“What of it?” she asked dismissively. “The last of the meager army of Archenfield, buoyed by more ill-prepared civilians—”
“Look more closely,” Henning instructed her. “Do you not see the colors of Rednow?”
She saw that he was right.
“So little Prince Jared managed to raise an alliance after all,” she said.
Henning nodded.
Lydia did not understand why he was hesitating. “Rednow is only a small territory, my darling—far more adept at matters of trade than war. They might look like a force to be a reckoned with, but they pose no threat to the army of Paddenburg.”
Still, Henning seemed unsure. Was his nerve failing him at this late stage? It could not—not when they almost had the palace of Archenfield in their sights.
“We can still win this, with ease,” she told him. “All you need to do is sound the charge.”
For a moment, he said nothing, his eyes focused on the army now advancing toward them.
“You must sound the charge,” Lydia told him. “No one must sense your hesitation, your uncertainty.”
“You’re right,” Henning said, lowering his visor. “You’re always right.” He raised his hand and gave the signal.
Flushed with relief, Lydia loosened the reins of her horse, dug her spurs in its sides and propelled herself toward her next golden victory.
FORTY
South of Kirana
THE PADDENBURG ARMY HAD CHARGED AT THEM across an open stretch of land to the south of Kirana. The ground beneath them, sodden from the winter rain, had been ripped open by the thundering of a thousand hooves. Mud had splattered up the legs of their horses and mixed with the blood that had been spilled on both sides.
As Jared fought off his latest attacker, he caught sight of one of his own soldiers cut through by an enemy sword.
To the west, a flash of light caught his attention: it was as if the sun were casting off from the southern reaches of the great fjord. Then it dawned on him that it was the glint of sunlight on gleaming metal. Reinforcements were racing to join them—their swords raised above their heads. Leading the charge was Morgan Booth, his face contorted by his battle cry. The Executioner was a welcome sight, but his presence caused Jared to wonder—had Morgan and Jonas claimed victory over Paddenburg’s army in the south, or had they been forced to retreat? Jared scanned the soldiers in Morgan’s vicinity but could not see the Woodsman among them.
Jared felt an unmistakable tension rise in the enemy around him. They were aware that they had been flanked by an Archenfield force from the west and were now outnumbered. Yet it did not stop them. With a sinking heart, Jared realized that these men and women had not been trained to consider the option of retreat or surrender; if anything, their weakened position had renewed their will to fight and, if necessary, die for their cause. Their dedication to their leaders was unwavering, even in the face of defeat. It was senseless and the senselessness of their deaths sickened Jared. Yet he had no choice but to meet each swing of their swords with his own, and one by one they fell, dying in the battle-churned mud.
As Jared claimed victory, his eyes met Morgan’s for the first time. The smile of reunion quickly faded.
“What is it?” Jared asked. He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach even before the Executioner answered.
“We lost the battle in the south. I made the decision for our troops to retreat.”
“I know you will have made the right decision,” Jared told him. “Where is Jonas?” He saw the effect the mere mention of Jonas’s name had on his comrade. “He’s dead?”
Morgan closed his eyes briefly. “He’s at peace, Prince Jared, in the forest at Tonsberg. He died a noble death, fighting to protect the Princedom he loved.”
“As these poor souls fought to wrench it from us,” Jared said, gesturing at the broken bodies spread across the battleground. “I wonder what victory will mean to either side when this is the price we must pay.” Then he looked at Morgan. “I am sorry for Jonas,” he said softly.
They stood, horses alongside the battlefield. Neither spoke for a while. Then Morgan raised his hand up to shield his eyes from the low winter sun. “Look,” he said, pointing toward the southern reaches of the plain.
Jared saw with utter shock what he was showing him.
A fresh wave of Paddenburg troops had advanced from the south. As far as he could see, there were ranks of soldiers, clad in purple and black.
Mellerad
“I can’t leave my home.” Zayna hesitated on the doorstep as a torrent of settlement dwellers ran past them.
“You have to!” Asta shouted over the noise of the crowd and their panicked cries. She grabbed Zayna’s hand. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
She tugged the woman away from the door and they became part of the fear-fueled torrent. Men, women and children were pelting along the streets, unsure exactly where they were going, knowing only that the fort had fallen to the enemy. Asta knew that it was a sign of the people’s fear and desperation that they had not even bothered to gather up treasured possessions from their vacated homes.
The narrow street soon became jammed by the sheer quantity of people moving down it, and Asta felt the crowd crushing dangerously in on itself. Now she was possessed by a new fear—that through their very desperation to escape, the settlement dwellers might crush one another to death on the streets. Children were screaming; babes in arms were held aloft to better protect them from the crush. What sounded like hundreds of voices were crying to go this way or that way or to stop pushing. As the crush became even tighter and the fear similarly intensified, the voices merged into a horrible cacophony.
Asta could barely think, hardly breathe, anymore.
With all the screaming and shoving going on, people were now moving, but Asta realized she had become separated from Zayna. She turned, eyes ranging desperately to find her, but it was hopeless. The force of the crowd pushed her forward, toward fresh horror.
At the end of the street, the thoroughfare widened and forked. This was cause for relief, as it enabled the crowd to begin to thin. Both roads led north and that was as good a direction as any in which to go. At least, it seemed that way.
As Asta reached the fork in the road and, for the briefest moment, weighed up which path to take, she saw that up ahead—on both stretches of road—were soldiers, bearing the colors of both Archenfield and Paddenburg.
With a ghastly clarity, she realized that the battle had pooled out from the fort itself—now, the very streets of Mellerad had become an urban battlefield. She turned and tried to stem the tide of panic-blind people. It was useless. They were running into the heart of the combat. Asta found herself being pushed again, and turned to face forward to be able to see where she was going. As she did so, her foot suddenly came down on something that was not the road itself. Glancing down, she realized she had stepped on a dead body. Not a soldier but one of the settlement dwellers, stabbed and left to perish on the dust of the road.
Then she was pushed forward again, over the body, farther into the melee. A breath away from her, a soldier of Archenfield ran her sword through an opponent. She found her mark and blood sprayed from her victim’s throat. Asta felt the sudden heat and wetness on her face and realized that her face was now covered in the blood of the dying enemy soldier. She did not have time to wipe herself clean, even though she could taste the dead man’s blood on her tongue. This was beyond anything she had witnessed before, even when Eronesia had taken Teragon. It was beyond even her worst nightmares.
Jostled forward again, she saw that the road ahead only lay claim to worse horrors. It was littered with bodies of the dead—mostly soldiers, of both colors, but now the settlement dwellers too. It seemed that the army of Paddenburg had an unstoppable bloodlust. Taking the fort, then the settlement, was not enough for them: they would not be satisfied until every last man, woman and child had been massacred.
She recognized the boy’s eyes at once. He was st
anding at the side of the road, staring vacantly toward her and the others. She managed to break free from the crowd to go over to him. Yes, there was no doubt in her mind. He was the boy from the market square in Galvaire—the one who had ridden there from Lindas with his father. Glancing at the ground at the boy’s feet, Asta knew what she would find even before her eyes reached the ground: the slumped, lifeless body of his father.
Looking back up at the young boy—no more than four or five, she guessed—she saw his stunned, expressionless eyes. In less than a day, this child had seen his entire family slaughtered.
Asta knew she could not leave him there. She wished she knew his name, but there was not even time to ask. She reached for his hand. As she did so, the vacancy in his eyes suddenly changed to show fresh fear. Turning, Asta saw why. One of the Paddenburg soldiers was charging at them, his sword held aloft. Instinctively, Asta wrapped her arms around the boy. She had to protect him.
The Foothills North of Pencador
Kai Jagger stood on a craggy summit, a distance away from the men and women under his command. He had been looking down the same hillside for what seemed like hours now, aware that the foot soldiers gathered behind him at the top of the hill were restless and anxious for the situation to break.
Kai was not one to hesitate without very good reason, and now, as his eyes glanced down the hillside, they met two very good reasons not to rush things…
About a third of the way down the hill, rough rocks broke through the grassland and formed a natural defensive ring. Just beneath this ring, the enemy force was biding its time. The soldiers of Paddenburg had been waiting there for many hours. Kai did not bother lifting his field glasses to his eyes in order to interrogate the faces of his enemy—it was enough to observe the back and forth movements of the dark silhouettes clustered below. By now, he was surprised that the enemy had not launched a charge on his own forces, and it made him wonder if they were waiting for reinforcements. This, in turn, increased his anxiety levels. The two opposing armies had been in this stalemate for too long now. He felt compelled to break the deadlock, but to do so meant making a near-impossible decision.
If he sent his forces racing down the open ground of the hill to tackle the enemy, they would be immediately exposed and vulnerable to the arrows of Paddenburg’s archers. But at least he had a good idea of enemy numbers now, and he knew that he could muster an equivalent force, skilled and hungry for attack. If he stood firm and continued to do nothing, was he running the risk of a greater enemy force arriving, against which his regiments would have less chance of success or, indeed, survival?
Now, as he gazed down the hillside, something entered his peripheral vision: a new swath of soldiers on horses was approaching the foot of the hill. Kai felt a rare sickness in the pit of his stomach. He knew that he had delayed too long. Just as he had feared, the enemy force was about to reinforce itself. After that, they would surely not hang back beyond their defenses any longer, but begin to scale the upper stretch of the hill, caring little that Archenfield might send its own arrows down to decimate—at best—their numbers.
Kai was unsure what compelled him to lift his field glasses but, as he did so, he suddenly felt pure relief flood through his body. The horse-mounted troops were not clad in the purple and black of the enemy, but in uniforms of blue, green and gold. The new influx of riders were soldiers of Archenfield! This put his situation in an entirely different light. Rather than Paddenburg mustering double their force to overwhelm Archenfield soldiers gathered at the top of the hill it was, in fact, the soldiers of Paddenburg who were now in the most vulnerable position—with soldiers from Archenfield closing in on them from both above and below.
Kai saw no further reason to delay. Judging from the stirrings below him, the enemy was making its own difficult but necessary decisions. He raced over to address his troops. It did not take long to capture their full attention, and even less time to give the command for attack.
Kai was, as usual, at the fore of his troops as they raced down from the summit over the low scrub toward the ring of rock, from which they would propel themselves down into the midst of the enemy. Just as he had predicted, however, the moment they broke cover, arrows began flying through the air toward them. He was aware of several of his soldiers taking a fall on either side of him, but they were traveling fast down the hill, and only a small proportion of his force was lost. The vast majority made it to the rocks. So far, then, the gamble was paying off.
The wave of arrows thinned as the soldiers of Paddenburg set down their crossbows and took up their swords. Kai and his comrades swept over the rocks and jumped down among their enemy, beginning to tackle them in hand-to-hand combat. He could feel the energy pulsing through his soldiers as they finally got to channel their earlier tension into the fight. Head down, he made swift and brutal progress through the soldiers who dared to challenge him. Kai was the Huntsman and, when it came down to it, killing beasts or soldiers was pretty much the same thing. No one was more talented at the kill than Kai Jagger.
He was aware of the Archenfield soldiers fighting from the other direction, and the band of Paddenburgians between the two Archenfield regiments kept diminishing until there was simply no more enemy left for him to kill. Standing firm, he took in a deep gulp of air. His exposed flesh was covered in dirt and blood but he had sustained only the most minor of wounds—certainly nothing compared to the numerous deathblows he had inflicted.
Up ahead, he saw a familiar figure, still on horseback. It was Emelie Sharp, the Beekeeper. She raised her hand to him and he ran over to her. As he did so, he noticed Lucas Curzon and Elliot Nash, also on horseback, a short distance away. He was grateful that his allies had made it here safe.
“Emelie,” Kai said. “I think we can congratulate ourselves on a battle well won here.”
She nodded, but did not return his smile. “Yes,” she said. “This was a decisive victory for Archenfield, but I do not know if it counts for very much in the wider scheme of things.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, disturbed by her tone as well as her words.
“We rode from the south not in victory but in retreat,” Emelie told him. “Pencador has fallen and the enemy is mustering its forces to advance northward. You and your foot soldiers succeeded in cutting a swath through a moderate-sized force here”—she shook her head and he saw her face was drained of all color—“but let me tell you, Kai, a tidal wave of enemy forces is about to rise up against us.”
He felt his earlier feeling of sickness return. “How can this be happening to us?” he said.
She nodded. “I have asked myself the same question many times. And I believe I now have the answer. This attack is no sudden thing—these monstrous plans must have been incubating in the Black Palace of Paddenburg for months, if not years. I suspect that the ink was barely dry on the alliance with Woodlark when Henning and Ven began setting their foul plot in motion.”
“We should have been more prepared.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “We have sleepwalked into this nightmare. And now, we will pay for our folly in blood.”
Mellerad
Axel saw Asta pressed against the wall, holding a little boy tight in her arms. The bastard soldier, clad in black and purple, lunged toward the defenseless pair. Holding tightly to his horse’s reins with his left hand, Axel leaned over as far and as quickly as he could to plunge his sword into the soldier’s neck. He lost control of his weapon as the soldier slumped to the ground, barely more than inch from Asta’s feet.
Axel jumped down from his horse, intent upon retrieving his sword and the girl but, as he stepped forward, he suddenly felt a searing pain in the flesh between his ribs. Turning, he saw that another of the Paddenburg soldiers had broken through the crowd and had jabbed a dagger between links in his chain mail. The weapon was still gripped tightly in the soldier’s hands, poised to push fatally deeper. He saw the dark intent in his enemy’s eyes.
Suddenly Axel’s horse reared
up above them, blocking for a moment the light of the winter sun. Axel felt the blade of the dagger move—any deeper and it would surely pierce his heart. But the dagger did not plunge in, but slipped out again. Why had the soldier left the job undone?
Looking up, Axel had his answer. Asta Peck had retrieved his sword from the body of the soldier he had slain before and used it to merciless effect on Axel’s own attacker, plunging it with impressive efficiency into the gap between the man’s breastplate and back armor. The dying man had fallen to the ground, his dagger tumbling before him, its tip shiny with Axel’s blood.
Axel watched, amazed, as Asta calmly slid the sword out from the soldier’s side and offered it to him. Taking back the sword, Axel gazed at Asta. Her face was drained of all color.
“You saved my life,” he told her.
“You saved mine,” she answered matter-of-factly.
Axel realized in that moment that he had underestimated the young Poet. The thought also occurred to him that this might not be the first time she had killed somebody—she seemed dazed, but not entirely traumatized.
“We need to get out of here,” he told her, deftly resheathing his sword and climbing back into the saddle. “And fast, before we’re subject to another attack.”
Asta nodded, but instead of taking his hand to climb up alongside him, she turned and lifted the boy she had been hugging so close to her.
Axel frowned and shook his head. “We can’t take him.”
Asta bristled with defiance. “I won’t leave him.”
He knew there would be no arguing with her, just as surely as he knew he couldn’t leave her there to certain death. He found himself taking the stunned child in his arms and settling him in front. “Hold tight to these reins and don’t let go,” he instructed the boy.
His hands looked pathetically small in contrast to Axel’s own.