The Hellion (The Lady Knights of Barony Book One ) (2 page)

“It is said he is the finest blacksmith in all of Barony,” said Silas, his gaze cool as he glared at Stephan. “Rumors of his superior weapon-making skills are abundant.”

“I will not touch a single rebel weapon, you cur!” Magnus roared as he took a step toward the porch steps. The audacity of the man had his blood boiling. His fury was now a match for Stephan’s. “I will die first!”

“Come now,” Silas crooned in his silky voice. A slow smile spread across his lips. “The benefits of choosing the right side are vast. Your family will be protected and you will know wealth beyond your wildest dreams. In the new kingdom, your name will become synonymous with greatness.”

Magnus wondered in this moment, if this was how Christ had felt when tempted by Satan in the desert. As Silas’ silky smooth voice stroked at his spine, filled with promises, Magnus’s resolve hardened.

“Keep your money and your protection!” He lifted his axe menacingly. “I have chosen my side. My loyalty lies with the true king and queen, whom you murdered in cold blood.”

Silas sighed wearily and shrugged. “Well, you can’t say I didn’t offer,” he said, his tone now filled with disinterest as he motioned for his men to take over.

Magnus leaped from the porch, swinging his axe in a wide arc toward the man closest to him. The rebels had dismounted and were storming toward the house. His axe bit through flesh and bone before blood splattered across his neck and chest. He swiped at his face with his sleeve and charged toward the next man. From the corner of his eye, he could see Stephan swinging his club. He faintly heard the snap of breaking bones.

Bullets flew around them and Magnus knew that Bella and Julia had joined the fight. Both women were well trained and most of their shots struck true.

The number of the rebels seemed to swell as they surged toward the house. Magnus and Stephan tried to hold them back, but a few slipped past them and up the porch steps. Magnus prayed that their women could handle themselves. The constant crack of gunfire indicated that they could.

Eventually, he and Stephan fought back to back, surrounded by rebels. He could no longer see the house, but he could hear the feminine screams coming from the inside. He quickened his pace, undisturbed by the spray of blood and gore around him. This was not his first battle and with the rebellion going the way it was, it probably would not be his last.

Seeing that he had lost many of his men, Silas ordered the rest to retreat. They reluctantly followed orders. None of them wanted to be called cowards, but then none of them wanted to risk being at the other end of Magnus’ bloodstained axe or Stephan’s club, which was now coated in gore and brain matter.

“Until we meet again, blacksmith,” said Silas’s liquid voice.

There were still men inside, Magnus realized with horror as the majority of the rebels thundered away after their leader. Exchanging horrified looks, the two men raced toward the house, the terrified screams of two women drawing them toward it like a beacon.

Ava slowly lifted the trapdoor and pushed the heavy rug aside. The noises from outside had subsided and she was certain that the rebels were riding away. The screams of her mother and aunt could still be heard, as could the grunts and groans of the men still left in the cottage.

Nell, who stood behind her in the dark hidey-hole, gasped at the sight that greeted them. Both women were sprawled out on the floor, Julia on her back, Bella on her stomach. Their daggers and empty rifles were scattered about the room. Both women’s faces were bruised and their arms were pinned to the floor. Each of them was pressed to the floorboards by two rebels, one holding down their arms and the other rutting cruelly between their legs.

Her stomach turned at the sights and sounds of rape. Fury filled her as Bella’s eyes lifted to connect with hers. Her mother, so beautiful and fragile yet so strong. She shook her head at her daughter, a silent warning she knew that Ava would ignore.

“We have to help them,” whispered Nell. “Come on Ava, we can take them.”

Ava looked down at the pistol on her hand. It held one shot, as did the pistol that Nell had. With two rebels down, each of them had a fighting chance with their knives. Their fathers had taught them well.

“Yes,” she said from between her grinding teeth.
“On my count.”

Even though Nell was two years older than Ava, she had always followed her younger cousin. Ava was a natural born leader, or so her father had always told her.

“One…” she whispered. Her fingers tight on the butt of the pistol, her eyes narrowed in concentration on the man pounding her mother into the floor. “Two…” the world seemed to tip on its axis, slowing and fading to silence as she and Nell leaped up from the hole in the floor, their pistols cocked and ready. “Three!”

Two bullets zipped through the air toward their targets. Nell’s bullet found its way into the left eye of the man violating Julia. Ava’s bullet ripped through her target’s forehead before exiting the back of his head. The two men fell on top of their victims, motionless.

“What the devil?”

The two cowards who held women down while others raped them barely saw the girls coming. Nell, who had always been quite large for her age, rushed toward her mother’s assailant and caught him around the middle. The two rolled across the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. In a matter of minutes, she had plunged her knife into the man’s stomach.

Ava leaped up onto the kitchen table, a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth as the last remaining rebel ran toward her. The lumbering brute thundered across the floorboards, grin smug, his hands stretched out to grab the little slip of a girl that had shot his friend. As he neared, Ava leaped from the table and soared forward to meet him.

The two collided, but Ava found the advantage as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She went at him like a wild cat, swinging her knife as well as her clenched fist. In her mind, she knew she could never forget the image of her beautiful mother, stretched out on the floor like a tavern whore, her dress up around her hips and that stinking rebel taking something from her that belonged only to her father. She knew it would haunt her forever.

Ava she took it out on the only enemy that remained, slicing into the skin of his face and neck with the dagger, soaking both her dress and his shirtfront in blood. She did not care. Ava enjoyed every second of it; the warm gush of blood over her hands, the metallic taste of it in her mouth, the pain-filled groans of the man who tried to fight her off but could not. She was strong in her fury, stronger than even she thought she could be.

When the giant finally fell to the floor with a thud, Ava landed on his chest with a satisfied smirk. She brought her knife down one last time, wedging it into her enemy’s heart. As she stood and wiped her bloody hands on her dirty skirt, she realized that the room had gone eerily silent. She glanced up to find five pairs of eyes boring into her. Five mouths hung open wordlessly.

Her eyes connected with a pair of gray ones, her father’s. His shocked expression transformed to one of pride as he stepped forward and opened his arms to her. With a smile and a laugh, she threw herself into his arms, hugging his neck tightly as he spun her around in circles.

Ava knew that things would not be easy in the days that followed. For the rest of their lives they would forever carry the scars left by this day. She would not remember the day just for the horrible things that had happened, but because it represented the defining moment in her life. She would remember this day because it was the day that Ava the warrior was born.

Barony 1857 (twenty years later)

Since the return of Barony’s lost princess and the following war with the rebels, things were different. Queen Isabelle and King Serge had set things right, cleansing the broken province of the evil that threatened to consume it. For the first time in her life, Ava knew a peaceful existence.

All that remained now was the rebuilding effort happening across all of Barony, something that every man and woman was happy to be a part of. As a knight of Barony and the captain of the women’s regiment, Ava was responsible for the protection of the people of Gladstone as well as aiding their neighbors in the rebuilding effort.

The heat would have been oppressive to anyone that was not used to it. For most, the darkness of the small, one-room shop would be depressing. To those not familiar with the tiny space, the tools cluttering nearly every surface might have seemed haphazardly placed.

To Ava, this place was a sanctuary. It was a haven. It was hers.

The swelter was soothing, like a pair of arms wrapped tightly around her. Her father’s arms. The dim lighting reminded her just how alone she was inside the cramped room, and this was the way she preferred it while at work. Every tool was in its perfect place in her mind, right where she needed them to be.

Barony did not boast many female blacksmiths. As far as Ava knew, she was the only one. For lack of a son, her father had taken her under his wing, making her his apprentice when she was ten years old.

As she leaned over an anvil, hammer and chisel in hand, she could faintly hear the cadence of horse’s hooves in the distance. Not long ago, that sound would have sent Ava into a flurry of activity. Up until a few months ago, that sound could only mean one thing: rebel soldiers coming to start trouble.

The services of a soldier were important, but those of a blacksmith were invaluable. When she wasn’t repairing farm equipment or household tools, she was making swords and gun parts. The entire community thrived because of her work. It was something she knew her father would be proud of.

He would have been ecstatic about her achieved knighthood as well. Lady Ava Longley; it was a title that she had never hoped to have before King Serge came along. Because of the efforts of herself and her friends in the war against the rebels, he had declared an end to the law against female knights in Barony. The gleaming medal and polished breastplate she’d been given were displayed prominently in the little one-room cottage she shared with a fellow soldier.

The other gifts, she refused. King Serge had given each of his lady knights an estate, one worthy of a titled member of the nobility, complete with land and tenants. While she appreciated the gesture, Ava couldn’t bring herself to leave Gladstone. They needed her and if she was being honest with herself, she needed them.

Her mother had died ten years before, caught walking home alone by a wandering band of rebels. Her father suffered for five long years after that before he finally followed his wife in death. It was as if his survival was dependent upon Bella’s. Once she was gone, there was nothing else for Magnus to live for.

Her fellow soldiers and the people of Gladstone were all she had left in the world. She would never leave them.

Ava was content to allow a hired caretaker to oversee the grounds and farms at Heatherton Manor. She had studied it once from afar. It was beautiful, the kind of place one might go to raise a family. Because she didn’t have a family, she didn’t see the use in living in such a large, imposing place alone.

Curiosity pulled Ava from her wandering thoughts as she wiped her smudged hands on her apron and moved toward the front door of the smithy. She narrowed her eyes and shielded them with her hands as her sight adjusted to the bright burst of sunlight that greeted her.

Riders were coming into the village. Ava smiled when she recognized the royal carriage pulled by six perfectly matched black bays. The surrounding sentries were the queen’s bodyguards. Her good friend, Vernon, jumped down from his horse first and rushed forward to greet her.

As he crushed her against him in a tight hug, Ava inhaled his familiar scent and smiled. She and Vernon had not always been friends. In fact, upon learning that Ava was not only a female blacksmith but a soldier to
boot, he’d taken an immediate dislike to her. After months of needling and antagonizing each other the two settled into a friendship of sorts, a relationship similar to what one might share with an irritating sibling.

He pulled away and ruffled her shoulder-length, black locks affectionately. His white-blond locks swept his broad shoulders and he towered over him with his long and thick frame. He peered down at her with deep brown eyes and smiled. “It’s good to see you scamp,” he teased. “Still chasing the boys away with your ugly mug?”

Ava made a face at him, quite an unattractive one, and punched him in his well-muscled bicep. The two had once mistaken their heated dislike for each other as attraction. They had even tried to act upon it. She remembered the night with a giggle whenever it came to her mind. After several minutes of kissing and touching with nary a spark between them, they’d given up, content to remain the best of friends.

Ava had never felt that spark of desire she’d so often heard about from her friends. She was beginning to think she never would.

Ava moved around Vernon to curtsy to her queen, who had just stepped down from the carriage. Isabelle moved forward and hugged Ava as soon as she’d risen from her curtsy.

“My friend,” she said in her soft, tinkling voice. “It is so good to see you. I feel as if it’s been forever.”

The two were quite a contradiction as they stood together at the center of Gladstone’s market. Queen Isabelle was all light and air, with wispy blonde hair cut short. Her porcelain complexion combined with her pale hair and eyes to create a startlingly ethereal effect. She seemed dwarfed beside Ava, her petite figure overshadowed by Ava’s intimidating one.