Read Online Only the Worthy by Morgan Rice - Free Book Online

the ground, unable to move, as dozens of knights pounced on
him. It was a wall of metal pinning him to the ground, bending his arms, knees
in his back, arms on his head.
    It was over, he
realized.
    He had lost.
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
    Royce woke,
startled, to the feeling of ice water on his face, to the sounds of shouts and
jeers, and he squinted in the light. One of his eyes, he realized right away,
was sealed shut, the other barely open, just enough for him to see by. His head
reeled from the pain, his body stiff, covered in lumps and bruises, and he felt
as if he had been rolled down a mountain. He looked out at the world before
him, and wished he hadn’t.
    A bustling mob
encircled him, some shouting and jeering, others protesting, seemingly on his
behalf. It was as though these people had erupted in civil war, he in the
center. He struggled to make sense of what he saw. Was this, he wondered, a
dream?
    The pain was too
intense for this to be a dream; the stabbing headache, the coarse ropes digging
into his wrists. He struggled, to no avail, at the ropes binding his wrists and
ankles and looked down to realize he was tied to a stake. His heart pounded to
see a pile of wood beneath him, as if ready to be lit. Fear crept over him as
he realized he was strung up in the castle courtyard.
    Royce looked out
and saw hundreds of villagers swarming into the courtyard, saw dozens of
knights and guards standing along the walls; he saw a makeshift wooden stage,
perhaps fifty feet away, and on it, tribunal judges, all nobles. In the center
sat a man he recognized: Lord Nors. The head of the nobles’ family. Manfor’s
father. He was the presiding judge of the countryside. And he sat in the center
and stared down at Royce with a hatred unlike any Royce had seen.
    It did not bode
well.
    All of it came
rushing back to Royce. Genevieve. Breaking into the fort. Rescuing her. Killing
Manfor. Jumping. Fighting off those knights. And then…
    There came the
slamming of a hammer on wood several times, and the crowd quieted. Lord Nors stood,
glowering down at all, and he was even more fierce, more commanding, standing.
He set his fury-filled eyes on Royce and Royce realized he was being put on
trial. He had seen several trials before, and none had gone well for the
prisoners.
    Royce scanned
the faces, desperate to find any glimpse of Genevieve, praying she was safe,
away from all this.
    Yet he found
none. That was what worried him most of all. Had she been imprisoned? Killed?
    He tried to
block out various nightmare scenarios from his mind.
    “You hereby
stand accused of the murder of Manfor of the House of Nors, son of Lord Nors,
ruler of the South and the Woods of Segall,” Lord Nors boomed out, and the
crowd grew completely still. “What is your plea?”
    Royce opened his
mouth, struggled to speak—but his lips and throat were parched. His voice fell
short, and he tried again.
    “He stole my
bride,” Royce finally managed to reply.
    There came a
chorus of supportive cheers, and Royce looked out to see thousands of
villagers, his countrymen, pouring in, wielding clubs and sickles and
pitchforks. His heart leapt with hope and gratitude as he realized all his
people had come to support him. They had all had enough.
    Royce looked up
at Lord Nors and saw him lose his conviction, just a touch. A nervous look
spread across his face as he turned and looked to his fellow judges and they
looked to the knights. It seemed as if they were beginning to realize that they
might, if they condemned Royce to death, have a revolution on their hands.
    Finally, Lord
Nors slammed his hammer, and the crowd quieted.
    “And yet,” he
boomed, “the law is clear: any peasant woman is the property of any noble until
she is wed.”
    There came a
loud chorus of boos and hisses from the crowd, and the mob surged forward. An
anonymous person hurled a tomato toward the stage, and the crowd cheered, as it
barely missed Lord Nors.
    There came a
horrified gasp amongst