Duke Bond

Flynn could perceive the gang attaining a vital mass the day two bigs brought him lunch and crouched with him on the veranda. It was a prophecy. He'd never surmised that any of the bigs would follow him. Why would they? He was a nonentity.

And then he saw his mistake. He'd never made plans for what to perpetrate when bigs joined him. Across the yard, Marlian crouched, depressing, coughing blood and looking hopeless.

I'm so silly. Rat had been waiting for this. He'd organized for Flynn to be a hero. He'd even confided him. This wasn't getting on to be a coup. It was getting on to be a purge.

" Father, please, don't go." Arthur Bond clenched his father's destrier, disregarding the predawn chill and clasping back tears.

" No, relinquish it," Duke Bond instructed Wendel North, his steward, who was directing servants with cabinets vast of the duke's costume.

"But I need a thousand wool robes sent within a week. Utilize our funds and don't ask for a reimbursement. I don't wish to give the king an excuse to say no." He clamped gauntleted hands behind his back.

"I don't realize what form the garrison's stalls are in, but I'd love to have word from Havermere of how many horses they can send before winter."

" Already accomplished, my lord."

On every flank, servants were arriving and leaving, packing the wagons that would drift north with provisions and supplies. A hundred Bond knights concocted their last-minute preparations, surveying their harnesses, horses, and weapons.

Servants who would be vacating their families said snappy goodbyes.

Duke Bond swivelled to Arthur, and only discerning his father in his mail brought tears of pride and suspicion to Arthur's eyes.

"Son, you're twelve years old."

"I can fight. Even Master Vorden acknowledges that I handle a sword practically as well as the soldiers."

"Arthur, it isn't because I don't believe in your proficiency that I'm making you stay. It's because I do. The reality is, your mother needs you here more than I need you in the mountains."

"But I wish to get on with you."

" And I don't want to flee at all. It doesn't have anything to accomplish with what we want."

"Jasin asserted Niner is aiming to humiliate you. He said it's a disrespect for a duke to be bestowed such a minor command."

He didn't remark the other things Jasin had asserted. Arthur didn't consider himself quick-tempered, but in the three months since King Davin had deceased and Duhan Gunder had assumed the title Duhan IX— known condescendingly as Niner—Arthur had been in half a dozen combats.

" And what do you think, son?"

"I don't think you're scared of anyone."

"So Jasin mumbled I was scared, did he? Is that where you got the scrapes on your knuckles?"

Arthur smirked abruptly. He was as gigantic as his father, and if he didn't have Magnus Bond's bulk yet, their guards master Ren Vorden asserted it was just a matter of time. When Arthur combated other boys, he didn't lose.

"Son, make no blunder. Commanding the garrison at Howling Winds is subtle, but it's nicer than exile or demise. If I dwell, the king will offer me one or the other someday. Each summer, you'll come parade with my men, but I need you here, as well. For half the year you'll be my sights and ears in Aquilia. Your mother—" he laid off and glanced past Arthur.

"Thinks your father is a fool," Catrinna Bond mumbled, emerging behind them abruptly.

She had been born to another ducal family, the Graesins, and she had their green eyes, petite characteristics, and disposition. Despite the early hour, she was dressed in a gorgeous green silk gown hemmed with ermine, her fur stroked and polished.

"Magnus, if you get on that horse, I never wish to see you come back."

" Catrinna, we aren't having this conversation again."

"That jackal will fling you against my household, you realize that. Eradicate you, eradicate them—he triumphs no matter what."

" This is your household, Catrinna. And I've made my decision." Duke Bond's vocalist held up with a strap gash of authority, a rim that made Arthur wish to dwindle and not be recognized.

" Which of your harlots are you putting up with you?"

"I' m not putting up with any of the maidservants, Catrinna, though some of them will be difficult to replace. I'm vacating them here out of regard for your—"

"How foolish do you feel I am? You'll simply find sluts there."

" Catrinna. Move inside. Now!"

She heeded and Duke Bond gawked her go. He enunciates without whirling toward Arthur. "Your mother . . . there is stuff I'll share with you when you're aged. For now, I want you to respect her, but you will be Lord Bond while I'm gone."

Arthur's sights ran wide.

His father smacked him on the shoulder.

"That doesn't imply you get to bypass your lessons. Wendel will tutor you in everything you wish to learn. I vow the man comprehends more about running our territories than I do. I'm just a four-day ride off. You have a fair psyche, son, and that's why you have to stay. This city is a serpent's nest. Some would demolish us. Your mother has discerned clues of that, and it's been part of her difficulties. I'm wagering with you, Arthur. I wish I didn't have to, but you're the only element I have left to fiddle. Amaze them. Be smarter, better, braver, and faster than anyone anticipates. It's not a proper task for me to put on you, but I must. I'm counting on you. House Bond is counting on you. All our retainers and vassals are counting on you, and perhaps even the country itself."

Duke Bond swung up onto his enormous white destrier. "I love you, son. But don't let me down."

The darkness was as near and cold as the dead's embrace. Flynn crouched against the aisle embankment, aiming the night breeze draped the pitch of thunder in his heart. The fifth big who'd joined him had looted a shiv from Rat's weapons throb, and Flynn clenched the thin metal so tightly his hand ache.

There was yet no action in the aisle. Flynn squeezed the sword in the silt of the aisle and plop his hands in his armpits to keep them warm. Nothing might transpire for

hours. It didn't matter. He was driving out of chances. He'd consumed so much time as it was.

Rat wasn't stupid. He was vicious, but he had schemes. Flynn didn't. He'd been thrashing in his panic for three months. Thrashing when he could have been planning.

The Fist had disclosed his intents. That made it susceptible enough. Flynn realized some of what he was scheming; all he had to accomplish was piece together how.

Now, as he thought, he could feel himself sliding into Rat's membrane all extremely handily, reckoning Rat's thoughts.

A purge isn't decent enough. A purge will offer me protection for a couple of years. Other guild heads have slain to conserve their superiority.

Slaying doesn't make me different. Flynn toiled on the notion. Rat didn't have minor intentions. Rat had bottled up his hostility for three months. Why would he be willing to not even whack Flynn for three months?

Devastation. That's what it came down to. Rat would eradicate him in astonishing style. He would assuage his brutality and improve his power. He would perform something so horrible that Flynn would come to be a story the guilds would tell.

He might not even slay him, simply leave him wounded in some dreadful way so that everyone who met Flynn would fear Rat more.

There was a shuffling pitch in the aisle and Flynn tensed. Gradually, so slowly, he drew the shiv. The aisle was tight, the edifices drooping so near a grown man could reach both embankments at the same time. Flynn had selected it for that purpose. He wouldn't allow his prey to slide past him.

But now the embankments appeared malevolent, spanning hungry fingers toward each other, closing out the stars, yanking for him. Wind muttered over the roofs, telling stories of homicide.

Flynn heeded the shuffle also and loosened up. A scarred old rat ensued from

under a heap of mouldering boards and sniffed. Flynn clenched still as the rat wobbled onward. It sniffed at Flynn's bare feet, jabbed them with a wet nose, and sensing no threat, strode onward to nourish.

Just as the rat moved to the crunch, Flynn concealed the shiv behind its ear and into the ground beneath. It tugged but didn't squeak. He rescinded the tiny iron, appeased with his stealth. He surveyed the aisle also. Yet nothing.

So where am I weak? What would I accomplish to demolish me if I were Rat? Something tingled his neck and he brushed it away. Curse the bugs.

Bugs? It's freezing out here. His hand reached down from his inlet warm and sticky.

Flynn swivelled and lashed out, but the shiv got on twirling from his hand as something smashed his wrist.

Ryan Smith leaned on his heels not a foot away. He didn't speak. He only gazed, his eyes colder than the night.

There was a long pause as they gazed at each other, neither mumbling a word.

"You saw the rat," Flynn let out.

An eyebrow lifted.

"You cut me where I cut it. You were showing me that you're as much better than me as I am better than the rat."

An indication of a smile. "A weird little guild rat you are. So clever, so stupid."

Flynn peeked at the shiv—now magically in Ryan's hand—and felt humiliated. He was silly. What had he been speculating? He was getting on to jeopardize a Rudeboy?

But he asserted, "I' m getting on to apprentice with you."