Chapter 2 #2
Terrified anticipation drenched my nerves. Koerlyn’s army was close, and North’s ambush was about to begin. Within hours, there would be a winner, there would be a loser, and regardless of which side they were on, there would be brothers, sons, and husbands strewn across the ground.
That grim thought had just landed when battle cries swept through the air.
We pushed forward, no hitch in anyone’s step, not even as hundreds of moving feet became a distant-sounding thunder; not as far-off blades met, metal clashing against metal; not as some of those war cries turned to terrified screams in the grassy field just out of sight.
There was chaos on that battlefield, but within these woods, we were in a world apart.
We continued on until the noises of battle faded into indistinguishable sounds.
Then, all at once, the men slowed and dispersed behind trees and boulders.
Stefano grabbed my arm and pulled me toward a thick, mottled trunk.
But we weren’t hiding. Like a choreographed dance, each soldier began to move from cover to cover, continuing their advance while dissolving into the landscape.
Stefano brought a mud-covered finger to his lips before pointing at my feet, and then we moved.
We were close.
Close to Koerlyn.
Close to death.
My pulse tripled as my eyes sought out that white-blond hair amongst the naked trees. A few minutes later, I found it.
The image stole the ground from beneath my feet, and I tripped.
Stefano caught me. In a daze, I let him push me behind a boulder.
Crouching, I made myself look again, to see if it really was him.
It was a mere speck in the distance, too far away to make out the finer details of his cruel face, but it was the only flash of platinum atop a horse, and it was surrounded by blue-clad soldiers and several dogs.
A Princeps, shielded by his men and their beasts, sitting comfortably in the shelter of the woods while his army died for his cause. It was, without a doubt, Koerlyn.
This could very well be the end of him.
Or he could get his hands on you once more.
Bile crawled up my throat as every fiber of my being urged me to run, to put as much distance between me and those icy eyes as possible.
Around me, weapons left their sheaths, Stefano’s included. We remained by that boulder as the rest of the group continued to advance behind Harthon, their rhythm slowing to a slug’s pace but with a mouse’s stealth. A silent wave of death, rolling in unseen.
They made it shockingly close before a dog barked.
Squinting over the rock, I watched as Koerlyn whipped around, and four men gathered around the dog, peering into the trees.
On our side, daggers were gripped and bows were readied.
The dog barked again, and that was the last sound it made.
Koerlyn’s soldiers reached for their weapons, but it was too late.
A barrage of arrows and daggers shot toward them, and a quarter of those soldiers dropped like broken dolls.
The rest drew their blades and ran full-bore toward our men, who now barreled towards them, earthen brown clashing with a swarm of cobalt blue, guttural roars erupting from both sides.
“We’re outnumbered,” I whispered to Stefano, who watched the unfolding gore with fixed intensity.
For each of our men, they had three. But Harthon had to have known that before they released the arrows and blades.
“In terms of bodies, maybe, not skill.”
The words hardly left his mouth when his head cranked to the left and he launched to his feet, sword in one hand and dagger in the other.
One of Koerlyn’s soldiers careened toward us from the depths of the woods, terror in his eyes, blood gushing from a face wound.
Terror turned to emptiness as Stefano’s dagger sliced through the air and landed in his throat.
He folded to the ground just as another man emerged from the trees behind him, running blindly. Another dagger struck true.
“Move,” he ordered, shoving me around the boulder, exposing me to the battle with Koerlyn.
It was something he would only do if that battle had suddenly become the lesser threat.
“Where did those men come from?” I asked, drawing my dagger with a shaking hand.
Expression grim, he answered, “They’re deserters from the main battlefield. And once one or two start, it becomes a herd.”
Terror snaked down my spine. The rolling terrain and lifeless trees before us were no longer our guards, offering the protection of camouflage, but a looming threat.
“Does that herd always run in the same direction?”
“They run toward safety, and this is the direction that will take them home to Third.” His lips flattened. “This typically doesn’t happen so early in battle. We figured our fight here would be over before this began.”
The two men Stefano killed were the only harbingers we had. Flashes of blue appeared among the dull landscape. Three men. Four. Then ten, all racing in our direction, wild eyes set on some destination far behind us. Stefano was a coiled ball of tension beside me, flattening me against the rock.
He wasn’t going to try to stop them.
One man couldn’t face a horde.
Oh, skies.
“They’re too busy running out of terror to notice us, never mind to engage,” he muttered, rolling the sword in his free hand. “But our soldiers will be right behind them, and once they catch up, this will become the center of a battle. Try to stay out of the way.”
“My plan wasn’t to get in the way,” I whispered back, and then bloodied men were racing past us, the boulder a shield that kept us from their panicked paths.
It was as if we were invisible, even as ten men became twenty, then multiplied again, some sprinting, some dragging a leg behind them or cradling damaged arms in a desperate, bloodied flight.
For minutes, the only sounds were racing footsteps, wheezing breaths, my thundering heart, and the clamor of battle to our right, where Koerlyn was still being attacked by Harthon.
Then the war cries rose, primitive sounds that washed over the boulder and sent the fleeing soldiers around us into an even more frenzied panic.
Steel met steel, and Stefano sprung up, legs spread, trapping me between him and the boulder.
From one racing heartbeat to the next, the space around us transformed into a bloody battleground, Koerlyn’s deserters meeting our men in fruitless attempts to save themselves or maintain some sense of honor.
Right in front of Stefano, one of our soldiers tackled one of Koerlyn’s men, heaved his ax, and slammed it into his neck.
He stood and met a sword, shoving it out of his way before burying the weapon in his enemy’s stomach.
The resulting wail echoed inside my skull, but there was no time to process the violence because Stefano suddenly moved, striking a man with a clean swipe of his blade.
The next soldier to approach drew him forward a step, where he was forced to stay as two more deserters came from behind the boulder, blades swinging in desperate, mindless attempts to survive.
I was exposed.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of metal and flattened to the ground as a sword crashed into the rock where my head just was. I sprang to my feet before he could swing again and met the man’s eyes, my purple and gold irises staring into his pale gray ones.
I was valuable. His Princeps’ prize. He would recognize me—see that he should try to take me rather than kill me.
But there was no sign of recognition in his visage. Only unseeing panic.
He swung again, and I ducked, stomach jumping into my throat.
This man was going to kill me.
He attacked again, swiping low, and I jumped over the blade, barely missing it.
The momentum of his swing pulled his sword wide, leaving his side exposed.
Instinct drove me forward. My blade met flesh.
He roared, returning with his sword, and I yanked the weapon free just in time to lunge away from the boulder and his reach.
Again, momentum left him exposed, and I darted low, jabbing into his other side and scurrying to his back.
He whirled to face me, rage contorting his features, lifting his sword high.
Using a move Harthon had taught me, I spun to the side, dodging just as he struck down. I swung out with my arm, blindly hoping for contact. My hand met resistance. The man’s roar became a gurgled choke. Dagger buried in his neck, he dropped, taking my weapon with him.
“Etarla!” Stefano shouted, driving his weapon clean through a torso as he met my eyes. His eyes flicked to my left. “Move!”
I dove, rolling to my back as a sword sliced through the air above me. Then it pivoted, driving down.
Right at my face.
My hand found the leather hilt of something on the ground, and I swung it upwards, eyes closed.
The impact drove my elbows into the ground.
The pressure released, and I opened my eyes to find an ax in my hand.
The sword came again, and securing my other hand to the shaft, I met the steel, arms nearly buckling against the heavy weight of impact.
“Stefano!” I all but screamed, as that deadly blade kept coming. It was too quick for me to roll out of the way, too forceful for me to fend off much longer. I gritted my teeth as metal met wood again, but there was no pressure behind the strike.
Wha—
Above me, my attacker’s head slid from his body, tumbling to the ground.
The rest of him collapsed.
A rough hand grabbed my arm, yanked me to my feet, and shoved. I sprawled onto the ground next to the boulder, right back where I started, Stefano a step away. Scurrying to sit, ax fumbling in my hand, I whipped around to see who’d moved me. There was a blur of dark color. Two more bodies dropped.
For a moment, he paused, dark eyes surrounded by caked mud and gore finding mine.
He moved in, then, putting me right at his back, an indomitable mountain above me.
Tremors shook me as I pressed against the rock, weapon clutched tightly to my chest, anticipating the moment the two-man shield before me broke and I needed to fend for myself again.
As seconds turned to minutes and death mounted around me, that moment didn’t come. Fewer and fewer opponents came against Stefano and Harthon, and the cacophony of noise lessened, quieting until the crash of weapons was sporadic and there were no more blue tunics standing upright.
Harthon’s shoulders relaxed before Stefano’s. He turned, fiery gaze crashing into mine, a lethal warrior bathed in the blood of every man he’d slain.
I tried to stop my trembling.
I failed.
“Is any of the blood yours?” he asked.
I looked down at myself. Splatters of blood colored the dried mud. I shook my head.
“I need words.”
I glared at him. Did he wish to hear my voice tremble? To know just how weak I was after he’d thrust me into battle? Damn the skies if I would allow that. Tightening every muscle in my jaw to stop its shaking, I answered, “It isn’t mine.”
“Are you injured in other ways?”
By some miracle, “No.”
His eyes roamed over me, once, twice, as if confirming the statement for himself. Finding whatever verification he sought, he began to walk away.
“Did you kill him?” I said to his back.
Harthon paused, sparing me another look. “He isn’t dead, but he took a lethal blow before getting away.”
Harthon hadn’t killed Koerlyn? How could he have not finished the job, ensured his final blow ended—
Maybe it’s because he had to come and save you.
I swallowed, guilt rolling in before anger washed in behind it.
It wasn’t my fault I was here. I wasn’t prepared for battle—hadn’t grown up on violence and fighting and blades. It had been Harthon’s choice to bring me here instead of sending me back to his city center ahead of the battle.
Because to him, I was a traitor.
As I watched him stalk away, stepping over deformed bodies, I wondered if he would have bothered to save me had it not been for my eyes.