Authors: Sara Douglass
“
E
verything will be for the best, Leagh,” Zared said, his hand cupping her chin gently. “Believe that.”
Her eyes slipped away to watch the preparations in the central courtyard. Men scrambled, horses fidgeted, weapons gleamed. The scraping of metal against metal, and steel against cobble, irritated her beyond measure.
“I do hope so,” she said quietly.
“If I leave you in charge of Carlon, Leagh, will you be true?”
Her eyes returned to his face. True to whom? “I will do what I think best,” she said.
“I am your husband.”
And you almost murdered my brother. “I know that. I know where my duty lies.”
“You took vows to be true to your husband.”
“I know that!” But what if I now regret those vows, Zared?
What should he do? Zared thought. He could leave Herme or Theod in Carlon, for control of the city needed one of the highest-ranking nobles, but he could ill afford to leave either of them behind. But could he trust Leagh?
He remembered how she’d defended him to Axis, and he quieted his thoughts.
He leaned forward and kissed her briefly. “Keep well, Leagh.” Keep true.
“And you, husband.”
He mounted, then glanced at her once more before turning his horse’s head for the gate. “Herme! Pass the word! We move out!”
Fourteen thousand men took over two hours to move through the cheering, crowded streets of Carlon and then swing north for the ford above Grail Lake. Leagh spent most of that time atop the battlements, thinking.
Whom
did
she owe her loyalty to? Askam and Caelum, or her husband and the ecstatic crowds in the streets? Who was right, and who not? Was Caelum wrong for not listening to the needs of the people? Was Zared right in seizing and then destroying Kastaleon? Crippling her brother but not telling her?
The units moved northwards along the shore of Grail Lake in a sinuous column. The sunlight glinted off metal and silken banners. Leagh knew Zared rode at the forefront, although they were so far away now she could not see him.
An army of Achar rode again. A King of Achar rode at their head.
And she, the Queen, was left behind to rule in the absence of her lord. Strange that she did not feel very much like a Queen.
What should she do?
The easiest thing would be to just stay here and oversee the daily bureaucratic decisions of the major city of the realm. Smile at the mayor. Hold out her hand for the occasional ambassador to kiss. Listen with sympathy to the petitions of street urchins and aggrieved housewives.
But that would be too easy.
Leagh felt the heavy load of responsibility and guilt on her shoulders. How many nights now had she lain by Zared’s side, listening to him gently breathe in sleep, wondering if she committed treason against Caelum by doing so? Did she betray Caelum by giving herself so willingly night after night to Zared, or would she betray her husband if she turned him a cold back?
Ah! Why was love never easy?
She owed Zared responsibility and loyalty, but she also owed her brother and their overlord, Caelum. How many times had she sat at her father’s knee and listened to his tales of the dreadful struggle Axis had to unite Tencendor and defeat Gorgrael? If she stood back quiescent, watching while Zared single-handedly destroyed that unity, would she then bear as much guilt as he?
What came first, the wishes of one race among many, or the integrity of a nation?
Leagh could not bear the thought that Caelum no doubt found her as guilty as Zared, yet neither could she bear to think that Caelum and Askam’s force might well decimate Zared’s. She did not want to wear the weeds of widowhood yet.
Leagh lifted her hands and wound her hair into a heavy rope over her shoulder. Her fingers twisted until her hair was tangled and knotted. She did not notice. Her eyes were still fast on the now-distant army riding north.
What would happen when –
if
– they met the army of Norsmen? Would Zared die? If he succeeded, would Caelum set the Strike Force to his destruction? And if Zared then succeeded again, would Tencendor be torn apart in a bloody civil war of retribution, Icarii against Acharite? Age-old hatred nurturing new-found malice?
Leagh’s fingers stilled, and her eyes filled with tears. Whatever decision she made, whatever she decided to do,
she would commit treason against either husband and people or brother and overlord.
She lay in bed awake, unmoving, until late into the night. The palace lay still and quiet. Everyone was abed, fast asleep after the excitement of the day. She rolled her head to one side, looking at the empty pillow beside hers, pristine and lonely in the moonlight. Where was Zared now? Where Caelum?
“Ah!” she exclaimed softly, and sat up. She paused in the moonlight, then got out of bed, grabbing a robe to wrap about herself. She missed Zared. She wished he was here.
Leagh walked into their robing room, rummaging about in closets and drawers until she found what she needed. Breeches, small enough to fit her form. A simple worsted shirt and jacket; leftovers from a time when she’d once ridden to the hawks in the plains above Carlon. Belial had liked to do that, and she’d not gone a-hawking since he’d died. After the jacket a cap, under which she twisted her hair, and then some sturdy boots.
Pausing to study herself solemnly in a mirror, she couldn’t help smiling. She looked like a country boy. A messenger, perhaps. Well, in a sense that’s what she was.
From her apartments Leagh crept silently down halls and stairwells until she reached the courtyard. Guards dozed at their posts; no-one expected action in Carlon. Not yet.
Holding her breath, she hurried across to the stables and walked silently down the central aisle, searching out the mount she wanted. There. A dark bay Corolean mare, fine-boned and swift, gentle-mouthed and great-hearted.
Leagh soothed the mare with light strokes, then swiftly saddled and bridled her. Her heart thumping, feeling sick from the tension, Leagh led the mare from the
stables, fearing with every step that the mare’s hooves would rattle or strike a spark from the cobbles.
But nothing.
In the courtyard Leagh paused again, looked about, then led the mare through the gate.
The guard in his dark niche jerked at the movement of air, but did not wake.
Damn you! Leagh thought. You should be more alert! What if we were attacked? What if Caelum sent the Strike Force?
But just this once she needed them dozing. When she got back – if she got back – then things would be different.
Leagh mounted several blocks away from the palace and kept the mare to a walk through the streets of Carlon. There were some people about, street sweepers and bakers hurrying to early morning ovens, but they all assumed she was but a messenger boy, off on some errand.
No-one stopped her.
Once through the main city gates Leagh turned the mare’s head for the north and pushed her into a canter and, once past the last curve of wall, into a flat-out gallop.
The road was clear and smooth, but the way ahead was treacherous and fraught with difficulties.
By the time the sun was above the horizon Leagh had left Carlon well behind. She turned the mare onto a series of farm tracks that she remembered from her hawking days. They led roughly due north, and would harbour no awkward questions from strangers. The Nordra lapped and laughed to her right, glinting rose and gold in the early morning sun, and the water fowl chirped and fluttered as she rode by.
The army had been out a day before her, but she could move faster than it.
She rode until mid-morning, alternately cantering and trotting the mare, and sometimes running alongside her. Then she stopped by an isolated farmstead, and paid the Goodwife for a mug of milk and a sandwich. Rested, she and the mare continued north beside the Nordra.
They reached the river crossing as evening fell, and the ferryman asked no questions of the quiet rider who paid passage.
She rode for five days, rode until both she and the mare were almost dead with exhaustion, rode until she spotted the camp fires of the army ranged in a wide, shallow valley.
“Thank the gods,” she whispered, and booted the mare forward for one final effort.
She saw as she neared that the camp was a hive of activity. Men milled about, horses were being readied.
War. Was she in time? Or too late?
A guard challenged her, then had to step forward and catch her as she fell from the mare’s back.
“Princess Leagh!” he said, almost dropping her in astonishment as he caught sight of her face.
She tried to smile, but failed. “Good man,” she whispered, her exhaustion making her shake uncontrollably. “Is the Prince Askam to hand? And StarSon Caelum? I must speak with them. Urgently.”
Z
ared pushed his force hard. Maybe too hard. From Carlon they rode north, swimming their horses across the relatively shallow and peaceful Nordra half a league above Grail Lake, then headed due east for a day and a half before swinging north again for another four days’ ride.
The trail of the Norsmen’s passage was clear; dirt trampled with steel shoes, edges of roads flattened, the banks of watering streams and edges of ponds muddied and ruined.
Zared desperately wanted to catch the Norsmen before they combined with Caelum. He still hoped that he and Caelum could come to some negotiated settlement, although he knew that might well be a forlorn hope after the disaster of Kastaleon. But if Caelum had the Nors force to back him, then Zared very much feared he would brook no negotiation. Especially not with a one-armed Askam at his back.
Zared’s mouth twisted in a wry smile as he squinted against the sun on their seventh day out. Askam had never cut a very prepossessing figure, and one sleeve hanging loose and flapping would hardly improve his image.
“Sire!”
Zared straightened in the saddle and squinted even more. There was a plume of dust ahead of him, resolving within a few heartbeats into a bedraggled rider.
Ormond, one of the forward scouts he’d sent out before dawn.
“Well?” Zared asked sharply as Ormond hauled his exhausted horse to a staggering halt.
“Half an hour ahead of you, and swinging back. They have two farflight scouts with them. They saw me. I am sorry, sire.”
“Damn,” Zared muttered. Herme, Theod and several of his captains crowded their horses about, trying to hear the news.
“Their readiness?” Zared asked Ormond.
“Good, sire. They are fresher than us, despite their travel.”
“How do they disperse themselves?” Herme snapped.
Ormond swung red-rimmed eyes at the Earl. “My Lord, I rode as if I had the damned after me when I realised I’d been spotted. But I think they were turning in arc formation.”
“Are you
sure
?” Zared asked. “I must dispose my force accordingly if they ride in arc –”
“Sire,” Ormond said. “I can only relate what I saw as
I
turned to run before the sun. It appeared to me that the Norsmen turned in arc formation.” He shrugged tiredly. “But that may be only for the turn back. Who knows how they ride now.”
“I thank you, Ormond.” Zared dismissed the man, then consulted with the others. “Well? What do you think?”
“Spear,” Herme said instantly. “If they
do
ride arc formation.”
“I concur,” Theod said, and several of the captains nodded.
“Why?” Zared asked Killingrew, one of the younger commanders who was yet to prove his worth.
“The centre of the arc will be weak,” Killingrew replied. “If we hold the spear formation we could break straight through.”
“And leave our flanks vulnerable to the arms of the arc closing,” Theod said. “Zared? What think you?”
Zared stared into the heat-encrusted afternoon as if it could give him inspiration. Sweat trickled down his back, but he was only dimly aware of the itch. “They will be here soon,” he said softly. “Look.” He indicated a faint haze in the distance. “They ride.”
He peered intently. “That dust haze is wide. I think they still ride in the arc. They would have wanted to turn as quickly as they could, race for us, catch us unawares if possible, and the arc would be fittest for that purpose.”
Suddenly he was all activity. “Theod, Killingrew, Urnest, ride back and start shaping our column into spear formation.
Fast.
Set the supply mules and spare horses free if you have to. Herme, wait here with me. I need your advice. Fikness, I need you to send several scouts four or five hundred paces ahead to signal once the Nors force gets closer. Bonnime, find me eight or ten riders. If I need messages to get back through the force then I’ll need to do it fast. Move!”
The commanders scattered.
The forces met as the sun sank into rose-coloured finery over the distant Nordra. The shining, metal-plated Norsmen, visors down, lances tucked under arms, grim-silenced riders galloping to engage the traitor’s force; the stolid Acharites, fighting once again under the banner of their King – and this time proud to be doing so.
As Zared had predicted, they met in a clash of spear and arc. The Acharite force had formed itself into a three-pronged
spear, twenty-seven riders wide at its head, forty-nine at its widest point, the shaft seventeen riders wide. They galloped to the fray, trusting in the lead riders’ sight and pace, nerves jangling as the dust thickened about them.
The Acharites met the Norsmen in a mangle of spear, sword and pike in the very centre of the Norsmen arc. It shattered, being only five riders deep, but it shattered at a dreadful cost to the Acharites. Swords and spears were no match for a well-held lance that was three times as long as the height of a man. Once those lances were past, the Acharites could turn and fight faster than the Norsmen – but again, the Norsmen were better plated and armoured, and even as the fray got down to the meat and blood of sword to sword and mace to mace, the Norsmen more than held their own, even improved upon it.
And Zared’s force was tired, very tired. He’d pushed hard to get this far this fast, and his men had ridden into battle without sufficient rest or preparation.
But they were determined, and they had a leader they believed in, which was perhaps a little more than the Norsmen had.
They battled until the evening darkened into night. Zared, exhausted, swung about on his horse, trying to see through the gloom what the state of battle was.
There were shouts and cries, the thud and screech of weaponry, but it was too damned dark to see what he should do –
Something landed on the back of his horse. A strong arm slid about his throat, another pricked a dagger through the joints of his breast-plate.
“Call your men off,” a voice hissed, and Zared heard the inflections of Icarii arrogance.
“Call your men off, Prince of Treachery, for you have lost. Even now the Strike Force wheels down. Hear the
wind of their descent?
Feel
the prick of their vengeance?” And the dagger slid in deeper, tearing into flesh, and Zared groaned.
The Icarii clinging to his back laughed, low and harsh. “Your wife told us of your arrival, Zared. Even now she sits waiting with her brother and StarSon. Sipping wine, no doubt, and laughing at your fate.”
Now the dagger slid to critical depth and Zared gagged.
“
Call your men back!
”
And he did, although his every thought was with Leagh’s treachery, not the battle grinding to a halt about him, nor the dagger wedged to its hilt in his side.