by Morgan Rice
“I…”
“I’m not going to fight you,” Sophia said. “You’re being manipulated, but not by me. I’ve felt the kind of power that the stones have. My guess is that the shadow stone is showing you twisted versions of things, trying to control you. You have to pull back from it, Kate!”
“I have to…”
For what seemed like forever, Kate stood there in silence, and Sophia could only guess at the argument that she was having within herself. Kate looked up at her, and for a moment, just a moment, Sophia thought that her sister was listening.
Then Kate raised her sword. “I don’t have to do anything you tell me!”
She leapt at Sophia, blade extended to kill.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Sebastian pushed and fought his way through the battle, not even caring about the result now, just trying to get to his wife. He’d been apart from Sophia for so long that now, in this moment when he’d had everything else torn from him, all he could think of was getting to her.
He hacked down a New Army soldier who got in his way, then shoved aside another for the men following him to deal with. They formed a wedge with him at the point, charging through the heart of the melee, cutting through with sheer effort. They kept moving, because to stop in that moment would have meant enemies on all sides, but even so, Sebastian could feel the momentum slowing. They had to break through.
“For the queen!” he called, trying to boost his men’s morale as they fought in his wake. He thrust his blade through one of Henry d’Angelica’s men, then blocked a spear blow aimed at another of his men. With enemies this close on all sides, it felt to Sebastian as if there were hungry blades in every direction.
He didn’t care about that though; he just wanted to get to Sophia.
He hadn’t been able to save their daughter, but he would do anything he had to in order to make sure that his wife was safe. He’d sworn to love her forever when he married her, and he wasn’t about to let a little thing like a battle come between them.
What a battle it was now! Around Sebastian, men from the three great sides that contested the kingdom fought and died, cut and killed in such a frenzy that it was hard to be sure exactly who belonged to which faction. He raised his sword to hack at a man, only to turn it aside when he saw a flash of Ishjemme’s colors beneath the mud and gore that mired him. Around them, the melee swirled, and it had reached a stage where it seemed that tactics would make no difference, only the frantic efforts of the men there: their strength; their will.
Beyond the melee, Sebastian could see that his efforts to reshape the battlefield were bearing fruit. The walls that encased the flanks of the New Army meant that they couldn’t attack on a front wide enough to use their full strength, and it allowed Sophia’s soldiers to fire down at them from there, inflicting terrible casualties.
In addition to the stone, Sebastian started to see ice and snow at play, falling even though the day was too hot for them, obscuring the view of enemy gunners and rendering the ground slippery for men as they tried to charge. He saw translucent men and beasts charge into the hordes of the enemy, passing through some without harm, but managing to cut down others, and sending a whole contingent running in fear. He heard the crack of muskets, and saw the groups that came out of hiding to strike at the enemy’s officers. He could see the New Army starting to fold in upon itself, held back by the efforts of their forces, and the confusion of the strange, three way battle that was unfolding.
Through it all though, Sebastian only really had eyes for Sophia. He watched her while he fought his way forward, seeing the Master of Crows there, and the stranger sight of Kate fighting beside him.
“We have to get to Sophia!” he yelled to his men. “Whatever it takes.”
He continued to fight his way forward, pushing through while around him, men died in the fight for every scrap of ground. Sebastian saw men with him fall, cut down by the enemy. He watched them pushed aside by the sheer weight of numbers. He even saw them trampled by the boots of the others, the press of men too great for anyone to withstand.
Sebastian cut his way through all of it, hacking at the enemies who got in his way, leading the charge to get to his wife. He saw Kate and Sophia starting to fight, fire and shadow meeting in between them. Sebastian started to run.
He pushed his way through the fight, not even bothering to engage with the enemies now, just running to get to Sophia before the fight ahead could hurt her. He saw the Master of Crows bring down a golden armored opponent and move to join the fight between Sophia and her sister. When the shadow and fire flickered out, Sebastian almost slowed for a moment, but then he saw Kate lift her sword again.
He leapt forward, into the space between them, lifting his sword to try to block the blow. The impact jarred his hands, and Sebastian felt pain shoot through him as the strength of Kate’s attack burst through his defenses. He looked down to see the blade of Kate’s sword sticking from his torso, and he gasped, trying to take in more air. It didn’t matter though, because at least he’d managed to stop the attack getting through to Sophia.
He swung a punch around, feeling it connect with Kate’s jaw and spinning her around. He knew it wouldn’t buy more than a second or two, but even as he felt himself collapse, he knew that it didn’t matter. He’d already lost his child, but he would do anything he had to in order to protect his wife.
The problem now was that, as he looked up from his knees, Sebastian wasn’t sure what more, if anything, he could do to save her. Above him, Kate stood there looking at him, and then wrenched the sword back out of him. She lifted it, still covered in his blood, and lifted it ready to kill.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Emeline cried out as another crow came down and pecked at her flesh, trying not to flinch from it, because every movement, every reaction, wrenched at her shoulders. Cora was screaming too, the crows flitting from her to Emeline and back, while around them the battle continued to rage.
The worst part wasn’t the pain. It wasn’t even having to watch her friend suffer alongside her, although that broke Emeline’s heart every time one of the creatures landed on Cora, scratching or pecking at her flesh. No, the part that hurt most of all was the thought that every moment of it was adding to the Master of Crows’ power, feeding him some fragment of extra energy, while they were helpless to help their friends.
It looked as though their friends needed the help too. Emeline could see Kate fighting with her sister, could see the damage she was doing. She even saw the moment when Kate threw herself at Sophia, and succeeded in plunging her sword deep into Sebastian’s chest. Having to kneel there waiting while that happened was too much.
“We need to find a way out of this,” Emeline called to Cora.
“How?” her friend shot back.
“We need to find a way to break these ropes.”
Emeline wrenched at them, crying out in pain at the effort of it when they held her shoulders fast, her arms pinned painfully behind her.
“You’ll hurt yourself, Emeline,” Cora said. Emeline could see the tears in her friend’s eyes. “You’re hurting me.”
Emeline wanted to apologize to her, wanted to tell her that she wouldn’t try again, but then she twisted her head around enough to look at the ropes holding them.
“It’s one rope,” Emeline said. “I’m hurting you because it’s one rope binding us together.”
“I know it’s one rope,” Cora said, and then cried out as another crow came at her. “I can feel it every time you move.”
“But that’s it,” Emeline said. “It’s our way out. I’m not strong enough to break the rope, but if we both pull in different directions…”
“We can rip each other’s shoulders out?” Cora said.
“We have to try.”
They had to. They couldn’t leave their friends like this. Any longer and Kate would kill both Sebastian and Sophia. Then she would never forgive herself, if she even got a chance to do it. This was just like whe
n she’d been possessed by Siobhan, except that now the threat wasn’t just to Sophia and her child; it was to everyone in the kingdom and beyond.
“Ok,” Cora said. “I guess… I guess this is going to hurt. Pull!”
It hurt. It hurt more than Emeline could have imagined as they pulled in opposite directions, trying to find any weaknesses in the ropes that held them. Emeline felt as though her arms were going to snap, but she kept on pulling, not willing to give up on the chance to be free, or on her friends.
When the ropes finally gave way, she tumbled to the floor of the cart with a thud.
“Cora, are you all right?” she asked.
“I just need to get my arms free,” her friend replied.
Emeline knew that she needed to do the same, in spite of the pain that ran through her. She struggled against the ropes that still held her, using the slack that was there now to be able to wriggle her wrists out.
A crow flew towards her and she caught it in midair.
“We’re coming for you,” she promised.
She started to run. She ran with Cora at her side through the battlefield, snatching up a sword on the way from a fallen soldier. Cora did the same, and was far quicker to use it, swiping at any enemy who got too close, and stopping briefly to exchange blows with an axe man before ducking under his swing and thrusting the blade up into his belly.
“There’s no time,” Emeline yelled to her, and kept running towards Kate and the others.
By the time Emeline reached her, she was pulling back her sword to aim a killing blow at Sebastian.
“Stop!” Emeline demanded, and she put every scrap of power she could muster behind it.
Kate turned to her, an amused look on her face.
“I gave you a frayed rope to see what you might do with it,” she said. “I’d hoped that you would do something more interesting.”
“Have you heard yourself, Kate?” Emeline demanded. “That’s not you talking; it’s the stone. You think that you’re controlling it, but the truth is that it’s controlling you. Can’t you see that?”
“All I can see is the power that it’s given me,” Kate said. “That and the clarity. I can see every lie that anyone has ever told me, every manipulation.”
“What about every truth?” Cora asked beside Emeline. “Has it shown you that it was true when we said we were your friends? Has it shown you that it was true when Will told you that he loved you?”
“Do not talk about him!” Kate cried, and Emeline knew that she had to act, or her friend would kill all of them, herself included.
“I’m sorry Kate,” Emeline said. “I’m pretty sure that this will hurt.”
She threw magic against the power of the stone, and Kate cried out, then laughed.
“You think that’s going to be enough?”
“With some help, it will,” Emeline said, and reached out to the others there. “Sophia, all of you, help me, or she’s lost!”
She felt them add to her. She felt Aia’s power where she had fallen, pushing in what magic she could while still trying to survive the wounds the Master of Crows had inflicted on her. She felt those with magic around the field lending their strength. More than that, she felt the full weight of Sophia’s power, levelled now to try to free her sister.
Even with that, it felt like trying to move aside a mountain by pushing at it. The shadow stone had its hooks too deep into her, or perhaps the problem was that what it offered was so seductive that Kate was clinging to it with all her strength. Even between them, they could only match her strength.
Then another source of power added itself to them, and Emeline felt Lucas’ strength flood into the connection. Emeline used it to push at the grip the shadow stone had, ripping its tendrils away from Kate’s mind. She saw her friend standing there, her sword poised, but with a look of confusion on her face that said that she no longer understood why.
“Emeline… Sophia… what’s going on? I was… I was so certain that you were trying to kill me.”
“It’s the stone that you sought to give you back your powers,” Emeline explained, while Sophia ran to Sebastian, placing her hands over the wound in his chest and summoning magic to try to heal him. “I think it twisted what you thought.”
“It twisted what I saw,” Kate corrected her. “It’s like… like I could see everything in the past or future, but all of it was a lie.” She winced. “Again. I’ve been controlled again.”
Emeline was still tied to Kate enough to feel the pain of that, and the shame that went with it. She moved forward to put an arm around her friend, reassuring her that it would be ok, and that it wasn’t her fault.
“Oh, how very touching,” the Master of Crows said, stalking towards them. “Although I suppose it means that I have lost an ally. Still, I would have had to kill her sooner or later anyway. Now seems as good a time as any.”
He stretched out his arms, and Emeline saw the crows flock around him, in numbers so great that they blacked out the sky. Even with Kate saved, this wasn’t over. They still had an enemy to face, and Emeline…
…well, Emeline wasn’t sure that they could win.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Henry d’Angelica had been so certain that he and his army would win. He had the forces, he had the support of the people who mattered. He even had Thom Witchbane’s spear. More than that, he had right on his side, and if Henry wasn’t naïve enough to think that was all that counted, then at least it ought to count for something, shouldn’t it?
Instead of being the clear, decisive victory that he’d been hoping for though, he’d found himself mired in the middle of a strange, multi-sided battle where nothing made any sense. His men were hemmed in by stone walls that hadn’t been there when the battle started, slowed by ice, burned by fire… the spear offered some protection, but only for those nearest to him.
“Should we sound the retreat, my lord?” one of the nobles there asked.
My lord now, Henry noted, not your majesty. The fighting had seen him go from the only true king there to being just a lord again, and a minor one at that.
“No,” he declared, “I will not retreat. I will not.”
Many of his men, however, seemed to be taking matters into their own hands. The free companies were running, Masked Goddess knew that was what mercenaries did best when the going was tough, but so were the peasants who owed him fealty, and even some of the noblemen who he had reckoned some of his closest allies.
“My lord,” the nobleman said. “If we don’t retreat now, then you might not be able to get away from this battle at all. Isn’t it better to regroup?”
Henry bit back an angry response. He knew that the other man was only trying to do the right thing and protect him. What the man didn’t realize was that there could be no regrouping after this. With a loss like this one, his supporters would start to drift away. He would never have an army like this again.
“What is there for me now?” Henry mused aloud. “A minor seat somewhere I will not be found? A retreat to being Loris and Imogen’s guest for the rest of my life? A life as a wanted man, or worse, a forgiven one?”
Henry could imagine every possibility, from being hunted down to fading, from a long siege to pitiful insignificance. Whatever happened from this point, he knew that he would not be a king. The witches had seen to that.
“My lord…” the noble began.
Henry drew himself up straight. “Retreat if you wish. I will not ask you to risk your lives for me.”
“If the cause were not lost…” the other man began, but he was already edging away, quietly signaling to the others there.
“The cause was never about making me king,” Henry said. “That was what was needed to fulfil it. The cause was getting justice!”
That was one thing that he could still achieve. He still had the skills of a warrior. He still had the spear. He could hang around being an embarrassment to the people he called friends, or he could go into the darkness as the man who got just
ice for the murdered queen.
Put like that, there was only one option.
Henry looked around until he saw the spot where Sophia Danse stood, and plunged into the battle, those few men who were prepared to follow him at his back. He shoved soldiers out of the way, and cut with the head of the spear, sweeping it before him the way a stable hand might have used a brush.
The spear was more than sharp enough to cut wherever it touched, and it killed more often than not where it cut. He hacked a path like a man cutting through dense undergrowth, determined not to slow, determined not to stop.
The men who had come with Henry started to fall around him. One man dropped as a volley of musket fire came at them. Another died with a sword in his guts, and Henry cut down the man in return. He kept pressing forward, no matter how many men died around him, not caring when a sword nicked his arm and a lead ball grazed his cheek. He had a mission to accomplish, and everything else was secondary.
One of the warriors of Stonehome came at him, and the witch slowed as the magic of the spear took effect, draining magic from him. Henry deflected the man’s sword blow, then brought the spear around in an arc, slicing through the man’s throat.
He was getting closer now, so that he could see the traitor queen and her friends not far away. Just a little further, and he would be upon them. Henry was still watching when he saw the sticklike figure of the Master of Crows step up in front of them, corvids of all sizes and types surrounding him like a second army. They flew above in a flock that was almost a cloud, circled over the men there, and filled the air with dark power.
Pain shot through Henry, and he looked down to see a sword sticking out of him. He turned and cut down the man who had stabbed him, then looked around for the rest of his men. The ones who hadn’t fallen by now were fighting away from Henry, cut off by the swirl and press of the battle.
Henry coughed blood as he tried to keep going, forcing his way forward. He would get there. He would do this.