Piper Prince

by Amber Argyle

Larkin shifted her sword. Mostly mulgars bristling with arrows. But some pipers too. Larkin searched for Denan’s face and then stopped. If he … If he lay among the dead, she didn’t want to see it.

  Please, she prayed. Not Denan. Yet wasn’t every other woman in their company praying the same? Not all those prayers would be answered.

  Alorica still hadn’t let go of her arm, and her fingernails were digging into Larkin’s flesh enough to draw blood. “Alorica?”

  She let out a shaky laugh. “You’re afraid of fast-moving rivers. I have a problem with bodies. Especially bodies in the dark.”

  “Do you have to squeeze so hard?” Larkin asked.

  Tam hopped down and nearly fell. He looked about grimly, then helped the other three girls down. “Come on. Our men will be in desperate need of reserves.”

  Larkin was relieved when Alorica shifted her grip to Tam. Pointing their swords at the ground for added light, Larkin and Alorica climbed over bodies, broken branches, and weapons. The ground was muddy with blood. The smoke from so many fires blew back at them, further obscuring the path and making Larkin’s throat tingle with the need to cough.

  Other copperbills climbed with them, ghosts in the night. They crossed beneath the trees where pipers loosed arrows into the druids from above. Finally, they reached the top of the rise. Fighting beneath torches and before bonfires, pipers formed a solid wall of men against mulgars and Idelmarchians, driven forward by druids. Tam hauled himself into one of the trees.

  Larkin shifted from one foot to the other. “Do you see him?”

  He stiffened and pointed. “There!”

  Near the base of the hill, beside the river, the line bulged inward, mulgars forcing the pipers to retreat. Larkin didn’t wait. She ran, stumbling over bodies and dodging trees. She scanned for Denan’s face but couldn’t make him out in the shadows, smoke, and chaos. She found a gap and threw herself into it.

  The pipers on either side of her glanced at her in surprise, relief sliding over their faces before they went back to the fighting. More copperbills came, and slowly, slowly, the mulgars fell dead or fell back until the entire Idelmarchian line retreated.

  Larkin let her watery arms fall, then heard splashing to her right. Denan was fighting an ardent, another sneaking up behind.

  She abandoned the line and ran toward him. “Denan, duck!” she cried.

  He dropped, his ax and shield spinning around him. The mulgars’ blades swung through empty air. Denan’s weapons slammed into both ardents’ legs and dropped them. He rose, ax raised high before coming down on one creature’s head.

  The other thrust up from the water, sword aimed between his shoulder blades. Larkin pulsed, shoving Denan and the remaining ardent forward. Her magic felt weak, thin, and brittle, but she managed a sword. The ardent looked up in surprise as Larkin beheaded her.

  Larkin spun, looking for Denan just as he came sputtering up. Bloody, half his face covered in bruises, he wiped water from his eyes and gaped at her. “Larkin?”

  She flew into him, embracing him with her wobbly arms and holding him up as much as he held her. She would have stayed that way forever and never let go.

  “There’s my warrior wife.”

  She had so badly wanted to be something more—the curse breaker, an Arbor like Sela. But as a warrior, she’d just saved her husband’s life. It was enough.

  “They’re retreating,” she cried in relief.

  “No. Just regrouping. Come on.”

  He didn’t release her hand as they splashed behind the piper line. Tam and Alorica were waiting for them. Tam and Denan embraced. Still, Denan didn’t let go of her.

  “I leave for a few days,” Tam laughed, “and you nearly lose a three-centuries-long war.”

  Denan stepped back. “I wish you hadn’t come. How many have you brought?”

  “We started with around six hundred.”

  “Who’s leading?” Denan asked.

  “Wott and Aaryn,” Tam said.

  Denan started at the mention of his mother’s name but recovered quickly. He scanned the line of men and turned to his five pages. “Find Aaryn, Wott, Demry, and Gendrin. Have them meet me at the top of the hill.” They took off at a run. He started after them, Larkin, Alorica, and Tam trailing. “The west flank?”

  “It was holding,” Tam responded.

  “Have you seen the wraiths?” Larkin asked.

  “Glimpses.” Denan passed a hand down his face. “No more.”

  In the distance, mulgar units led by ardents and Idelmarchian units led by druids shifted and reformed.

  “They’ve never behaved so cohesively,” Tam said in disbelief.

  “They’ve been using tactics and maneuvers so far above anything we ever believed them capable of,” Denan said. “I can only conclude the wraiths have been holding back for centuries.”

  Alorica swore.

  They reached the top of the hill to find Wott, Gendrin, and Demry waiting.

  “Where’s my mother?” Denan asked.

  “Took a sword to the thigh,” Wott said. “She’s with the healers.”

  Ancestors, not Aaryn.

  Denan’s mouth tightened. “Report.”

  “My men are holding but exhausted,” Demry said.

  “The left flank is stable,” Gendrin said. “But even with reinforcements, we can’t keep going like this.”

  “My copperbills are filling the gaps,” Wott said.

  “Can your men repel another charge?” Denan asked.

  Gendrin and Demry exchanged a look.

  “Maybe,” Gendrin said. “But the charge after that …”

  Denan looked over the enemy line. “My army would have buckled under that last charge if not for the copperbills.”

  “We could escape over the bridges,” Wott said. “Those remaining behind could cut the lines and take the boats we brought for the copperbills.”

  “You mean retreat?” Tam said.

  “That would leave us scattered and running all over the Forbidden Forest,” Denan said.

  “And we need nearly all the men we have just to hold the line,” Demry added.

  “We have no more reinforcements,” Wott said. “Men can’t battle for hours on end.”

  “We’d be helpless in boats,” Demry said.

  “There’s another way.” All eyes turned to Larkin. “The druids and mulgars want us dead. The Idelmarchians only want their daughters back.”

  Denan started to reply, stumbled, and started again. “Larkin, you can’t mean to surrender yourselves.”

  She flared her weapons. “Do you think you or the druids or anyone can make us do anything we don’t want to?” The men stared at her. “Call for an armistice.”

  Denan hauled off his helmet, slicked back his sweat-soaked hair, and mashed it back on his head. “The druids—Garrot—refuses to meet with me.”

  Larkin and Alorica shared a glance.

  “They’ll meet with us,” Alorica said.

  Larkin nodded. “Bring me Magalia.”

  “Magalia?” Tam asked.

  “The healer?” Gendrin asked.

  “She was Garrot’s fiancée,” Larkin said. “If anyone can talk some sense into him, maybe she can.”

  Denan’s eyes widened with disbelief, and he hollered at his pages to find her. All five of them took off in different directions.

  Denan looked at Larkin. “You need to take control of the copperbills.”

  “Me?” she cried. “Why?”

  “Because you’re the princess,” Denan said. “Because you restored the magic and escaped the Alamant when no one else could. The women look up to you. They trust you. And because the Idelmarchians need to see a woman leading an army of women, not a piper enchanting his captives.”

  She didn’t want to do this. “I don’t have any experience leading warriors into battle, and the Idelmarchians will not react well to the Traitor of Hamel.”

  “Traitor of—” Denan began.

  “It’s what they’re c
alling her,” Tam said.

  Denan rubbed his mouth. “All right. Magalia will help you.”

  Larkin rolled her shoulders to loosen the tension building there. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Inform your copperbills what’s going on,” Denan said.

  She nodded grimly. “Gather them together. Tell them we’re going to pulse our kindred until they listen to us.”

  Denan’s pages were gone, so he gave the command to Wott and his generals, who jogged off to spread the word for all the copperbills to gather at the top of the hill.

  “I have patients,” a voice barked. Magalia marched up the incline. Her arms were soaked in blood to her elbows, her front spattered with it. She paused half a dozen paces from Denan. “What?”

  “Do you think you can get Garrot to stop this attack?” Denan asked.

  Magalia’s mouth opened. Closed again. “What does Garrot have to do with—”

  “He’s the Master Druid,” Larkin said.

  “That can’t be,” Magalia said. “He was training to be a merchant under my—”

  “He came after you,” Larkin said. “Into the forest—he and his brother, but his brother didn’t make it. Garrot made a deal with the wraiths.”

  “The wraiths!” Magalia looked between Larkin and Denan. “He would never—”

  Larkin gripped her hands. “Magalia, you have to stop him.”

  The fight drained out of her. “How?”

  “Make him see that the pipers aren’t the enemy,” Denan said. “The wraiths are.”

  Magalia shrugged helplessly. “I can try.”

  Nearly five hundred women gathered to listen to Larkin. They were blood-splattered and bandaged. They kept glancing toward the front—where the opposing sides of their families had been killing each other.

  “You want us to fight our own fathers and brothers?” a woman asked.

  “No,” Larkin said. “I want you to knock them on their arses, then stand before them, proud as the dawn, while Magalia tries to talk some sense into them.”

  “What if they won’t listen?” another woman said.

  Larkin pulled herself up onto the first branch of a tree. “Once, we were taken. Forced away from everything we ever knew and loved. But it did not break us. We learned to forgive. We learned to love.

  “Now, we face another reaping. Only this time, our past would try to steal us from our future. No matter who wins, we are the ones who lose.”

  She shook her head. “I say to you, no more! We are not our fathers’ daughters. We are not our brothers’ sisters. We are not our husbands’ wives. We are our own. Warriors who fight for what’s ours!”

  A cheer rose up, the women lifting their magical weapons.

  “It’s time to make them see—we don’t need saving.”

  Another cheer. This one louder than the first.

  “Sisters of my soul,” she cried. “Will you fight?”

  They roared, weapons lifted to the sky. Larkin dropped from the tree to the ground beside Alorica and Magalia.

  “That was beautiful,” Alorica said dryly.

  “Shut it,” Larkin grumbled back.

  “I thought it was well done,” Magalia said, but her gaze didn’t leave the assembled Idelmarchians.

  “Captains,” Larkin said. “Spread your women out behind the pipers. We’re going to relieve them.” The captains left to see it done.

  “And what do we do when our past won’t listen?” Alorica said under her breath.

  “Then they leave us no choice.” Larkin fought to keep her voice even. “We will defend what’s ours.”

  Sick anticipation twisting her insides, Larkin formed up in the center of her line. She opened her sigils until they buzzed like angry bees. She looked up and down the line, watching the captains move their subordinates into place.

  “Larkin,” Denan called from atop a boulder above her. “You’re out of time.”

  Down the hill, the Idelmarchians and mulgars charged.

  “Alamantians, withdraw!” Denan roared.

  One of his men played a sharp, short note three times. Captains echoed the command up and down the line. The women took the places of the retreating pipers—just under five hundred where over two thousand had stood before. The nearest women on either side were four strides away. Such a sparse line wouldn’t hold against an initial charge.

  “I’m no warrior,” Magalia said. Indeed, she had no sigils.

  “Stay back until I call for you,” Larkin said.

  Magalia nodded nervously.

  Larkin glanced back at Denan, the feel of his chapped lips still raw against her own. His words from minutes ago echoed in her ears, “I understand this is a battle you have to fight alone, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be ready and waiting to help in any way I can.”

  Taking a fortifying breath, she faced the oncoming horde. Each step brought the battle closer. Brought with it the rank sweat-and-blood stink of warfare. The cries of those pierced and battered down. The sight of hands crusted with blood that lay thickest between the fingers.

  “Helms!” Larkin cried.

  The women pulled off their helmets, their faces exposed, their hair shifting in the brisk wind. Some of the Idelmarchians faltered, slowed. Others continued. She waited as she had with Tam at the previous battle.

  An Idelmarchian soldier’s ax slammed into her shield. She shifted her arm, so his blade glanced to her left and thrust her sword up and in. He fell.

  Ancestors, he wasn’t her enemy!

  Another soldier took his place, his face twisted with hate. He was tall, so tall he peered down at her. He took her in. Her long red hair. The softness of her cheeks. His expression shifted to concern. He hesitated and took a step back. “A woman?”

  Similar cries were heard up and down the line.

  “Copperbills, pulse!” Larkin shouted.

  Five hundred women pulsed. A concave burst of golden light slammed into the Idelmarchians and threw them back half a dozen steps. They shook off the impact and gaped at the women. Larkin knew how surreal they must look, backlit by burning fires, their hair shifting with the smoke and wind.

  Larkin risked a few steps in front of the line. “We, the daughters of the Idelmarch, demand this bloodshed stop! I will speak with Master Garrot. Bring him to me!”

  Idelmarchians blinked up at her in shock. They lurched to their feet and glanced among each other as if searching for a clue as to how to proceed.

  “Maylay?” A man staggered to the empty space between the two armies. His gaze fixed on a girl with short blonde hair. “Maylay!” He staggered toward her.

  “Stay back!” Larkin barked. She couldn’t risk losing her entire line to weeping reunions. If they were scattered, Garrot would divide and conquer them.

  The father stumbled to a stop and stared at Larkin.

  “Hold the line!” she called to her copperbills.

  “Girls.” A man with hair shot through with gray motioned frantically to them. “Come here. Hurry. We won’t let them hurt you anymore.” The other men seemed to latch on to this. Some of them eased forward.

  “You come into the forest and slaughter our husbands,” Larkin shouted. “The fathers of our children. All because you have believed the Black Druids’ lies! You have aligned yourselves with mulgars and wraiths because of these lies.”

  “I know you, Larkin of Hamel. I know how you betrayed your own people to become a piper whore!”

  Larkin searched out the voice she wished she didn’t recognize. Horace Beetle climbed a nearby tree—a boy she’d once freely given kisses to. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  “If she’s a whore,” Alorica cried, “then so am I.”

  “And I!”

  “And I!”

  The cry echoed up and down the line.

  “Alorica?” Her father stepped forward, his hand extended toward her. “You’ve been enchanted, child. Come away with me.”

  “More lies,” Alorica said, her voice shaking. “The pipers t
ook us because they have no daughters of their own. Only sons to fight the mulgars you’ve aligned yourselves with!”

  “Come away from there,” a druid with silver inlay on his belt said.

  “You will do as you are told,” said another man.

  He motioned, and a few of the braver men followed him a couple of steps forward. Larkin signaled again. The woman shifted into fighting stance—shields held before them, weapons cocked back.

  “You’re enchanted,” the same man pleaded. “Please, girls, come away from the beasts.”

  A Black Druid spurred his horse to the front lines. “What are you doing?” he cried. “Fight!”

  The Idelmarchians called out the names of their daughters and sisters, begged them to come to them even as the druid lashed them with his whip.

  “Steady.” Larkin paced before her army. “We do not give way. We do not give in. We do not go quietly. We stand steady and inescapable as the dawn.”

  “Hello, Larkin.”

  Dread skittered up and down Larkin’s spine. She forced herself to turn. To face Garrot atop his massive bay horse.

  “Magalia,” Larkin called without daring to take her eyes off him.

  His gaze shifted behind Larkin. All the color leached from his skin. “Mags?” he whispered.

  She stepped up beside Larkin. “Hello, Garrot.”

  His horse danced beneath him. “Come away from there. I’ll protect you.”

  “I don’t need protecting.” Magalia tipped her head to the side. “Tell me you didn’t make an alliance with wraiths, Garrot. Tell me you haven’t allowed yourself to be deceived. Tell me you’re not that big a fool.”

  His brow furrowed, his breaths coming faster. His gaze landed on Larkin. “Is this because of her? Because of her lies?”

  Magalia shook her head sadly. “You hurt her, Garrot. The gentle boy I knew could never hurt anyone.”

  Garrot pointed at Larkin. “She belongs to the wraiths!”

  “She’s the Alamantian princess,” Magalia chided. “She belongs to herself. As do I. As does every other woman here.”

  Hurt flashed across his face. “I risked the forest to bring you back. Jonner and I both did. Only one of us returned.”

  She winced.

  He nudged his horse forward, his voice deadly. “I control the wraiths. I made a deal with them to bring you back and end the threat of the pipers once and for all. Nothing will stand in the way of that. Nothing.”