The Princess's Dragon (28 page)

“She will never make it to the border alive, Your Highness.”

“Wha!?” All three echoed the word at once, everyone turning to regard the man. He nodded to the queen and princess before continuing.

“My own messenger just came to me with news, moments before your summons. Indeed, that is who I was meeting with when the guard sent for me. My sources inform me that Bladen has already mobilized troops to join with Halidor. They are no doubt closing off their border even as we speak.

The news of Halidor’s offer to Bladen that the princess brought with her was echoed by my own sources cycles later.”

Derek nodded again to the princess, who raised her chin and cast her father a smug look, having brought them the news before the Warlord’s spies could report it. “Only, my own sources say that Bladen accepted the offer with alacrity and set about devising a plan to break off our paltry trade alliance without appearing to dishonor our existing peace treaty, a move that would endanger them on other fronts as they hold similar treaties with Fomoral and Ramadyn.

The princess’ return to Ariva carrying Prince Galaden’s heir was the perfect excuse for them to call off the treaty.” The princess glared at Derek, even as her father groaned and her mother sighed and hugged her more tightly.

“So why can’t we send her back and take away their excuse to attack us?” the king asked, without much hope.

“Because my sources claim that Galaden dispatched several assassins to kill both the princess and her son before they reach our borders. They would have many opportunities to do so, since there is a long stretch of rugged terrain between Ariva and the Pass.”

The queen gasped and Elona felt faint for the first time in her life, picturing her helpless baby in the hands of monstrous killers. Derek spared a look of compassion for the queen but ignored the princess. The king jumped up, shocked and outraged.

“Do you expect me to believe that the man cold-bloodedly ordered the murder of the son and heir he waited years for? By the gods, I don’t like the man and never have, but I cannot believe that of him.”

“He knows that the boy is not his son.” The princess pulled away from

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her mother and sank back into her chair. Only Derek failed to react to her statement, unsurprised to have his own suspicions confirmed. The queen shrieked and the king nearly succumbed to an apoplectic fit as he swung toward his eldest daughter in rage.

“How could you do something so ignoble, so foolish, and so reckless? You are no daughter of mine, you hear me!” he bellowed.

“Would that I were so lucky, Father,” Elona screamed back, her own temper sparking as she jumped up again, shouting in his face. The queen took her seat, fanning herself furiously as she tried to remain conscious. “Fine! Since I am no daughter of yours, then I needn’t obey your whims. I will leave this castle but you will never get me to return to Galaden!”

“Your Highness,” Derek interjected, interrupting the king’s livid response,

“if you please. The princess and the innocent child will be killed the moment they leave the safety of this castle if the assassins have anything to say about it.

We cannot guarantee their safety if they leave here.” Derek stressed the word innocent, knowing that even when enraged the king was not a cruel man and would not send his daughter and grandson into the arms of a killer. The bluster left the king and he sagged back into his seat.

“What do you suggest we do then, Warlord?”

“Bladen has already made their decision. Even if the princess and her son made it safely to the border—” Derek raised a hand to stop Elona’s heated denial, and she was so shocked and intimidated by this new man he’d become that she fell silent—“Bladen would simply find another reason to join the fray, and no doubt your daughter and grandson would befall some tragic accident anyway.” The queen fanned harder, reaching again for her daughter, tightly grasping her hand. The king raised his head.

“Do we stand a chance against them, Warlord, or are we doomed?”

“People have won against worse odds, Your Highness. We have the pass, and we have enough men to hold it. The men aren’t well trained but we also have the mercenaries and war engines, some of the best weaponry to be found outside of Vanguard and Empiron. Bladen is not a warring nation; they have used politics and subterfuge to maintain peace amongst their neighbors, and though they have a large army, they are not veterans as are Halidor’s men.

There is little we can do besides fight to survive. Halidor will accept nothing less than full surrender, and the royal family will be executed to the last. My men are willing to fight, and willing to die if it must be so.” 168

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“Then we must do as we planned and fight this war. It appears that we are alone in our battle; let us hope the gods have not abandoned us as well.” The king motioned to the messenger, who had retreated to a shadowy corner of the chamber. He sprang forward, eager to escape the tension in the room.

“Return to Passton and tell Galaden’s messenger that the princess and her son will remain with us until it is safe to travel once again and that her safety and that of the baby is our number one concern. Let them twist that as they will, since they have already made their decision.” The messenger hurried out and the King turned to his daughter and queen.

“You,” he pointed to Elona, “will remain within the castle walls at all times as will the baby. I will increase your guards at once and none but our most trusted servants may come within one hundred feet of the infant.” The king paused and made to turn away, but he glanced back at his daughter, who still stood glaring at him defiantly. To him it seemed that a chasm gaped between them and nothing he tried would aid him in crossing it. He sighed, feeling every one of his years upon him, and motioned for his wife and daughter to leave the room. The queen swept out, drawing her daughter with her, and the king turned to Lord Derek.

“We have much work to do. Let us call another council of war…” The men sat down at the table to confer while the guards sent for the other councilors.

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CHAPTER 18

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Derek surveyed his men. Th ey lined up at the pass, maintaining a loose formation until the armies camped on the other side of the border decided to make their fi rst move. Derek and the bulk of his army had arrived at the pass fourteen cycles earlier. Soon after, Onian’s army arrived en masse, meeting up with the small companies of enemies that engaged Ariva’s border guard in tiresome skirmishes for several ten-cycles.

At some point, Halidor and Barselor came together, for they arrived as a single unit. Halidor’s legendary cavalry rode beside Barselor’s mounted swordsmen. Halidor’s archers marched in line with Barselor’s batteries, the artillerywomen leading the bullocks that towed the massive catapults and siege engines behind them. Amongst the endless sea of foot soldiers, Halidor’s black uniforms bearing the standard of Morbidon’s skull helm mingled with the brilliant scarlet uniforms of Isa’s soldier-slaves, their standard bearing the charging bullock pierced with swords.

Within a few cycles of Onian’s arrival, a vast contingent of heavy knights and foot soldiers bearing the unicorn rampant on blue of Bladen’s army arrived. The sight of their former ally lining up against them infuriated and demoralized the soldiers of Ariva, arrayed in their gray uniforms bearing the standard of crossed sword and staff, neither finding a purpose in the peaceful kingdom for generations.

Derek shook his head at the sight of the knights. Bladen clung to the old ways of battle, preferring their armored juggernauts against the faster and more agile mounted cavalry that the rest of the southern lands adopted. The knights fought well enough against small forces, but in the chaos of a crowded 169

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battlefield their heavy and unwieldy armor might very well spell their doom if Arivan soldiers unhorsed them. Derek found the thought comforting.

Still, the numbers stacked against Ariva. Derek’s own army boasted only five thousand men while Onian commanded nearly three times that number.

Derek counted among his soldiers two batteries of archers and artillerymen to man the catapults and ballista, thousands of pikemen, and equally numerous swordsmen. These foot soldiers comprised the main defense of his army. His swordsmen, increased by seven hundred mercenaries trained in the never-ending southern wars, would hopefully finish off any enemy that breached the pikemen’s line during their charge.

Derek traveled the entire length of the Pass, shoring up weak points and concentrating his defense where he expected Onian might bear down the hardest. The prince waited, allowing his own army to rest after the forced march across their land to the Pass, but the respite would not be a long one.

Onian needed this victory and the new wealth of Ariva.

The first serious attack came at sunbirth on the fifteenth cycle after Derek’s arrival. Derek experienced a sense of relief because the drawn-out waiting, with his new recruits and barely trained soldiers forced to witness the vast army spread before them, demoralized the Arivan army and jeopardized Ariva’s defense before the fighting even began. Despite Onian’s eagerness, the man was a skilled tactician and had anticipated the effect the sight of his army had on the Arivan troops.

Derek also noticed that Onian never underestimated an enemy; he brought enough soldiers and war machines to take down an army twice the size of Derek’s, but he didn’t simply throw his troops recklessly at the defended pass, realizing that even untrained soldiers entrenched held an advantage over a charging enemy.

Derek also didn’t underrate the enemy and when the first charge of foot soldiers came he ordered his men to ignite the oil and kindling in the ditch they had spent many cycles digging. With a muffled whump a wall of fire split the Pass, just as the first enemy troops crossed over. Some soldiers made it through and the pikemen quickly finished them off. Those that didn’t halt their charge quickly enough screamed in agony as they fell into the ditch, engulfed in flames.

Derek’s own men cheered but he didn’t share in their victory. Onian surely expected the ditch; they’d seen the Arival soldiers digging industriously. The

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other man had many tricks up his sleeve and the fire could not burn forever; already they’d stripped every bush, shrub, and tree in the area of its kindling.

Onian would fall back and wait them out, his first charge undoubtedly designed to trip the ditch trap and render it useless against his superior numbers. Still, Derek also had more cards to play and the meager victory helped to dispel the depression Onian’s calculated delay brought over Ariva’s men.

By the following sunbirth, Derek allowed the firewall to die out, unwilling to squander more oil delaying the inevitable. Onian ordered the second charge by that centerlight. This time he sent a company of footmen, which Ariva’s battery cut down before most of them came anywhere close to the front lines.

The few stragglers that managed to dodge the deadly missiles firing from the artillery stands and war machines found themselves alone in their battle with an entire army itching for a fight. They died quickly, the new soldiers gaining a boost of confidence at their first kills.

Derek watched from a commander’s perch behind the front line as Onian, seated on a similar perch well out of range, sent forth signal birds to his commanders on the field. Derek strongly wished he could read those signals, even as he sent his own messages down to his generals.

It didn’t take inside knowledge to guess Onian’s next move, as Barselor’s artillerywomen cracked the whips over the bullocks and the massive catapults rolled forward, followed by armored carts, pushed rather than pulled, and armed with massive spikes. Behind those rolled massive metal sheathed wheels, the men inside running to keep the wheels rolling, ready to crush the front line beneath them.

Derek sent out a signal and Ariva’s batteries jumped into place. Artillerymen loaded oil-soaked missiles into the catapults, lighting them before firing them off. Soldiers rotated the massive ballistae, bearing on the rolling wheels, and fired their first salvo when the metal behemoths came into range.

The first catapult rounds slammed into the enemy catapults even as Barselors’ artillerywomen loaded their own missiles. The catapults held up under the onslaught and Ariva braced for the impact. One of the flaming missiles struck an Arivan catapult but the metal-braced construction held. The other knocked out the leg of one of the artillery stands and archers plummeted to the ground below. Battle engineers raced out under fire to rebuild the stand, while the healers dragged off the wounded and dead archers, those unharmed climbing to the other stand or assisting the engineers and their crewmen.

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Barselor lost one of their crushing wheels when the metal-sheathed ballista bolt impaled it and pinned several of the men inside. The wheel ground to a halt, rocking uselessly back and forth before the splintered wood finally gave, and the engine collapsed on itself. The other wheel rolled relentlessly on as the second bolt flew past it and skidded into a company of swordsmen, killing several before burying itself in the ground.

The artillerymen loaded the second rounds and fired again, and Ariva sent off a second salvo of catapult rounds. The twin battering carts continued to roll forward, the blazing missiles bouncing off their metal shields. The pikemen held their battle formation, their spears in the air and their shields above them.

The expected slaughter didn’t come. As the carts rolled over the trenches, the debris and corpses filling them gave way from the weight and their wheels sank, stranding them with their spikes mere inches from the pikemen. Arivan archers fired down on the operators now in view, killing them before they could retreat out of range.

Ariva’s artillery kept the enemy’s catapults from firing off any more salvos as the artillerymen loaded Ariva’s catapults under the covering fire of the archers.