King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1)

King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1) Page 203

But there were no heroics here. Sapientia’s troops took over the supply train easily and began to herd their new prisoners together, searching for Biscop Constance. A cry came from the woods on the opposite side of the line of wagons. Hanna rode closer, to investigate.

There! Among the trees she saw riders, but she could not identify them. Sapientia’s captain took twenty soldiers and rode into the wood to head them off.

And at that moment, someone grabbed her reins and jerked down hard on them. She started and swung her spear around to point at—

A frater.

She stared. He had a harsh face. One of his lips was bleeding.

“Give me your horse!” he demanded. This was no humble churchman. After almost twenty days in the king’s progress, Hanna recognized a great lord’s arrogance when she saw it.

But she hesitated. He was dressed as a simple frater, after all.

“Ai, Lady, grant me patience!” he said aloud. “Eagle! Dismount and give me this horse!”

“For what purpose?” she demanded in her turn. “You are in Sabella’s train—”

“I am Sabella’s prisoner, not her ally.”

“How can I know—?”

Distantly, that awful shriek rose again on the wind, followed by a strange muttering, like calls of triumph and moans of defeat melded together, like a battle gone to rout.

The frater grunted in anger, grabbed her arm, and yanked her bodily off the horse. She hit the ground hard enough to jolt her and scatter her wits. The animal shied, but he jerked down on the reins and, while Hanna was trying to pick herself up, threw himself over the saddle and swung his leg over. Kicked the horse, hard, and with robes flapping up around his thighs, he rode at a gallop off toward the battle. Lady! He was barefoot!

Panting, Hanna heaved herself to her feet. In the woods, two forces had met and blended together: she caught sight of the red dragon of Saony. Friends, then, but as soon as she thought it, she heard shouting.

“Lavastine’s riders are coming! Turn round! Turn round and face them!”

Ai, Lady! What had Hathui said? An unhorsed Eagle is a dead Eagle. The frater, and her horse, were long gone. Still clutching her spear, Hanna ran for the shelter of the wagons.

4

THIS is what it had all meant, of course. Alain saw that now with a clarity obscured only by the screaming of men and the milling of soldiers lost, frightened, and running, or caught up in the brutal and numbing work of slaughter.

Henry’s soldiers—those caught by the guivre’s glare— were like so many trussed pigs, throats slashed while they squealed. This was not battle of the kind sanctified by the Lord of Hosts, who did not falter when He was called upon to wield the Sword of Judgment. This was a massacre.

Alain knew it was wrong, knew it in his heart. The guivre screamed in rage, trying to break free, beating its wings frantically. Sabella’s first rank of horsemen moved steadily up the hill, their progress slowed because it was so easy to kill Henry’s soldiers, because they had to scramble over the dead and dying and over horses collapsed onto the grass. On the far right flank, a melee swirled, back and forth, but the standard of Fesse wavered and began to move backward.

Above, about half of the century of Lions had begun to march forward to meet Sabella’s army. The rest either could not or would not march. And behind them Henry sat on his horse, unmoving. Was he waiting and watching? Or was he already caught in the guivre’s eye?

The mounted soldiers opposite Lavastine’s forces were trying to turn Lavastine’s soldiers back so they could punch in to aid Henry’s center. Alain ran, fought his way through the back ranks of archers and spearmen who had fallen back after the first skirmishing. He shoved, and Rage and Sorrow nipped and bit to make a passage for him, toward their sisters and brothers, the black hounds who attended Count Lavastine.

Alain reached the count, who was sitting back from the front lines, waiting and watching the progress of the battle. Alain grabbed his stirrup and pulled hard. Lavastine stared down at him. There was no sign in his eyes that he recognized Alain.

Desperate measures for desperate times. He prayed for strength to the Blessed Lady. Then he grabbed Lavastine’s mail coat and tugged as hard as he could.

Because the count was not expecting it, he lost his seat. Alain shifted his grip to the count’s arm and pulled him right out of the saddle. Lavastine fell hard and lay still.

And a spear pinched Alain between the shoulder blades. He dropped to his knees and fumbled at his neck as he turned his head to look up and behind.

It was Sergeant Fell. “You know me, Sergeant!” Alain cried. “You know the count is acting strangely. This is wrong! We shouldn’t be here!”