Lælia nodded and settled back against the stone. She was stiff and cold, the night chill creeping through her bones. Spring was yet to break, and over the valley the moon gleamed on snow-covered peaks, the mountains a ghostly wreath floating in the night sky. Jadis prowled the hillfort, growling low in her throat. Lælia touched her as she passed, as if she were a talisman. Her tail was straight out, uneasy, golden eyes darting this way and that. She pushed herself against Lælia’s side and stared up at her, unblinking.
After a moment, Tosius said, “They are many, dauhter.”
“Many?” Lælia asked, frowning. “I thought we knew their number.”
Tosius shook his head. “There are more than we knew.” He held up one finger. Then he slowly unfurled another two.
Three hundred men? Lælia felt her stomach drop away. She had known it was a large force. But even still, she had hoped for less. “Are you sure?” Tosius nodded sombrely. “And those who approach Garnata?”
He held up one finger. Lælia tried not to show her concern. Another hundred. Giscila must have had men hidden in places even she did not know.
“How far away are they?”
“They will reach us before dawn breaks.”
“We must hope Gratimo holds to the east,” said Lælia quietly. “It is too late to send him aid.”
Dawn was glimmering grey pearl on the horizon, still a way off. The morning was overcast and still, the air stale. It felt like a day of death, and suddenly Lælia was impatient to have it over. She shook Alaric and he came awake with the exhausted alertness of those who have lived on a cliff edge for too long. “Ipocobulcola has fallen,” she said.
He nodded slowly, his eyes on her face. “Your Riders will meet them on the plains, then.”
“No.” She heard the hard edge to her voice and tried to soften it. “Not yet. I cannot risk showing them, not until Giscila has committed his entire force. Oppa will have eyes on this battle. He must believe us defeated and that I fall back to Illiberis. For now, we fight as if there were no more than the Illiberis men to defend the hillfort. Zdan will not ride until he sees my signal.”
She saw Alaric search for words, the grim line of his mouth working. “Before I left Toletum,” he said finally, “Father’s last words to me were to tell me I should live – and you too, Lælia. To find Theo and together create a new world, not die for the old one. He believed Spania a lost dream. At the time, I agreed to obey. But now, you are making yourself bait to trap Oppa, and Rekiberga –” He broke off, unable to finish the sentence.
Jadis growled, butting Alaric. He gave a half smile and put his hand on her head. “Shukra said he saw Rekiberga safe on the road south, and I would trust that little devil with my life. He said his best men accompanied her. I do not believe her lost yet – I cannot.” He shook his head, as if clearing it from the image. “I must believe she will yet come. And even if I am to be hanged as a traitor, I will not leave Spania without her, just as you would not if Theo were here.”
Lælia could not argue that. She knew it to be true.
He smiled grimly at her. “I will fight with you, Lælia. But you must promise me that if this day does not go well, you will leave Spania. Promise me you will. Find Theo. And when you do, tell him that all of us – Athanagild, my father, and I – we never lost faith. We never forgot him.” Lælia’s chest clenched with a tight, hard pain. She nodded, unable to speak.
“Alaric!” They swung around at the urgency in Teudolfo’s tone. He pulled Alaric to his feet, thrusting him toward the ramparts. Lælia followed, Acantha at her side.
“Xristus y Marja!” Alaric had paled more than his friend. His hands gripped the stone before him, his body quivering.
Below, on the plains, a horse streaked down from the far ridge and into the wide sweep of the valley, racing across the plain. Astride it was a girl with long, flaming auburn hair, lit by the distant red ball of the rising sun. She rode hard, glancing behind her as she leaned forward, urging her exhausted mount onward.
Rekiberga.
She was accompanied by three horsemen. They rode with bows raised, aiming behind them, shooting even as they urged their shattered mounts forward. A handful of men rode close behind them, and in the distance a smudge on the ridge rippled, then coalesced to become a thick, black line of men, which broke and began charging down the valley after their leader. There was something oddly familiar about him. Lælia squinted into the pale dawn, trying to make out his face. Behind him she heard Alaric curse and then he was gone, running for his horse, roaring at men to open the gates.
“He can’t!” Lælia turned to Teudolfo. “He will die down there.”
“And if he lives, and she does not,” Teudolfo said grimly, “what then?”
Lælia would have answered, but Alaric was already mounted, ignoring the winding path as he raced his horse directly down the uneven ground. The men at the gates turned fear-filled faces toward Lælia. The gates, they all knew, must be held until it was time for them to be opened. We cannot risk allowing that force to pass, she thought, hating herself for even the consideration.
“Do it!” Lælia commanded, her voice seeming to come from a distance. Around her, men muttered uneasily, their eyes moving from the slowly opening gates to the army riding inexorably toward them. They were less than thirty facing three hundred, and though they knew Zdan waited for their signal, it mattered little in the face of such a force.
“Notch!” Teudolfo yelled at the men on the ramparts, his face white and drawn. “Draw!” The archers on the ramparts aimed down the hill. Alaric burst through the gates, riding like fury. “Release!”
The arrows flew in a rush of wind, falling aimlessly to the earth just shy of the oncoming army. Alaric reached Rekiberga and wheeled his horse to chase at her heels, firing behind them as their pursuers them closed in. An arrow took one of Rekiberga’s guards in the back, and he fell in a tumble of hooves and iron beneath the attackers, one reaching down to slice his head from his shoulders as they passed. The couple raced across the ground, nearing the cliff and the shelter of the bowmen above. Lælia ran around the wall, her eyes never leaving Alaric and Rekiberga.
They are not close enough to make the gates.
For a moment she considered sending the signal to Zdan, but she knew it was too early for his attack, that Giscila could yet turn back and their surprise be lost. Even for Alaric she could not do it, and the knowledge sickened her.
Lælia could see Rekiberga’s face, white and set, turned up toward them, Alaric’s lit with blazing triumph behind her, mouth open, exhorting her onward as they rounded the western hillside.
Then a spear appeared through Alaric’s neck, and his eyes went wide in shock. Jadis yowled, a pained, unearthly shriek that rang across the valley.
Rekiberga’s horse faltered. She pulled it around, fighting its headlong rush for the gates, her eyes on Alaric, her mouth open in a primal scream that ripped the morning as he toppled from his horse to the ground. Rekiberga’s two remaining guards spun their horses and drew steel, their faces grim as they faced the onslaught, yelling in vain at her to ride for the gates.
It was then that Lælia recognised the dark features and hooded eyes of the man who rode toward Rekiberga.
Giscila.
Beside her, Acantha made a low, furious noise.
“No!” Lælia lunged to hold her, but Acantha was already swinging onto her horse. Lælia met her eyes and saw in them the ancient grief her grandmother had always kept hidden, the ghost of vengeance never taken. Lælia heard Dahiya’s voice in her mind, speaking of Acantha, and the death of Lælia’s parents: It is she who sees Giscila’s face in her dreams … the pain of their loss is your grandmother’s revenge to take, not yours.
Time slowed. “I must,” said Acantha simply, and Lælia knew, deep in her soul, that the decision was made.
The world snapped back into focus. Acantha did not ride for the gates. She rode directly for the ramparts where Lælia stood, putting her horse at th
e wall at a gallop. It was not a high wall, only four feet, made of earth and stone. But the slope on the other side was deadly, a mercilessly steep slide of shale and rock. As men watched in blank astonishment, Acantha’s horse cleared the wall, seeming to fly for an endless time through the air, hurtling toward an impossible landing. For a moment every breath on the hillfort was held, as it seemed certain she must tumble or the horse miss a stride. But it was an Illiberis horse, long accustomed to the mountains, and it found its feet, landing at a deadly angle, Acantha’s body jolted forward. Then she found her seat.
In a rush of stone and crumbling earth, the horse took the slope in headlong strides, hurtling down the deathly fall as the onlookers on the ramparts stared in awestruck silence. Acantha and the horse flowed like a waterfall down the slope, a poetry of horse and body so closely joined it was impossible to tell where one finished and the other began. As the horse took a final leap from the slope to the plain, Acantha reached for her bow and raised it, measuring the distance between the oncoming attackers and the girl bent over Alaric’s fallen body on the plains below.
“My lady,” said one of her men urgently. “Give the order to close the gates.”
“Not yet.” Lælia clutched the wall, her voice rough with tension.
Lælia saw the moment Giscila recognised Acantha. His horse faltered momentarily, his eyes widening in shock. Acantha shrieked her rage, a bloodcurdling sound of raw fury that cut the air and seemed to silence the day around them. Then Acantha’s arrows flew through the air, each of the five in her hand taking the men around the leader, toppling them to the ground, the final one taking Giscila through the shoulder. He slumped forward on his horse as Acantha wheeled her own and took the remaining guards with two arrows, swiftly notched. She swung back past Giscila and turned, forcing his horse to a halt. He faced her, his expression clearly visible to the watchers on the wall, shock changing to resignation as she drew her sword. The steel glittered in the early-morning sun as Acantha raised it. With a savage cry she brought it across his neck with the full weight of her arm, severing his head clean from his shoulders. His body slid to one side and fell to the earth and his head rolled away, the dark eyes closed forever. Behind him the cavalry bore inexorably down.
Rekiberga had dismounted. She was desperately trying to pull Alaric’s inert body onto the horse when it took fright and fled, reins flapping, from the oncoming force.
“My lady!” the guard beside her pleaded. Lælia made a harsh sound.
Acantha spun her own horse and reached Rekiberga when the cavalry were barely a hundred yards away. Leaping to the ground, she glanced down at Alaric’s body, and even from a distance, Lælia knew it was too late to save him. Acantha pushed Rekiberga onto her horse, standing astride Alaric’s prone figure. “Go!” Lælia saw Acantha shout at Rekiberga. “Go!” She slapped the horse’s quarters, sending the Illiberis mount home.
“Close the gates!” Lælia’s hoarse cry broke the morning and the tall gates began to close even as she clutched the wall convulsively, unable to look away from the scene below. Rekiberga bent low and urged the horse forward, her face white and stricken as she raced for the wooden gates that were already beginning to close.
Acantha turned to face the oncoming army, raising her bow. “Stand!” she screamed at Rekiberga’s remaining guards as the rumble of the coming horsemen shook the ground. “You will stand!” The guards, white faced, drew their arrows beside her, three small insignificant figures standing before a tidal wave of men, firing into the onslaught and drawing again.
Rekiberga slid through the gates a moment before they slammed shut, leaving Acantha sealed beyond the walls, the army too close to run from.
Lælia stared at Acantha standing over Alaric’s fallen body, her heart clenched with pain. Acantha glanced up to where Lælia stood, her face strangely calm. Her eyes found Lælia’s. She smiled. The rising sun lit her face and for a moment it seemed to Lælia that her grandmother flamed like a fallen star against the grey dawn; then Acantha turned to face the solid wall of oncoming spears barely ten paces from where she stood.
Lælia remembered Dahiya’s long-ago words: There is a time for action, and when it comes, you will know there is no choice. Lælia raised her bow, notched a flaming arrow, and took aim. Jadis howled, a long, anguished shriek of pain and loss. In that moment, blood will spill – and you may find you wish, very much, it had not.
The arrow seared through the air, signalling Zdan in the mountains above, and took Acantha from behind, straight through the heart. The tall, graceful figure coiled to the ground, one last arrow flying from her hand as she did. Jadis’s shriek died in a gargled cry, and the cat lowered her head.
Then the cavalry were upon the hillside, and Alaric and Acantha’s bodies disappeared, pounded into the earth beneath a frenzy of hooves.
Lælia stared numbly at the place where Acantha and Alaric had stood. Teudolfo, grey faced and desolate, stood beside her. “Why?” he said roughly. “Why did you do that?”
“Because she had already chosen it.” Lælia’s voice seemed to belong to someone else. “And because it is what I would have chosen.” Jadis growled softly, butting Lælia’s leg. “I am sorry,” she said softly, knowing how insignificant it sounded.
“I must take Rekiberga,” Teudolfo said hoarsely. “I promised Alaric I would see her safe. She cannot stay here. And nor should you.”
Behind him, Rekiberga rode into view, grief turning the beautiful features into desolate, carved marble. She met Lælia’s eyes.
“Do not wait,” she said, her tone brittle and hard. “They are not Egica’s men beyond your walls.”
“I know.” Lælia gripped Rekiberga’s hand, a quick gesture that said what she could not. “They are Oppa’s.”
Rekiberga nodded. “Do not let them win.”
“I won’t.” They stared at each other for a moment. Rekiberga nodded, a small, painful gesture that hurt Lælia’s heart, and then she turned and rode away behind Teudolfo, down the winding path toward the river.
Lælia heard the thunder of hooves and turned back to the men at the walls, trying not to look at the place below where Alaric’s and her grandmother’s bodies had disappeared.
Then, from the steep mountain cliffs to the west, a lone mounted figure erupted, then another, and then Zdan’s Riders were pouring down the hillside and onto the plain, breaking into the deadly concentric circles that had beaten armies from Carthage to Septem. Even though she had watched it many times in training, still Lælia stood awestruck at the terrible power of the Riders as they bore down on the attackers in a relentless hail of arrows, moving so fast and with such ferocity that they had almost reached the base of the hillside fort before Giscila’s force realised what had come for them.
The Riders herded Giscila’s army toward the hillfort, shooting down any who fled, thinning the ranks rapidly so that by the time the force found itself trapped against the gates, barely one hundred of their original number remained. Then the Riders set upon them with spear and sword, whilst from above, Lælia and her men loosed arrow after arrow. Amidst the clamour of battle she found an odd calm in the methodical task. The men below tried to escape the pincer in which they were caught, throwing their horses at the steep slope toward the fortress, none making it more than a few strides before falling from spear or arrow. Their bodies made a natural obstacle at the bottom of the slope over which coming men must climb. Lælia loosed her arrows, picking off those who attempted it. The sounds of battle seemed to come through a fog. All Lælia could see was Acantha’s face and Giscila’s dark eyes, one coming over the other. She felt empty, nothing but cold hatred and the arrows between her fingers.
Tosius appeared at her side, his face streaked with gore. “Open the gates,” she said to him tersely. “We need to return before Oppa reaches the villa.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said, his eyes sombre.
My lady. Acantha was dead, and she was the Lady of Illiberis now.
The man at
her side nodded at the thick wall of Zdan’s Riders herding the remaining men toward the gates. “We have them now. Once they’re through the gates they’ll not go anywhere.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen the like of those Riders,” he said. “Nothing could stand against such power. Nothing.” He looked at her. “We’ll make certain none escape from here, my lady.”
“I know you will.” Lælia gripped his arm briefly.
He cleared his throat. “And I’ll send men for your grandmother and Alaric. We’ll not let them lie there in the dirt.”
“Awiliudo pus,” she said simply. Thank you.
Lælia waited until the gates were opened and the last of the miserable captives had been brought inside the fortress walls. She took one last look at Acantha’s and Alaric’s crumpled bodies, one still shielding the other. Then she turned away and rode for Illiberis, Jadis running swiftly at her side.
On the plains barely miles from the chaos of the hillfort, the silence was broken only by occasional birdsong. Lælia moved through the morning as if she swam underwater, Tosius silent beside her. The world felt still and dead, as if the air were torn.
They dismounted half a mile before the villa, approaching from the drill ground below the olive groves, staying low to the earth, alert to every sound. As they came close, strange horsemen entered the courtyard, hoofbeats echoing loudly from the stone. Lælia glanced at Tosius, nodding to the rear, and he was gone, slipping silently around the villa to the east. She made a low gesture and Jadis streaked across the courtyard, silent and unseen, pulling one man from his horse and breaking his neck before the cat disappeared into hiding. Lælia gripped her knife and bow, inhaling deeply, steadying herself. She crouched beyond the wall and peered through a gap in the stone. It was a good hiding place to observe the courtyard, wide enough to shoot an arrow through if she needed to.
They wore chain mail over leathers and tunics rather than the cross-laced trousers favoured by the Gothic forces. The front rider raised his helmet. His eyes were heavy lidded and dark, taking in every detail of the villa with cool calculation, and Lælia felt the sick jolt of recognition.
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 50