Honored (Book 2 of the In Search of Honor series)

The night was long as the armor dug into my neck and arms with a nagging insistence. Rotating on my side saved me only momentarily, but eventually the stupid neck guard had my neck feeling like it was being dug into in every position, and my arms itched from the metal things on my arms.

It was a useless plan. I needed sleep more than I needed to be in the metal pieces. I unbuckled and pulled off the pieces to the best of my ability. Tomorrow someone could help me get it back on.

The bed felt heavenly without the armor. It was so soft and perfect to relieve the aches from my previous attempt at sleep.

Someone was shaking me. “Huh?” I questioned the shadow over me.

“It’s morning, it’s morning,” A high pitched voice sang, “time to rise and shine.” The person giggled and poked me.

“Who are you?” I rubbed my eyes to clear my groggy vision. She wore a simple brown dress and had her dark brown hair tied back in a tight bun.

“Me? I’m no one really, or at least not compared to you. Just a person who lives in this house.” The shadows in the room made it hard to see her face.

“I’m not sure why you think I’m someone special, I -”

“I know who you are. You are the hope of the Undesirables and the Dishonored. You are Mistress Exile.” She seemed to be dusting the room as she spoke.

Hadn’t Henry wanted to keep my location a secret? “I don’t think I am who you think I am.”

“Oh please miss. It’s plain as bread. Revolutionaries asking if they can stay at your place, and then bringing a girl in through the tunnels with an E on her cheek. It’s so clear who you are that I would trust drinking that water.” She continued around the room messing with things as she went.

Did I have something near me to protect myself? But if she wanted to kill me she could have killed me while I slept. Wasn’t I supposed to be guarded. If she was in here, maybe they trusted her. Maybe I didn’t need to be so careful.

“Why did you wake me?”

“I figured you might want to see your friend off before he leaves. He was getting ready to go last I saw.”

“Dan.” I rolled myself out of the bed and fell on the pile of metal at the foot of my bed. “Why didn’t you say this earlier?” The bed was perfect for pulling myself up into a standing position.

“You didn’t ask.” She reached down and grabbed the metal armor pieces and dumped them on the bed. “I recommend putting these back on after seeing your friend off.”

That sounded reasonable. I stumbled to the door and wrenched it open to see the large room with its single table empty of people. Where was he? Had he already left? Should I leave to go look through the house to find him?

The lady passed me, waved, and went out the door into the rest of the house. I stood frozen with indecision, unable to go into the forbidden land. Should I grab my armor and attempt to put it on while I waited?

Deep voices rumbled from beyond the door to the rest of the house. Was one of them Dan?

Henry walked through the door followed by Daniel. Was Dan behind them?

“Ahh, I see you’ve woken up.” Henry smiled at me as he walked over to the table.

I didn’t see Dan. “Yes. I was hoping to see Dan off. Is he still here?”

Henry shook his head, and ran his hand through his black hair. “We suggested he wake you, but he insisted you needed sleep. He left a while ago.”

“Oh.” Was he still angry at me?

“You didn’t put your braces and neck guard back on?” Daniel asked.

“I was in a rush. I didn’t want to miss Dan leaving. But I guess I already did.” I sighed. Why had he left without a goodbye?

“Come on, It’s easy to put those pieces on”. Daniel waved toward the room, and I followed.

I let him put the bracers on my arms and the stifling neck guard back on my neck.

When we went back into the main room, a new man was in the room. He glanced at me, and then focused on the table. “We have heavy fighting near the warehouse offices. We fortified them, and made it look like we were protecting something there. Unfortunately, they’ve focused all their men on that section, and our barricades are starting to look like ramps for the King’s men to walk over. We are struggling to hold this section. By now our men have probably already fallen back to the next barricade line. I wouldn’t be surprised if they manage to take the offices by midday.”

“Hmm.” Henry grimaced, staring at the map. “I was hoping that when we had movement on the other side of our lines they would notice and lessen their attack against the line here.”

I walked forward, looking at the uneven dispersion of man power from the enemy. Every King’s soldier was focused on taking just three streets.

All three streets led to a choke point. I pointed at the choke, “Why don’t our forces withdraw all the way to the choke point? If they want that area, let them have it. It would allow us to consolidate our forces, and it’s tight enough that overwhelming force would be wasted on it.”

Henry shook his head, “We are pretending there is a fake you in the offices, and are desperately defending it as such.”

“Make a show of moving the fake me. Move the fake me to somewhere far in the back.” Why hadn’t they had the fake me way in the back to begin with? "They might spread out their forces more and attack more points. We were using the fake position to make them concentrate their forces.” The unknown man waved his hand over the space our forces held.

“Why don’t we contract our position further to hold less of the city? Focus on the warehouses and a section of the wall.” I pointed at the area near the warehouses near the choke I’d pointed at earlier.

Henry shook his head. “If we do that we might lose morale because the soldiers feel like we are losing ground.”

Morale. Such a finicky thing that could be manipulated, “If we explain it as moving to strategic chokes to make holding easier I am sure the soldiers wouldn’t complain about movements meant to keep them alive.”

No one said anything for a moment, and then Henry moved the lines representing our men to hold the smaller area with no wide roads being held in the area. It looked stronger to me.

Henry grimaced and then nodded, “This is much stronger. Make a show of having a cloaked body double leave the offices to retreat. In the meantime, have some of the soldiers build barricades at these locations. When they are ready, have everyone retreat to these positions with the body double moving to this house against the Wall.” Henry tapped a location near the Wall.

“Yes sir.” The man saluted and went out through the trap door in the floor.

“Daniel will be outside the door if you need him, knock on the door. Don’t leave this room though. I don’t want others to know you are here.” Henry turned and left. Should I have told him about the house’s owner being in here to clean earlier?

It was probably fine. He’d seemed fine with me being in the room with the soldier earlier. And they were guarding the door. They probably already knew about the woman who came in to clean earlier.