Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(41)

A collective murmur went through the group—apparently they hadn’t yet realized he was an ironsmith. Never mind the coin in his purse…. His weapons were worth far more. The only problem was that they’d have to pry them from his cold, dead hands, and as Wren had seen firsthand, Julian was no craftsman. He was a warrior. Even without the element of surprise, he could likely mow down half this group. The fact that he didn’t want to was evident to Wren, if not these others, but she didn’t have time to puzzle out why. The bandits were tightening their circle, pressing closer, and many of their stares fixed on Wren now too. When was the last time they’d seen a bonesmith this side of the Border Wall?

“I don’t have the coin on me,” Julian said, remaining poised despite the threat, while Wren’s gaze darted from side to side as she scrambled for a solution. Something was tugging at her mind, and she tried to steady the distracting pulse of her heart to discern it. It felt like bones, but it was not the pull of the palisade they’d left behind. No, it was something much nearer.

“We can’t accept coin that doesn’t actually exist,” said another of the raiders, and laughter broke out.

Wren gave Julian a look. Whatever his plan was, it wasn’t working. “What are you doing?” she whispered, but he ignored her.

“It exists,” Julian said, his expression determined as he spoke over their jeers. “And it’s in the Iron Citadel’s coffers. Perhaps you’d be willing to accept a payment from there?”

The laughter died out. The Iron Citadel was the House of Iron’s main holding, their seat of power, and the place they used to train ironsmiths.

And it was supposed to be uninhabited. Abandoned during the Uprising. The way Julian spoke… Was the Citadel functioning again? And most pressing of all… was it ruling over these lands? Perhaps the ironsmiths were not as defeated as everyone west of the Wall seemed to think.

“He’s bluffing,” someone said, and those around them nodded their agreement.

The first man with the pirate’s hat stepped forward. “Maybe,” he said gruffly, peering at Julian closely. “Or maybe we take him with us and find out. See what else the regent might offer us in exchange for his head.”

A regent? Living at the Iron Citadel?

Julian darted a look in Wren’s direction, and she wondered if he was concerned about his impending kidnapping… or what she’d overheard. What she could report back to the Breachfort.

Of course, none of that would matter if they didn’t survive this mess, and while Julian might be worth something to the alleged regent, Wren held no such value.

Negotiations had failed.

It was time to act.

“I’m afraid that’s not going to work for me,” Julian said, his diplomatic tone gone. His words were low and dangerous, the sharpened points of his staff gleaming.

“Good thing there’s twenty of us and two of you, then, isn’t it?” The pirate man dared to step even closer, and Wren could finally see the smile beneath the beard—and the missing teeth.

Wren caught Julian’s eye—she knew they were going to have to fight their way out of this—but he jerked his head slightly, as if telling her to stand down.

To hell with that.

“Good for us,” Wren agreed, giving the pirate man her own dark smile. “Bad for you.”

She had figured out what was pulling at her senses, a feeling she’d not had since the Bonewood.

There were bodies all around. Bones deep in the soil.

These lands had been a battleground, and Wren suspected that the signpost behind them had once been used as a gallows to warn off bandits such as those that currently surrounded her.

However they had gotten there, half a dozen bodies were beneath her feet or scattered along the side of the road. Hasty burials, rotten corpses picked clean and swallowed by the earth… soldiers lost in war.

Which war, it was difficult to say, but while most of their souls had been reaped, she suspected not all of them had. The odds were not in her favor, but she called to them with her magic all the same. She needed a distraction, a way to level the playing field and even the odds… and though bones were ultimately harmless to humans, she suspected they’d scare the shit out of them all the same.

It was a risk, like pulling a thread and accidentally unraveling the careful weave of earth and time that had buried these bodies, but it was her best option. She didn’t know what Julian was playing at, and she couldn’t have his obvious reticence to deal with these bandits resulting in her becoming another body to be buried by the wayside.

“Wait,” Julian began in alarm, “what are you—”

But it was too late.

Wren raised her twin swords, but rather than turning them on the nearest bandit, she flipped the blades and pointed them downward. Then she dropped to her knees and plunged them into the earth.

It was a complex mix of muscle and magic, propelling the blades more deeply than would be possible with her arms alone.

Wren’s connection was strongest to the bones she carried with her all the time, and by placing them into the ground, she was using them to extend her range and connect with the other bones in the area. They were all linked by the soil, and she was tapping into that matrix.

There was a rumble, causing everyone to look down in alarm, including Julian.

Then Wren stood, wrenching the blades—and every other bone in the area—up with her. It was an exhausting maneuver, pushing her to the very brink of her abilities… but it worked.