by Morgan Rice
Briefly, they slid past into open water. For a moment, Sophia thought the ships might resume their chasing, and she might be able to lead them further away from the city. Then she saw the incoming fleet spreading out, forming a kind of net of ships that stretched against the backdrop of the open sea.
The flagship’s captain ran forward, cursing as he looked out.
“They’re trying to catch us against the shore. If they can pin us there, they’ll be able to surround us and capture us.”
“Not if we keep running,” Sophia said.
“There’s nowhere to run to, your majesty,” he said. “We can stand and fight, or we can try to surrender. That might at least keep you safe. They’ll want such a valuable prisoner alive.”
He didn’t say what would happen to everyone else there, but Sophia could see it in his thoughts. She shook her head.
“Surrendering isn’t the point,” she said.
“Nor is a fight which we lose in minutes,” the captain shot back.
“Which is why we run,” Sophia said.
“Run where?”
Sophia pointed to the shore. As far as she could see, it was the only option remaining to them. “Ishjemme’s boats are made to be beached, aren’t they?”
“Not something this size,” the captain said.
Looking out, Sophia could see the enemy fleet closing in. She made her decision.
“Do it anyway. There’s a beach there. Aim for it.”
“That’s—”
“It’s the best option we have,” Sophia insisted.
The captain bowed. “As you command, my queen. Men, bring the ship around. Anyone who isn’t needed to steer the ship, brace yourselves!”
The flagship swung around ponderously, until its prow faced the shore. Sophia went back close to one of the masts, clinging to it as they got closer and closer. Beside her, Sienne crouched, her claws digging into the wood.
“Hold on, girl,” Sophia said.
She felt the moment when the ship’s keel scraped along the beach in a moment of grinding, wrenching contact. Sophia felt the deck below her shudder and jolt, threatening to fling her clear if she didn’t keep her grip, the way a building might have shaken during an earthquake. Beside her, Sienne mewled, and Sophia had to reach out with her mind to soothe the forest cat’s fear. She wished someone could soothe her own.
She saw soldiers shaken free by the impact, plunging into the water as the ship’s momentum dragged it up onto the beach. She felt the moment when it started to topple, standing balanced for a moment before the whole world seemed to tip sideways.
“Jump,” Sophia yelled to anyone who would listen, before flinging herself free from the mast and plunging into the shallows. She came up spluttering, half tangled among the rigging and kicking it clear. She dragged herself toward the beach, where Sienne was already pulling herself out, looking anything but pleased by the drenching. Around Sophia, the soldiers and sailors were doing the same.
The soldiers from the other ships were flinging themselves from their own vessels, taking boats or dragging supplies, pulling them in toward the beach as they grounded. The beached shells of the ships formed a kind of barricade there, and Sophia could only hope that it would slow down the army that was coming for them.
“Hurry!” she yelled. “We need to form up. They’ll be coming for us.”
Already, she could see the chasing ships swinging after them, moving slower than they had only because they didn’t want to crash into the shore. She looked around, taking in the grassy dunes of the beach and the broad expanse of the open ground behind.
“There!” she called out, pointing to the dunes. “We need to fight and move back, draw this out as long as we can.”
She didn’t say the obvious: that there was no hope of winning this. The men there had to know that by know. Probably most of them had known that even when they’d begun this desperate distraction. The most they could hope for was to delay the inevitable long enough for the forces at the city to do their part.
“A lot of the black powder is wet now,” a soldier complained.
“But not all of it,” Sophia insisted. “We’ll use what we have. Drag cannon up onto the beach. Load them with cannon shot.”
The men worked with the kind of speed that said they knew how desperate the situation was, officers shouting orders as they labored. They dragged cannon in among the dunes, pulled landing boats upside down to make rough cover, and set loaded muskets and crossbows down, ready for use. Even so, Sophia wasn’t sure they had enough time to do all they needed, because the enemy already had a flotilla of small boats in the water, the men closing in on her and her much smaller force.
“Wait until they start to land,” Sophia said. “They’ll be vulnerable as they come out between the ships.”
“You should get away, your majesty,” one of the soldiers called to her. “We’ll hold them here.”
Sophia shook her head, then snatched up a musket. “They’ll only attack while I’m here. I don’t want them going back to the fight in the city.”
She waited with the rest of them among the dunes, watching as the enemy’s boats got closer, the men pouring out of them up through the shallows. Sophia realized in that moment that they might be able to cover the ground from the ships too quickly; that they might not bring them down before it descended into brutal hand-to-hand fighting.
She had to slow them down, so she reached out with her powers, pushing her way into the minds of the men there, drawing on the pulsing strength of the land beneath her feet. She held them there through sheer strength of will, cutting off the space between one thought and the next. Sophia didn’t know how long she could hold it, but for now, it left men out in the open with no protection.
“Now!” she yelled, and her forces fired. Cannon boomed, cutting down swaths of the attacking troops. Muskets sounded, bringing down men individually. The roar snapped through the power she’d been using to hold them there, and men came forward at a charge now. Sophia pulled the trigger on her musket, the kick from it slamming the stock back into her. An enemy soldier fell, but another rushed to take his place. Sienne leapt on that man, rending and tearing.
Around Sophia, men fought and died. She saw a sailor struck by a bayonet reaching forward to stab his attacker with a knife, and an Ishjemme soldier leap in amongst a knot of the enemy, flaying about himself with an axe until they brought him down. Their initial barrage at the men who’d made the beach had torn the heart out of the first attack, but there were still plenty of men to fight. Even as Sophia watched, men hacked and cut with sword and axe, dagger and bayonet.
Then, as suddenly as the changing tide, the mercenaries in Ashton’s employ turned back to the shore, running until they could shelter among the boats.
“We did it!” a man called. “We beat them back!”
A great cheer went up among the men. Sophia didn’t join it. They’d beaten back one attack, but she could see that the next wave of attackers was already in the water, crowding for position as they approached the beach. Worse, she could see a knot of them landing further up, too far away to do anything about, moving out into the open ground beyond the beach to surround her forces.
They weren’t done there yet. They’d barely even begun.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As she ran through the streets of Ashton’s outskirts, Kate cursed the speed that she had lost for the first time. It meant that she could only move human fast to try to save her sister, could only hope that Sophia would still be alive by the time that Kate got to her.
Men fell into step with Kate as she ran, and she recognized the uniforms of Lord Cranston’s men. Lord Cranston himself ran alongside her now, wheezing with the effort. Will was further down, running along with a determined look and a sword in his hand.
They slammed into a knot of enemy soldiers on the street. If the main battle had been Kate’s priority right then, she might have stopped to fight. As it was, she managed one wicked slash at a soldi
er in passing, shoved another one out of her way, and kept running, ignoring the brief sounds of battle behind her as the rest of Lord Cranston’s men fought their way through.
“Where are we going, Kate?” Lord Cranston demanded as they ran.
“The shore beyond the city,” Kate said. “My sister is in danger!”
Kate could feel that danger pulsing through her almost as surely as she could feel the beat of her own heart. She needed to get to Sophia.
“Aren’t you going to tell me that this is not what a mercenary does?” Kate asked as she ran. “That the job we’re being paid for is more important than me going to my sister?”
To her surprise, Lord Cranston shook his head. “You’re here as a sister, not a mercenary,” he said. “And besides, we swore to serve. I suspect trying to save Sophia counts as that.”
They ran on through the city, the houses growing more thinly spaced as they reached the limits of Ashton’s sprawl. She could see the point where its river met the sea ahead, with the open ground of farmland giving way to sandy dunes and the waves. She could see the battle there too, and what Kate saw only made her run faster.
Sophia and her forces stood at the heart of the dunes, the remains of the ships she’d taken beached like the carcasses of great whales down below her. Men closed in from the water in landing boats, while a second force spread out on the farmland behind the dunes, obviously ready to catch Sophia between them. Kate could hear the sounds of muskets and blades ahead, smell the smoke and the stench of death from the battle.
“If we don’t do anything, they’ll be crushed,” Kate said. She couldn’t allow that. Whatever it took, she had to save her sister.
“The land force is the threat,” Lord Cranston said. “They’re in a good position to hold the ones from the water, but the others can attack them from the rear as they do.”
“Then we attack them,” Kate said, starting forward.
Lord Cranston caught her arm. “Attack a larger force on open ground?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Kate asked.
“Perhaps. Artillerists! We need tinder, oil, and powder, now! Anything that will burn!”
Kate frowned at that. “We’re going to burn them?”
“They say that when the New Army attacked, the mad Prince Rupert burned half of the peninsula they were on. We don’t need anything so grand…”
“Just enough to cut the enemy into more manageable pieces,” Kate finished for him. “But Sophia is there.”
“The wind is from the shore,” Lord Cranston said, “and in any case, she’ll be safe enough on those dunes.”
It was a dangerous, risky, stupid plan, but what other options were there?
“Give me oil!” Kate called out.
“Kate, I really don’t think—”
“I’m fast, and I can fight as well as anyone here,” Kate countered. She grabbed oil out of a waiting soldier’s hands, not waiting for an answer as she set off at a run.
Others ran along with her, setting off in a scattering of individual paths that would take them across the front of the enemy’s forces. Kate sprinted across the farmland, trampling through wheat that was already largely flattened by the efforts of the battle. She opened the stopper on her oil flask, letting the liquid trail behind her as she ran.
Kate could see the enemy moving forward, obviously guessing that something was happening. Shots sounded, and Kate felt something pass by her ear, too close for comfort. She saw a man fall to the barrage of musket balls and arrows, crossbow bolts and thrown weapons, but she didn’t dare stop. She continued until her flask of oil was half empty, then threw it at the advancing enemy forces to shatter amongst them.
Kate waved to the waiting forces of Lord Cranston’s men, and saw Lord Cranston himself step forward, a burning brand in his hand, the way a priest might have done by a funeral pyre. He touched it to the nearest patch of oil.
The effect was almost instant, flames running out from the touch point to spread in what seemed like a wall of fire, the wheat serving as fuel for the flames as the oil saturated it. It was so hot that Kate had to step back from it, but she kept her eyes on the advancing enemies.
Fire arrows came from Lord Cranston’s forces, and where they struck the patches of oil, fresh flames leapt up. Kate saw the spot where she’d flung her flask burst up in a bright conflagration, men screaming as the flames took them. The fire rose at a dozen other points, ripping the formation of the men advancing over the fields to shreds. Kate took a smoke-filled breath, then charged forward at them as Lord Cranston’s men ran in from the side.
She slammed into the first rank of men, cutting one down and keeping moving. A sword came toward her face and Kate parried on instinct before hacking back automatically. Her foot tangled in the corn and she went down for a moment, but that only meant that a sword stroke aimed at her head went over it. Kate stabbed upward and heard a man cry out.
She fought her way back to her feet, using the press of men there for support even while they tried to kill one another. She deflected the thrust of a short spear, cut down into a man’s leg, and plunged deeper into the fight.
She could see the fire spreading around her now. The heat from it was intense, the smoke thick enough that it turned the battle around Kate into a thing of blind confusion. She thought she could see Will pressed blade to blade with a soldier, Lord Cranston firing a pistol at close range, but they were quickly lost in the press of it all, the next sword to dodge, the next thrust to make.
Kate couldn’t believe how tired she was getting. Before, when she’d had the strength that Siobhan’s fountain had given her, it had seemed as though she might be able to fight forever. Now, it seemed as if her sword grew heavier with every swing she took, and a part of her had the stupid urge to simply stop and look around in the middle of the battle.
But to stop was to die. Kate kept moving, however leaden her legs felt.
A soldier came up in front of her, a long, hacking sword in his grip. Kate dodged one blow, then parried another, the sheer force of it jarring her sword from her grip for a moment. With no time to think, Kate rushed in close to the man, grabbing for him and managing to get both hands on his sword arm.
They exchanged a barrage of blows, each one Kate received feeling as though she’d been hit by a hammer. This close, she could smell the sweat of her opponent, see the grubbiness of his uniform and the spots of blood that had stained it in the course of the battle. She struck back with knees and elbows, not daring to let go of the man’s sword arm for fear of being hacked down in an instant if she did.
He flung her back, and Kate tripped over the fallen body of another soldier, barely rolling to her feet in time to dodge a lateral swing of the sword. She drew a dagger from her belt, knowing that it was no kind of weapon when set against a sword.
The soldier seemed to know it too.
“What are you going to do with that?” he demanded. “Cut my fingernails?”
Kate backed away, then, without warning, flung the dagger with all the strength she had. The soldier cried out as it cut into his cheek, and he tried for a half-blind stroke of the sword he held. Kate was already moving, and, diving for the spot where she’d dropped her sword and snatching it up, she turned and thrust, catching the soldier through the heart even as he raised his sword for a killing stroke.
He toppled back like a falling tree, and for a moment or two, Kate was in a clear space in the battle. She could see the fight on the beach from here, could see Sophia’s soldiers holding their position, still firing down at the enemies who came in by boat, refusing to give ground. With the flames cutting off the soldiers who might have come in by land, they had a chance.
She saw her sister standing proudly at the heart of it all, her forest cat snapping at any enemy who came too close. The soldiers with her kept up a constant barrage of fire against the ones who came close, while men fought hand to hand down the slope. Kate could see some of those on the beach starting to pull back, clearly n
ot wanting to continue the fight when they didn’t have the support of the others inland.
She turned back to her fight in time to sweep aside the cut of an axe, sidestepping and cutting down the man who’d swung it. She scrambled over his fallen form to plunge into the middle of a knot of soldiers, cutting and hacking as she went. It felt like plunging into a corridor filled with swords, sharp steel thrusting at her from every side.
By the time Kate came out of it, she was all but covered in blood. She wasn’t sure how much of it was hers and how much of it was other people’s. By that point it barely made a difference. She fought her way through into clear space, looking around for the rest of Lord Cranston’s company, knowing that she needed to fight her way back to them if they were going to rejoin her sister.
When she looked around, though, all she could see were the uniforms of the enemy, trapped with her within a circle of flames. Half a dozen foes advanced on Kate together, and with the fire rising all around, there was no way out from it that she could see.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Will marched forward with the others of Lord Cranston’s company, feeling the same sick feeling of dread that always came before a fight. His sword was in his hand, ready to take on the enemy. He heard Kate calling for oil and tinder, didn’t understand for a moment what she meant to do.
It was only when she started to run forward with the others that he understood.
“We can’t let her do this, my lord,” he said to Lord Cranston. He didn’t even try to pretend that it was only the concern of one soldier for another member of their company, or for the person they were sworn to serve.
