The Burning Kingdoms

by Sally Green

  So were you, March thought. If you’d stayed, this wouldn’t have happened.

  “Where are my Bears?” Harold demanded. “I left them here to help you old men defend the wall.”

  “The Calidorian archers took most of them. The Bears had no shields. The arrows were falling so thick there was no hiding from them, but they did have speed, so many of them fled.”

  Harold seemed to ignore this accusation of desertion by his precious boys. He stood upright and looked around, muttering, “They’ll try the arrows again.” In a louder voice he added, “Where are the Calidorians now? I can’t see them on the wall.”

  The leader of the Foxes replied, “My scouts say they’ve moved into the hills around us.”

  Harold smirked. “They think to set a trap for us.”

  The Fox leader nodded. “And we’ve walked into it.”

  Harold shrugged as if it was what he expected. “It’s a simple plan. Textbook stuff. A little unimaginative, but that’s how old men fight. We’ll win anyway. We can have Thelonius strung up by lunch tomorrow.” Harold turned to March to add, “The final battle will be here on Abask land. Will you enjoy that, March? Will you deign to join in?”

  “I will be with you all the way, Your Highness.”

  “You will indeed,” Harold replied, and then he looked at the hills around them. “They have drawn us into their trap but they won’t fight us in the dark. Their mistake was to wait. They should have attacked as soon as we arrived.”

  “So what do we do?” March dared to ask.

  “We use the night, and we use our strength. They’ll be feeling confident because they’ve just won a great battle, but they’ll be tired too. They’ve lost men.” He addressed the boys around him now. “Fox leader, take the best scouts. I want to know the enemy locations and numbers.” Turning to Rashford, he said, “Take Sam and the best assassins from the other brigades. I want you to pick off the Calidorian guards. Make them nervous. Slice their throats, spill their guts—make a mess of them. Can you do that, Bull leader? Have you got your nerve back?”

  “I have my nerve,” Rashford replied. “Should we attack silently?”

  “Silently or noisily. Whatever is most terrifying. Stick the heads onto spears, throw them into the bushes, chop hands off, feet off. Tongues out. When dawn comes, I want these men to see their future.”

  Rashford nodded and glanced at March, saying, “Perhaps the Abask here can help us with the territory.”

  Harold frowned. “It’s not hard. It’s hills and streams with some soldiers hiding. Just get on with it and leave my servant be.”

  Rashford bowed and backed away, calling on others to join him, and soon they were running off into the hills.

  Harold turned to the rest of the boys. “I want you to go over this battlefield and find all the Calidorian bodies. Cut off their heads. Put them on spikes.”

  The boys lit torches and set to their task. At first some were reluctant, but Harold shouted, “Anyone not doing their part will be punished! Anyone not following my orders is a traitor!” And suddenly the boys were hacking away at bodies with grim enthusiasm, trying to make jokes about the body parts and the blood.

  Harold stood with March and surveyed the scene. “The Calidorians will be watching. What will they think of this, March?”

  In the flickering light the sight was ghoulish. Heads were set on spears, arms and hands too. The boys were competing at who could display the bodies in the worst way. March knew the Calidorians would think Harold was a Brigantine monster, uncivilized and barbaric. He said, “They’ll find it terrifying. They’ll dread you, Your Highness. As they should.”

  “Yes, as they should,” Harold muttered.

  Before dawn, the Fox leader returned with his report. “The Calidorian forces are split into three. The biggest force to the south is about two thousand men, two hundred on horseback. To the west and east, another thousand per side and the archers are with them—a hundred on each side.”

  “And any on the wall?” Harold asked.

  The boy shook his head. “Only at the forts, which are farther along; none close in.”

  “Ha! That’s why they didn’t spring their trap as soon as we arrived. They’re hoping we’ll just go back to Brigant. They’re leaving the door open for us to depart.” Harold smiled.

  Just as some of the Bears must have done.

  “Well, we’ll go to the gap, but we won’t go through it. I want lookouts on the wall. The archers will be the first challenge. All boys must have shields. They can get them from the battlefield. After the arrows, it’ll be the horses. The Calidorians know that’s where they are stronger. It’s hand-to-hand combat where we will win.” Harold suddenly had a look of glee on his face as he had an idea. “We’ll play dead. Then they’ll come in close. And we rise up.” He smiled and tapped his lips. “But Thelonius isn’t a complete fool. He’ll be cautious. I think this is where my little Wasps will come in handy again.”

  Harold summoned Tiff, the Wasp leader. “Your objective is to capture Thelonius. Nothing more or less. When we are playing dead, they’ll send men forward to check. Thelonius, I hope, will be with these men, but if he’s not, if he hangs back, then you come in from behind.” Harold smiled. “You’re so small and fast that these old men won’t know if you’re soldiers or children. Shout and scream too. Confuse them. Shout for help. As if they should be helping you, as if you’re running from something. They’ll hesitate. They won’t want to kill children.”

  Rashford, Sam, and the other assassins returned at that moment, their hands and clothes splattered with blood.

  Sam was beaming. “It was like slaughtering cattle. They’re so slow. We could rush them, slice their throats, and be gone before anyone could move. It was like a game.”

  “And they lost every time,” Rashford said, though he sounded less than happy. “We’ve removed a few guards, but there are a lot of Calidorians still up there.”

  The sun rose over the hillside now, revealing the horror of the battlefield, with corpses dismembered and hung up. Rashford didn’t say anything but stared out across the field, and then he turned away with a small shudder.

  March, however, had his own work to do. Harold, as always, was concerned about his appearance, especially on the day when he’d have a famous victory, so March had to clean his armor. Once March had polished it to a gleaming brilliance, Harold said, “You put it on.”

  It was so bright the enemy could not miss it. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, March understood the plan. The Calidorians would expect the boy wearing this armor to be Harold. When March was dressed, Harold grinned. “You almost look like a soldier now, March. But you’ll never look like a prince.”

  “Perhaps if I had a sword,” March suggested.

  “Well, pick one up—there’s a thousand lying around here,” Harold said. Clearly he wasn’t going to give March his own silver and gold weapon.

  “Archers to the west!” The shout was from the lookout on the wall. “Archers to the east. Take cover. Take cover.”

  A swooshing sound came from the west, quickly followed by another from the east. The boys looked up as one, their eyes following the arrows high into the sky and raising the shields they’d picked up from the fallen soldiers on the battlefield. “Yes, use your shields. Protect yourselves. But I want some of you to fall,” Harold said. “And scream. And some can try to run to the wall. Look like we’re panicking. But try not to laugh, boys.”

  Harold held his shield up and walked confidently through the field of mutilated bodies. A few of the boys around him screamed and fell to the ground, pretending to be dead. “Keep your shield up, March. You’re not dead yet. Prince Harold wouldn’t fall so easily.”

  Harold walked to the center of the field. They were surrounded by bodies, dead and alive. Arrows rained down. One nicked March’s thigh but he felt the smoke heal the wou
nd. Another swarm of arrows came their way, and more of the boys fell with them. March didn’t know how many were faking and how many—if any—had actually been wounded. There were only twenty or thirty boys standing, and Harold said, “Sam, March. Stay with me. We go for Thelonius. I want him alive. My prisoner. But first, it’s time for some acting.” With that, he grabbed at his chest, as if hit by an arrow, and made a dying noise as he dropped dramatically to the ground.

  Rashford was standing close, and he looked at March with raised eyebrows before clutching at his chest and grunting and groaning as he fell. March dropped to his knees too as he saw movement to the north. The arrows had stopped falling. “Riders are coming,” he said.

  “I can hear their pounding,” Harold replied. “Keep visible, March. And keep watch. Tell us how close your old master is.”

  March stayed on his knees. The riders were coming his way. They must have seen Harold’s armor—who could miss it, after all?

  “Can you see Thelonius?” Harold asked.

  “Yes, but he’s far back, on the edge of the field.”

  The Calidorian horsemen made their way to March. But the battlefield was a sea of bodies. It was impossible to deter-mine which, if any, were alive, almost impossible to determine who was Brigantine and who Calidorian. The horses didn’t like walking among the bodies, and some riders were having to urge and kick them forward. Most dismounted, swords held out, stabbing at bodies on the ground. The stench of blood and flesh had intensified overnight, and the flies had begun to swarm in the warmth of the morning sun. The Calidorians were cursing, disgusted by what they saw and smelled. March’s knees were wet from kneeling on the bloody ground. His stomach was churning. He wanted a piss and a shit and to be sick at the same time.

  The Wasps should be running in now, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  Slowly the Calidorians approached, two men still on horseback in the lead. March lowered his head, his heart pounding. A black horse stopped in front of him and the rider spoke. “Raise your head, Brigant. Let’s see your face.”

  March didn’t move, but replied in Calidorian, “Fuck you.”

  “I said, raise your face.”

  “And I said, fuck you.”

  The man dismounted. As did another near him. They came toward March.

  But at that moment, he heard a distant cry. The soldiers turned to look, and March raised his head to see the Wasps running as a group to the main Calidorian force that was massed on the edge of the battlefield. The Wasps were screeching and yelping for all they were worth.

  “What the—” the Calidorian soldier began, but he never finished his question. Harold rose up and struck him, cutting through his neck. His head and body toppled in different directions as Harold shouted, “Attack!” But the boys were already rising up, leaping and screaming, moving so fast that the Calidorians, by comparison, seemed as if their feet were stuck in clay.

  The soldier in front of March swung his sword, but March met the blow, and Rashford took the soldier out from behind. The Calidorian soldiers on the battlefield were already overrun, the ones on horseback being pulled from their mounts. It took only moments. Harold ran forward shouting, “To Thelonius! And to victory!”

  The boys surged, heading toward the main Calidorian army. They leaped high over the outer rows of men to land farther inside the throng, cutting into heads, necks, and shoulders as they landed. It was chaos. Horses reared, men screamed, and, in the center of it all, the Wasps swarmed around Thelonius. Already a boy had leaped onto his horse, and another was clinging to his sword while Thelonius swung at boys below him. Then Thelonius disappeared from view, pulled down from his horse and lost in the melee.

  March followed Harold as he slashed through the Calidorians.

  Tiff shouted, “We have Thelonius! He’s ours.”

  Harold hacked and whirled his way to the center of the mass of men, his sword fast and precise, until there were only boys ahead. The Wasps had Thelonius on his knees. Around them the fighting was petering out. Calidorians on horseback were still trying to break through, but the boys were protecting this circle.

  Harold shouted, “Calidorians, I have your leader! I have Thelonius.” Then he put the tip of his sword to Thelonius’s neck and demanded, “Yield.”

  Thelonius looked up at Harold and shook his head. “Never.”

  “I thought you’d say that. But look around, Uncle. You’ve lost. My boys will kill all your men. You’ll all die for your country, and then it’ll be my country.” Harold lowered his sword and crouched down so he could see Thelonius’s face, or perhaps so Thelonius could see his. “I’ll let you have a way out, though. A noble way out. A way that gives you a chance. A slim one, but a chance. We settle this one-on-one. You against me. If you win, we’ll leave.”

  Thelonius was obviously tempted.

  “You’ll have to decide soon,” Harold said.

  “Your word on it.”

  Harold smiled. “My word of honor. My boys will leave if you kill me.”

  March was sure that Thelonius didn’t believe Harold’s word and certainly didn’t trust that Aloysius would honor it, but, really, he didn’t have a choice.

  Harold shouted, “Stop fighting, boys! We have a truce.”

  The shout was taken up around them, and the last of the fighting abated.

  Harold told the Wasps to release Thelonius and hand him a sword. “And give me my armor back, March. This will go down in history as a glorious fight, man versus boy.”

  March helped Harold back into his armor as the Calidorians and Brigantines gathered around, each grouping to one side or the other.

  Thelonius noticed March and stiffened. He called out, “So you’re here. Is this the side you’ve chosen, March? I was wrong ever to think well of you.”

  “Was I right ever to think well of you?” March replied.

  Thelonius didn’t reply but turned away. And March felt heavy in his heart. He knew Thelonius would die. It would be good to give him some words of comfort, at least to tell him that Edyon had escaped. But that was a luxury that March couldn’t afford to give; Thelonius would have to bear his own burden.

  Thelonius and Harold walked to the center of the open circle: the man and the boy, surrounded by men and boys. The two princes held their swords up, walking round, each assessing his opponent. Thelonius struck first and Harold defended. The first few clashes were conventional enough. Thelonius was an expert swordsman, but Harold was well-tutored too. Thelonius was bigger, more muscled, and far more experienced, but Harold had smoke.

  The fight seemed almost mundane. The swords clashed; the fighters moved back. They met again, moved back again. But at the next meeting, Thelonius lunged. Harold turned quickly to avoid the blade and then whipped round, making a counterattack that cut low to Thelonius’s leg before stepping back out of his reach. Thelonius staggered but raised his sword.

  Harold said, “Well, this is all very well as a warm-up, but it’s not a historic battle. It’s far too dull. No one wants to see a fight like this. They want to see this.” Then he ran and leaped up and over Thelonius, turning in the air and swiping at his opponent’s left shoulder. Thelonius was knocked forward, but he managed to stay on his feet, blood pouring from a deep wound.

  Harold paced around. “Your right leg is the weaker. Almost useless. You’d be better off without it.” Then he shouted: “Would he be better off without his useless leg, boys?”

  There was a huge cheer in reply. The boys thrilled at their power. And Harold ran at Thelonius, knocking his sword out of the way and turning, slicing at his leg, and then using the momentum of his own sword to lift him high in the air and somersault, landing firmly on two feet. The boys around him were cheering. March forced himself to cheer with them.

  Thelonius was still standing. He roared in anger and tried to move forward, but his right leg fell away, cut clean through at th
e thigh. He stood a moment, blood pouring from his wound, before he toppled to the ground.

  Harold stood over him. “Do you yield?”

  “You’re mad and evil and I curse the—”

  But March never learned what he cursed, as Harold sliced Thelonius’s head off with a loud scream of fury. “Don’t you dare curse me, you pathetic old man!”

  Harold stood triumphant over the body and ordered, “Put his head, body, and leg on display. Let everyone see him. All three bits.” Then he looked up and around, as if trying to decide what to do with the huge Calidorian force. He shouted, “Lay down your weapons. Surrender.”

  Some of the soldiers threw their weapons down and dropped to their knees, but many ran for the woods. A group of boys chased after them, but Harold had lost interest already. He was too busy parading around victoriously and congratulating the boys. “We have taken Calidor. I have defeated Thelonius. Calidor is ours. We have taken it all.”

  March was sickened. Harold would do the same to Edyon if he ever caught him. The boys were mad too. Everything was mad and bloody and awful. He wanted to get out, but more than that he wanted to be rid of Harold. March could end this with a single stone. He plucked one from his bag, pulled his arm back—but then a Fox ran forward, blocking the shot and shouting, “Your Highness, I’ve news. We’ve captured Thelonius’s son. He’s our prisoner in Calia.”

  “Edyon?” March said.

  And again March had lost his chance, but perhaps it had never been a chance at all.

  CATHERINE

  ARMY CAMP, NORTHERN PITORIA

  If you suspect something is wrong, you’re probably right.

  Pitorian saying

  CATHERINE HALF wished she could have stayed in camp with Tzsayn but knew she needed to be with her men. Without the king, the army was lacking a figurehead. She might not be able to fight, but she could lead. The route they took was through farmland and green hills, and Catherine marked their progress by the Northern Plateau, which was a constant presence, looming closer and higher all the time. And somewhere there, inside all that stone, was Ambrose. She remembered standing on the edge of the plateau with him, and how different things had looked from there and how far they could see. Anyone up there now would see her army for certain, and they’d see she was at its head.