Two Visits

Rowan and Arabel were awake when the war horn blew. They rarely slept much, merely rags between them and frozen ground. The coals of the hearth died early.

Across the square, faces materialized at tiny windows, bitter and pale as disturbed spirits. Eyes drifted to the great hall, where flickering light and laughter spilled from every crevice. With the visiting duke's guard in the stable, Arabel decided nothing short of the Rapture troubled Lord Merik.

Rowan whispered, joining his sister at the window. Ungodly stench assaulted them, but years as neighbors to horses made the bouquet of manure almost friendly. "Graybloods?"

"Oh, please." Arabel hissed.

Rowan was nearly a man, but towering height and a deep voice only exaggerated his childishness. He hounded traveling merchants for tales of the ruthless, pillaging Grayblood Horde. Stories that ended with only a banner, planted in grisly remains.

“They say their ranks keep growing – they raise the slaughtered to join them.”

“I wish Father knocked this nonsense out of you.”

“Father would've believed the nonsense!” Rowan said, catching his rising voice. “Or don't you remember?”

“It’s been long,” Arabel replied, gripping the windowsill harder.

Her tongue was always sharp, but now her whole body felt drawn like a bow. She debated who to shoot first, given the chance. The visiting duke who'd stolen their parents, or her brother's macabre fantasy.

A grunt begged Arabel’s attention – a wall sentry. Silhouetted against the dusty sky of imminent dawn, he clawed at two arrows in his chest. His partner scrambled for the horn, but changed his mind when a feather-tipped shaft sprouted from his neck.

A sound like thunder crossed with a wild drum beat flooded the night, becoming a tremor in the ground itself. Ravens in the forest scattered.The plank across the wooden gate snapped like a twig. Twenty riders descended, in mail and heavy ashen cloaks – save for the first, his flowing cape the deep crimson of a fresh wound.

The duke abandoned his feast and staggered, yelling, toward the stable, but Red Cape was gaining fast, arrow already notched. Just as Arabel realized it pointed at her, Rowan pulled her inside, under the table.

Guards roared, freeing their steel; a deaf hail of arrows hitting their mark answered. The siblings took rare, quiet breaths. A door shattered. Pleading, groveling. Two thuds. Horses paced and sputtered, then all foreign sounds receeded, surrendering to the caws of returning ravens.

Arabel was confused, almost insulted. What of razing the town? Certainly they'd seen her!

"It could be a trap," Rowan grabbed his sister's arm, face knotted with concern.

"Die cowering, then." Arabel stood.

She kicked the door. Chills swept her at the sight of a banner, billowing in the square. A red eagle, snatching gray fish from a black bear. Below it, a buckler lay, not quite flush with the ground. Her brother lagging behind, Arabel approached the shield, steadying her breath. Faces returned to windows, bathed by sunrise. She lifted it.

The head of the drunken duke and the bulbous, ginger visage of Lord Merik. Arabel gasped, then let herself smirk.

"There's writing," Rowan said, flipping the buckler. Blood made for ink.

"What's it say?"

"Come... west."

Arabel appraised the stable. Corpses of royal guard littered it, trapping two nervous animals. The king had good reason to paint Graybloods as butchers, Arabel thought, but their army consisted very much of the living. Living volunteers.

Shielding her eyes from sun and grinning, she elbowed Rowan. "Would you like to be part of those stories you love so much?"