Chapter 12: Steel at Dawn
The feast finally ended, a river of false smiles and drained goblets. Kerr’s face hurt from the performance. He walked his mother to her chamber door, the castle corridors echoing with a hollow silence that felt heavier than the earlier noise.
“You painted a target on your own back tonight,” Eleanor said softly, her hand on the carved wood of her door. Her eyes, in the flickering torchlight, were not those of a doting mother, but of a commander assessing a battlefield.
“It was the only way to flush them into the open,” Kerr replied, his voice low. “They’ll move tonight. They have to, now.”
She reached up and cupped his cheek, her thumb brushing his cheekbone. “I know. Get some rest. You’ll need your wits.” The tenderness in the gesture was at odds with the steel in her gaze.
Rest was impossible. Kerr paced the length of his room, the stones cold beneath his bare feet. The plan was set, Martyn’s whispers planted, the guards in position. It should feel solid. It felt like a cobweb stretched over a chasm. Every creak of the castle settling, every call of the night watch, sounded like the first footstep of betrayal.
Somewhere in the deepest part of the night, a silence descended. Not a peaceful silence, but an absolute one. The usual sounds of the castle—the distant scuff of a guard’s boot, the murmur of the kitchen staff banking fires—ceased entirely.
He was already pulling on his reinforced leathers when the first scream cut through the dark. It was short, choked off, and came from the direction of the guest quarters. Howe’s quarters. The trap isn’t sprung where we expected, he thought, a cold knot tightening in his gut. They hadn’t gone for the weak points; they’d come straight through the front door, killing their own to do it.
He threw open his chamber door just as two shadows detached themselves from the wall opposite his mother’s room. They moved with a liquid, professional calm, blades in hand. Before they could take a step toward Eleanor’s door, two darker shapes solidified behind them. A metallic whisper, a wet, guttural choke, and the two Howe assassins crumpled to the flagstones, the life leaving them before they hit the ground.
Eleanor’s door swung inward. She stood framed in the light of a single candle, but not in her nightdress. She was clad in burnished steel plate, a masterwork of interlocking plates that fit her form like a second skin. In her hands was a longbow, an arrow already nocked. Her expression was serene, focused. She stepped over the threshold, the armored plates moving without a sound, and took in the scene with a single, sweeping glance. Her eyes met Kerr’s, and she gave a curt nod.
Then she turned, the movement fluid and swift, drew the bowstring to her ear, and fired twice in a heartbeat. The arrows hissed down the corridor toward Kerr’s own door, where two more intruders had been raising axes. They found their marks with twin, sickening thuds. The men staggered back, clawing at the shafts suddenly lodged in their throats, before collapsing.
“You’re late,” Eleanor said, her voice calm. Behind her, Iona appeared, wide-eyed but clutching a dagger, helping to guide other household servants from a side passage.
Kerr dashed back into his room. Full plate would be too loud. He finished fastening his leathers, the tough, oiled hide providing more freedom and silence than steel. He sheathed his longsword and strapped his shield to his back. As he emerged, his mother tossed him a bow and a quiver from a fallen guardsman. They moved as one unit, a lifetime of shared hunts translating into this deadly corridor.
Shouts and the clash of steel echoed from the lower floors now, a spreading stain of violence. They descended the main staircase, not running, but moving with a grim, swift purpose. Through the archway leading to the inner courtyard, they saw two men in Howe colors working the massive iron bar of the main gate. The outer portcullis was already raised. They were opening the castle from the inside.
Kerr and Eleanor didn’t speak. They nocked arrows in unison, the creak of the bowstrings a soft promise of death in the chaotic din. They exhaled together. Two bowstrings thrummed, a single sound.
The two men at the gate jerked as if punched, the arrows striking with such force they were driven forward into the heavy timbers. They slid to the ground, leaving dark smears on the wood.
“Mother,” Kerr said, his voice cutting through the growing bedlam. He looked at her, at the small group of loyal guards and terrified servants forming up behind her, Iona among them. “Get them out. Through the escape tunnel in the larder. Get to the village, to Duncan if he’s still there.”
Eleanor’s eyes blazed. “I am not leaving you here to die.”
“You are leaving me here to fight,” he corrected, gripping her armored shoulder. “If we all bottle ourselves in, we die. Someone has to hold this gate. Someone has to get our people out. You know the plan.”
For a second, he saw the conflict in her—the mother warring with the warrior. The warrior won. She gave a sharp, agonized nod. “You hold it. You don’t die heroically. You hold it and you fall back. You hear me?”
“Yes, mother.”
She grabbed him, pulled him into a crushing, armored embrace that lasted only a second. Then she turned, barking orders, shepherding the group back the way they’d come, a steel-clad guardian vanishing into the smoke now beginning to curl up the stairs.
Kerr turned to face the open gateway. The courtyard beyond was a chaos of fighting, Cousland men in a desperate, shrinking circle against the flood of Howe’s soldiers. From the darkness of the gate tunnel, Martyn appeared, his spiked maul swinging in a great, whistling arc that collapsed a man’s chest. He was drenched in blood, his great mustache matted with it, but his eyes were fierce and alive.
“Took your time!” Martyn roared, falling back to stand beside Kerr.
“Had to look presentable,” Kerr said, drawing his longsword. The blade caught the first licks of firelight from a burning outbuilding. Together, they stepped forward, side by side, and took their place in the yawning mouth of Highever’s main gate. Before them, the courtyard swarmed with enemies. Behind them, the keep and everyone still alive inside it.
Kerr planted his feet, raised his sword, and prepared to make his stand.