#whump of a minor mention
The Blackmuir Reign: Rudy and the Tongue Cutter
Snippet summary: Rudy and Matteo are sent to bring a more specific law document to some neighboring lords. The previous one’s ambiguity left too much room for interpretation. Rudy has a side mission Matteo is unaware of, and it involves the man who carried out the order on Henry’s boy. Timeline: after the letter is sent
CW: medieval fantasy whump, knife fight, blood, death/murder, whump of a minor mentioned, mutilation mentioned
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“Rudy, no,” Matteo begged. “Let’s go. Please. We got what we came for.”
“You might’ve,” the Knight muttered. His eyes were fixed like a wolfs on the man that brought Henry’s boy to them, the one who had pushed the child to his knees in Therrin’s court.
Though the order had been from Lord Burns, this man was rumored to revel in cutting tongues from the heads of petty criminals, usually thieves— apparently including twelve year old boys who steal loaves of bread. He was tall and bald, a great white thumb of a man with grey teeth and a mottled left ear like a fist fighter.
Matteo reached for Rudy as he started back into the yard, but the Knight pulled right out of his grip.
He was too far away to hear the brief exchange between them, but the tongue-cutting Knight was laughing and then he wasn’t— a change of heart so sudden it must have been something Rudy said.
What happened next seemed to be slowed down, clear as if it were embroidered in a tapestry. There was a shove. A rude word, hands on sword hilts. But instead of drawing his sword, the tongue cutter went for a knife at his waist, lunging with surprising dexterity at Rudy.
Matteo moaned aloud. Why couldn’t they have just gone? They had delivered the written amendment, gotten a signature. They had eaten blueberry cake with The Lord and Lady, drunk some horrible root tea with no honey— these northerners never sweetened anything properly. They had completed their peacekeeping mission, as far as the King was concerned. No more tongues being removed as casually as throwing someone in stocks for an hour.
He wanted to be back at the Muirkeep, not in this ugly land with this cruel Lord Burns and pale, sallow faced people. If Rudy was injured or killed— there was no telling what they’d do to him.
Rudy had a hold of the knife, Matteo realized as if in a dream. It had not gone into his unprotected underarm as intended; he’d caught it in his bare hand. Rudy pulled the tongue cutter closer by his own blade, then brought down his skull like a striking snake so it crashed into his face. There was a crack of bone and a guttural roar like an animal in pain.
Matteo took a staggering step back, watching with a cold sick in his gut as Rudy pulled his own knife from a sheath at his ankle, still holding the cutter’s blade in his left hand, blood pouring down his wrist in ribbons.
He drove his knife upward into the cutter’s thick neck, straight to the hilt so it looked like there was nothing in his fist. The man’s eyes bulged, his nose broken and streaming with blood like spilled strongwine down his tunic. They went down together, both Knights falling to their knees in the courtyard until the surprise went out of the other’s face and a slack emptiness pulled at the corners of his mouth. Rudy pushed him, pulling his knife from his throat as he fell as if from a summer squash.
The Knight sprawled on his back, knees bent and arms out like a ritual sacrifice. Empty eyes pointed at the drizzly gray sky. Rudy went to one knee and pushed himself laboriously up, holding the bloody knife in his good hand. The other streamed blood, leaving a trail as he came back.
Matteo recoiled from him as he approached. His reddish beard had blood in it, a spray like a splash all across his face from when he’d pulled the knife out of the man’s neck. He spit on the ground and wiped the blade on the leg of his trousers.
“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” he said, turning Matteo by the shoulders to steer him out of Lord Burn’s castle. Matteo looked over his shoulder at the slumped body, at faces beginning to peek out of windows and archways like the twin moons of his homeland.
They mounted their horses and cantered out of the gate, just as shouts began to ring out from the courtyard. They urged their horses to a gallop on the open road, wind whipping the bay’s mane on Matteo’s chin. He turned to see if there was anyone in pursuit. The drawbridge was pulling up, but he saw no riders.
He laughed, and the wind swallowed up the sound.
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Matteo was numb from the saddle and the wind, heading almost drunkenly towards the Great Hall where he knew there would be food and drink, and likely Therrin. He was stronger now than he’d been just weeks ago but he was still easily exhausted, and he still got winded easily, like an old man and not a boy of twenty.
Henry’s boy shot up at the sight of Rudy, going to him without hesitation though he was covered in blood. The Knight opened an arm to him, holding his injured hand aloft. He held the boy in his good arm, petting the back of his wild, coppery head.
“I told you I wouldn’t keep you waiting for long, little one. It’s alright.”
What would Henry’s boy have thought of he’d seen the Knight avenge him in the middle of Lord Burn’s courtyard, Matteo wondered?
More importantly, what would King Therrin say when he discovered what they’d done?
