by Bo Burnette
Thane was right about so many things. And he was even now doing just what she herself had always wanted to do: explore the heart of the land. A thousand secrets lay over the mountainous walls of the fortress. How, then, could he also be so wrong?
Her mount dodged a thicket, and she wobbled back and forth in her seat. She clenched her legs tight around the horse’s back. Thane was wrong because he was set on deception—on usurpation—on vengeance.
A cry stuck in her throat. “Thane may kill Philip now,” she shouted to her mother. “He said he would. He was holding Philip for bait, and now that I’m gone, he’ll kill him.”
Elowyn turned her head to look at Arliss and nearly slipped from her mount. She turned back around, and her words were almost lost in the wind. “Perhaps he still needs the bait.”
Arliss grasped the horse’s rein in one hand and gripped the cloak about her with the other, trying to block out the chilly midnight air. Stifling a sob, she whispered to herself, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Philip. But I have a duty—a duty to my father. I promised you I would make things right, and I will do it if God gives me strength. And I will come back for you.”
Philip’s wrists burned from hanging so long in the bonds which stretched his limbs. The sharp smell of blood blurred his senses as Thane struck him again, roaring with an unquenchable rage.
“You fool! Your insolence, your insistence on silence, becomes very dull after a time. What do you think—that she will return for you? That I will spare your life on her account? Hah!”
Philip looked up. “If she returns, she won’t be alone.”
Thane stepped back, the veins in his neck taut with anger. “I won’t deny that you make masterful bait for luring the princess into a trap. But that is too much of a gamble on my part. I will destroy her utterly, and you will never see her again. Trust me when I tell you this: I shall save you as bait for the princess, but that measure will prove unnecessary. She will give you no thought once I crush her city and destroy her people—even crush and destroy her, if it comes to it.”
“You cannot break her.” Philip’s gaze held, unflinching. “Her spirit is more powerful than you know.”
“Is that so? And what makes you think she will come back for you?”
Blood trickled from Philip’s nose, tickling his lip. “Because two are better than one.”
Thane took a step away, his eyebrows undulating with scorn. “Precisely what do you mean by that?”
“If they fall, one will lift up his fellow.” Philip strained, trying to get a truly deep breath. “But woe to him who is alone when he falls, and has not another to lift him up.”
Thane’s fist struck Philip’s temple, and hazy blackness clouded his vision, overtaking him as his mind withdrew into darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: RETURN TO THE CASTLE
The breeze that circled about Arliss, tugging at her cloak and tossing her hair, did not simply warn of change. It seemed to say, “Reinhold will change, Reinhold has changed, Reinhold is changing!” They had been riding hard ever since leaving Thane’s fortress, with only the briefest stop for food, and throughout it all the winds had refused to silence their whispering. But their backs had become tense from the long riding, and it was time for a short rest.
She stopped circling the little grove. She had come to her favorite tree, the bent and gnarled one—doubling as both a seat and an archery target. As she stroked and traced the tree’s wrinkled bark, her mother spoke from a few feet behind her.
“I don’t pretend to comprehend what goes on in your head, Arliss. I gave up on your father years ago, and you are quite similar to him.” Arliss’s cheeks grew hot as her mother continued. “But perhaps you can explain matters to me. Why, my dear, why? Why the running off—with two peasant boys you barely knew? And just when your father was also leaving!”
“I’m sorry I worried you, Mother. I am also sorry for endangering both of your lives.”
Nathanael snorted as he patted one of the grazing horses.
Arliss ignored him. “More than anything, I am also horrified at what has become of Philip. But I am not sorry for doing what I did. Perhaps it was done hastily, without much sense, but it needed to be done.” She pulled herself up to her full height, her eyebrows raised as she addressed her mother. “You are wrong, my dear Mother. They are not peasants. They are not lower. In fact, I’m ashamed to inform you that Philip—the supposed peasant, the orphan, the carpenter’s apprentice—has more sensibilities than your daughter.”
Elowyn smiled. “I did not mean it that way. I simply meant they were less well off than the lords’ families.”
“Perhaps they are. Yet if that is so, I fear it is Father’s doing. He created lines and divisions which he cannot erase.”
Elowyn’s eyes flashed. “I think you forget I am married to your father. Choose your words carefully.”
“I am choosing them carefully, Mother. I see the truth now—my father is a good man, a noble man who wishes to do what is right. He deserves to be defended. But he is blind. I, too, was blind, but I have been given sight.”
“And what do you see?” Nathanael asked. “Your father is not at home. Thane is coming. He knows now that Kenton is not at the city. How can you stop him?”
“I don’t know.” Arliss shook her hair behind her shoulders. “I don’t know what to do. I’m almost afraid to trust my own skills, my own instincts. But I know I must be the one to set things aright.”
She clambered onto her horse, smacked its rump, and vaulted out of the forest, towards the castle sparkling in the midday sun.
The sound of clomping hooves alerted the city long before the mounted posse of royalty arrived. As Arliss urged her horse on, gripping its ginger mane to steady herself against the pounding of the creature’s gallop, she gazed up at the city before her. Her city. Less than a week ago she had left it, planning to come back in triumph, to lead her band of adventurers through its streets and denounce the king and his ways.
Now, she was returning, separated from her three companions and on a mission to protect the king, his city, and his name.
The horses ran swiftly across the dry, rocky fields, and the castle itself rose into focus. Atop the lone tower a flash of brown caught her eye as it swished about and vanished. Ilayda. How Arliss had missed her friend! In truth, she had missed everything—her mother and her archery not least of all. She also longed for the little things: the scraping of the gate as it opened, the flickering of the candlelight as she and her parents read far into the night, the hubbub of villagers taking dinner at The Bronze Lion. Strange as it was, she missed Brallaghan, even for all his annoyances.
She didn’t have much time to miss him. The moment the gates swept open and the guards called “The queen has returned!” Brallaghan himself hurried over and offered a hand to help her off her horse.
“Are you all right, Arliss?” He gripped her hand as she dismounted.
“No.” She leapt off and slipped her hand from his the moment she hit the ground.
“And what might be wrong?” His brow scrunched as he examined the horse. He ran his hand across its hide, curiosity creasing his face.
“Everything.” She shoved her horse’s reins at him and started up the hill to the castle. “Thane is coming, and I have to stop him before he destroys this city.”
“Who is coming?” Brallaghan called after Arliss, but she had already hurried out of earshot.
Elowyn passed close to the young knight. Her indigo dress brushed against his legs as she leaned close and whispered in his ear.
“A great evil is coming upon this city. If we are not united against it, we may all fall. The king is not here, and I only have so much physical power over the people. Already I am drained because of the past day’s events.” She stared at him. He had always been a kind fellow—one of the few young men in the city she deemed worthy of Arliss’s friendship. “No matter what happens, make sure the people unite to serve their princess. I feel I can trust yo
u.”
Brallaghan nodded, but his face betrayed his befuddlement. He smoothed out his tunic and bowed to her as she nodded her head and handed him the reins of her horse.
Just behind her, Nathanael also placed his reins in Brallaghan’s hands. “I suppose you don’t know how to care for one of these.”
Brallaghan shook his head. “What are they?”
Elowyn stroked her mount’s mane. “Surely you’d recognize a horse when you saw one.”
He arched an eyebrow. “It’s not like I’ve seen one before—not in real life, at least.”
Elowyn caught his eye.
He checked his brash tone. “Where did they come from?”
Elowyn exhaled, closing her eyes. “Not from Reinhold.”
Arliss stopped in front of the castle, hesitating before she opened the huge door which led into the great room. She bent her head. Was this—her life, her home, her friends—worth the decisions she had made? She had told herself that her father’s prejudice had driven her away.
Now, she saw that she had driven herself away by her own hatred. When he forbade her friendship with Philip, she had hated him for it. Yes, he was wrong to forbid it. But wasn’t what she had done far more wrong?
The door to the castle swung inwards. Ilayda’s chocolaty brown hair flashed in the shadows of the doorframe. “You’re extremely late, silly princess.”
Arliss stumbled through the doorway and into the sunbathed hall, collapsing in her friend’s embrace. Ilayda squeezed her tightly, running her fingers through her hair. “Look at you! Your hair’s a mess!”
“It always is.”
“And your dress! Good gracious, running about in naught but a cape and chemise! It’ll be the talk of the village for weeks.”
Arliss’s smile melted. This beautiful moment could last no longer.
Ilayda tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”
Elowyn and Nathanael burst through the open door. Unstrapping her quiver, Elowyn cast it and her bow to the ground as Nathanael slammed the door and collapsed into a chair beside her.
Ilayda stretched her neck from side to side, as she searched the other faces. “Philip?”
Arliss shook her head. “He is still Thane’s prisoner. I think Thane will hold him as bait until he is no longer useful.”
“And when would he stop being useful?” Nathanael questioned, running a hand through his brown locks.
Exhaustion nagged at Arliss, but she refused to give in to it. She couldn’t, not while Philip was still in captivity.
“He will cease to be useful the moment this city is destroyed or I am killed. If Thane achieves that, he will need no bait.” She settled onto an adjoining chair. Desperate as the times were, she wasn’t going to toss etiquette to the wind.
“So you think that is his next move?” Nathanael asked. “Attacking the city?”
“Everything he told me, all the questions he asked, they all pointed to that goal.”
“And how is he planning to attack it? What tools does he have?”
“What tools does he need? He knows the king and half our guards are gone. All he needs to do is break through the moat and the outer gate, and the city is his.”
“The river is at its autumnal peak,” Nathanael said. “It’s practically flooding the moat.”
“That will do nothing to stop Thane,” Elowyn said.
Arliss turned to Ilayda. “Where is Erik?”
“I had to dress and bind up his snakebite. He’s resting in the library.”
“No, he’s not.” Erik’s voice echoed from the staircase which led down from the second floor of the tower as he descended into the great hall. “Did you tell them about the visitor, Ilayda?”
Ilayda’s eyes widened. “No, I didn’t.”
“Visitor?” Elowyn’s eyes were sharp. Arliss’s breath felt sharper.
Erik strode closer to them. “Yesterday afternoon, a man galloped up this hill on a creature straight from a storybook—a horse. He showed up at the castle doors exhausted from hard riding. Lord Adam wished to turn him aside, suspicious as to who he was and where he came from. He wore a dark red cape and refused to show any of his face but his eyes—he claimed he had a disease of the face. Ilayda insisted, so we welcomed him and made him a cot in the pantry. He’s still resting in there.”
“That’s unusual,” Nathanael remarked.
The front doors swung open, and Brallaghan entered the hall, letting the doors collapse into the jamb behind him. “Your majesties, pardon me, but there’s news which I have to share.”
“Technically I’m not a majesty.” Ilayda jerked her head at Erik “And he definitely isn’t.”
Arliss rose to meet Brallaghan. “What news?”
“An army has been seen exiting the edge of the forest. They’re marching across the plains as we speak, coming straight for the city. A few of them are on horses.”
“How many are they?”
“At least three dozen men, from the looks of it.”
Arliss closed her eyes as everyone in the room burst into discussion, plans, desperate ideas.
“We must have a council.” She looked at her mother. “A council of war.”
After a quick bath, Arliss hurried up the tower steps.
In her room, she tossed aside the burgundy cape and tattered chemise. She opened her wardrobe, remembering the times she had hidden within it as a child. She had always secretly believed the doors of the wardrobe led to some secret room or portal, but she never found anything behind the clothes but solid wood. Now, with the weight of her sixteen years piling on her shoulders, she searched the wooden closet for the dress she wanted.
A flash of fire caught her eye. She tugged out the dress, holding it up into the stream of light flooding through the window of her bedroom. This would be the dress in which she would confront Thane—the flaming red dress, the same in which she had streaked tardily across the fields to her uncle’s knighting, in which she had been kissed on the head by Nathanael, in which she had entered the fields and worked with the commoners.
The linen fabric tickled her bare skin as she slipped the dress over her head, thrusting her arms through the sleeves. She tucked a few handkerchiefs in her pocket. Then, strapping her quiver about her waist like a belt, she left her room and marched downstairs to the council chamber.
As she rounded the staircase, she caught a fleeting glimpse through a thin window: far away, at the edges of the forest, a dark mass like a cloud of land-traveling gnats was moving steadily west.
In the council chamber, Arliss found Elowyn, Nathanael, Erik, and Ilayda all sitting around the long table. So this was the royal council. Kenton and Brédan were gone. Adam must have rushed to find Elisabeth and Arden, so only Ilayda remained from that family. And now Erik—not a royal—participated in the discussion.
Elowyn’s usually confident eyes had widened with emotion. Arliss knew it was not fear, but worry—and not worry for herself, but for her people.
Arliss’s brain was still tossing about its ideas, so she sat in a chair between her mother and uncle, trying to keep her face blank. She didn’t want to be asked what she was thinking about until she was ready. The plan whirled and congealed in her mind, but it refused to fully take shape. Better to keep silent than to speak before her time.
Erik rested his bandaged forearm on the table. “We sent Brallaghan to rally the city guard. Not that there are enough men in the city to bother with. The king has two dozen of our best guards with him.”
Nathanael grimaced. “We cannot go out to meet him, and we certainly cannot withhold him if he enters the city.”
Erik fingered the longbow slung around the back of his chair. “Some of the best archers could go to the top of the tower and fire at him from there.”
“But then you’ll be exposed,” Nathanael said. “So his warriors can just as easily shoot at you.”
“Still, it might hold them off for a while,” Erik said.
“Arliss,” Elowyn said, “do you hav
e any thoughts?”
“Your plans are usually better than mine. But…yes. Yes, I do have a plan.”
“What sort?” Nathanael asked.
“The sort of plan you find in stories and legends.” She took a deep breath. Then she began to sing. “A princess on a carven throne, clothed in simple raiment.”
Her mother sang the next line. “A queenly look is in her eye.”
They finished the song together, clasping each other’s hands as they looked into each other’s eyes. “And grace is on her forehead.”
Arliss leapt to her feet, adrenaline rushing through her body. Her arms trembled with the thrill of adventure. All of the others also rose.
Nathanael stared, bewildered. “What are you going to do, lass?”
“I’m going to make another legend come to life. Thane has brought all the old stories back to Reinhold. I suppose it is my turn now.” She reached for the door. “I need you all to cover for me. Keep everyone away from the lower tier, except for the guards. Make sure the little children and the elderly are safe. Bring them inside the great hall if you must. Just in case—”
“—it doesn’t work.” Erik finished for her.
Ilayda stomped on his toes. “It will work.”
“I certainly hope so.” Arliss hurried through the door, down the hallway, out of the front door of the great hall, and out into the harsh light of the sun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE FIERY ARROW
Outside, the city had erupted into chaos. Guards rushed to assemble in the lowest tier as other villagers scrambled up towards the castle—the place of most strength and security. Arliss caught her breath at the sight of the fearful expressions painted on the children who rushed towards her. She pulled both castle doors inward and stepped through.
Ilayda hurried out behind her. “Come! All the children, come in here!” But no one marked her voice.
Arliss strode across the flat hilltop and leapt onto a rock which would give her an extra three feet of height or so. From here, she commanded the crowd.