Conquests and Crowns

by S E Meliers

  ‘Well done, Priest,’ Cinder beamed approval onto Gallant like sunlight and Gallant again felt a moment of fondness for him. ‘Congratulations Lord Ironwood and Lady Mercy of Guarn! May your lands be fecund, your bed warm, and your Lady prolific!’ This drew an approving roar from the gathered soldiers.

  As the party settled back into its own conversations, Gallant drifted to stand behind Cinder’s chair. ‘On the discussion of marriage and fecundity, my Prince,’ he murmured, ‘with Guarn taken and settled under Ironwood’s rule, perhaps the opportunity exists to travel to meet the Lady Patience on the road to Truen? If rumour is true, I am sure the Lady would like to apprise you of her condition in private. It would be a great boon for the Lady I think if you were to ride into Truen together to announce the expectancy of an heir… considering its current illegitimacy.’

  ‘Which will be amended as soon as your messenger returns with my crown,’ Cinder eyed the Priest keenly. ‘And it will be soon, will it not, Gallant?’

  ‘I am sure the High Priests will not deny you, my Prince,’ Gallant assured him.

  ‘Hmph,’ Cinder swept his gaze over the assembly. ‘Your idea does have merit. The illegitimacy of her child would be concerning to Patience and if I rode with her into Truen and announced her pregnancy with her at my side, it would be a declaration to all that I intend to recognise the child as my heir. Your insight is astounding,’ he raised an eyebrow at the Priest bemused.

  ‘I am devoted to your success, my Prince,’ Gallant bowed his head. ‘As the Lady carries your child and your regard, my loyalty embraces her wellbeing.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Cinder’s gaze raked him over. ‘I shall take your advice, Gallant, and travel out in the morning with speed. I should be able to intercept Patience’s party not far from the city.’

  ‘Very good, my Prince,’ Gallant bowed and stepped back, letting Ironwood draw Cinder’s attention back to the revelry. ‘Very, very good,’ he muttered to himself, pleased. When Cinder’s party arrived in time to rescue Patience, the Prince would be grateful to Gallant for his suggestion. Patience would also be grateful for the consideration of her wishes, and it would go a long way to softening her outlook towards him. Without her whispering her dislike of Gallant into Cinder’s ear, the Prince’s regard would return, enabling Gallant to focus once again of building his powerbase and planning for a better future.

  But, for this to work, the Spider had to die.

  Chapter Ten

  Rogue

  A feeling of unease hounded her, although the journey had been smooth and trouble free and the spires of Truen were in sight through the trees. The weather was beautiful, a slight breeze cooling what might have been otherwise an overwhelming sun and carrying with it the scent of the forest, fresh and green and fertile. The Lady Patience had awoken without her normal bout of morning sickness and had broken her fast well for the first time in weeks. Her enthusiasm for the day seemed to permeate her companions; even the necromancer seemed light of heart. With the sighting of Truen’s spires, the company had relaxed – surely so close to their destination they could afford to do so.

  Then, as they passed between the trees, Rogue sighted a glint of sunlight off metal, and suddenly the air was rent with battle cries as a party of armed Rhyndelians launched themselves in attack. Her sword was in her hand before the thought to draw coalesced in her mind, instinctually sending her horse into battle charge. Whilst her body focussed on bloody, gory battle, her mind calmly assessed her chances. They were outnumbered by the Rhyndelians: the choice to travel light of men in the hopes of not drawing attention to Patience had proven to be the wrong one. There were twelve Rhyndelian soldiers against her seven – Patience, her maid, the necromancer’s two women, and the two serving men being no aid to her and therefore uncounted. Even as she made this assessment, she saw one of the serving men, valiantly trying to fend off an attacker with a chest of luggage from the top of the carriage, fall in a spray of blood.

  One Rhyndelian soldier pushed his way into the carriage as the remaining manservant was run through by a second. ‘To the carriage,’ she bellowed at her men who were situated closer, and saw them engage the Rhyndelian on the exterior of the carriage. An enemy soldier took advantage of her moment of split attention and launched himself at her, knocking her from her horse and wresting her sword from her grasp. She tasted blood as he elbowed her in the face. They scrambled for a moment in the dirt, knocking his helmet from his head and barely escaping being trodden by her rearing horse, before she managed to get her hands between them and dug her fingers into his exposed eye sockets. She felt the orbs burst their sticky fluid over her thumbs, and he screamed, rearing away from her and clutching at his ruined face. His motion yanked one of the ruined eyes, the mangled flesh clinging to her, from the socket so it hung down his cheek in gory display. She seized her dropped sword and drove it into his chest, silencing his screams.

  She rolled to her feet and surged across the road towards the stilled carriage with its restive horses; eyes rolling white in distress as the carriage rocked from the battle within and without. At the moment they stayed, but she feared that at any time they would bolt. ‘The carriage,’ she yelled again, not sure who remained to rally to Patience’s defence, the road being a mad tangle of blood and swordsmen.

  The necromancer was, she noted with surprise as their paths crossed, an effective fighter. He carried a light sword, a slender double edged blade, and thus his style relied on him ducking and darting beneath the blows of the broadswords men with their heavier weapons and greater reach, but he was fleet of foot, nimble, and the light sword flickered brightly as it bit the flesh of his attackers. He also employed kicks and blows with the survival skills of a brawler whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  ‘Patience,’ she yelled at him engaging a charging Rhyndelian, and saw that he turned towards the carriage. The man he had felled, plus the fallen manservants, suddenly rose to their feet, re-animated and empty of expression, taking arms against the Rhyndelians.

  ‘That is just disturbing,’ she heard Ash exclaim in shock from behind her. Peripherally she was aware that he and Coal defended against three attackers, but she was unable to turn to their aid and had to trust in their skills as she had to reach the carriage where Cinder’s heir was endangered, and another Rhyndelian soldier intercepted her before she managed to dispatch the one she was already parrying. She saw one of her own soldiers fall, clutching a severed arm and screaming, as she gutted the first soldier and swung to meet the next.

  Her sword was stilled mid-blow by the soldier’s in a skilled parry, and for a moment, their eyes met through the crossed blades, and they exchanged a glance of simultaneous shock. ‘My Lord Cedar,’ she cried in automatic recognition.

  He flinched. ‘Spider.’

  A blow to her shoulder knocked her from her feet. Her head hit the ground hard, glancing off a discarded helmet, stunning her and making her ears ring. The battle around her seemed unreal, edged with fogginess as she fought off unconsciousness. She noted the arrow fletching that protruded from her flesh with shock-induced calm. Distantly, she thought: she had not seen an archer in the Rhyndelians’ company, a stupid mistake which would now cost her life. She had a moment’s regret about the home and children she would not share with her EAeryian lovers even as she managed to bring her sword up with her other arm in what she knew would be a futile attempt to defend against Lord Cedar’s killing blow – but the blow did not come. The Lord hesitated then turned, his attention drawn to the carriage. ‘Shit,’ he cursed, and broke into a run.

  Feminine screams rose above the sounds of battle, and she saw a flurry of skirts and armour fall from the open carriage door. The Necromancer’s women; one dragged by a soldier, the other on his back clawing and hammering at him savagely. She saw the serving woman’s fingernails renting red chunks of flesh from the screaming man as he staggered and fell, releasing his captive. This battle was one too many for the horses, who whinnied their distress and kicked up
their heels, bolting down the road and taking the carriage, with Patience and her maid, with them. A Rhyndelian soldier, hair brightly gold in the sunlight, kicked his horse in pursuit of the runaway carriage.

  She staggered to her feet, the ground spinning as the arrow in her shoulder ground against bone. She dropped the sword to clasp a hand over the arrow, to hold it still, knowing it left her defenceless against attack, but also that between the arrow, her ringing head and nauseas belly, she would be unable to defend herself anyway. She gripped the arrow shaft and pulled it from her flesh with a scream. She fell to her knees again, vomited helplessly, expecting a killing blow to fall any moment but completely unable to prevent it. She heard her name spoken, recognised Coal’s voice, and struggled to her feet again as they reached her. Blood poured from her wound and she swayed. Ash caught her between his brother and himself, forming a shield around her. She had no choice but to cling to him for support, her legs treacherous. He had a gash across his forearm and a bruise forming along his jaw, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Coal appeared to be favouring his ribs on the left side, she could not tell if it were a wound or a bruise, but tried not to knock against him as she shifted unsteadily on her feet.

  Over Ash’s shoulder she saw Lord Cedar seize a riderless horse, hers she noted wryly, and ride off down the road towards where the carriage had disappeared from sight. The necromancer had reached his paramour and her companion. Both women were smeared with blood, but neither appeared seriously injured. Having witnessed a little of their savagery, she was not surprised by their gruesome paint. There were six Rhyndelians still living, but between her two EAerymen, the necromancer’s little party and the seven bodies he’d re-animated, the Rhyndelians were truly outnumbered and dropped weapons in defeat.

  ‘We have to go after Patience,’ Rogue squeezed Ash’s shoulder to draw his attention. ‘You are injured,’ he shook his head.

  ‘I must,’ she released him and took a step, but the ground surged up at her. Coal caught her, lowering her to the ground and clamped a hand over her wound.

  ‘You have lost a lot of blood,’ he released her shoulder in order to tear a strip of cloth from his top and wadded it up against her shoulder. ‘Hold here. Did you pull the arrow out? Are you trying to kill yourself? What an idiotic thing to do,’ he scolded, hands shaking as he tied the bandage into place. From the worry in his eyes, she gathered she did not look well. She did not feel well. She had had worse arrow-wounds before, so guessed the head injury was the main culprit for her weakness.

  ‘Riders approach,’ the necromancer announced warily. ‘Shoethalian flag,’ he added with relief and their little company relaxed. ‘It is the Prince.’

  Blackness was edging in on her. ‘Tell him he must go for Patience,’ she managed before she slipped into the darkness.

  Patience

  The peaceful journey was rent by war cries. Patience had been dozing and woke disorientated in time to see her maid, Posy, jump up from her seat and push the window curtains aside. ‘By the Monad!’ she exclaimed. ‘We are under attack.’ The carriage rocked unsteadily as a body landed on it, and Patience could hear the drivers yelling and screaming as they tried to defend the carriage from attack. Beyond the carriage the sounds of battle were terrifying, screams and yells rising and falling with the crash of metal against metal and the shrillness of horses in pain.

  ‘Do we stay, or do we run?’ Patience asked, looking at each of the women. She doubted any of them could outrun the men outside hampered as they were with their heavy skirts. The necromancer’s paramour and her maid exchanged a glance, and the maid started to stand.

  An armoured man pushed through the door as the carriage drew to a halt with a sudden motion that sent the maid back into her seat and had him clinging to the doorframe for balance. ‘What have we here?’ he summed them up with a glance before focussing in on the necromancer’s paramour. ‘By the Goddess, you are a pretty one. I will have you as my spoils,’ he seized her wrist and pulled her from the seat.

  The paramour’s maid launched herself at him at the same time as the paramour stabbed at him from below with a tiny but wicked looking dagger she had pulled from her bodice, and he staggered caught off guard, obviously not expecting such active resistance from women. The dagger wound bled profusely. ‘You have killed me,’ he said, stunned, still holding the paramour by the wrist. He took a step back, dragging her with him, and his foot slipped in his own blood. He tumbled from the carriage, dragging the paramour with him. The maid threw herself out of the carriage in ferocious pursuit.

  The carriage horses screamed in fear and the carriage rocketed forward with a jarring motion that unseated Patience. ‘We must jump, my Lady,’ Posy cried, bracing her hands against the carriage door as it swayed ominously. ‘The horses run wild, and the carriage will overturn!’

  Patience gripped the seat, hauling herself off the floor. ‘You jump,’ she gasped. ‘I daren’t lest the fall hurts the baby.’

  ‘The carriage overturning will hurt it more, my Lady, I beg of you: jump,’ Posy pleaded. Patience shook her head. The carriage lurched with a crazed motion. Posy’s loyalty in the face of her own demise exhausted, she crouched to jump from the carriage, but a rocky patch of road unbalanced her and she fell with a terrible scream. The carriage bounced as the rear wheel overrode her body with an evil crunch.

  ‘Argh!’ Patience covered her mouth in horror and leaned out the window to see if her maid survived, but she was already lost to sight. A rider approached the tail of the carriage with speed, however, sunlight glinting off his golden hair. He was gaining swiftly, his horse fleeter of foot than those encumbered by the carriage. Patience’s heart stopped dead. It could not be. But they had been married too many years for her to mistake him. ‘Oh, no, my love,’ she whispered. Life could not be so unfair as for them to find each other this way - as she plunged to her doom in a driverless carriage.

  Their gazes met and meshed in a moment of eternity as he drew abreast, and then he was before her, level with the driver’s seat of the carriage. ‘No,’ she whispered, terrified to look lest he end up like Posy beneath the carriage wheels, but unable to look away. He crouched on the saddle, always such a skilled rider, and jumped from the horse onto the wagon. For a moment, he scrambled for a grip, dangling against the carriage side precariously, and her heart stopped. But then he managed to swing his legs up onto the driver’s seat and disappeared from view.

  For long moments there was nothing, and then the carriage began to slow. At a sedate pace at odds with the pounding of her heart, the carriage turned off the road and into the trees. She watched the greenery pass by blankly, her mind searching for a purchase, exhilaration and shame at war within her. Charity was alive. She had thought he was dead, and he was alive. The things she had done thinking him dead… and he was alive. Oh, but to see him again, to know he was alive, and whole and hale. Tears wet her cheeks and she pushed at them absently. The carriage drew to a standstill where the undergrowth grew too thick for its passage.

  Anticipation, hope and mortification kept her company in the carriage as she felt it shift with his weight as he swung off the drivers’ seat and entered the cabin. For a moment, she could not breathe. It was him, in all his glorious golden beloved perfection. ‘Oh, Charity,’ she gasped for air, hope and longing thundering in her chest, and then he was in her arms, as she kissed his jaw, his chin, his lips, his ear, ran her fingers through his golden hair. His mouth grazed her cheek, her lips, kissing her with passion. So familiar, and yet so foreign, this man she had loved for so many years, and yet had thought was dead. The father of her children, the love of her life…

  He pushed at her skirts, gathering them out of the way. She felt his erection against her thigh, and then he dragged himself into position and drove himself into her. The pain of his entry into her unprepared body was shocking, and yet also welcome; she could not get enough of the feel, the taste, the sight of him, just thankful to have him living and breathing in her arms. ‘Oh, my lo
ve,’ she gasped as he pushed deep into her. She touched his face, sculpting features she had thought never to see again beneath her fingertips, even as her body quickened with pain from his savage strokes, pushing her deep into the carriage seat. He was quick and rough with neediness, and it was not long before he spilled his seed into a womb already occupied by his enemy’s progeny.

  ‘Patience,’ he moaned against her cheek. ‘I love you,’ he framed her face with his big hands. ‘Oh, how I love you.’ He was weeping. He kissed her, bruising her lips with his, and she could taste his tears and blood from where his kiss had split her skin against her teeth. His hands drifted down to ring the base of her neck as he deepened the kiss, desperately, like a man drowning, before pulling back abruptly to search her face with his eyes, his gaze intent.

  ‘Oh, Charity,’ she stroked his face lovingly. ‘Oh, my love.’ For a moment, she could not place what was wrong. Something was different about the expression in his eyes, the set of his jaw... The air was thick; she could not pull it in. She realised his fingers had tightened about her throat, constricting her airway. ‘Charity,’ she whispered, and could speak no more for the fingers tightened until there was pain, searing, horrible, eye popping pain. Her fingers clutched futilely at his wrists, trying to pry his hands from her throat, to let air back into her body.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered brokenly, grip firm. ‘I love you so, so very much.’ His lips brushed her gaping mouth, her forehead, her pleading eyes. ‘It is the only way, Patience. The only honourable thing to do. Shhh, do not fight it. Go easy into the eternal night.’