Chapter 6: The Thornwood Approach
The crossbow was a sleek, wicked thing, oiled wood and polished steel gleaming in a shard of moonlight. It didn’t waver. The figure holding it was a tall, lean cut-out against the pines, face hidden in the deep cowl of a traveller’s cloak.
“The queen travels light,” the stranger repeated. The voice was neutral, accented from somewhere in the southern riverlands, and held a dry, academic curiosity. “But not unnoticed. The wards here have spiders. Pluck one thread…” A flick of the gloved hand holding the crossbow. “The whole web feels it.”
Mia hadn’t moved. Her hands were open at her sides, but Sammy saw the subtle shift of her weight onto the balls of her feet. Vex simply froze, a silent statue of dread.
“And you are the spider?” Sammy asked, forcing her voice to stay level. Her own hand itched for the knife at her belt, but the distance was all wrong.
“An interested party.” The hood tilted slightly toward Vex. “Lady Vex. I heard a rumour you’d gone for a moonlit stroll. With company. The rumours didn’t do the chaos justice. Two guards… reconfigured. Very bold.”
“Who are you?” Mia’s question was flat, devoid of fear or interest.
“Call me Kael.” He didn’t offer a title. “I represent a consortium of merchants whose interests are… inconvenienced by the Concord’s current expansion. We prefer our monopolies to remain our own.” The crossbow dipped, just an inch. A gesture of temporary non-aggression. “I’ve been watching the Lodge for three days. They arrived this morning. A dozen of them. Plus a personal guard for Lord Aldric of twenty more. You’re walking into a meat grinder.”
Sammy’s mind raced. A rival? It made sense. The Concord’s grab for power would destabilize trade, create losers as well as winners. “And you’re here to help us out of civic duty?”
Kael barked a short laugh. “I’m here because a beheaded snake can’t swallow your shipping lanes. You want to break them. I want you to break them. Our interests align for the next... oh, let’s say twelve hours.”
“Why should we trust you?” Mia asked.
“You absolutely shouldn’t.” Kael said it with a shrug. “But you’re outnumbered, you’ve got a liability in silk slippers”—another nod at Vex—“and the only person who knows these woods better than me is currently tied to a chair in that lodge, being interrogated about game trails. I’m a better option than nothing.”
Sammy studied the shadowed hood. A trap within a trap? Possibly. But he hadn’t shot them. He was talking. And he knew the guard count. “What’s your proposal?”
He shifted, and with a fluid, practiced motion, the crossbow was slung across his back. He pushed his hood back. He was younger than his voice suggested, maybe thirty, with sharp features, close-cropped brown hair, and eyes the colour of weathered flint. He wore practical, dark leathers, and a long, thin blade hung at his hip.
“I get you to the lodge. There’s a service entrance, a root cellar used for ice storage. It’s guarded, but lightly. I create a distraction at the main gate. You slip in. You do what you came to do.” He met Sammy’s gaze squarely. “I get you inside. What happens after that is your problem. Success or failure, the Concord is disrupted. My employers are happy.”
“And your payment?” Mia asked, her eyes narrowed.
“A head start.”
She didn’t need to clarify. They both knew there was wealth in that lodge—secrets, documents, coffers. The spoils of a coup. He was a vulture, circling.
“He’s lying,” Vex whispered, her voice a ragged thread. “He’s one of Aldric’s. This is a retrieval. He’s here to bring me back.”
Kael’s mouth twisted in a faint, cold smile. “Lady, if Aldric wanted you back, he’d have sent a crow with a ‘regrets’ note. You’re compromised. You’re a stain to be scrubbed. The fact you’re breathing is a clerical error.” He looked back at Sammy. “Choice is yours. Come with me now, or try your luck with the next patrol. They’re on a tightened rotation since the wards tingled.”
The forest seemed to press in closer, the scent of pine now smelling like a funeral bower. Sammy looked at Mia. The pale woman gave an almost imperceptible nod. It wasn’t trust. It was a calculation of odds. He was right. They were out of options.
“Lead,” Sammy said.
Kael moved without sound, a ghost along a path only he could see. They followed, their own progress suddenly loud and clumsy in comparison. He led them not deeper onto the trail, but sideways, into a thicket of brambles that clawed at their clothes. They wriggled through a narrow gap behind a waterfall of dead ivy, emerging onto a rocky shelf overlooking a steep, brush-choked ravine.
“Down there,” he whispered, pointing. “Follow the stream. It dead-ends at a limestone bluff. The cellar door is set into it, camouflaged. Two guards. Bored. Complacent.”
“And the distraction?” Mia asked.
Kael’s flinty eyes glinted. “I’m going to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre.” He pulled a small, clay orb from his pouch. It smelled faintly of tar and sulfur. “Thermal flare. Very bright, very hot. It’ll go off near the main gate. Every eye will turn. You’ll have maybe three minutes of chaos.”
He handed Sammy a rough, charcoal-drawn sketch on a scrap of hide. It showed the ravine, the bluff, the door. “Once you’re in, the cellar leads up to the kitchen larder. From there, the great hall is to the west. That’s where they’ll be. I’d recommend not going in through the front.”
Mia took the sketch, studied it, then handed it back. “Got it.”
Kael looked at each of them, his expression unreadable. “Good luck. Try not to die before you’ve thinned the herd.” He melted back into the trees, gone as suddenly as he’d appeared.
They waited a full five minutes in silence before moving.
“This is a terrible idea,” Vex murmured, picking a thorn from her torn sleeve.
“Everything’s a terrible idea,” Mia said, starting the treacherous descent into the ravine. “This one’s just newest.”
The stream was icy, slurping over smooth stones. They moved in the water to mask their sound, the cold biting through their boots. The ravine walls rose sheer and dark around them, the sky a narrow ribbon of star-dusted black. After twenty minutes of slow, shivering progress, the limestone bluff loomed ahead, a pale scar in the gloom.
And there, almost invisible in the patterned rock, was a heavy oak door, banded with iron. Two men in dark tunics bearing no crest stood before it, leaning against the stone. One was picking his teeth with a knife. The other was telling a story, his voice a low, bored grumble.
Mia held up a fist. They froze, crouching behind a boulder. The rush of the stream covered their whispers.
“I’ll take the one on the left,” Mia breathed. “You take the one with the knife.”
Sammy’s throat went dry. She’d trained with blades since she could walk, but this wasn’t a duel. This was murder in a dark hole. She nodded, pulling her own dagger free. It felt absurdly small.
They didn’t have to wait long.
A piercing, chemical shriek tore through the night from the direction of the lodge, followed by a dazzling, white-hot burst of light that painted the tops of the ravine in stark, jumping shadows. A deep whump of concussive heat rolled over them.
Both guards jolted upright, staring toward the light.
“What in the seven hells—”
Mia was already moving. A silent, flowing sprint across the last ten feet of stream. The guard on the left turned, his eyes wide, his hand falling to his sword hilt. He only got it half-drawn before Mia’s blade slid into the soft space under his jaw. He made a wet, gurgling sigh and collapsed.
Sammy was a half-step behind, her heart hammering against her ribs. The second guard spun, his knife coming up. His face was all surprise and panic. He wasn’t a soldier. He was a thug. She didn’t think. She lunged, her dagger driving toward his chest. He twisted, and her blade sank deep into the meat of his shoulder instead of his heart. He roared, more in shock than pain, and backhanded her across the face.
The world exploded in white stars. She stumbled, falling to one knee in the icy water. The guard raised his knife, his face contorted in a snarl.
A pale hand closed over his wrist from behind. Mia, wrenched his arm back at an impossible angle. The snap of bone was a sickening pop. He screamed this time, for real, but the sound was cut short as Mia drew her own blade across his throat in a single, violent pull. The knife-hand spasmed, the blade dropping into the stream with a plink.
The ravine was suddenly, terribly quiet again, save for the babble of the water and a final, bubbling sigh from the dead man at her feet.
Sammy stayed on her knees, the cold water soaking through her trousers, gasping. Her cheek burned. The copper scent of blood mixed with the smell of wet stone.
Mia wiped her blade clean on the dead man’s tunic and retrieved the key from his belt. She didn’t look at Sammy. “You good?”
Sammy nodded, pushing herself up, her legs shaky. “I’m good.”
Vex picked her way over, her face a mask of revulsion in the dim light. “Efficient.”
Mia unlocked the heavy door. It swung inward on silent, well-oiled hinges, revealing a yawning blackness that smelled of damp earth, mildew, and stored vegetables. A set of worn stone steps led up.
From deep within the lodge above, they could hear new sounds rising over the distant, fading echo of the chaos at the gate: shouts of confusion, running feet, the clatter of arms. Kael’s distraction was working.
Mia lit her witchlight, its feeble blue glow pushing the darkness back just enough to see. She looked at Sammy, her stormy eyes reflecting the cold light. “Ready to crash a party?”
Sammy took a final, shuddering breath of the clean, cold night air. Then she stepped into the dark, the taste of blood and failure sharp in her mouth, and began to climb.
The stairs were slick, ancient stone, worn smooth in the centers from generations of servants hauling ice and root vegetables. Mia’s witchlight cast just enough glow to see their feet, but the blackness above felt solid, a waiting throat. The sounds from the lodge were distorted here, muffled thumps and indistinct shouts filtering through layers of timber and earth.
Sammy’s hand trailed against the cold wall for balance. Her cheek still pulsed where the guard had struck her. “He wasn’t a soldier,” she whispered, the words coming unbidden.
“No,” Mia agreed, her voice a low hum ahead. “Just a guy with a knife and bad orders. Makes it harder, not easier.” She understood. Killing a faceless enemy in uniform was one thing; murdering a panicked thug in a stream was another. It stuck in the teeth.
Vex, behind them, was a whisper of silk and shaky breaths. “The kitchen will be just off the larder. At this hour, it should be empty save for a scullion or two. We can…”
Mia halted abruptly. She raised a hand, fist clenched. They froze. From just beyond a rough wooden door at the top of the stairs, they heard the clear, bored voice of a young man. “...told me it was a lightning strike, but I never heard no thunder, did you? Just that god-awful screech and a light like the sun fell in the yard.”
A second, older voice grumbled. “Just shut it and stir. The sooner this glaze is done, the sooner we’re back to beds. Lord Aldric’s lot will be yelling for brandy to settle their nerves.”
A kitchen. Occupied.
Mia extinguished her witchlight, plunging them into absolute black. Sammy’s breath hitched. They couldn’t go back. They couldn’t stay here. Mia’s fingers found Sammy’s wrist in the dark, gave a brief, hard squeeze that meant wait, then released.
Sammy heard the faintest scrape of leather on stone as Mia crept the last few steps to the door. It was a rustic thing, planks bound with iron, not meant for real security. A thin line of yellow lantern light bled beneath it. Mia leaned close, her ear to the crack. A long minute passed, marked only by the rhythmic scrape of a spoon in a pot.
Then, with a tenderness at odds with the woman who’d slit two throats, Mia’s fingers traced the edge of the doorframe. Sammy saw it then, a faint shimmer in the air, like heat haze over a summer road. It coalesced into three slender threads of cold, blue light, anchoring themselves to the stone and wood with a barely audible thrum.
Mia had been laying more traps, Sammy realized. Her magic, seemingly depleted from disarming the wards outside, had already regenerated during the rushed journey here. This was a new working, spun from silence and will. A silent note to herself; she liked to keep the cards close.
Mia retreated back to them, her mouth so close to Sammy’s ear her breath was a ghost. “Tripwire. Sonic. They open the door, it’ll hit them like a wall of bells. They’ll be stunned, deaf. We go through, fast. Don’t stop.”
“A wall of bells?” Vex whispered, incredulous.
“You’ll hear it,” Mia murmured, a hint of something almost dry in her tone. “Or rather, you’ll feel it.”
She didn’t wait for a plan. She simply moved. One booted foot kicked the door hard, square near the latch. Wood splintered. The door swung inward.
The two kitchen servants—a lanky boy and a portly, aproned man—spun, their faces masks of comic surprise. The boy dropped his spoon. The shimmering threads Mia had woven across the doorway pulsed once, violently.
The sound wasn’t a ring. It was a physical force, a concussive wave of pure, discordant noise that shattered two hanging copper pans and shook the dust from the rafters. It didn’t travel far, contained by Mia’s design, but in the confines of the kitchen it was devastating. The older man clutched his head with a muffled cry, crumpling to his knees. The boy stumbled backward into a shelf, sending a cascade of dried herbs and clay jars clattering to the flagstones, his eyes wide with pained confusion.
Mia was already a blur through the doorway, sliding past the disoriented men without a second glance. Sammy followed, Vex scampering behind. The larder was a chill room of hanging haunches and sackcloth bundles. The main kitchen sprawled beyond, a cavern of hearths and long wooden tables, mercifully empty.
The sonic tremor had faded, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. From elsewhere in the lodge, the alarm was growing. Shouts carried a new, specific urgency. The distraction at the gate had been investigated. Intruders inside were now suspected.
Mia pointed to a servants’ passage opposite. “That way. To the hall.”
Sammy grabbed her arm. “Wait. What about them?” She nodded back toward the two servants, one moaning, one stunned.
“What about them?” Mia’s grey eyes were flat. “They’ll recover. Or they won’t. We don’t have time for mercy that gets us killed.”
“We’re not slaughtering cooks,” Sammy hissed, her grip tightening.
“Then hope their headache is the worst of their night.” Mia pulled free, moving for the passage. “Because if they raise a cogent alarm before we’re done, I’m not killing cooks. I’ll be killing everyone between us and that door. Your call.”
She disappeared into the dark of the passage. Sammy stood, torn, the weight of the crown a physical pressure on her skull. Vex just stared, waiting for her queen to lead.
A new sound cut through the lodge’s growing chaos. It was the clear, cold clash of steel on steel. Not a scuffle. A real fight. It came from the direction of the Great Hall.
And it was accompanied by a voice, roaring in familiar, furious anger.
It was Kael’s voice.