indicated with his hands, “a silver ornament on the hilt. He stabbed one man, and that man lost his temper and killed him.”
Tarryn. He was talking about Tarryn. No. Tarryn could not be dead. Not his little brother. How could anyone kill Tarryn? Just the other day, Sasha had kissed his cheek and called him a darling. Everyone liked Tarryn…of course everyone liked Tarryn, who could possibly want to kill…
Rhyst, he realised, was just staring at him, not denying a thing. The tip of his tongue protruded from one corner of his mouth, anxiety now battling fear in his eyes. Jaryd recognised the expression—Rhyst had worn it when sparring against him as a boy, deciding whether or not to attack.
“Put the sword down,” one of the new arrivals said and Jaryd saw their swords were also drawn. The old man wisely backed away. “Put it down and we'll talk about…”
Jaryd lunged and swung, one-handed, clashing the man's sword from his hand. The man cursed, leaping backward, and Jaryd swung at the other, who parried twice, desperately, as Jaryd retreated for a side hallway. Rhyst circled and tried to come at him from the side, then backed up quickly as Jaryd swung at him, fear in his eyes. Even one-handed, still they feared him. They always had. Maybe that was why…perhaps that was why they…
Jaryd turned and ran. His arm shrieked in agony, but he didn't care. He raced past several nobles and servants in the side hall. Footsteps pursued, voices echoed off the high ceiling, a general alarm being raised. Royal Guardsmen appeared ahead, weapons drawn, and Jaryd turned up a staircase, taking steps three at a time. He should not be going up, the thought occurred to him. On the ground floor or below, he might escape. But he continued up the flights regardless.
The sling slowed his ascent and his nearest pursuer was nearly upon him. Jaryd stopped abruptly, lunged back and swung. Rhyst partly deflected the blow, yet caught the blade to the face anyhow and fell to the flagstones screaming. The next pursuer stopped to attend him and Jaryd ran onward. He realised he was crying, tears wetting his face as he ran, and not from the pain in his arm. Tarryn was dead. They'd killed his little brother. It was a pain too big to be borne by one man. It needed to be shared. He would share it with them all. They too would feel this pain. All of them.
He reached the grand staircase to the palace's top floor without quite knowing how he'd reached it. There were men he recognised on the staircase, their figures outlined against the grand, two-storey windows. Their blades were drawn in response to the commotion approaching from below.
Jaryd charged up the stairs with a roar, forcing one into a stumbling retreat. The man lost balance and fell, Jaryd leaping over him to swing at the next, who backed away, parrying furiously. Then a third, whose defence crumbled beneath Jaryd's furious stroke, clutched his arm as Jaryd's blade bit deep. Agony slashed Jaryd's left thigh…the first fallen man had slashed from a downstairs crouch, and now the second took the chance to charge. Jaryd smashed his swing aside in fury and his counterslash sent him spinning to flop down the stone stairs in a bloody tangle of limbs.
Jaryd staggered up the rest of the stairs, dragging his uncooperative leg. His left arm had somehow torn free of its sling, the bandaged forearm screaming, a pain now dimmed by his leg. Beside the pain in his heart, both were as nothing.
Ahead, the hall to his father's chambers was filled with Tyree nobility, weapons drawn and eyes staring in disbelief. Jaryd charged them all, with no more regrets than that his bloody leg and broken arm would prevent him from showing them his best. Blades clashed and he drove back one man, then another, as men retreated before him, fear on their faces. The next man did not retreat and Jaryd split his belly all over the hall flagstones. They were all around him then, some approaching from behind, and he spun wildly in circles, swinging at all who dared his reach, grunting and yelling like an animal. He wounded another, then barely defended a lunge that slammed his parry back onto his chest and threw him sideways into the wall. He hit his arm, screamed, then fell against the wall, jolting his leg. The world went blank for a moment.