The Multitude, стр. 80

The parry deflated Phineas’s puffed chest. He squinted into Quintus’s eyes, no doubt searching for the lie behind the words he’d just heard. “Speak more plainly.”

“I’ll take Maynya and be on my way. The kingdom is yours.” But could he do that, leaving the palace in worse hands than Albus’s? What would become of the slave brides?

Maybe his uncertainty showed. As they stared each other down, the narrow-eyed distrust in Phineas’s expression failed to dissipate.

“And I’ll have your support?” Phineas said.

“Only up to a point. I won’t serve in your army.” More than likely, he’d come back with a band to fight the army, but he tried to hide the notion from his expression.

“I wouldn’t have you,” Phineas barked. “Tell everyone I’m the rightful king, and you can leave with any whore in this tent except one.”

Quintus offered his hand. “Are you saying we have a bargain?”

Phineas glanced at Maynya, who still held steady despite Orelea’s knife. “No. You don’t get the witch until we finish with her. You can bury her broken bones before you leave.” But he spoke with enough of a tremor in his voice to reveal a shadow of fear lurking behind his bravado.

Quintus pressed the advantage. “Where’s your birthright? Once these people calm down, they’ll remember tradition and turn on you, unless the king’s true successor endorses you.”

Maynya’s deeply focused stare raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He was missing something. What had she just mouthed to him?

Still holding the blade with one hand, Orelea twisted Maynya’s arm behind her back with the other. Maynya winced but repeated her silent message.

He read her lips—rats. What was the context?

Phineas sneered. “She dies, you leave, and I rule. That’s the only bargain I’ll strike. The soldiers are behind me, Quintus.”

Quintus raced his mind for associations and came up with a simple one—rats and fear. Might Phineas be afraid of rats? He’d heard rumors about an incident some time ago.

Only a great show of confidence could carry the moment, combined with a bluff. The day a captive bride could save herself by conjuring anything at all would be the day the sun rose in the west. Quintus spread his hands. “I’d try killing Maynya myself if I didn’t think she’d summon every rat in the kingdom to sink their teeth into my flesh.”

The worry lines in Phineas’s forehead deepened.

Quintus closed in for the kill. “I’m offering to rid you of a burden as a gesture of peace between us. If you let me take Maynya alive, you’ll never set eyes on her again.”

Phineas shot a look of pure hatred toward Maynya. He took Quintus’s hand in a rough grip and shook. “Tell my people who their new ruler is. Then get that whore of a witch out of my sight!”

Quintus raised his arms. “Everyone!”

The muttering mob quieted. Gentry, visiting princes, merchants, and their women, all dressed in wedding finery but contorting their faces into murderous scowls. They couldn’t be trusted to wait long.

“Albus chose wisely in selecting Phineas as his successor,” Quintus said. “I am a mere soldier cut in the wrong cloth to serve as your king.”

The small group of brides in attendance lowered their heads. They must have thought he’d betrayed them.

With strengthening resolve to return for them after resolving the immediate crisis, Quintus pressed on. “I’ll rid this witch from your hands and step down in favor of a worthy ruler, my good friend Phineas.”

He stepped into the gathering with bated breath. The soldiers and gentry shifted aside to let him pass, but he met fierce resolve in Orelea’s eyes.

“You won’t have her,” she hissed. Orelea cut an inch-long gash along the side of Maynya’s neck, painting the tip of her blade red.

Maynya stared into Quintus’s soul with no hint of pain or fear, only adoration intense enough to buckle his knees. The love she radiated seemed to crackle the air. “Brewster!”

Why did she address him so? This woman had baffled him from the beginning, capturing his heart when he first saw her portrait, later rejecting his offer of water on the hill, and now speaking another’s name even as he tried to save her life. He drew a deep breath, perhaps one of his last. His love for Maynya was so overpowering he was ready to die for her.

“Bring on the rats!” Phineas shouted. “We’re a hundred strong to fend them off.”

Good God! Quintus had been a fool to think he could trust this snake. He again shot his gaze around the tent, but his only allies were a huddled group of defenseless brides.

Phineas stalked toward him, waving his arms like a wild man. “You all saw! He tried to stab Albus. That witch has him under her spell!”

Quintus crouched, tightening his grip on his knife. Fool or not, he had every intention of going down with a fight.

A merchant shook an angry fist. “Conspirator!”

Two soldiers elbowed the man aside and came forward with blades in hand.

“Conjurer!” A third advanced toward Maynya with unsheathed sword.

Someone grabbed Quintus from behind. He spun around.

At that moment, Orelea’s piercing scream nearly startled him into dropping his knife.

As the hand on his shoulder fell away, a collective gasp rang in his ears. He glanced at his sister in time to see her blade curving away from Maynya’s neck. It slithered like a snake, then stretched to the length of a sword before plunging into Orelea’s shoulder. She collapsed.

Bzzzzz. What was that roar, ten million insects? Or did he simply over-amplify the rush of adrenaline in his ears?

No, this had to be real. Others shifted their hands to their ears.

Maynya began twitching. Her eyes rolled. Her head tilted back.

A black cloud of insects tore into the tent—thick-bodied, ugly locusts. They poured through the torn flaps above, across the entranceway, ripping new holes in the flimsy lining.

Everyone yelled, swatted, ran, fell. Orelea twitched on the ground. Phineas covered his face with his cape.

Only the brides held steady. The swarm stayed clear of them.

Maynya staggered backwards. Quintus