So much chaos. So suddenly. The thunder of conflict awash in a rain of blood.
Remember your training. You were born to be a royal.
Her father’s parting words echoing in her mind, Taresa shook herself from the arrow slit and the scene unfolding below, even as the outcries and explosions clamored for her undivided attention.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Celia. The handmaiden, covered in a shamrock-green cloak, braced herself against the innards of the bartizan, fighting the urge to sink.
Taresa hurried to her, taking her by the shoulders. As she knelt, she guided Celia to the floor, where she left her.
“Soldier!” Taresa called as she stepped to the tower entryway. Under the arch, a lone warrior – more of a squire than a knight – lowered his crossbow.
“Your Highness!” the young man called. He managed a salute, even while dividing his attention between her and the conflict.
“Take me to your commander,” she insisted, ignoring the slight.
“He, he’s . . .” The green recruit pointed at the next flanking tower. Only then did Taresa notice his trembling. His quiver empty, three bolts lay strewn about him, no doubt the product of his unsteady hand.
Down the rampart where he gestured, a man – the only one there still moving – struggled to brace himself against a crenel.
Taresa gandered at the line at her feet. The one where sunlight met shadow. She stepped from the darkness –
“My Queen!” Celia cried.
Taresa swung her head around while Celia’s fingers clawed into her. As Taresa fell back, the soldier darted before her, blocking her path.
“What are you –” Taresa started.
He pivoted to face her, his eyes wide with anticipation. Behind him, the sky flashed. His back, to the light, curved toward her, unnaturally and suddenly. Taresa gasped as the full weight of the soldier toppled her.
All went black. The chorus of the battle quelled. Everything to the touch vanished.
Taresa blinked.
A weight rolled off of her. She gasped for air.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!” Celia exclaimed. She swept her arm under her head.
“I’m, I’m –” What was she?
“You’re still here!” Celia cried, embracing her queen.
Taresa, also forgetting all pretense, held her. Another explosion beyond the walls shook them from their moment. Taresa scrambled to her feet along with Celia. She stared down at the fallen soldier. His back bent at a right angle, leaving the man in a grotesque, unnatural position. The blast had also tarnished his plate black and singed his exposed skin.
“My Mar . . .” Celia wept, closing her eyes and placing her hands to her forehead in respect.
Taresa did likewise, though her eyes remained open. Her stare settled on the man’s arming sword. And crossbow.
“Did you send your riders?” Taresa yelled.
“What?” asked the commander, his hearing – and consciousness – fading.
“Your distress riders. Did you send them?”
“Nay.” He patted the corpse beside him. “He had the message. To carry.” Indeed, a small roll of parchment stuck out from the top of the departed’s fist.
The commander’s tapping slowed. His eyelids flickered.
“Commander? Commander?!”
He stared back at her, forever losing the ability to answer.
“My Lady,” Celia urged. “This path isn’t safe. We must go.”
Taresa slid away from the crenel, grabbing the message from the corpse.
Below, the enemy had secured the gatehouse. Upright beams stood under the portcullis to prevent it from dropping while the broken chains of the drawbridge dangled. The Marlish forces had arranged the carriages in the bailey in an arch, to form a second barrier to entry. Every able-bodied Marlish soldier bore a bow or crossbow or sling, sending all manner of fire toward their opponents. The blockade served its purpose at the moment, even as the assailants lobbed their projectiles into the boundary.
Leading Celia by the hand, Taresa hurried down the stairway, which ended behind the makeshift boundary. Her head low, she prayed nary a soul would notice them.
Alas, one did.
A knight parted from the defenses to sweep in at the base of the stairs. Taresa raised her crossbow, then paused as Celia took her newfound sword to step between her and the knight.
“Lady Celia!”
“You friend or foe?!” Celia demanded.
The knight raised his visor. Taresa lowered her crossbow.
“Everitt.”
“Your Majesty. With me.” The Right Captain waved over those men closest to him. “Come. Defend your Queen!”
Five comrades who heard him instantly fell in line with Everitt. He led the duo to the nearest covered parapet. Under the ceiling of shelter, he removed his helm.
“Where were you?” Everitt asked, exasperated. “My men have been searching the whole of this fortress. When we found your other attendants slain, we, we thought –”
“Slain?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Your Ibian retinue . . . They killed them. Our soldiers found the departed in your quarters shortly after the attack started.”
“What happened?”
“I was doing one last patrol of the perimeter, where the forest is thickest, when . . .” Everitt flung his helm across the parapet. “I fell right into a trap.” Everitt paced a length. “A cowardly bunch. They felled a tree before the vanguard and ambushed my men from behind. My commander took a bolt to the neck before we could sound the warhorn. ‘Twas too late, anyhow.
“We fought our way out — me and two other men who made it. We came back to Glic Anglisk . . . Found the moat teeming with peasants and townspeople. The whole stream was suddenly awash with nuggets. The gold wasn’t there this morning. Suddenly, the water offered a bounty.
“The soldiers on the battlements demanded they leave. And fired warning shots. Then the commander sent soldiers down to clear the grounds of the commoners. Me and my two surviving men joined the efforts. But the Fools Fever proved too strong. They refused to leave. That’s when they attacked.”
“Who?” Taresa asked.
“The Lost Souls. From the woods. From amongst the peasantry. In their hoods. Their disguises. They emerged. With their blades and weapons. And projectiles.”
“And the King?”
Everitt sighed. “Two sets of doors lay between us and James. The first set leading from the bailey to the hall is barred from the inside. I dare not cut them down, lest James and the barons have barricaded themselves within.”
“And if they haven’t? If the enemy has found a way inside?”
“Then Mar help us all.”
Taresa’s hands fell to her abdomen. Celia rushed to her side. “My Lady.”
Regaining herself partially, Taresa braced her hands on Celia’s forearms. “Your distress riders? Have you sent them?”
“We managed one. His mount took a bolt to the hindquarters, but the horsemen kept riding. Not sure how much further he made it.”
“Any more coursers?”
“Another. I’ll need to track down a man with skill and form enough to ride her. Perhaps from Har-Kin –”
“My Lady,” Celia interrupted, looking to Taresa. “I can ride.”
“You?” Taresa and Everitt asked at once.
“Yes.”
“This will not be a leisurely trot,” Everitt cautioned. “We need a horseman, eh, rider, who can –”
“Who knows how to give aids to a horse with her voice, hands, and legs? Who can change a broken bridle mid-ride? Who has mended a thousand bleeding fetlocks?”
“Why, yes.”
“Then send me.”
Everitt looked to Taresa. The Queen nodded.
“Very well,” Everitt obliged.
He led them to the open-air stables located in the right corner of the bailey. As they hurried, Everitt gave Celia her needed directives. “Riding through the gatehouse is out of the question. Your only option is to go through the eye of the needle at the north wall.”
“Eye of the needle?”
He pointed to a low door between the rounded curves of two nearby flanking towers. “The towers will provide you cover, so long as the men in it haven’t perished. The frame is too short for you to ride your horse through, so you’ll need to lead him by the reins until you’re out, then mount quickly and gallop before any enemy projectiles can find you.” Everitt paused, motioning to the ridge. “A hillock lies just beyond the north wall. If you can make it there, you might be safe. Unless –”
Taresa grabbed Everitt by the forearm. “Unless, what?”
“If there are any of the enemy beyond the ridge, lying in wait, she’ll ride right into them.”
Taresa shuddered. Turning back to her handmaiden, she searched her face for any slight of fear or hesitation. A sign she would waver if she encountered such adversity.
Taresa found none.
“Let me go, Your Majesty.” Her eyes set with determination, her tone resolute, she nodded to a stall in the middle. “That’s your best remaining courser, is it not?”
“It is.” Everitt unlocked the gate to its stall.
“Then let’s ready him –”
“Sir Everitt! Sir Everitt!”
The three swung around to find a soldier racing toward them. He motioned to the gatehouse from whence he came. “The gate! The weapon! They’re about to fire!”
Taresa squinted. From their vantage point, so much stood between them and the gatehouse – the barrier of carriages, discarded trunks, and then, the bodies –
Through it all, emerging from the arched tunnel, crept the curve of a large bow, set upon two wheels. Set on its riser protruded the head of . . . not an arrow . . . but a glowing orb, one of yellow crystal.
“Everitt . . .” Taresa began.
“My Queen!”
A brightness, blinding and brilliant, erupted. Taresa only glimpsed it as Everitt pulled her back into an empty stall. He fell atop her, becoming a shield to the wave of heat that washed over them.
Particles of debris showered her face. She shut her eyes tight until they stopped, then blinked them open to find the sky above scattered by ash. She scarcely had a moment to draw breath before Sir Everitt took her by the hand to pull her to her feet.
“Are you well?” he asked.
She nodded before noticing the streaks burnt across the top sections of his armor, stretching from his back. She glanced at his rear to spot the whole of his backplate blackened. “Are you?!”
“‘Tis a scratch,” Everitt insisted through a grimace. “Never mind it. We need to get you to safety.”
He turned back to the gatehouse. Taresa did likewise, expecting to find the makeshift barrier in smoldering ruins.
Indeed, the skeletons of carriages lay, along with the defenders of Glic Anglisk. And yet, their attackers did not swarm over the carcasses as expected. Through the shimmering heat and haze of the rubble, Taresa spotted the assailants claimed by their blast, as though the explosion had blown back and charred them.
“Good Mar!” she exclaimed, her breath caught in her throat. She nearly believed the scene to be an accident, whether by carelessness or chance, when the swift flash of greystone captured her eye –
Like a crenel or boulder come alive, the figure moved. A statue with life, masonry with purpose, it sped and hopped with ease, giving no pause to the scene at hand. From under its slate-colored cloak, a glowing white blade appeared. Short at first, the figure ran with it. An assailant – one of the few not claimed by the blast – raised his sword to lash out at the oncoming effigy. In an impossible effort, the figure closed the gap between it and the soldier, its blade extending in length to find the enemy’s throat. The fresh corpse hung mid-air while the cloaked mystery rushed past, nary considering the dead man in its wake.
The phenom cleared the barrage of cluttered carriages with ease. A handful of Marlish survivors offered their weapons in protest, a vain attempt to put up a fight. Taresa grimaced, anticipating them to fall by its hand as well.
Sidestep and parry met her expectations, the figure dodging the Marlish, leaving them stunned but untouched.
“My Queen,” Everitt cried, shaking himself from the scene. “We’ve been breached now.”
“Yes,” Taresa admitted, blankly, “because of her.” In a blink, the figure disappeared under a parapet, the shadows masking its path. She tore herself away from the mirage as she looked back to Everitt. Only then did she take note of one’s absence: Lady Celia. “Celia?!” Taresa brushed past the knight to inspect the stables. Or rather, the charred remnants of them.
She found no sign of her handmaiden.
“Your Majesty, please!”
She disregarded Everitt’s insistence as she raced from stall to stall. She gasped at the sight of mangled flesh in one before noting its long leg and hoof. The next stall bore the fate of another poor mount. She hardly had a chance to inspect a third when Everitt gasped.
“Look!”
The door of the eye of the needle stood unbolted and open. Above the crenels of the wall laid the hillock, where a rider in shamrock-green sped up its incline. Unopposed. Unnerved. 253Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1rQzTAianI
