by Finley Aaron
“Allard!” Cried the fighter as he nabbed the second sash, and Ella recognized Rolf.
She might have exclaimed a surprised greeting, but she heard her name again from behind.
“Allard?” There was shock and fury in the tone, and Ella turned back just as Uliad shoved away the man he’d been fighting, and pointed his sword at her, barreling toward her with his face contorted by rage.
So, he hadn’t forgotten, as she’d hoped.
Like a gladiator facing a charging bull, she stared him down as he barreled toward her. At the last second she leapt out of his path, spinning to land facing him, slashing at him with her sword as he stumbled past.
The blow caught him on his shoulders, but rather than admit defeat, he recovered, spun back around, and charged her again, coming at her from her left, which was less than optimum considering she held her sword in her right hand.
She raised her shield.
At that moment Rolf, who’d been bounding through the field as though it was a flower garden, and sashes merely blooms to be plucked, leapt gracefully toward Uliad and, unseen by the focused fighter, tugged the red sash from its loop.
Uliad’s face turned the color of the stolen sash, and if ever a man was said to have steam emerge from his ears, he did. But with his sash obviously absent, he had no choice but to stomp from the list, hacking at members of the opposing team as he went.
“You’re back!” Rolf exclaimed, raising his sword to block an approaching fighter. “Nice chain mail!”
“Thanks!” Ella ducked low as another fighter dived at her. She hit the ground and rolled to her feet, coming up next to two fighting men and slapping the red-sashed one with the side of her sword.
Rolf followed her and grabbed that man’s sash, as well.
As the draping bundle in Rolf’s hand grew, the field thinned.
Ella looked left and spotted Henry locked in combat with a skilled swordsman, their blades tapping a rhythmic song of battle and the quest for glory. Raedwald was locked in battle with another man not far from Henry, and looked fully intent on cutting his way past his opponent to reach his cousin.
With many men between her and the prince, Ella decided it was, perhaps, time for her to start fighting her way toward Henry, especially if she was going to reach him before Raedwald did.
The battle line, which had originally met in the middle of the field where the two armies clashed, now undulated like a winding river across the list, heaving and surging as each side struggled for supremacy. So it wasn’t as though Ella could simply dart around by going behind the line.
The line was everywhere, rippling constantly as men fought and fell, condensing as the field thinned and fighters moved toward the center.
Ella tried to skirt a pair of swordsmen locked in battle to her left, but as she made to go around behind them, the blue-sashed fighter danced backward, and his partner followed so closely, Ella had to block the swipe of his blade with hers.
While she thrust the blow backward, her teammate plucked the man’s red sash.
“Many thanks!”
“Welcome!” Ella called as she ducked under his arm and attempted to sprint through a gap before it closed.
A man fell backward onto the ground directly in front of her.
Ella leapt over him just as the soldier who’d thrown him back dived after him, intent on his sash. Her sword already raised as she hurdled the prone figure, Ella caught the man with the flat of her blade in his leather-armored midsection.
The force of the impact bent her wrist backward, jarring it painfully.
Ella cried out and nearly dropped her sword.
The man whose midsection she’d struck now turned on her.
Einhard.
He swung his sword at her head.
She raised hers to block the blow, but her wrist buckled on impact and she struggled to keep hold of her weapon.
Einhard chuckled hungrily as he brought his blade back around, this time aiming for her neck.
Chapter Twelve
Ella ducked. She’d have rolled, as well, but there wasn’t room, not here in the thick of battle.
Instinct told her Einhard would swing his blade at her again, so instead of looking up, she thrust her shield above her head.
A blade slapped the wood even as she shoved it upward. A pair of feet staggered a half-step back, absorbing the sudden counter-force.
Ella put her weight on her left leg, still crouching low, and swept her right leg around in a low kick, catching the staggering feet at the ankles.
Einhard fell, but not backward.
He landed with his full weight on her shield, penned in by fighters on either side.
The breath left Ella’s lungs as she crumpled, knees already bent, nothing left to absorb the impact of the weight thrust so heavily upon her.
From my vantage point flying above her, she appeared to have been flattened against the ground.
Just as I began to fear I’d have to fly down into the fray to see what had become of her, Ella reared up, sucking in a breath as she powered skyward, her sword tipped back to the blue side of the field.
Einhard tumbled into blue territory, and Rolf immediately pounced, snatching up his sash.
Ella wobbled forward, tottering unsteadily, her sword limp as she careened toward the prince.
Henry was still clacking his sword against the same opponent, neither side weakening, growing tired, or giving way.
But Raedwald was on the move, himself locked in a duel with a swordsman from the blue team.
Ella recognized Dominic, and her heart cheered silently inside her with the knowledge that her teammate had not yet been eliminated.
Her wrist throbbed. She tried to lift her sword as she approached the duel, but a pins-and-needles sensation shot through her fingers, and she knew she had little control over her weapon.
She was barely able to keep hold of it at all.
From the droop of Dominic’s shoulders, she could tell he was growing tired, and would likely be unable to hold Raedwald off for much longer.
“Rolf! Follow me! Another sash!” Ella yelled. She braced her shield against her left side, lowered her shoulder, and ran at an angle into Raedwald’s midsection at full force, which wasn’t very forceful considering she’d just dead-lifted Einhard, and her muscles still trembled from the effort of it.
“Have you gone mad?” Rolf called as he vaulted her legs, spinning around to block Raedwald’s sword as it flew toward Ella’s back.
His opponent distracted, Dominic grabbed Raedwald’s sash, tugging hard, though it resisted coming loose.
Still crouched low, Ella swept her right leg in the same move that had felled Einhard. But this time, her trembling legs were not so swift, as though Raedwald stumbled backward, he did not fall.
The motion was enough to rip the sash free of its loop, leaving behind a tuft of red fabric.
Dominic held up his tattered prize. “Did you sew it in?” he exclaimed.
Ella didn’t wait to learn the answer, but barreled sideways into the swordsman who fought with Henry. The man stumbled, and Ella went down on top of him, rolling off and dropping her sword as her hurting hand hit the dirt.
Henry pulled the man’s sash free, then extended his hand to Ella, offering to help her up.
She winced in pain as he tugged her to her feet.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
Ella glanced around the field, anticipating attack, but none came. The blue side had a clear advantage, and the few red team members who remained on their feet were being quickly overwhelmed.
Even Raedwald stomped to the sidelines.
“I wrenched my wrist.” Ella scooped up her sword from the ground and tried to extend the weapon with her hurting hand. It wobbled noticeably. “It just got bent funny. Should be fine.”
“You’re sure you haven’t broken a bone?” Henry looked sincerely concerned.
Ella shrugged off the question as the trumpets blew, signaling the end
of the melee.
Henry and Ella caught up to Dominic as they headed off the field.
Dominic still held the sash he’d taken from Raedwald. He was inspecting the tattered end.
“What happened there?” Henry asked.
Dominic explained about the sash tearing as he pulled it free from Raedwald’s shoulder. “I’d caught it three times before that, but couldn’t pull it loose,” he added. “I found this in the threads.” Dominic held out his hand, and the three of them stopped to peer down at what he held there.
A tiny, thorn-shaped bit of wood lay in his palm.
Ella recognized it immediately. “It’s a thorn from a sandbur. He must have used it to make his sash harder to pull free.”
“He cheated,” Dominic concluded, then laughed. “I’m almost impressed he thought of such a thing. Very tricky.”
“I doubt he thought of it himself,” Ella clarified. “I’ve seen the trick before on the eastern circuit. It started out that men would claim the sash must have picked up a bur by accident, but it became a common problem. The heralds would check everyone’s sashes any time there was suspicion someone might be using burs. Raedwald most likely encountered the idea over there.”
“He’s cunning and corrupt. I’m not surprised he’d import a new way of cheating.” Henry’s nostrils flared. “It makes me wonder what else he’s up to that we haven’t found out.”
The three of them found a herald and tried to explain their suspicions that Raedwald had used burs to secure his sash in place, but by the time they’d explained all that had happened, Raedwald had left the area, and was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ll tell the others,” the herald offered. “We’ll watch him more carefully in the future. At this point, that’s all I can do.”
About that time, Rolf ambled over, counting the coins he’d earned with the sashes he’d collected. “Allard, good fellow, I will have to buy you an ale. You’re a good man to follow on the field.”
Ella appreciated the compliment. “I thought you didn’t like the melee. You’re an archer, not a swordsman.”
“Ah, but I’ve watched enough of these, I figured out the trick to them. If a man is smart, and doesn’t get caught up in all that sword fighting nonsense, he can make a good profit off sashes.”
Ella and Henry laughed.
“Are you planning to do the same in the mounted melee?” Henry asked him.
Rolf looked surprised. “And risk getting trampled to death? Mounted melee is much too dangerous. I’d like to live long enough to spend my winnings, thank you.”
“And what about you?” Henry asked Ella. “Are you going to do the mounted melee?”
It took Ella a moment to realize what he was asking, since she thought the question had already been decided. “I’m registered for it, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but your wrist—”
Ella held out her sword again, somewhat steadier this time. “Let’s find lunch and see how it feels. I think a rest will do me some good.”
Rolf went to lunch with them, and regaled Henry with his accounts of Allard’s performance in battle (which Henry hadn’t observed, being himself engaged in heated duels for the bulk of the competition). Henry was more concerned than impressed with the results of Allard’s participation. “The Ulsters both know you’re here, then. There’s no hiding you now.”
“It was inevitable,” Ella reminded him. “And we bested them. Isn’t that good?”
Henry shook his head somberly. “It’s only reinforced their hatred toward you. They’ll be that much more set on revenge. You’ll have to watch out this afternoon.”
After they’d eaten, Ella’s wrist still hurt. She could move her hand and her fingers, but it hurt to do so.
“I don’t think you should fight,” Henry concluded. “It’s the same hand as your blisters.”
“I’m fine. I’m perfectly fit to fight. I’m certainly not withdrawing because of a few blisters.”
“It’s not the blisters or even the wrist,” Henry argued. “It’s that you’re not in peak form and you need to be. Raedwald and his men know you’re here. They’re going to target you.”
“Would you have me go home, then?” Ella asked him with challenge sparking in her eyes.
Henry fumed silently.
“You invited me to come fight,” Ella continued in her deepest, manliest voice. “If I’m not going to fight, I’ve no purpose.”
Henry scowled and cleared his throat. “I don’t want you getting killed or maimed at my invitation.”
“If I’m injured, it’s my own fault.” Ella leaned in close to him, her brows knit with determination. “I want to fight.”
“Are you sure you do?”
“Yes!”
“Fine then. Let’s get our horses.”
Sigismund had the horses fed, watered, and brushed down, and probably would have saddled them, as well, if he’d been tall enough to do the job.
“Good boy, Sigi.” Henry patted his shoulder heartily. “Do you want to watch the melee?”
“Yes, Sir, I do.”
Henry and Ella finished saddling their horses and preparing to leave. Then Henry surprised Ella by picking up Sigismund and setting him on his horse.
The boy rode, beaming, while Ella and Henry walked, leading the horses through the maze of tents and people.
“What’s your strategy when they come at you all together?” Henry asked.
“Fight them off.”
“How?”
“With the lance in my left hand. It’s longer than my sword.”
“You’re going to take on three or four men with one stick?”
“And a sword.”
“In your injured hand.”
Ella sighed. “You still don’t want me to fight.”
“I want you to have a strategy.”
“What do you think I should do?”
Henry shrugged. “Surprise them. Run past them, through them. Turn around and flee. Hide behind the other fighters. Something.”
Surprise them.
Ella thought back to her childhood years practicing circus-style tricks with her mother’s horses. She could ride standing, even on one foot. She could slip off one horse and onto another while both were at a run. She could mount the saddle of a horse in motion, and even ride two horses at once (with one foot on each).
Any of those tricks would surprise her opponents. The catch was, Ella hadn’t practiced them seriously in many long months, and had never practiced them with a lance in one hand a sword in the other. And if she misjudged anything, she could end up falling to the ground in the midst of a surging field of trampling hooves.
She didn’t have long to worry about it, though. They reached the field shortly, and Henry began lining up the men of his team, leaving Ella in the back to be placed once he saw where Raedwald and the Ulsters positioned themselves.
Ella watched Henry at work, and wondered at how the men followed his orders. He wasn’t the official team captain, or anything like that. He had some kind of superior status for having placed highly in his events, but several others had done just as well, and many of them were far older than Henry, and had far more experience.
So, why did they listen to him? Did they all know who he was, in spite of his alias? Did they know he would someday be their king? Or did his training as a leader give him an advantage over the others, skills in assertiveness that mattered more than his family line?
She supposed it was the former reason, but spent little time ruminating over the question before Henry placed her to his left. She took her spot and looked across the field in time to see three men on the right side of the other line leave their places and move to stand opposite her.
Raedwald, Einhard, and Uliad.
Ella glanced at Henry to see if he’d noticed. Of course he had, and motioned with the movement of his head for her to move to his right.
Mirage backed out of her position in the line, trotted past the tails of the other horses, and nosed
into a spot opposite where Raedwald and his men had been earlier.
Ella drew in a deep breath as the herald took the field to begin his pre-battle speech.
Across the field, Raedwald, Einhard, and Uliad moved out from the spots they’d taken, and slipped back into their recently-vacated positions.
Ella looked to Henry again. He was scowling. He’d seen it all—of course he had, everyone had—and he nodded his head quickly, gesturing for Ella to move back to her earlier spot.
But even as he did so, the herald finished his speech and ran from the field as the sound of the trumpet blast overwhelmed the murmur of the crowd and the rattle and clank of the gear on the horses.
The stallions on either side of Ella took off like arrows.
Mirage reared up, eager to move and trained to do so. Ella gave her full rein, and the horse surged forward.
Distracted by Raedwald’s maneuverings, and therefore caught off guard by the sudden start of competition, Ella barely had time to get her lance down into position, and her sword gripped tightly in her hurting hand.
The men rode at her in thunderous unison, chunks of turf, thrown up by their horse’s hooves, flying above their heads as they charged down upon her.
Ella gripped her lance and wondered how her three enemies would strike. They’d have to go two of them on one side of her and one on the other, besides all the other men clustered thickly in the line.
But they didn’t look as though any of them were going to go to either side. The way they rode at her, heads lowered, eyes brimming with loathing, lances trained at her chest, they seemed quite intent on riding over or through her.
She braced herself in her saddle.
Mirage’s steps didn’t falter.
The blunted tip of a lance struck the left side of her chest plate an instant before another struck to the right.
But she was already flying backward, the reins ripped from her hand more swiftly than the air was pulled from her lungs.
I saw it from the air and froze, helpless to know what to do.
What saved her, I suppose, is that the combined push from the two lances threw her back with such force, she sailed through the air far enough and fast enough that by the time Raedwald and his men bore down on her, she was already on her feet, and leapt away from being mowed down just in time to catch the rear of Einhard’s saddle as he rode past.
