Page 21 of The Iron Hex

She turned slowly, her hollow voice chuckling. “You are a fool for fighting me, Venton.”

Shit.

She swung, and Hugo dodged her—barely. He turned to try to swing back but she was already there, swinging again, but this time it connected. The greatsword slammed into Hugo’s shoulder, the blade slicing through his leathers and into his flesh. Pain flared and heat flushed through his body as he felt blood trickle down his shirt.

Eira gasped in the distance.

Shit, shit,shit.

“Allow me to execute you, and this can be done,” Saoirse spoke, voice hollow and unemotional.

“You chased me all the way here just to execute me for deserting?” he scoffed. “I thought the punishment for desertion was worse than death.”

Hugo needed to goad her, get her thinking that he was going to talk—anything that could give him a leg up in this fight. Saoirse’s sword had connected with the arm Hugo wielded a dagger with, but his sword arm was still capable. He could still fight—for now.

“You are not just a deserter, you are seeking the return ofthe De Clares,” she answered, lumbering toward him. “And for that, you must die.”

How did they know that?She probably just heard you convincing Eira that you needed to find the princess,he thought, realizing the mistake immediately. They should have never had this conversation where someone could overhear them. He moved, feigning to the right and swinging upward with enough force that he hoped he’d cut her sword-wielding arm off.

Eira gasped again from behind him and he knew as he turned around he’d managed it. The sword and Saiorse’s arm lay on the ground, but there was a distinct lack of blood. He looked to his opponent, who was still watching him dispassionately, her armless shoulder a mound of darkened, decaying flesh.

What had they turned her into? Dread filled him as he realized the implications. A soldier that didn’t fall when losing a limb and was inhumanly strong.

No, he thought, mind racing.This is a nightmare.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said, stepping on her discarded sword and pointing his blade at her chest.

She moved quicker than he could react, slamming her remaining hand into his jaw and sending him spinning. Hugo stumbled back, his shoulder throbbing alongside his jaw, which he was fleetingly concerned might be broken.

He looked up and watched Saoirse pick up her greatsword and turn toward him, her once-graceful frame moving with a stiffness he had never seen in her before. As she lifted the greatsword with her remaining arm, seemingly unfazed at the loss of her other limb, he watched her suddenly slump to the ground, revealing Eira standing behind her.

Eira’s hand moved slowly toward her own chest as Hugo glanced down at Saoirse, who now had a dagger Hugo had never seen before embedded in the back of her neck.

He stood slowly, grunting through the pain, and watched asEira stepped over the soldier’s body before pulling her knife out and dropping it on the ground. Hugo stumbled over to Saoirse’s body to check for a pulse and found cold skin under his hand, colder than any of the people he’d killed on battlefields. Something was very, very wrong with whatever they had done to her.

“I could have handled it,” he grunted, scooping up the blade that Eira had dropped with his good arm. “You didn’t need to do that.”

She put her hands on her hips, cocking her eyebrow. “You could have handled it? You were about to be sliced in half!”

“I could have—” Hugo started before standing and then stumbling, his vision tunnelling from losing so much blood as the adrenaline waned.

“We need to get you inside and bandaged,” Eira gasped, and she headed over to support him, looping her arm around his waist and draping his uninjured arm over her shoulder as they stumbled back toward the tavern.

“We need to leave this town,” he said, shaking his head. “We needed to leave hours ago.”

“You’re in no condition to ride,” Eira retorted, pushing the door to the tavern open and skirting them to a set of stairs without stepping into the main area where everyone was still gathered, drinking.

Hugo had never been so grateful that taverns allowed their guests to discreetly avoid crowds if they wished. “You can ride,” Hugo said, gritting his teeth through every step they took. “You’re an incredibly proficient rider. Arthur is a good horse, he’ll run for you.”

“This is why I don’t think I am who you say I am, because I don’t ride horses,” she answered, breathing heavily as she heaved him up the stairs.

“You do,” Hugo answered breathily as his vision darkened, and they stepped into their shared room.

13

Rhona

Things had changed since the Iron Empire had taken control of Astra. The nobles that had bent the knee to Lord General Kerrigan’s rule had continued to be an integral part of the Astran economy. The lord general, keenly intelligent man that he was, had known the importance of keeping some semblance of the world that the citizens of the empire had once known. Keeping the people calm and feeling like their whole lives wouldn’t be uprooted was important during a regime change, and maintaining the status and heads of noble houses—many of whom had businesses that employed large swaths of Astra’s people—ensured that the transition of power had been as painless as possible.