Chapter 6 - THE WINTER COVENANT
The roof timbers rained down in showers of dry pine needles and rotted cedar shingles.
Flashlight beams sliced through the rising dust, blinding and white.
"DROP THE CHARGE!" a voice shouted from the rafters above.
Gideon didn't give them three seconds.
The healing was complete.
His collarbone was whole, his muscle fibers burning with the pure, untamed strength of the Aurelian blood bond.
He lunged upward from the sawdust floor like a panther springing from a cliff.
He caught the dangling steel cable of the grappling hook with one hand.
With a terrifying roar that rattled the mortar between the stone blocks, Gideon yanked the cable downward with all his royal weight.
The mercenary on the roof shrieked as he was dragged through the hole in the ceiling.
The man plummeted twenty feet, crashing onto the concrete floor with a wet, bone-splintering thud.
Gideon did not look down.
He snatched the man’s dropped tactical carbine from the floorboards.
He racked the bolt back with a sharp, metallic snap.
CLACK.
Outside the heavy oak door, the thermite breaching charge detonated.
BOOM.
The door blew inward in a blizzard of splinters and burning iron straps.
Two heavily armed trackers charged through the smoke, their assault rifles raised at the low-ready position.
Gideon fired two three-round bursts.
The muzzle flashes illuminated his face in strobe-like flashes of terrifying fury.
Both trackers dropped instantly into the burning doorway, their weapons clattering against the threshold.
"Hazel! Behind me!" Gideon barked.
Hazel scrambled to her feet, pressing her back against the cool fieldstone wall.
The penlight had rolled into the corner, casting long, dancing shadows across the sawdust.
From the dark timber outside, a slow, rhythmic clapping began.
A tall figure stepped through the burning frame of the doorway.
He wore a long coat of white wolf fur over black ceremonial armor.
At his hip rested an ornate rapier with a pommel shaped like an obsidian viper.
Lord Kaelen.
The Grand Marshal of the Southern Packs.
Beside him stood eight elite royal guards in full plate armor, their halberds tipped with silver blades.
"Magnificent," Kaelen purred, his cultured voice dripping with poisoned amusement.
"The great Gideon Hayes."
"Shot through the lungs at midnight."
"Blown apart in a sawmill at three."
"And still standing like a stubborn mountain bull."
Kaelen’s pale, serpent-like eyes drifted past Gideon’s broad shoulder.
They settled directly on Hazel.
His tongue flicked across his upper lip.
"And there she is."
"The little ghost from the western mountains."
"The daughter of Elena Brooks."
Hazel’s blood ran cold.
"You knew my mother," she whispered.
Kaelen chuckled, a dry, rattling sound that made the hairs on Hazel’s arms stand up.
"Knew her?"
"I was the one who placed the iron collar on her neck fifty years ago, little bird."
"I was the one who tracked her when she broke the royal chains and fled into the common laundry houses."
Kaelen drew his obsidian-hilted rapier with a ringing scrape of steel.
"Your mother was property of the Southern Crown, Hazel."
"Her blood belonged to my father’s legions."
"Every wound our warriors took was healed by her weeping flesh."
"And now..."
Kaelen pointed the gleaming tip of his blade directly at Hazel’s throat.
"You will take her place."
"You will heal my generals while we burn the northern territories to ash."
Gideon took one step forward.
The floorboards groaned beneath his combat boots.
The silver-plated revolver rose in his right hand.
"You speak of my kingdom as if you have already conquered it, Kaelen," Gideon said.
His voice was so low, so deep, it sounded like stones grinding together beneath a glacier.
"Your kingdom died tonight, boy," Kaelen sneered.
"Desmond’s couriers have already delivered your death certificate to the high council."
"The northern packs have surrendered their borders."
"By sunrise, the southern flag flies over the Hayes capital."
"Then let me give you a message for the high council," Gideon said.
"What message?" Kaelen asked, his men leveling their halberds.
Gideon pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The heavy silver round didn't target Kaelen.
It struck the rusty suspension cable holding the six-foot circular saw blade mounted above the doorway.
The half-inch steel cable snapped with a sound like a rifle shot.
The four-hundred-pound steel disc plunged downward like a guillotine.
"SCATTER!" Kaelen shrieked, diving backward into the snow.
The massive saw blade crashed into the threshold, slicing through two southern guards and embedding itself three feet deep into the stone foundation.
Dust, blood, and shattered masonry erupted in a blinding cloud.
"NOW!" Gideon roared.
May you like
He grabbed Hazel by the collar of her sweater, hoisting her into his arms, and leaped through the rear glass window of the kiln.
They tumbled down the steep, snow-covered embankment toward the black waters of the logging flume below.
