The Blacksmith Queen (The Scarred Earth Saga, #1) - G.A Aiken Page 0,100
got out before the horses were trampling poor Archie into the ground.
“Owwww!” his brother cried out. “You bastards!”
“Get up, idiot!” one of the horses demanded and that’s when Angus saw a human arm reach down and grab hold of Archie, pulling him back to his feet.
“Hearn,” Angus said before he realized he was on his knees and bleeding out onto the ground.
“Oh, no you don’t, you old bastard.” Hearn helped Angus up. “I’ll not face that daughter of yours and tell her I lost her da.”
Hearn took a quick look around until his gaze stopped at the stone entryway leading to the hallway. “Your brother’s not that big an idiot.” He pointed his sword. “Kel! The ceiling!”
The biggest of the battling centaurs, a massive stallion, pulled the war hammer he had strapped to his back. He swung it left and right, knocking the soldiers out of his way, and then up. He struck the ceiling once, twice . . . and stones began to drop. The centaurs shifted to their human forms and dashed into the hallway. The soldiers that followed were hit by the falling boulders that now blocked the hallway off from the front of Archie’s house.
“Move! Down the stairs!” Hearn yanked the door open. He jerked back as a sword-wielding blacksmith came at him from the stairway.
“Emma, no!” Angus yelled. His wife immediately stopped when she saw him. “He’s a friend. Now go, go, go!”
Emma ran down the stairs, the centaurs following. Hearn still had his arm around Angus’s waist.
Archie moved in front of them. “This way!”
It took them little time to catch up to the children. That’s when the centaurs shifted back to their natural forms, lifting the screaming children and placing them on their backs.
Once the older ones realized they were being rescued and not massacred, they calmed the others, who were now just excited to be riding on the centaurs.
“So you really do have centaur friends,” Emma said, moving while simultaneously trying to stop the bleeding from Angus’s wounds.
“Told you. And Hearn’s not just a centaur either. He’s a chief.”
“Well, who knew you were so important.”
“You just never listen, woman.”
She chuckled a little before barking, “Hold.” Hearn stopped so she could break the ends of the arrows off. “We’ll leave the tips in for now. Go!”
Hearn helped Angus onto the back of the big stallion with the war hammer. “Hold on, old friend. Don’t let go.”
Angus grinned as he watched Hearn place his wife on his back. No, he wouldn’t let go. Not now. Now when he could finally tell his wife, “Told you so!”
“Let’s move!” Hearn called out. Then he motioned to Archie. “Come on, idiot.”
Archie snarled as he ran after them; Angus’s brother refusing to mount one of the centaurs. “Stop calling me that!”
* * *
Caid dropped several rabbits by the fire and looked around. “Where’s Keeley?”
“She went off that way.” Laila pointed toward a small group of trees. Much too small to be a forest, but it was near the lake they’d found a few hours earlier.
“She’s in a mood,” Gemma muttered while sharpening her steel weapons.
“Maybe because you kept starting slap fights with her all the way here.”
“She started it!”
“How old are you?” Caid wanted to know.
“Here.” Laila handed him a thick blanket with some dried meat, bread, and a bottle of ale. “Take this to Keeley. Make sure she eats.”
Caid started to walk off, but his sister briefly pulled him back to whisper in his ear, “Maybe if she spends the night away from her sister, we’ll all get some sleep.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Don’t keep her away on my account,” Gemma snapped, apparently hearing Laila’s words. “I can ignore the whiny bitch forever if I have to!” she yelled out toward the trees.
“She hasn’t said a word since we left elf territory,” Laila reminded her.
“It doesn’t matter. I can see her whining through her eyes!”
Quinn laughed at that bizarre statement and Gemma’s snarling at him to “Shut the fuck up!” did not help the matter.
Caid shifted to human and followed Keeley’s scent until he found her sitting with her back against a large tree.
He sat down next to her, spread the blanket in front of them, and put the food out.
“Here. You should eat.”
“I’m not sure I’m hungry,” she said, still continuing to stare off.
“Keeley . . . this wasn’t your fault.”
She shrugged, her gaze still locked on some far-off space. “I did unleash him, but I didn’t put him there. And I didn’t make him mad.”