Morgarten (Book 2 of the Forest Knights) (15 page)

Seraina laughed and splashed her way toward him.

“We found them!”

With a shriek of pure joy, she grabbed his hand and
pulled him after her through the frigid water.

When they were done, the beach was filled with
swords, like pieces of driftwood strewn about after a storm. Thomas
was blue when he came out of the water, and his fingers could not
work flint and steel, so Seraina had built a small, sheltered fire
amongst the trees. Thomas had put his clothes back on and gave
Seraina his blanket, which she wrapped about herself while her own
clothes dried next to the fire. By the time darkness set in, they
had finished a quick meal of melted cheese on toasted bread with
berry jam.

Seraina was still high from the afternoon’s events
and she talked non-stop.

“How did they get here?” Thomas asked, when he could
get a word in.

“I cannot say for sure, but Gildas used to tell me
stories of how some people would collect them after battles and
hide them. Some tribes burned their dead, and they would often
throw a warrior’s sword in a lake or river, as a way to maintain
balance. And by not destroying the sword, it would be waiting for
him to reclaim when he was reborn.”

“But how is it that they are in such good condition?
The first few were quite rusty, but most of the others need only a
slight filing and their edges honed.”

“It is the silt in this particular part of the
lake,” Seraina said. “If they are buried under even a thin layer,
it will protect them for centuries.”

Thomas stood and put two pieces of wood on the fire.
He was still cold and would have given anything for a drink of
Max’s kirsch.

“The question is, how do we get all of these back to
Altdorf?” Seraina asked.

“I have given that some thought. How far are we from
the Kussnacht? Specifically, the shoreline at the bottom of the
road where I found you and Gissler?”

Seraina’s face darkened for a moment. The memory of
being held prisoner in a cage wagon bound for a session with
Leopold’s inquisitors would do that to anyone, Thomas thought.

But then she looked up. Her eyes widened, the whites
of them clearly visible in the firelight.

“You think the boat is still there?”

“How did you know I had the use of a boat?” Thomas
did not recall telling her how he had overcome Leopold’s guards,
with Ruedi’s help, and stolen the small sail boat.

“How else could you have gotten to me so fast?
Surely they would have found it by now. Unless you took the time to
hide it.”

“I was in something of a rush, so no, I did not
conceal it very well. But I had some good speed when I ran it
aground. It is a little further in the trees than one would
normally expect to find a boat.”
Some very good speed. Ungodly
even.

Seraina smiled, like she had heard Thomas’s
thought.

“We can hide the swords here, and try to find the
boat tomorrow,” she said. “Then, you can put me and the swords
ashore near Altdorf and you can take the boat back to your dock. It
will be your new ferry.” She said it all matter-of-factly, like it
was the most obvious of plans and had already been decided.

Well, it had not been decided by everyone.

“I mean to be in Altdorf when Leopold comes,” Thomas
said. “I think you know that.”

Seraina turned her head and stared at the fire. “You
cannot,” she said.

I cannot?

Thomas felt a laugh building inside. But it was a
cruel, mocking thing and he refused to let it escape. “And why not?
You heard Mera. Noll needs every sword he can gather.”
And even
then….

Seraina turned on him. “Because you cannot!”

She turned to stare at the fire once again and spoke
to the flames. “I have seen something. Something terrible, and I do
not pretend to understand it. But I believe if you are in Altdorf
when the Austrians come, you will die, Thomas.”

“A lot of people will die. We are beyond that now,”
Thomas said.

She pulled her knees up to her chin and looked over
them at Thomas. “I know what you are doing,” she said. “You have
given up, and this is your way of taking your own life.”

“That is a sin,” Thomas said. “And a ridiculous
thought.”

“Is it? So you feel Noll’s army has nothing to fear.
The Austrians will crash against the Altdorf fortress and be thrown
back like drops of rain from oiled leather. Is that what you think,
Thomas?”

The dark laugh that he had so far kept in check,
finally crawled out of his throat. “We will be slaughtered to a
man! Leopold will reclaim his precious fortress and take up where
he left off. Nothing will have changed. That is what
I
have
seen.”

Thomas stood and began feeding pieces of wood into
the fire. He refused to look at Seraina, so it came as a surprise
when he felt her hand on his arm. She moved her head so he was
forced to look at her.

“No. That is not what the Weave has in store for us.
You must believe me—that much I have seen and I know to be true.”
Her voice cracked. “It is you, Thomas. You that I fear for. Please,
I beg you. You have everything to lose by being part of this.”

Thomas gripped a stick of wood so tightly his
forearm muscles cramped, but he could not let go. He tried to turn
away but her small hand found the left side of his face and pulled
him back to look at her. Somehow, the heat of her hand penetrated
even through the childhood scar.

“Promise me,” she said. “No, you must swear. Swear
to your God, that you will not stand upon the walls of the Altdorf
fortress.”

As he watched her defiantly blink away the tears
threatening the corners of her eyes, he knew then that she could
have asked him for anything, and he would have given it to her. An
image of Sutter and Mera came to him. They would be in Altdorf now,
or close to it. Along with hundreds of other people Thomas did not
know the names of, but people he had come to recognize all the
same. Like the woman in the inn who had given him extra ‘meat’ in
his porridge. When the Austrians finally did come, the lives of
these people would be irrevocably changed for the worse. And that
was the best case scenario.

He knew it was madness, but he would have to accept
Noll’s offer.

“I swear…” he said.

Seraina let out a breath and a soft sigh at the same
time, and while the sigh was still on her lips, she pulled Thomas’s
face down to hers and kissed him. Thomas flinched at first, but the
kiss lingered. Thomas had never known anything so soft in all his
life. The wood in his hand dropped to the ground, and not knowing
what else to do with them, he put his fingers to the side of her
face.

Seraina pulled away from the kiss and smiled at
Thomas, perhaps to suppress a laugh. She took his hand from her
cheek and guided it slowly down the side of her body, all the way
to the small of her back. Even though she had the thick wool
blanket wrapped around her, the sensation of his hand sliding down
over her ribs, skimming the side swell of her breast, and settling
at the hollow of her lower back, filled Thomas with an urgent need
to feel her pressed along the entire length of his body. He
encircled her with both arms and pulled her in tight. Their lips
found each other again.

Thomas opened his eyes. She had misunderstood him.
His oath was not what she thought. He placed his hands on Seraina’s
shoulders and gently broke the embrace. She stepped back, a puzzled
look on her face.

“I did not swear to you because I wanted to… well…
this—,”

Seraina cut him off by reaching out and putting her
hand to his lips.

“Oh, Thomas. How could a man who has seen so much of
this world, have experienced so little?”

She took Thomas’s hand and kissed it. The
combination of the moistness of her lips and the cool night air set
his palm on fire. She stepped back and, with a smooth roll of her
shoulders, let the blanket slide off and fall to the ground. The
firelight flickered across her nude body, turning her skin the same
auburn shade as her hair for a split second, before plunging it
back into shadows.

“Tonight, I think it is time to change that,” she
said.

He had been searching for a way to tell her he had
decided to accept Noll’s request to assume command of the
confederate army. But when Seraina stepped in and kissed his neck,
and he felt the warmth of her bare skin against him, all such
thoughts fled from his mind, and he made no effort to reclaim
them.

He was, after all, merely a servant of life.

Seraina and Thomas crouched in the thickets and
watched as three Habsburg soldiers sat in the sun pulling at pieces
of dried meat for their midday meal. A small, single-masted boat
bobbed a few yards offshore. Its sail was down and a long bow line
tied to a nearby tree was the only thing stopping it from drifting
away. Looking at the amount of ash burnt in the campfire pit,
Seraina felt they could not have been here for more than one,
perhaps two, nights.

If the boat had been grounded high up on the shore,
as Thomas had said, then it were these soldiers who had slid it
back into the water. If only she and Thomas had come a day or two
earlier, Seraina thought, the boat would now be theirs.

She turned to tell Thomas to crawl back through the
brush, but he was already standing. He turned his belt around so
the long dagger was at his back. She whispered his name and he
looked up. He put his finger to his lips, and then motioned for her
to stay put. Before Seraina could stop him, he began walking
noisily toward the soldiers. Trees bent and slapped at him, while
twigs snapped under his boots.

Just when she was sure things could not get worse,
she heard Thomas call out, startling more than one bird out of its
nest.

“Hello at the camp!”

Seraina winced and dropped to her belly. She had
been about to tell Thomas that they did not need the boat. They
would find another way to transport the swords.

No one needed to die.

“Have you got a spare bit of that for a fellow
traveler?” Thomas said, pointing at the dried meat in their
hands.

There was a pause. Then one of the men answered.
“Sorry, friend. This is the Duke’s food and we have no right to
give it to every beggar that comes along.”

Seraina inched forward on her elbows until she had a
clear view. The three soldiers all stood. Two were focused on
Thomas, but the other had his hand on the handle of a dagger tucked
into his sword belt. He was older, more experienced if not higher
in rank, and he swept the forest on all sides with a suspicious
gaze. Seraina held her breath when he looked right at her. But,
after only a second, his eyes moved on, and he remained ignorant of
her trembling only a few strides away. She mouthed a silent thank
you to the trees for protecting her yet again.

Thomas stood in front of the men now; the dagger
hanging off the back of his belt clearly visible to Seraina but
hidden from the soldiers.

“Please, me lords. I would not ask, but I have been
out here lost coming on three days now. With nothing but bark to
fight the rumbling in my belly.”

“Why are you here?” one of the two younger soldiers
asked.

Thomas swayed on his feet. “Looking for a goat that
run off. Please, just a strip of that meat and I will be on my
way.” He shuffled closer.

“You do not look like a goat herder to me. Now, get
back, or you will have more than a rumbling belly to worry
over.”

The soldier stepped forward and raised his hand.
Thomas hunched over and put one arm up in a feeble attempt to ward
off the man’s blow. Whether or not the soldier actually intended to
strike Thomas was something Seraina would never know, for the man
suddenly screamed out in pain. He remained rooted in place while
his piercing cry shattered the forest stillness. Seraina finally
understood the reason for his lack of movement: a dagger was sunk
up to its handle in the soldier’s foot. Thomas had slammed his
weapon clean through the man’s boot. The steel blade had pierced
the top of his foot and exited through the leather sole, staking
him to the ground. Thick blood crept over the dirty leather, making
it glisten.

The older soldier began drawing his long dagger but,
before he could get it all the way across his body, Thomas stepped
in and, using both his hands, redirected the deadly tip into the
man’s mouth. It slid in at an angle, piercing the man’s soft palate
and continuing up through the base of his brain. He died instantly,
but his legs kept him standing for a few seconds longer, until the
blood drained out of them and he collapsed like a rotten tree.

Seeing the steel go into the man’s mouth brought
images into Seraina’s mind she had hoped to forget. She watched,
frozen in place, like the trees were pressing her to the ground.
Thomas bent over and tore his dagger out of the screaming soldier’s
foot, and then the woods went quiet when Thomas stood and slashed
the man’s throat.

Blood splashed across the third soldier’s
clean-shaven face, making him close his eyes. He was young. Much
younger than the other two. He stumbled back, and then tripped over
nothing but fear. He fell to his back, but quickly flipped over and
began to scramble away on his hands and knees.

Seraina remembered her vision of Thomas in a tunic
dripping with red, and as she watched him walk behind the young man
trying to crawl to safety, she found the strength to push herself
up off the ground.

“Thomas, no!”

She shrugged off the trees’ attempts to hold her
back, and threw herself at Thomas as he wrapped one hand in the
man’s hair and pulled his head back, stretching the softness of his
throat toward the sun.

“Thomas…” She folded herself around Thomas’s dagger
arm and called out his name again, but softer this time.