Page 71 of The Iron Hex

The three stayed silent, faces covered apart from their eyes, circling Rhona as she waited for their next attack. When it came it was swift, and in unison once again.

Rhona opted to turn her back on one of the attackers, letting them try to stab her where plate armor met chain mail. She turned her attention to the other two, slashing up and disarming one. On the downswing she brought her blade down on the other’s arm, severing it. Both dagger and limb clattered to the ground as the attacker screamed, a woman’s pitch wailing as she dropped to her knees.

The Corisians allowed women in their ranks? Rhona had just assumed their king was as strict as the De Clare monarchy had been. It made her hate them even more for holding her back. She flicked her sword quickly upward, the hilt connecting with the other one’s jaw as she felt the tip of a dagger start to slide through her chain mail. The one in front of her flew into the air, falling beside the other, who was still screaming about her arm. Rhona whipped around, using her heavily armored fist to slam into the third one before punching her sword after them, connecting with their torso and cutting through them. Rhona heard a gasp as they realized they were dead, and she turned to the gates.

“Finish these ones off,” she yelled, meeting Sir Jack’s gaze as he caught up to her.

“Aye, sir!” he yelled back, red hair peeking from the base of his helmet; she’d need to talk to him about getting that cut. Sir Jack had been impressive, both in training and today, and Rhona mentally filed him onto the list of knights she’d bring with her to Corisia.

Rhona turned and sprinted into the castle, trying to figure out where the other two could have gone.Think, Rhona, think.These five had seemed like they were absolutely meant to be an infiltration force, not an attack force... so they were here for information. Rhona gasped as the realization hit her: they were going for the lord general’s office. She took off at a sprint, the throne room very close to where she was now, the lord general’s offices attached.

As she turned the corner into the empty throne room, she noticed the door to the lord general’s office was ajar; she’d been right. Rhona crept, slowly and patiently, her steps as quiet as possible in plate armor, with the screams and shouts from outside giving her scant cover as she approached the door.

She heard voices inside, realizing in a panic that the lord general may have been in the room, unprepared and unarmored. Rhona leaped through the doorway, sword drawn, to see Lord General Kerrigan sitting at his desk with one of the two attackers, the other lying on the ground with a puddle of blood growing beneath them.

“Oh, Sir Rhona,” the lord general said, motioning to her with a dagger-wielding hand. “I was wondering if anyone would notice.”

The attacker’s hands were flat on the desk. One of them had a dagger pierced through the palm, buried to the hilt into the table.

“I’ve been chasing these two, Lord General,” Rhona said through labored breaths—running in plate armor was not easy, and she’d been doing a lot of it.

“I commend you for noticing their meager infiltration team,”he said as he looked back to the attacker. “Please, stay and watch.” Lord General Kerrigan slammed the dagger he held into the attacker’s other hand, a wail escaping his unmasked face. Rhona saw watery blue eyes and blond hair, a sure sign he was Corisian, as she’d suspected.

“Your friend is dead, and you’re about to be,” Lord General Kerrigan said mildly, as if his time was being wasted by this person who had come here to assassinate him.

The man just groaned, tears streaming down his face as the lord general twisted the knife. Rhona could hear the weapon grinding against the bone in the Corisian’s hand; she could only imagine how much pain he was in.

“Tell me why Corisia attacked, or I’ll make sure Rhona kills you slowly.”

Rhona’s head snapped up. She wasn’t sure if the lord general meant it, but it was her duty as a sworn knight to protect the Iron Empire, not to torture people. Rhona would kill if it was absolutely necessary—not for the fun of it. But would it be worth it to say no to the lord general? What would a slap turn into this time? If the lord general wanted her to torture this Corisian... well, she’d have to do it. Even if it went against what she felt like she should morally do.

“We were just sent for information,” the Corisian whimpered. Lord General Kerrigan twisted the dagger again, and the man screamed.

“I mean it,” the attacker wailed. “This whole attack was so that my crew of five could get in here and find what you’re doing! We didn’t expect you to be in your office. Our intelligence told us you were going to meet with Osnia!”

“What does the Corisian monarchy think we’re doing?” Lord General Kerrigan asked, hand poised on the hilt of the dagger as a threat.

“A soldier was found in Mirstone—no breath, but walking. Sallow skin and freakish strength. We,” the Corisian said, thenmoaned in pain. “We found a piece of a missive they’d tried to burn with the Iron Empire’s sigil on it.”

No breath? How could a person be walking without breathing? It had to be a mistake. A lie.

“Shit,” Lord General Kerrigan snarled.

“So we decided to try and find out what was happening,” the Corisian gibbered. “This wasn’t meant to be a bloodbath. We planned to set fire to several buildings in the city all at once, but the city guard were stronger than we thought.”

“It wasn’t an attack, only a distraction?” Rhona asked when Lord General Kerrigan said nothing.

“Yes,” the Corisian grunted, looking down at his partner’s body, “Whatever you’re doing here is dangerous for the whole world. That soldier, it—”

Lord General Kerrigan interrupted the Corisian by pulling the dagger out of his hand and slitting his throat in one fluid motion, quickly snatching the papers off his desk and stepping out of the way to ensure not a drop of the blood spraying across the table got on his clothes.

“If this wasn’t an attack, then our knights should have had no issue dispatching the Corisians who were trying to distract us,” he said to the lifeless body, one hand still pinned to the table as blood flowed over the edge of the desk in a thick, dark stream.

“We seemed to be holding our own, Lord General,” Rhona ventured, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.

He looked at her blood-covered armor before pulling out the remaining dagger and pushing the now-dead Corisian to the ground.

“This was an act of war,” Lord General Kerrigan said. “I hope you’re ready to fight.”