace-men now, and would follow their lead, childhood friend or not. Garven shifted uneasily behind the bar, but made no move to come round it. He’d always been selfish but until now she’d never thought him a coward. So this is what it comes to, she thought. This is his limit.

“So.” The older peace-man clapped his hands together, the sound loud and meaty. “Where’s the gold, then?”

Kara looked at her father, who looked back in confusion. “Wh-what gold?”

The man tipped his head towards the door. “You heard Calum. ‘Traitor and spy,’ he said. Now I don’t know about you, but we reckon someone’d have to pay the King’s Man a lot to get him to turn against his country. You’ve had him here almost a week, which is plenty time for you to have gone through his things and taken it.” He lifted his chin and spoke brightly, like a schoolmaster calling the class to order. “So. What’s it going to be? Will you give us the gold now, or are we going to have to ask more than once?” He looked up at Kara. “You still have all your fingers, don’t you lass?”

Her father broke then, stumbling out from behind the bar in a rush, the club he kept under it rattling free. He made straight for the older man and walked straight into Finbar’s fist. The young peace-man watched him fall, arm cocked for another blow, as Garven crumpled to the floor.

Kara turned on her heels and ran. Over the clatter of her own feet, she heard Finbar ordered after her. He was a big lad, and his steps shuddered up through the stairs like thunder. She took the turn on the landing at speed, almost losing her balance as she went round it, and was down the hall to her room before he made the top step.

Kara shut the door and locked it, grateful that her father had fitted a sturdy one that gave her peace from guests going wandering in the night-time. For all the greed in him, he’d never let anyone take advantage of her.

She wasn’t entirely without options, though. Aiden had seen to that just by turning up. As the first impact hit with an almighty bang - and held, thank the Gods - Kara was piling through his belongings, pulling aside the plaid that it had been bundled in, searching for the weapons that lay underneath. The pistol came first, the wooden grip reassuringly heavy with the weight of the thick-set barrel, and she turned it in her hands in the hope that she might be able to load it. She had never seen one before, only heard of them, but  she knew it needed powder and a ball. She searched for both and found neither, and in the time it took her there was a second blow at the door. It shuddered under the man’s weight, and she put the gun to the side. Aiden’s dagger came next. Free of its sheath, it was completely different to her idea of what a knife should be. The blade was almost a foot long, thick, double-edged, and so clean she could see herself in it, her white cap gone, eyes wide with panic. Held with the blade downward, it sat in her fist as though crafted to fit there, the round pommel fitting perfectly against her thumb. It would do. She got up, dragged her chair to the wall next to the door, stood on it, and waited.

Finbar hit the door again, so hard that he must have taken a good run at it. The door flexed on the lock, but held. Before he could charge it again, Kara ducked quickly and turned the key, unlocking the door so that it sat on the latch.