Only the Valiant

by Morgan Rice

  The first rush done, the guards settled in for some slower killing. One had hot irons ready as Altfor had ordered, waiting while other men dragged villagers forward, ready to make them tell whatever they knew about Royce, or the rebels, or anything else they knew. Another lit a torch, flinging it into the thatch of one of the houses. To Altfor, that seemed like a waste; peasant scum were easy enough to replace, but good houses took time to build. Perhaps he should order them spared, but then, Altfor supposed that the sight of burning buildings would be as good as a signal fire to Royce, wherever the traitor was.

  An idea came to him as a couple of the men dragged some of the women away, their intentions obvious, but for once, Altfor had no interest in the sport. He was about to yell to them to kill the peasants quickly, but he realized that there was far more he could do with them.

  “Bring them here,” he demanded.

  The guards dragged them forward, probably assuming that Altfor had some special torture planned for them. Perhaps that was the kind of thing Manfor might have done out in public, but Altfor preferred to reserve cruelty for where it was needed, or where it at least would not be seen.

  “You think that I’m going to kill you personally,” he said, taking a moment to savor the fear in their eyes. “You think that I’m going to torture you, or pick one of you for my amusement and kill the rest.”

  He paused to let the suggestion sink in.

  “I could do that. I could do all of that and more.” He drew in the dirt with the tip of his blade, watching their eyes as they followed it. “But I have a better use for you. You’re going to go from here out onto the moorland. You’re going to run and not look back. You’re going to run until you find the traitor, Royce, and you’re going to tell him what happened here. You’re going to tell him that this is his fault, and that it will keep happening because of him.”

  Altfor picked one of them, the youngest and the prettiest. He lifted his sword, tracing the flat of it along her cheek.

  “In the old days, there was what they called the chevauchee. A man whose enemy would not give battle would raid his villages, kill his people until he came to the field. When you see Royce, tell him that I will meet him on the fields before my father’s castle. My castle. Tell him that until he comes to meet me, people will continue to suffer.”

  Quickly, casually, he turned the blade and scored a line of blood down the girl’s cheek while she screamed.

  “Now go!” he yelled. “Run and tell Royce that I will be waiting for him!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Royce watched his people as they made their way down toward the harbor, standing over them like a shepherd making sure his flock got safely home to their pastures. The difference was that these people would never see their homes again. They would set off across the sea, and yes, they would be safer there, but they would not be home.

  “It’s what needs to happen,” Royce whispered to Ember. He didn’t know if Lori could watch through her eyes the same way that he did, but if she was there somewhere, what would she be thinking now?

  “I have to do this a different way,” he said. “If the witch saw death everywhere I walk, then I need to walk somewhere else.”

  It made sense. Go across the sea, end up somewhere else, and he wouldn’t be able to bring whatever chaos to the kingdom Lori had foreseen. He could head as far as the forest-filled lands of the Varl, or perhaps even the islands of Mennem, where it was said that no one spoke above a whisper, and all emotion was treated as a crime.

  It didn’t matter where he went, right then, so long as he went.

  Raymond was riding up toward him, up the track from the harbor. “It’s all arranged,” he said as he got close. “There’s a ship captain willing to carry us all as far as Thevis, and from there we can work out what we want to do next.”

  “It won’t be that simple,” Royce said. “So many of us arriving at once, the city’s rulers will want to know where we’ve come from and why we’re fleeing. They might think we’re criminals, or carry plague.”

  “Then we’ll show them that neither one is true,” Raymond said, sounding far more confident than Royce dared to feel. He felt responsible for all the people who were filing down toward the harbor, and for everything that might happen to them in the future. He felt as though he should be able to do more to keep them safe, even though this was everything.

  “You’re doing what you can, you know,” Raymond said. “No one blames you for any of this.”

  “Maybe I blame myself,” Royce replied. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t fought back. If I’d just let Genevieve be taken and not tried to get her back…”

  “Could you have done that?” Raymond countered. “The Royce I know couldn’t.”

  Royce wasn’t sure, even now, even when he knew that Genevieve had embraced her role as Altfor’s wife, and when he had seen her standing there willingly to watch everything that happened in the pit.

  “I guess not,” he said.

  “Then trying to get everyone to safety is the best option that we have. Maybe that will stop Altfor and this uncle of his. They won’t keep killing people to find you when you’re gone.”

  Royce nodded. It made sense as a plan, and it seemed like the only way to avoid the threat that Lori had raised. So why did it still feel as though he was being a coward, running away from where he needed to be?

  “Come on,” he said to his brother. “I want to get down to the ship.”

  He heeled his horse forward, heading down in the direction of the harbor. The ship stood waiting for them: a large, three-masted vessel that still seemed only barely big enough to hold all the people who wanted to travel with him. He was halfway down there when he saw a figure on horseback riding in over the heather, waving as if trying to catch his attention.

  Royce turned his horse to meet them. Whoever this was, he wanted to be the one to go to them, because he couldn’t risk this being some kind of foe, or trick, or worse. What if this was the gray-skinned man? If it did prove to be him, then Royce wanted to be the one to meet him, if only to be sure that he was the one who killed him.

  Instead of the gray-skinned man though, the rider proved to be a young woman with a gash on her cheek that looked as though it had come from a courtier’s sword. She looked both terrified and relieved as she reached Royce, looking as though she might topple from the saddle at any moment.

  “It’s you,” she said. “I thought… I thought I might not find you in time, and then… then I’m sure he would kill me!”

  “Who?” Royce said. “Who would kill you? Who are you?”

  “My name is Eme. Lord Altfor came to my village with soldiers. He killed almost everyone, looking for you. He had buildings burned. I thought… I thought I was going to die.”

  The young woman was crying now, and Royce wasn’t sure that there was anything he could say that might comfort her in the face of the horrors she must have seen.

  “You’re safe now, Eme,” he said. “You got away.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t get away. He let me go. He let the last few of us go and told us to find you. He wanted us to bring you a message. He said that this wouldn’t stop unless you faced him in battle on the fields before the castle. He said he would burn every village you’d had people from, kill everyone he found.”

  Royce froze at those words, but somehow he still managed to wave the young woman in the direction of the others.

  “Go to them,” he said. “You’ll be safe.”

  Safe. Who could be safe, when Altfor was promising to do so much harm? Royce might have thought it was impossible that anyone could do what he was threatening to, but if he looked in the distance, Royce could see the smoke.

  “Royce, is everything all right?” Hendrik asked, walking up with Garet and Matilde. “The others are getting ready to go.”

  “I…” Royce tried to think, tried to come up with some way out of all this. There was no way though. “I don’t think I can go.”
>
  “What is it?” Garet asked.

  “I have to go back and fight,” Royce said. “Altfor and his uncle aren’t going to stop if we go. They’re going to keep killing until we stop them. They’ve sent a message to call us out to a battle.”

  “Which will be a trap,” Garet pointed out.

  “Maybe,” Royce said, “but maybe we can find a way to make this work. We know where they’re going to be, after all.”

  “You really want to go back?” Matilde asked.

  Royce shook his head. “I don’t want to. I want to go away and let this end, but it won’t, not unless I end it.” He thought of Lori, and how much the witch had to be laughing at him right then. “I have to go back. None of you do though. You could still get on the ship. You could still be safe.”

  There was silence then for what seemed like an eternity. Garet was the one who finally spoke up. “I thought you were supposed to be clever, brother. Of course we’re going to come with you.”

  Matilde nodded. “Don’t you dare tell me that I’ve got to keep out of a battle. We’re going to go there, finish this, and then we can get a boat to some boring place I’ve never heard of.”

  Royce looked around the others. It seemed like far too much to ask of them, but he wasn’t asking. They were offering, and that felt completely different. It felt… it felt like he wasn’t alone in this, and like he needed to find a way to make it work.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to do this, but we need a plan.”

  “And you have a plan?” Hendrik said.

  Royce nodded. “I have a plan.”

  ***

  As he walked out onto the flat plain before the castle, Royce started to wonder if his plan was quite as good as it had seemed back in the harbor. He stood there with just the barest contingent of his people: his brothers and Hendrik with a few others. Even Matilde wasn’t there, and now the group barely seemed big enough to Royce’s eyes.

  He kept his focus on Ember’s eyes as he walked out onto the open space, watching from above as the gates to the castle started to open and figures started to pour from within. Guards and soldiers flowed down into formation, a small contingent of mounted knights forming up along one flank, and archers on the other. The ones who were visible to Royce’s eyes seemed like only a pittance, but through Ember’s, he could see the ones who stood just out of sight, hidden by the rise and fall of the ground. It seemed like a lot for just the few of them.

  Royce could see Altfor seated amongst the knights, and his hand tightened on his sword hilt at the sight of him. An older man stood among the archers and the sergeants at arms, and just from the way the men there seemed to be looking to him for orders, Royce knew that this had to be Altfor’s uncle.

  Altfor raised a flag of truce, and Royce didn’t believe that for a minute. Even so, he stepped forward with the others, wanting to see when the duke’s son would try to spring his ambush.

  It didn’t take long. He stepped closer across the open ground, and Altfor started to move to meet them. Halfway across, he paused, and he was close enough that Royce saw the smile as some of the men who had been hidden from his eyes started to move into view. It would have been a more impressive sight if Royce hadn’t seen all of the men through Ember’s eyes first.

  “Now?” Lofen asked. Royce could hear the fear in his brother’s voice. He realized that none of the others there had seen what he saw, and of course they would be frightened by it. They still held, though.

  Royce shook his head. “Another second or two, let them advance… now.”

  He sent Ember down in a swooping dive, down toward the spot where Matilde was hidden with the bulk of their people. He saw her wave in response, and knew that she’d gotten their signal. His own force came out of hiding, throwing off cloaks sewn with leaves and bracken, coming up from the side ready to strike at the flank of the opposing force.

  Royce half expected Altfor to tell his men to run. There were dozens of them, but there were just as many of the villagers, and they were coming in from the flank, where the soldiers wouldn’t be able to react in time.

  If it had just been Altfor, that might have been enough.

  Instead, Royce saw Altfor’s uncle stand there at the head of the group of archers, giving them orders with sweeps of a sword that seemed almost too large for a man to handle. In response to those orders, the archers pulled out flints and fire pots, setting them to arrows, quickly setting the tips burning like a forest of fireflies.

  It took Royce a moment to realize what that must mean, and by the time he did, it was already too late.

  “No, turn back!” he yelled, wishing that he could somehow relay that through Ember, but the hawk did no more than wheel and shriek in response.

  The air filled with fire as the archers launched their missiles, some sailing out toward Royce, others flying toward Matilde and the others. Flames licked up in response, and Royce realized then that Lord Alistair must have had the ground prepared with tar or lamp oil, because those flames roared hot and fierce, forming walls of fire that Matilde and the others couldn’t hope to cross.

  Worse, he, his brothers and the few others with them had come forward enough that arrows flew over their heads, setting light to the ground behind them. It meant that there was nowhere to run, no way to pull back from what was about to come down on them.

  That left only one option.

  “Charge!” Royce yelled, and sprinted forward, his blade at the ready. His brothers and friends ran with him, and now it seemed that the small knot of them was like a pebble flung at an ocean. They reached the enemy and that pebble struck home, plunging into the middle of the duke’s forces.

  Royce struck out with all the force and speed he possessed, cutting left and right as he slammed into the enemy lines. He cut through the first man to step in front of him, then the second, without even slowing. He deflected a blow with the crystal sword and sliced a man’s legs from under him, then thrust it through the chest of another opponent.

  Around him, the others cut and hacked, trying to keep up. Hendrik slashed in great sweeps of his axe. Lofen fought wildly, Raymond coolly and precisely. Garet slammed a man back with a shield, then cut down another with a sweep of his sword.

  “We need to get to Altfor and his uncle,” Royce said. That was their only hope now. If they could fight their way to those two and cut them down, perhaps the enemy’s forces would lose some of their sense of direction and fall back.

  They fought their way toward them, step by blood-soaked step. Around Royce, people started to fall. He saw a young man cut down by one of the soldiers, another fall as arrows struck him. All the time, Matilde and the others could only stand and watch on the other side of the bank of fire.

  Then Royce saw a spear plunge into Hendrik’s chest, the large young man transfixed by it like a bear before hunters. He fought his way forward, bringing down one man, and then another. Then, as if finally running out of whatever energy propelled him forward, he fell and didn’t rise.

  Royce would have gone to him if he could have. Instead, all he could do was slash in every direction, trying to cut a path through the bulk of his enemies with his blade and the skills he had learned on the Red Isle.

  It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. He and his friends were going to die.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dust stood on the edge of the battle, seeing the patterns of it unfolding beneath him. Another man would have seen only chaos, but he saw the shifting signs and whorls formed by the violence.

  The whole thing was like some great sacrifice on one of the altars where the entrails were read, blood and screams and agony contributing to sign after sign. Dust stared at that, trying to make sense of it, and the role the fates seemed to have in mind for him. He let his mind settle on the violence, his eyes relaxing, taking in the swirl and the shift of it until images started to build in his mind.

  He saw Royce then, bestriding a kingdom. He saw battles bigger than this one, whole lands s
hifting beneath the weight of them. He saw the fall of his own kingdom, the priests dying, the sacred beasts kept beneath the temples running wild. In that moment Dust understood why they had sent him to kill Royce: they had done it in the kind of fear that his kind were not supposed to have for their own lives. They, who saw that all creatures’ fates ended in death, were trying to cling to this flawed and fragile existence.

  “They are seeking to use me,” Dust said to the air around him. Yet the priests would not send him where he was not needed to ensure the smooth running of the world. They would not send him against what fate required, even if it meant their deaths.

  Would they?

  Dust sat there long moments after that, staring down at the battle, trying to read the signs for himself. He read the movements of the combatants and the patterns of the crows above, read the smoke from the flames and stared into the flames themselves. He looked and he looked, and everywhere Dust looked, he saw the same thing:

  The fates did not want him to stand back from this battle, did not want it to continue as it went.

  That was a dilemma, because Dust had his instructions from the priests, and angarthim did not disobey. They did as they were commanded. They did as they must to contribute to the whole weave of creation. They had told him that Royce must die, and Dust had already struck at his parents, at his home.

  He didn’t know what to do, so he did the only thing that he could: he dove into the battle blindly, trusting to the fates, hoping that they would make proper use of him and take him to his target if it was what they required.

  The fire was not a problem. Dust had been reading the warp and weft of flames for as long as he could remember, and spotting the places where a man could smother the flames was easy. He kicked dirt on one of the places where the fire leapt up in a wall, and managed to punch a hole in it that was more than wide enough to step through.

  He charged into the fight then, and took a couple of pouches from inside his robes. The dust within was one the priests used to induce visions, both good and bad. In unprepared initiates, it could send them screaming and running for hours, assuming that they didn’t do something that would get them killed first. Thrown into the midst of a battle, and Dust could only guess at the chaos it would cause.