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It would be stupid to die like this. Absolutely, unforgivably stupid.
He'd known the spidrens in the Royal Forest had been getting bolder with winter coming. He knew better than to venture too far off the road by himself. He knew it was dangerous, but the road had been crowded with riders and carriages returning to Corus for the season, and he'd wanted peace. He was Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak, Knight Commander of the King's Own, the Giantkiller—he could surely handle a quiet afternoon ride on his own.
And now he was going to die, and it was too embarrassing for words.
Raoul had been annoyed with Jon, and being annoyed with Jon made him want to drink, and when he wanted to drink in the Palace where alcohol was only a polite request away, the only thing he could do was leave. So he had left, and it had been fine, and the crisp air and the sound of fallen leaves crunching under Amberfire's hooves had settled him again. But he'd been too busy thinking about Jon being a prat and emphatically not thinking about how good a whiskey would taste right now, and he hadn't seen the wretched webs until it was far too late.
Amberfire, poor girl, had bolted as soon as the spidren web had grazed her flank. Raoul knew how much that shit burned and hadn't blamed his horse a jot when she threw him and tore off into the woods. He probably would have done the same, if he'd been a horse.
Raoul was not a horse, however, he was a stupid, stupid man, and Buri was going to be furious with him when he turned up dead.
Gingerly he tested his knee. He'd hit the ground badly and had heard the sort of pop that was never a good sound for a joint to make, especially when one was no longer a young man and was, instead, a middle-aged idiot. The knee buckled painfully and sent him sprawling to the ground in a chorus of muffled curses.
He needed to move. There was no chance the foul creatures didn't know he was here. He searched for a sapling he could use for a splint or a crutch or both, and only then realized his sword was strapped to his saddle and probably halfway back to the palace stables by now.
"Fuck."
He still had his bow slung across his back—Raoul hardly ever hunted anymore, but it was a convenient excuse when he just needed to breathe—and he freed it, grateful Buri had finally convinced him to carry a recurve. He'd never be able to fire a longbow with his knee completely fucked.
Eyes on the trees, Raoul dragged himself towards a sapling and hacked at it with his belt knife. It was slow going, and the shadows were deepening. He needed to hurry.
Kel was waiting for him, back at the palace. Ilane and Piers had invited him to some "moon-viewing" party, and he'd accepted, even though the idea of being around that many people drinking made him itch all over, because Kel wanted him to be there. Because Kel had asked him in that quiet, hopeful way of hers that he could never refuse. Because it would be easier to cut off his own arm than deny her anything.
They had planned to walk to the city together; he wondered if she was worried, yet.
Dusk was fully set in by the time he sawed through the sapling. The webs strung through the trees started to glow faintly in the growing dark. He was running out of time. He trimmed the sapling hurriedly, and snapped it in half by bracing it against a tree.
"What do we have here, my sweets?" a grating voice hissed from the canopy. Raoul rose onto his good knee, ignoring the stabbing ache in the other, and swung his bow up, knocking an arrow. The shadows were thick, but he could just make out a big female spidren grinning ferally down at him, flanked by two smaller males. Her teeth flashed in the twilight. "A large enough treat to feed all my boys."
Raoul didn't wait to see what the monsters would do, and loosed. His arrow glanced off a branch and spun off into the trees, but he already had another knocked. He fired again as the creatures advanced, and hit one of the males in the middle of his hairy spider body. He screamed and tumbled from the trees as the other two charged.
With his heart pounding in his ears, Raoul knocked another arrow.
He'd told Kel he'd meet her. He'd promised to be there. He'd never let her down before.
The female spidren shot a string of web at him, and Raoul threw himself to the side. His knee roared in pain; his head swam and shadows crept in more darkly around the edges of his vision. Raoul forced himself back up onto his good knee—now was not the time to pass out.
He fired again, hitting the remaining male spidren with a glancing shot that didn't even slow him down. They were almost on top of him, now, but it was too dark, and they were moving too fast, and he couldn't see—
—and fuck, Kel was going to be so upset.
Raoul reached for another arrow, his fingertips finding the fletching that was smoother, sleeker than the others.
Some of these are for you, sir.
Raoul knocked the griffin-fletched arrow and fired.
He struck the male right in the throat. The creature couldn't even scream as he died and crashed to the forest floor. The female gave a nerve-shredding shriek and scurried above Raoul, obscured by the twisting branches and the growing dark. He had only a moment before she'd drop down on top of him.
Raoul searched the canopy, but he couldn't see her. He knocked another of Kel's arrows. One of the last.
There had been a dozen, originally, and they'd been beautiful—crafted with her sure and steady hand when she was still his squire. Kel could have sold them for ten gold a piece, if she were that kind of person, but she wasn't. Instead, she'd given them to him. It had been a gift fit for a king; he still wasn't sure he'd deserved it.
He'd lost or broken most of them, over the years—it had been a long time since she'd left his care and become the knight he'd always known she would be—but there were still a few left. There were enough, for this.
"Time to die, filth," the spidren hissed from the darkness.
Raoul drew the bowstring back to his ear, and the griffin feathers brushed his cheek. He listened to the movement of the trees and aimed…
"Please," he whispered.
The arrow flew unerringly into the night.
There was a shocked, choking howl, and then the sound of shattering branches, and Raoul had to roll out of the way again as the huge, furry body plummeted to the dirt.
Raoul groaned as his knee throbbed, and he let himself lie in the leaf litter for a moment and simply breathe. Breathing was good.
The forest was blissfully still, but Raoul knew that wouldn't last. Where there were three spidrens, there would be more. He needed to get out of here.
He scrabbled blindly in the dirt for the sapling he'd cut and strapped the pieces to either side of his leg with long strips of his burnoose. Using one of the branches the big spidren had broken off in her fall, Raoul levered himself upright, and began hobbling toward the road.
The moon was huge and full tonight, and watery light filtered through the half-bare trees to guide him. The Mindelans' moon-viewing party had probably already started, complete with poetry and stargazing and whatnot. Kel was probably worried about him. He didn't like to think about her worrying. She carried too much already, kept too much inside. His job was to take things off her shoulders, not weigh her down.
Pain beat a steady rhythm through his leg, but he pushed through it. If he was lucky, there would already be a search party looking for him; he just needed to get to the road. The forest fought him every step of the way with brambles that tore at his clothes, and sucking mud that tried to steal his crutch, and tree roots that threatened to send him sprawling. Still, he pressed on, ignoring the exhaustion, and the pain, and the tedious, treacherous part of himself that, even now, wanted nothing more than a drink.
He was so fucking tired of himself. Staying away from drink was far better than the alternative, and it had gotten easier with time, but it was work that had no end—a tedious vigilance. Some days it was fine, and some days it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.
It had been easiest when Kel was with him. He'd known she was special, even before he'd taken her on. He'd known she was hardworking, and determined, and tougher than nails. He'd known she needed someone like him on her side. What he hadn't known was that her fierce heart and unwavering resolve would steady him, though he was supposed to be the master and she the student, or that he would begin getting out of bed every day for her, and not just because the alternative was unacceptable. He hadn't known that seeing himself through her eyes would heal something inside himself that had been broken for longer than he could remember.
And then Kel had gone into the Chamber and come out a knight, and Raoul had had to let her go. The world needed her more than he did, anyway.
His crutch slipped on a stone, and Raoul went down with a crash. Pain lanced through his leg and ripped a cry out of his throat. The forest went still around him, and Raoul panted in the dirt, waiting for the pain to dull.
Somewhere behind him, branches rustled in the canopy. Something was moving them, and it wasn't the wind.
Raoul cursed and forced himself up. He didn't have time to wallow; he had people waiting for him.
He limped as fast as he could through the dark forest, with only the moon to guide him. The road had to be this way. He was sure of it. Just a little further.
The sound of snapping branches and rustling leaves grew louder behind him. Raoul didn't bother to look around; he only put his head down and tried to move faster.
Gods blast it, he was not going to die here. Not tonight.
Just when he'd lost hope of ever finding it, Raoul emerged out of the undergrowth and onto the hard-packed dirt of the road. The moon shone bright in a cloudless sky, lighting the way home.
"Thanks the Goddess," he breathed, and began hobbling down the road. Perhaps he'd get out of this, after all.
As soon as he thought it, a gravelly voice screeched from the trees: "There's the rat-spawn!"
Raoul cursed and turned. A pack of spidrens lurked in the canopy at the edge of the road. There were a lot of them, at least eight, but none of them were as big as the ones he'd already killed. The largest one in front was carrying an axe.
He'd have to kneel down to use his bow, but he'd be vulnerable and slow—well, slower—on the ground. If they caught him in a web, he was done for.
Fuck.
The time for subtlety was over. If there was a search party looking for him, they might be close enough to get here in time. If not…
Raoul whistled long and loud—a signal any of his men would recognize. Then he threw down his crutch and prepared to fight for his life.
"You killed our mother!" one of the littlest ones wailed.
Raoul's retort was an arrow to the creature's screaming face. He knocked and fired again as the spidren's body was still falling, and managed to graze the big one with the axe before any of the monsters had realized what had happened. He fired a third time, killing another small one, and then there were only six.
The big one raised his axe and screamed: "Kill it! Kill it!"
But the spidrens couldn't figure out if they wanted to charge at him over the open ground of the road, or skirt alongside him in the trees. In the moment of their indecision, Raoul grabbed up his crutch and hobbled further away, before kneeling down and firing again. This shot missed entirely, and disappeared into the forest.
He counted his arrows with his fingertips. Only four left.
The littler ones stayed in the trees, scuttling alongside the road through the canopy. Raoul spent two precious arrows killing one of them. Then, the three largest ones charged towards him on the road; the one with the axe in front.
Well. There was no getting out of it, now. But if he was going to die here, he'd at least put up a good fight.
He managed to hit the leader in his flank, but it didn't slow him. Raoul knocked his final arrow, the one he'd been saving; the griffin feathers were soft and sleek against his cheek as he drew. His very last shot.
"Please," he whispered.
A gold-fletched arrow sprouted from the center of the spidren's forehead, and Raoul blinked, dumbfounded, as the monster fell dead in an instant.
He hadn't fired.
And then he heard it—the sound of horns and the thunder of hooves and, best of all, Kel's clarion voice yelling: "Charge!"
Smarter creatures would have fled, but the other spidrens in the road reared up to attack just as a full squad of the King's Own galloped past Raoul, flowing around their commander like a river around a rock. They were dead in moments.
Heart still racing, Raoul collapsed, and his bow fell from fingers that had suddenly gone numb.
"Torches!" Kel called. She was out in front of the squad still, the blade of her glaive flashing bright in the silver moonlight. "Find the others!"
Raoul let his eyes fall closed, clasped his hands together tight, and sighed, "Gods all bless."
"You can say that again," Buri rasped, and suddenly his wife was in his arms. Her hands checked him for injuries while her mouth alternated between insulting him and kissing every inch of his face, according to her mood. He wrapped an arm around her waist, feeling strangely weak, and tugged her against his chest. She cupped his cheeks in both her hands and scolded, "Don't you ever do that again, you dolt."
"Whatever you say, wife," he sighed, and let her kiss him some more.
Someone near his knee said, "This is going to sting a bit."
"Queenscove," Raoul sighed. To Buri, he said, "You couldn't have brought Alanna?"
"The Venerable Lioness was already at the Mindelans' townhouse, and I was not," Neal explained with a sniff. "So you are stuck with me."
Then Neal did something with a gesture and a flash of green light and something popped painfully inside his knee, and then the pain suddenly, blissfully receded. He sagged in his wife's arms and muttered, "I guess you'll do."
Neal ignored that and said, "Let's get you ahorse, and I'll see to the rest back at the palace."
"We brought Drum," Buri explained as Raoul gathered up his crutch again. He wasn't sure if he could stand. Buri steadied him as he tried to lever himself up with the broken branch. She swallowed hard and said, "When Amberfire came back without you…"
Then a strong arm was around his waist, and a calm, steady voice added, "We came looking."
"Kel," Raoul breathed, and dropped his makeshift crutch to sling an arm across her broad shoulders. She held firm, feet planted, and braced him on his wounded side.
"I'm here, sir. I've got you."
Raoul didn't deserve her—had never deserved her—and yet here she was: the best thing he'd ever done, holding him together one more time.
Raoul had always been weak, and he gave into that weakness, and let himself lean on Kel. His forehead came to rest against hers, and if she saw the tears in his eyes, she was kind enough not to mention them.
Kel held him a little tighter, lifted him up a little higher, and said, "Are you all right, sir?"
He smiled. She would never know what she had done for him, not truly. It wasn't in her nature. A mighty oak does not notice when someone shelters in its branches from a storm.
"Course I am," Raoul told her. "You saved me."