by Morgan Rice
“All right,” Royce said. “But I’m placing you where your injuries won’t slow you down.”
“Still trying to protect me?” Mark asked. “You know I wouldn’t have made it through the Red Isle without you, and you saved me from the corpse piles at the pit.”
“What are friends for?” Royce asked.
“You say that as if anyone else would have done it,” Mark said. “As if they could. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend.”
“Nor could I,” Royce said. He picked a spot where he could look out toward where the enemy’s fires sat in the distance. “You know I’m nervous?”
“Who wouldn’t be, before a battle?” Mark said.
“Not that kind of nervous,” Royce said. “I’m not scared about what will happen to me. I’m worried about what will happen to everyone else. What if I’m leading them to their deaths?”
“Then we die free,” Mark said. “Rather than sitting and waiting for some noble to kill us on a whim.”
That thought made Royce feel a little better, but even so, he kept on staring out toward Altfor’s forces.
“You know that she’s out there?” Mark said.
That caught Royce a little by surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Genevieve. I saw her at the pit, remember, and I’ve seen her again tonight. She’s out there, walking up and down on the edge of their lines. It seems that Altfor has brought his bride to battle.”
Royce didn’t know what to say to that. He shouldn’t feel anything about Genevieve’s presence after the way she’d turned her back on him. Instead, thinking of her there made him wonder if there was a way to see her face again, or hear her voice, or…
“Don’t even think about it,” Mark said.
It was too late though.
“I have to do it, Mark. I have to.”
Mark shook his head. “You’re the commander of this army. You can’t do this.”
Again, it seemed to Royce as if there were simply no choice.
“I need to see her. I need to go over there and see her face to face. I need… I need to give us both a chance to make this right. I can get to her, I know it. Ember can tell me the way between the guards, and I can move quietly in the darkness.”
He half expected his friend to call out to the others to try to stop him, but the point was that Mark was a friend. He understood how much Royce needed this, and how much it hurt knowing that Genevieve was out there and not being able to talk to her.
“All right,” Mark said. “Go. But if you’re not back by the time the moon falls, I’m coming after you.”
***
Genevieve walked the edge of the army’s encampment, wishing she could just walk out from it and disappear into the dark. There was no chance to do that though, when Altfor had set guards to watch and make sure that she didn’t run off. All she could do was pace, and watch, and worry.
“Genevieve.”
Royce’s voice came out of the darkness, and for a moment, Genevieve assumed it had to be something out of a dream. Then his voice came again.
“Genevieve, you need to come out of the light,” he said.
Genevieve walked forward, as far as she dared. Altfor’s guards weren’t in sight, but they would be pacing and patrolling, watching for her running.
“You can’t be here,” she said.
“Genevieve, I came here for you,” Royce replied. He came into view, and Genevieve’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. He looked, if anything, more perfect than she remembered. She wanted to run to him then and hold onto him.
“You can’t be here for me,” Genevieve said. “I’m… we can’t do this, Royce.”
“We can,” Royce said. He held out a hand. “All you have to do is take my hand, and I can get you out of here.”
Genevieve shook her head. “It isn’t that simple.”
She wanted to tell him all of it, even the parts that she hadn’t told Altfor, but would Royce really want to hear that she was pregnant with his enemy’s child? Would he understand what she had vowed to her sister that she would do?
“It’s exactly that simple,” Royce said. “Take my hand and I’ll find a way for us between the guards. We’ll get you back to our camp.”
“And then what?” Genevieve asked.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Royce said. “I came here because what happened at the pit… I came because I thought that there might be a second chance for us. Or don’t you want that?”
Genevieve knew then that she couldn’t go along with what Royce was suggesting, no matter how much her heart swelled at the prospect of it. It wasn’t just that there were too many things that she couldn’t tell him, but she knew it would be far more complicated than he made it sound too.
“You make it sound as though people would just accept me,” she said. “You’ve managed to piece together an army, and you think that will hold together if you bring me into it?”
“We would find a way to make it work,” Royce insisted.
Genevieve shook her head. She knew that it wouldn’t, and worse, if the army failed, it was done. At least this way, there was still the desperate plan she had come up with along with Sheila.
There was more than that though. She’d decided not to take the root. She had another man’s child growing inside her, and now it was too late to do anything about it. Even Royce wouldn’t be able to accept raising Altfor’s child.
She still couldn’t tell Royce any of that, though, and that left only one way to get him to go back, to get him to safety before the guards came, to keep him safe…
“I don’t want to go with you,” she said, the lie almost sticking in her throat.
“No, I don’t believe that,” Royce said.
Genevieve forced her voice to hardness. “I don’t want to, Royce. Was what happened in the pit not enough of a message for you? I’m Altfor’s wife, and I’ll stay his wife. Now go. Go, or I swear I will shout for the guards who protect me.”
Royce looked at her as though she’d slapped him, staring at her in the dark in disbelief. Genevieve wanted to go to him and wipe away that look, hold him until it vanished, but she forced herself not to. She held as still as a statue, forcing her heart to the same stone. She stood there while Royce vanished back into the darkness, and even then she held still, because she couldn’t give any sign of the tears that were falling down her cheeks.
A battle was coming in a few hours, and right then, a part of Genevieve wished that she could walk out into the middle of it and let herself be cut down.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Royce stood at the head of his army in the morning sun, wishing that the world would open up and swallow him. Inside, his heart felt like ashes, left that way by Genevieve’s rejection. Why hadn’t she come back with him? How could she choose Altfor over him?
“Are we ready?” he asked the others. His brothers stood there, and so did Mark. The Picti stood in a wild bunch, already starting to work themselves up into a battle frenzy. Earl Undine’s men stood in neat lines, waiting for orders, while the lines of the villagers and the rebels were a little more ragged, obviously looking to Royce for inspiration.
“We’re ready,” Raymond said.
Lofen nodded. “Just give the order.”
“Not yet,” Royce said. The moment had to be perfect.
It was obvious to him that they couldn’t risk a purely defensive battle. The meeting place sloped downward into its bowl, so that anyone attacking from the outside would have the advantage of the high ground to smother the defenders with weight of numbers. They needed a more offensive approach, or they would be killed where they sat.
Even so, it was hard to actually give the order when faced with the sheer bulk of Altfor’s army, stretched out in its lines, men hardened by years of killing for their lord. As the sun grew higher, Royce heard the sound of trumpets, and saw them start to stride forward at a steady pace.
Royce forced himself to take a breath. It was now or never.<
br />
“Forward!” he ordered, shouting to be heard. Around him, horns sounded, and his own forces started to march.
They rumbled forward slowly at first, like the grinding wheels of a windmill as the air first caught the sails. Then they broke into a loping jog, which started to build toward a charge…
That was when they hit the pits.
Altfor and his uncle must have had men out digging them in the night, working in blackness to do it. Perhaps if Ember had been flying guard, she might have seen them doing it, but instead he had been out trying to meet with Genevieve. As his people tumbled into stake-lined pits, he wondered if that had been deliberate; if she had been there specifically to draw his attention away from what was going on around him as Lord Alistair prepared the battlefield.
Around Royce, men and women died in the charge, impaled upon spikes, or crushed by those behind them. He saw a Picti man trampled to death as others tried to work their way around the pits, a village woman impaled on one of the spears there, screaming. The rest of their forces managed to pick their way around the pits and continue toward the other army, but the momentum of their charge had faltered, and they were struggling to form up again.
That was when Altfor’s troops attacked.
A barrage of arrows flew in, turning the sky dark. Those of Royce’s forces who had shields raised them, and arrows thudded home in the wood, but even so, far too many of the missiles got through. Soldiers thundered forward in their own charge, and now Royce knew that the only thing they could hope to do was meet them head on.
“Charge!” he yelled to the others, pointing with the crystal sword.
They followed him, and Royce braced for the impact of the two forces slamming together like two rutting stags. He had a moment to see a wall of shields and spears and blades coming toward him, then he was in amongst the chaos of it.
Royce cut down a man who came at him, spun, and felt something scrape off the silver of his armor. He killed another man, parried a blow, and kicked a man away as he aimed a blow at Lofen. He had a moment to see Mark jabbing with his spear, spinning it and slicing, working with all the skill of the Red Isle, and then the wash of battle closed over him again.
Royce cut and killed, wading forward into the press of the fight. Here, there was little room for speed or cleverness or tricks, only skill and determination. He kept the crystal sword moving, hacking his way through a man, then slicing along the ribs of another. It cut through armor as if it weren’t there, while his own took blows and never parted. Royce swept the legs from under another opponent, battered aside a man’s shield, and moved on.
Around him, he could see his people fighting bravely. Matilde seemed to be fighting alongside a large group of Picti, every bit as wild as they were in the melee. Garet was whirling a mace, bringing it cracking down onto the skull of one of the knights. Earl Undine set about him with sword and tower shield, smashing foes back and thrusting whenever enemies came within range. Everywhere Royce looked, men and women fought for their chance at freedom.
They died, too, and Royce saw the cost of battle in every wound dealt out, every spray of blood. Altfor’s soldiers knew their business, and they cut at Royce’s people without remorse. He saw men and women fall with terrible wounds, some screaming in agony, others dead before they hit the ground. The battle seemed perfectly poised in that moment, the two sides pressing at one another, trying to get each other to break.
Then Altfor’s uncle charged in with a contingent of his horsemen, hitting the melee from the side.
Instantly, Royce saw the danger. The older man was cutting left and right from horseback with the longsword he held, the men around him forming a spear that was punching into the formation Royce’s people made. He saw some of the Picti cut down, a villager turn and run only to be pierced with a spear. In just seconds, he was sure, this would go from one or two people pulling back to a full-scale rout.
Royce did the only thing he could think of, and charged straight at the wedge of horses.
“With me!” he yelled, swinging the crystal sword and fighting with an intensity he’d only felt a few times before. Around him, men died as the blade cut through them, scything a path toward Lord Alistair.
He saw the glow of his armor before he realized what it was, thinking at first that it must just be the sunlight. No, it really was a white, pure light that seemed to be spilling from the armor, and from the sword Royce held. It spread out in strands, touching the people with him, enfolding them in it, so that now Mark and Lofen, Raymond and Garet and more all glowed as surely as he did, caught up in whatever magic this was that was coming from him.
There was something to that glow, something energizing, something protecting. The fighters who glowed in a wedge with Royce seemed to move faster than the others with him, strike harder, and ignore blows that should have cut them down. Royce saw Mark moving with all the grace and speed of the Red Isle now, saw Garet cutting down guards.
Royce kept his eyes on Lord Alistair, fighting his way toward the older man. He shoved aside a soldier who tried to get in his way, ducked under a sword blow and cut another down.
Then Lord Alistair was in front of him, atop his charger, hacking down at his head. Royce blocked the blow and felt the force that the other man was able to bring to bear with it, heard the crystal sword ring with it even as he felt the jarring impact.
Royce shoved away that blow and cut, but the horse reared in that moment, lashing out with hooves shod in battlefield iron. Royce spun away and parried another strike from that longsword, then cut back, and this time the rearing of the horse brought it into the path of the blade, so that it screamed and went down, its legs cut from under it.
He saw Lord Alistair roll free even as it fell, and the two of them stood opposite one another in a clear space in the battlefield.
“You are nobody,” the older man said. “Another peasant to cut down.”
“I am King Philip’s son,” Royce said, “and even if I were the lowest pig farmer in the kingdom, I would still be better than a man like you.”
“Philip’s son?” Lord Alistair said, wide-eyed. He looked around, obviously taking in the glow from Royce’s armor. “No, we rid the kingdom of such things. We won the wars!”
“Not this one,” Royce said, and leapt into the attack.
Lord Alistair was fast, and he was cunning. He moved with the smooth speed of a man who wasted no effort, and who had fought for so long that he knew what the next moves in any fight would be. Royce tried to press in close, trying to use his strength, and Lord Alistair pushed back away from him, kicking out so that Royce stumbled slightly as the other man’s foot caught his knee. He barely parried the thrust that came in after it.
“You’ll have to do better than that, boy,” Lord Alistair said.
He struck at Royce then, again and again, and although Royce parried most of the blows, he felt some scrape from his armor. He countered with a slash that cut one of the older man’s pauldrons loose, the armor piece hanging down as Lord Alistair circled him.
The rest of the battle continued around them, but Royce couldn’t help. Right now, there was only him and his foe, matching one another pace for pace, refusing to give ground. Lord Alistair cut low and Royce jumped over it. He struck at Royce’s abdomen and Royce swayed aside, battering down at the other man’s blade.
The end came so quickly that Royce barely even registered it. Lord Alistair lifted his sword for a stroke, and just for an instant, Royce saw that he’d lifted the blade too far, put himself slightly off balance.
Royce lunged into that gap, thrusting with the crystal sword right through the other man’s armor, into his chest. At the same time, he ducked, letting the great sweep of the longsword fall behind him, feeling only the barest scrape of it along his silver armor.
Lord Alistair stood there transfixed on Royce’s blade, looking as though he wanted to say something. Royce started to lean in to hear what it was, and then, almost too late, saw the dagger in the
man’s other hand. Royce yanked backward, throwing himself out of range of the thrust while pulling the sword from his opponent’s chest. He swept it round in an arc, and Lord Alistair’s head fell from his shoulders.
Around him, the first of the enemy’s forces started to run.
They trickled away now in ones and twos as Royce and his friends cut at them, their attack held off, their leader dead. Royce cut and slew with the crystal sword, that pure white light still shining from his armor, as more and more of Altfor’s forces started to pull back.
After what was probably less than a minute, but felt like far longer, the whole of the enemy’s forces were in full rout, with a mixture of Picti and Earl Undine’s men giving chase. They ran across the heather, scattering as they went and casting aside their banners.
Royce looked around wearily, checking that his brothers were all right, and his friends. Raymond had a deep gash along one arm, while it seemed that Neave had suffered a spear wound, and was now limping along with Matilde insisting that she should seek a healer. Everywhere Royce looked, he could see only his own people.
They looked at him, and Earl Undine thrust his sword high.
“Royce, the king!”
“Royce, the king!” his people yelled, over and over, until Royce’s ears rang with it.
He looked down at where Lord Alistair’s body lay, and then started to search the battlefield. There was no sign of Altfor. Was he dead, or had he run with his people? Either way, it didn’t matter for now.
It was done. They had won.
***
“How could we lose?” Altfor muttered to himself as he scrambled along the line of a ditch. He ducked down into it as a group of Picti raced past, chasing after a clutch of his soldiers. The mud crushed its way into his clothing, but by this point, it was ruined anyway. “How did this happen?”