The Fiery Arrow

by Bo Burnette

  “Help all the little ones get safely inside! The queen and Lady Ilayda will help you. Now hurry!” Several young men and a few young women—all near Erik’s age—carried their own bows. Arliss called to them. “All you who have bow and arrow and courage, follow me!”

  She bounded off the rock and began running down the city’s tiers the moment her feet slammed into the ground.

  She rounded the curve from the second to the first tier and collided with Lord Adam. His scowl spoke more of worry than anger. “You? What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to stop this mess.”

  “Leave that to others, princess. Aren’t you the one who started it?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “Then back away. Go somewhere safe.”

  She shook her head. “I will not back away. I have my city, and my father’s name, to defend. I will not allow you to stop me from saving either of them.”

  “The city can be saved, yes. But your father has already tarnished his own name—pressed on with his own goals and ignored mine.”

  Arliss stepped closer to him, her heart burning with indignation. “Whatever tarnish is on his name was placed there by you. Perhaps my father left you in charge of governing matters, but you still answer to me. Either you’re on the side of Reinhold, or you’re against it, but don’t stand here blathering and wasting precious time.”

  She stepped free of Adam and left him openmouthed as she hurried to the guards Nathanael had assembled at the gate.

  Brallaghan rushed forth to meet her. “Arliss, there’re so few of us. I am afraid there isn’t much to be done against such an army.”

  “I have a plan, which you must obey, no matter how absurd it may sound.” She tried not to glance over his shoulder at the encroaching army. Steadying her feet, she lifted up her voice so that the rest of the guards could hear. “I need you to find oil, the oil with which we light our torches. Go to every house and take whatever you find there—you have my permission. I will repay them double later.”

  The guards already wore faces of utter befuddlement.

  “Once you have the oil, I need you all to take it and dump it all around the city—in the moat, on the fields behind, on the plains in front. Make sure it all connects in one great trail.”

  “Arliss?” Brallaghan curved an eyebrow.

  “Trust me, please.” She cringed when she saw how tenderly he looked at her. He wanted something from her she felt she could not give.

  “We’ll be out in the open—exposed—if we go out of the city to dump oil on everything.”

  “I will have archers covering for you. But no more questions! If we don’t do this now, there will be no time. Go!”

  The guards scattered to do their duty to their princess, and Erik and four others appeared around the corner of the tiers.

  “Your archers, Arliss,” he announced.

  “Very good. Stay here and cover for the guards. You must open the gate and let down the drawbridge for them. No matter what happens, keep each one of the guards alive.”

  “Do you have extra arrows?”

  She pulled all her shafts out of her quiver except for one. “I’ll only need this one. You take the rest. Two of you, get up to the top of the tower. The rest of you stay here and help the guards.”

  Leaving the band of archers to do their work, she headed for the one place which held the thing she needed most, yet the one place she did not desire to go.

  Philip’s home.

  The small wood-framed home lay quiet and still, sunlight fluttering through thin window-curtains. In the front room, a wide square table held an array of half-finished carpentry projects. A gorgeously carved chair lay upon its back on the table, waiting for two of its legs. Two wheels, perhaps for a cart, sat stacked upon each other. Arliss scanned the house for the tillering contraption.

  She found it within the door of the adjoining room—the very room where, less than a week before, she had sparred with Philip. Someone had finished the bow, and it lay propped against the wall, tall and unstrung. With thoughts of her friend weighing heavily on her mind, she reached for the bow.

  “What are you doing, lady?” The hoarse voice shocked her, and she yanked her hand back, turning towards the speaker. The carpenter himself stood a few paces away.

  “I do not mean to intrude, sir. I come on behalf of your nephew.”

  “Philip?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the princess, aren’t you? You did all of this. My son Erik told me Philip is imprisoned because of you.”

  She hung her head. “He is right.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because he told me to come and get this bow. He said it was mine.” She stepped closer to him. “I am sorry. Truly. And I will do whatever it takes to rescue your nephew. However, to do that I must have this bow.”

  The man closed his eyes. “Take it, and do what you must.”

  She gripped the bow and rushed from the house.

  Ilayda rushed down the stairs into the great hall just as Erik and another fellow hurried through the door and across the hall crowded with children and their mothers. Where were they going so quickly? She tilted her head as she dropped a stack of blankets onto the floor for the little children to lie on.

  “And where might you be going, silly fellow?” she demanded, her hands on her hips.

  “To the tower, on Arliss’s command.” Erik strode around Ilayda.

  “Be careful,” she said coldly.

  He disappeared up the stairs.

  A few moments later, a cloaked figure emerged from behind the stairwell—from the hallway which led from the kitchen. Ilayda gulped. The mystery visitor, still cloaked and mysterious as ever, stood three paces from her.

  “May I help you?” Ilayda asked.

  “No, thank you.” The cloth about his mouth muffled his voice. “I just need some fresh air.”

  “It might be dangerous to go outside. I’m just warning you.”

  “I make a living on danger,” he said, and walked across the hall and out into the city.

  Giving one glance to where Queen Elowyn knelt assisting with some babies, Ilayda dashed towards the door and after the unknown visitor and his burgundy cloak.

  Arliss slipped her leg over the straight bow, stretching the string from one end of the stiff weapon to the other. She tested it with a few draws. Philip had crafted it beautifully.

  As commanded, Brallaghan, Nathanael, and the other guards were dashing around the city, casting buckets and canisters of oil onto the half-dead crops, the barren plains, and the river-fed moat. On the horizon and drawing nearer, Thane’s warriors approached. Thane rode at their lead, his head unhelmed, his black cape exchanged for a gaudier blue one which flowed behind him like a river. He rode not like an invader coming to sack a city; he rode like a king coming to retake his own.

  Biting her lip, Arliss gripped the lone arrow in her quiver. She took a handkerchief from her pocket, wrapped it around the arrowhead, and tied it fast.

  Torches burned on either side of the gate to the city. One of the flaming torches had been extinguished, likely in a gust of the autumn wind, but another still burned from its lighting that morning. Arliss approached the torch and held up her arrow. After a tiny moment, the cloth-wrapped tip sparked and caught the flame.

  Her heart trembled as she set the arrow to her bow with steady fingers. She stepped left and centered her body with the open gates.

  She took a look around. How did she look to everyone else? From high upon the tower, Erik could see her. Elowyn, who had joined Erik on the tower with her bow, would also see her. Ilayda, just rushing through the second tier, stopped short. Brallaghan, reentering the city with an empty bucket, gaped with surprise when he saw her. Nathanael, Adam, the guards—they all looked upon the princess and saw her, standing tall, bathed in flaming light. The sun, the fire, and her dress would all seem to blend into one, and she would shine like some legendary queen of old.

 
Thane, too, could see her as he rode ever nearer.

  Arliss nocked the fiery arrow and drew it back with ease.

  The line of oil traced a path around the city. She aimed her bow at one especially drenched patch of grass.

  Just as she prepared to release the arrow, Ilayda’s voice shouted, “Behind you!”

  A shadowy figure crashed into Arliss, snatching at her bow. His burgundy cloak flashed as he gripped her arm and dashed the fiery arrow to the ground. She struggled against him, trying to wrench her arm from his clenching grasp.

  Using his hold on her as leverage, she slammed her foot in his chest, and he tottered back. For a moment, she noticed nothing but the fierce look in his eyes as he lifted the extinguished arrow and snapped it in two. Then he drew his sword.

  Yelling with excited fury, Brallaghan rushed in, his sword drawn to meet the strange visitor’s.

  Arliss scrambled for her arrow. The shaft had been cracked beyond repair, and the burnt handkerchief had dissolved into ashes. She tossed it aside with a groan. She darted a glance towards Thane’s army and groaned again. By the time she could go to the tower and get another arrow from Erik, Thane would be marching up the tiers of the city, destroying everything in his path.

  Her heart jumped within her as she remembered the arrow she had cast aside in the dust beside the gates, just before Nathanael’s knighting. Every detail flashed back into her memory: her bare feet, her quiver still strapped about her, and one arrow remaining in it.

  She ran the few paces to the gate and sifted through the dirt for that arrow.

  “Arliss!” Nathanael rushed towards her. “We have to close the gates!”

  “No! We cannot!” She shouted back, digging her fingers into the ground as dirt packed into her fingernails. Her fingers curled around wood. She gave the arrow a triumphant smile.

  Brallaghan shouted. “Catch him!”

  Scrambling to her feet, she saw the strange visitor running back up the bend between the tiers, with Nathanael and Brallaghan at his heels.

  Arliss shook her head. She had to focus. Trembling from the tension, she tugged another handkerchief from her pocket and knotted it around the arrowhead. Her fingers barely wanted to obey her. Finally, she thrust the arrow into the torch. After an agonizing moment, the arrow kindled.

  Thane’s army had come almost within bowshot. She aimed the arrow to land several paces ahead of Thane.

  She drew the string back to her ear, sparks from the flame flitting past her face.

  She aimed carefully, tilting the bow slightly leftwards.

  She breathed out, tensing her arms against her own exhalation.

  Her last thought before releasing the arrow was of her father. Kenton’s steady gaze and his knotted brow appeared in her mind as her fingers relaxed and the arrow flew from her bow.

  Flying gracefully as the most delicate of birds, the fiery arrow arced through the city gates. Elowyn watched with pride as the arrow struck the dead center of the oily patch of dead grasses.

  Flames consumed the patch as a trail of fire erupted around the city. From her vantage point on the tower, Elowyn could see all. She whirled back and forth to watch the flames that licked up the trail of oil on their journey around the city. In an instant, the recently harvested bean field turned orange with conflagration. The blaze spread until it created a fiery ring around the city, and even the oily surface of the moat flared with the fire.

  Elowyn saw her daughter, standing far below by the city gates. A stirring realization rose in her chest.

  One of the great prophecies of old had just been fulfilled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: FOR REINHOLD

  The clatter of hooves woke Arliss from the dream she felt she must be walking through. She—Arliss, first princess of Reinhold—had shot the fiery arrow even as the queen in the ancient legend. Her shoulders felt both powerfully light from her triumph and weighed down with the burden of her own destiny.

  A horse rounded the corner and pounded towards the castle gates.

  Unable to do anything to inhibit its rider, Arliss threw herself to the ground as she ducked away from the horse’s path. The figure in the burgundy cloak streaked over the inflamed drawbridge. Without hesitation, he leapt over the trail of fire and landed on the other side of the river. Then, instead of turning his horse to meet Thane’s army, he reared the beast and galloped on in the opposite direction—towards the sea.

  Through the flames which surrounded the city, Arliss could make out darkly cloaked warriors setting arrows to their bows. They would soon find them useless. The people of Reinhold were skilled archers, Arliss certainly not least among them. The fire obscured their view of the lower tier, and the second and third tiers had emptied of villagers.

  Despite these advantages, her fiery arrow could not defend the city forever. At some point, the fire would burn out, and the city could then be breached.

  The drawbridge collapsed with a sighing crackle of wood into the moat below, strewing boards across its surface. So, that entrance no longer existed, either. Perhaps that could also buy them some time. They would be severely outnumbered, but they would be ready.

  A shout erupted from the castle. Ilayda, her brown hair streaking behind her, ran towards Arliss from the opposite side of the city’s entryway thoroughfare.

  “Arliss! You—you’re—”

  “Ridiculous?”

  “Well, yes. But you’re also incredible.”

  Arliss smiled, but her forehead still knotted together. “What are they shouting about up there?”

  “I can’t make it out myself.”

  Striding towards the upper tiers, Arliss craned her neck and held her hand to her ear. “It sounds like a battle cry—some shout of victory. I hope they know we aren’t victorious yet. Thane is delayed but not defeated.”

  “Listen—they’re saying that someone is coming,” Ilayda said.

  Nathanael rounded the corner into the first tier, with the rest of the guards behind him, Brallaghan and Adam in their midst. “The king is coming! The king is coming! The king has returned!”

  The king. He was here. A strange mix of delight and horror twisted Arliss’s breath from her lungs. She ran to the gates to get a better view.

  Her father and his dozen men charged across the plains, straight towards Thane’s forces.

  Even through the smoke, she caught a glimpse of Thane. He jerked his mount around.

  “Retreat!” he bellowed. His words produced an instantaneous, rehearsed action from his men. They turned on their heels and fled back towards the forest without needing another word from their commander.

  Kenton’s band raced after them in the same manner.

  Nathanael thrust a long, narrow board over the moat, barely spanning the width of the river. He mounted the board, which easily supported his slender form. “I’m going to aid the king.”

  Arliss touched his shoulder. “Uncle Nathanael, no.”

  “Kenton needs every man on his side.”

  “Then what about the rest of the guards?”

  “They refused to join me.”

  Arliss bit her lip, unwilling to look at those traitorous guards behind her. “I will see what I can do to persuade them.” Not that they had much reason to trust her prior to now. But she had just saved their city from attack, if that counted for anything.

  “You’re a fine lass. Now you must let me go.” Nathanael bounded across his makeshift bridge and ran towards the king with speed like a courser.

  Her fist clenched around her bow, Arliss turned to face the city guards. Ilayda shuffled about behind them.

  “I know many of you despise me,” Arliss began, eyeing Lord Adam. “But I hope you see that, no matter what I did, and no matter what you think of it, I am doing everything I can to make it right. With God’s help, I will uphold Reinhold as long as I have strength.”

  She looked at Brallaghan. His eyes shone in agreement with her. She smiled. “I know the king has been proud as well. He has created boun
daries between our people. But now is not the time to let petty grievances and grudges separate us. We must fight for the king!”

  Adam crossed his arms across his chest. “Why should we fight for one who does not fight for us? The king looks only to his own plans.”

  She motioned towards her father’s now-distant figure, running towards the forest. “Do you think he cares only about himself, about his own plans? Look—he is fighting for you! You have a duty to him—all of you.”

  Adam scoffed. “Princess, surely you of all people know that your father is undeserving of our service. He forgets the ideas of the lords, forgets the commoners—forgets even you!”

  Several of the guards murmured in agreement.

  She stifled her mounting frustration. “I know he has allowed lines and divisions. I’ve seen them myself, and I know the evil that these schisms can produce. But believe me when I tell you this: fight for the king, and I will fight for the rights of all honest, noble Reinholdians.”

  “But you brought this evil upon us.”

  She stared at the dust beneath her feet, then looked up into Adam’s eyes. “Yes. I did.”

  Adam blinked in surprise, but he still appeared unconvinced. “We will not fight, for—”

  “Silence, Lord Adam!” Brallaghan stepped forward and turned to Arliss, smoothing the front of his green tunic as he reached for the pommel of his sword. “We will fight for the king. But who will lead us?”

  She lifted her bow and addressed the guards. “I will lead you, if you will follow me. Long ago, our clan of Reinhold fled from the oppression of a great evil across the sea. It seems that some of that evil has survived, and it is eating away at the heart of our land. Follow me—follow the king—and we can preserve Reinhold’s freedom.”

  Brallaghan nodded as the rest of the guards also gave their consent. Even Adam dropped his cynical frown, and Ilayda slipped towards her friend from behind the others.