Damsel Knight (21 page)

As they get higher so does the stench of smoke in the air. It makes her wish the cloth was more firmly fixed over her nose and mouth. It’s only by reminding herself with each shuffle forward that this is the way out, that she keeps going. A little more and there’ll be fresh air. A little more and there’ll be a cool breeze to soothe her reddening skin.

The burning rug comes out of nowhere.

It flaps toward them like something possessed, every inch of it bright fire. It misses her by inches and whaps Neven firmly on the back before the wind picks it up again and it whirls through the air to attack something else.

Neven’s on fire before he seems to process what hit him. He doesn’t notice at first, staring at her with wide eyes as the flames leap to life on his back. Then he screams, a muffled choking sound that dies off as soon as it starts.

Boone leaps on him on instinct, batting at the flames with her hands. One second the fire is as bright as the one that ate the barbarian’s corpses. The next a giant section snuffs out as rapidly as if she’d thrown cold water on it. No. That’s not quite right. It’s as if she’d thrown ice on it, or found a way to package up winter and douse it with it.

Without thinking she trails her cold arm along the rest of the flames. They disappear into nothing, leaving only faint scorch marks along the back of his tunic. She gives him a few hard pats to his back for show, then tugs him forward.

He looks up at her with wide scared eyes, and she nods. He’s fine. She doesn’t know why he’s fine, but he is. That’s all that matters.

Even in his fear he hasn’t let Ness slide down the slope. They continue onward, lungs burning, hearts racing. The steep incline seems to go on forever. Until finally her good hand feels flat road under it. Not completely flat, but enough that it feels so after their climb.

Boone clambers over, then reaches back to guide Ness’s unconscious body over the top. It feels like they’ve dragged themselves up some great mountain. It’s hard to remember that on a normal day old men and babies could toddle their way up that incline with very little effort.

She chokes, holding the cloth over her face. The heat is not quite as searing, but smoke billows at them in huge black clouds. Pain stings at her eyes, causing them to water. Not safe yet. Almost.

Pressing the cloth tight over her nose and mouth, she shuts her eyes and clambers forward. It takes more arm over arm shuffles than she expects before the air clears enough to blink at her surroundings.

Feeling like she’s in some kind of surreal dream, she taps Neven’s shoulder then stumbles to her feet. He follows her, barely keeping from falling over. They stagger forward, hunched over like the very old. Her feet take a while to remember what to do, and when they do, they complain with every step.

She doesn’t know how far they walk before they stop. She’s not sure why they’re stopped until it finally registers that Neven’s hand is leaning heavy on her shoulder. He shouldn’t do that, she thinks, before the message floats through that it’s her left shoulder he’s touching, not her right. Fine. That’s fine.

She looks up. They’re not alone.

A barbarian stands in the middle of the golden road, staring at them with narrowed eyes. He - no.
She
wears the usual uniform. Tan trousers, mail and tan jacket. Belts crossed across her chest. Heavy pockets around her waist. That dragon shield in one hand, and a short squat sword hanging from the other. Her hair is a bright fiery red. Bright lines of blue paint her cheeks.

Neven stands half crouched in front of Ness, his small blunt knife in one hand. He looks wild, face covered in soot, and hair sticking up in more odd angles than usual. His eyes glitter strangely in his blackened face. It’s a challenge, she realises too many heartbeats later. Something she’s never seen so blatantly on his face.

‘These are mine,’ that look says. ‘You want to hurt them, you’ll have to kill me first.’

The red headed woman gives them a curt nod, then shouts out behind her in a voice that sounds like gibberish. Calling to others.

Boone forces her cooked senses to get back in line, readying herself for an attack. Men and woman run out of an alleyway in that same tan uniform, dozens upon dozens of them. But they don’t even glance at them. They run past, straight across the golden road and into another alleyway.

The woman spares them one last glance, then disappears after her army.

Neven doesn’t relax from his stance for a long time, and when he does he makes no movement to put the knife away. Without glancing at her, he continues walking along the golden road toward the palace. She follows him, dragging Ness between them.

It’s not until the white mare - Sir Julius’s white mare - comes trotting toward them that the pieces slot themselves together. The slums burned, but it was too late. The barbarians are already inside.

Part 3

Chapter 23

“See sense,” Sir Julius says. “This is foolish.”

His white mare walks past him, Ness strapped to her back. Neven watches him go mournfully.

Boone uses her cold hand to lift the water-skin to her lips. It grips and moves well enough, but she still can’t feel it. That makes it clumsy. No good for a sword, she thinks scanning the pile of weapons hastily piled inside the palace grounds. Maybe a shield. She picks up a battered one that still looks solid enough, almost dropping it when she sees the blood on the inside. It’s still wet. Its previous owner would be in the infirmary with Ness, either that or burning on the wall.

She shivers.

Sir Angus’s horse dances impatiently beneath him, as tense as his owner. “I thought you said you believed your boy was telling the truth? If there are barbarians in our city it’s my duty to drive them out. The women and children can’t hide in the palace cellars for the rest of their lives.”

“Duty doesn’t mean you can’t use your brain for once.” Sir Julius leans closer to the horse, voice dropping to a whisper. The grounds just inside the palace gates are crawling with men, most injured, but only Boone and Neven are close enough to pick out the next words. “Burning the slums was the right choice, and if you didn’t wait as long as you did we wouldn’t have half the men we do now. This is not a failure. This is not something you have to redeem yourself for.”

Sir Angus huffs, swiping the man’s hand from the side of his horse. “What would your people know of honour?” He asks, not in a whisper, but quieter than his usual booming voice. “You’re descended from cowards. People who chose slavery instead of death.”

Sir Julius steps back with easy grace, a grin on his face. Anyone looking would suppose they were teasing each other, or more likely that the small and lithe Sir Julius was poking the bear of a knight Sir Angus again. No one but Boone and Neven are close enough to see the worry in his dark eyes doesn’t match up with the rest of the act. “I’ll have you know my ancestors were the king’s slaves. His very close slaves. I could have royal blood flowing through my veins. That’s a step up from whatever plough horse spat you out.”

Sir Angus shakes his head, an angry set to his massive shoulders, but his heels freeze before they can signal his horse forward. “What do you suggest? Hiding with the women?”

“Putting our heads together to make a plan instead of charging in like idiots,” Sir Julius says. The grin disappears. “We can’t leave the  palace undefended.”

“The palace is always defended. The city wall may only defend against magic, but least you forget the palace wall is fully protected. No one can enter without being personally accepted through the gates.”

Sir Julius holds the other knight’s glare with his own steel gaze. “The circle was fully protected too. Yet a dragon got in, as did a whole army we didn’t know about.”

“This is why the King gave me command.” His eyes slide over Neven and Boone with a look that at its kindest could be described as disapproving. “Place some men on the wall if you’re so afraid. Then gather the rest and come with me.”

The horn chooses that moment to give its warning. Short high pitched bursts of noise. Enemy sighted.

“Forget that last order,” Sir Angus says. “Get everyone you have. We leave now.”

***

The barbarians stand on the golden road, out of reach of any arrows sent from the palace walls. They’re more an army than their own, though she knows she’d never say that out loud. Row after row of them just stand there, stock still, shields held on their left arms, swords pointed to the ground in their right hands.

There has to be hundreds of them, standing and not moving an inch. If they were not all shapes, sizes, and even genders, Boone would suspect they were the witch’s ghost soldiers instead of live people.

Sir Angus rides ahead with his mounted men. He doesn’t have as many as the barbarians. Maybe fifty mounted, and ten times that on foot. Sir Julius made it off the wall with around five hundred, and all but fifty of those can march, or in some cases limp into battle. It leaves their side at least a hundred men short, but Sir Angus doesn’t seem worried.

A man on a horse is worth three on the ground he says. Boone doesn’t see how that evens the scale that much, but she doesn’t say that. Sir Angus has enough reasons to dislike her. As much as she covets her new ability to speak her mind, there are times when she must hold her tongue.

Neven marches in the wayward fashion of the untrained. She tries to make up for it by keeping her back straight and walking in the splinted leg manner she’s seen as a child watching soldiers march through the city before heading north to keep barbarians away from the circle. It doesn’t have much of an effect while marching in the middle of her fellow ‘soldiers’ most of whom have never held a sword until less than a week ago. Not even the few red soldiers behind Sir Angus's horses make much of an effort to keep up appearances.

By the time they’re in range of the other army’s strange shield weapons she’s defaulted to her usual cautious stride. Every eye from experienced red soldier to hunched old man or small boy, is fixed on their statue-like enemy. Every eye that is apart from Neven’s.

He’s staring over them, down toward the city wall. She follows his gaze and sees - nothing. The slums burn fierily, wind flicking the flames this way and that. Maybe the fire has figured out it’s trapped there in that place between stone buildings and wall, and it’s trying desperately to escape before it dies.

But he’s not looking at the slums. He’s looking beyond that, eyes tracing back and forth above the far away wall.

“What is it?”

He flinches at the sound, then flinches again as he glances back at the golden road, seeing how close they are to the enemy. His brown eyes hold a complicated tide of emotions she doesn’t know how to interpret. Neven, who she used to think was so simple to work out. When did he become such a stranger to her? Or is it her who changed and became the stranger?

He grabs her arm - her good one she’s glad to see - then slows down his footsteps until they fall to the back of the crowd. It wouldn’t have been easy with a formation like the barbarians have, but in their rough gaggle of men and boys it’s too simple.

“I don’t like this,” he says. “There’s something wrong.”

Relief floods through her. This is something she understands. He’s scared. “It’s a battle Neven. Just fight honourably and everything will be fine.”

She’s heard stories of the King bringing back people who die honourably in battle when he’s able. If they win and their heads remain intact, death might not even be the end. All they have to do is fight loyally.

A bitter thought pops into her head. Her father had served loyally and honourably for years. The King hadn’t brought him back. She tries to shake it away, but it clings like quick mud.

“It’s not that I’m frightened Boone,” Neven says through gritted teeth. “I’m no coward. It’s. Watch above the wall. Watch what flies over it.”

She watches. The lighter debris flies every which way above the flames. A large swatch of what she thinks used to be part of a wall flies abruptly over the city wall, then drifts downward and slowly back over the wall to the flames.

“See.” Neven jabs a finger toward the sight. “That’s what’s wrong. Right there.”

She blinks several times before something clicks. “You said some of the slum materials had magic to make them burn faster.”

Neven nods. “And the city wall lets magic out but-”

“It’s not supposed to let magic in.” She frowns, looking at the barbarian army, trying to fit them into this equation.

The debris is moving in and out of the city walls, even parts that don’t look burned. Maybe this is a coincidence. Maybe the flying pieces are newer without magic, all the other pieces burned. Or maybe Neven’s right and something’s very wrong here. Something to do with why the other army is standing right in the middle of the golden road, far from any cover, and doing nothing.

They haven’t fired yet, even though she’s pretty sure their shields have a better range than most of Sir Angus’s bowmen. Why? Because they want them to come closer. Why?

“The barbarians broke the barrier on the wall,” Neven says, still gripping her arm. “I don’t know why they did that, but if they can break that barrier, then they can break the barrier on the palace wall as well. There’s no protection. They didn’t even leave anyone on the wall. If it breaks, then Ness and the others are as helpless as children.”

If the outer wall is broken, then Neven is right about everything but one detail. The palace does have protection. They’re the palace’s protection. And if she were an invading army, the first thing she’d want to do is take them out.

She knows why they broke the outer wall.

Shrugging Neven’s grip off, she weaves her way through the chaos Sir Angus’s men call a formation. Sir Julius is at the very front with the other horses, riding his white mare beside Sir Angus’s black stallion. A few of the red soldiers on horseback have their bows at the ready, but most of the archers walk between the horses, arrows nocked and waiting for the other side to make a move.

“Sir Julius!” Boone shouts, pushing aside those in her way. They grumble, some snapping at her with tension in their voices.

He’s too far ahead, through both groups of marching men, and in front of all the horses. Cold shoots down her spine. It’s too late.

The barbarians don’t fire from their shields. Their side doesn’t fire their arrows.

Sir Angus calls out a command and the horses charge forward. A heartbeat later the volley of arrows the archers were holding shoot over the horses into the bulk of the enemy. The enemy still doesn’t move.

Boone stops, frozen. Old men and boys push past her, some trembling, but all more eager to chase honour than drop their weapons and run. One boy younger than her shoves her as he passes, calling her a coward.

“Wait,” she says, too late, and too quiet. They don’t wait. They run after the knights. The horses reach the enemy, and the enemy doesn’t move.

Then the enemy does move all at once, as if they’ve practised this a thousand times. They spin like dancers, and raise their shields to avoid the blows from the mounted soldiers. And then everything changes.

Somehow they swap places with the mounted soldiers. Not all of them, but the ones who struck a blow at least. Though as she watches many of the barbarians on the ground disappear between one blink and the next. Barbarians dressed in tan uniform sit on top of the horses, and on the ground stand red uniformed soldiers holding bronze shields. They drop the shields quickly as if scared at what other magic they may possess.

Magic. They broke the outer wall so they could ambush the remaining soldiers with magic.

Sir Angus’s men on foot rush in, pulling the barbarians from the horses and running them through with swords. Something in her lightens at the same moment it clouds over with confusion. Most of the mounted barbarians don’t fight back. They seem surprised at being attacked. Some yell, though she can’t hear the words. Some even seem to plead for their lives.

It’s a mass of fighting and confusion. She should be there, fighting with them. She grips her sword tight, stepping forward.

Neven grabs her, this time by the wrong arm. She shakes him off quickly enough, a thought in the back of her head telling her she’ll have to do something about it at some point. Cure it, cover it, cut it off. It can wait until after the battle. They’re winning, and she knows she should be happy about that, but something’s not right. She knows Neven senses it too.

“Did something go wrong with their magic?” She asks, every muscle in her body humming with the need to run toward battle. If they finish the battle and see her standing here, they’ll label her as coward for the rest of her life. She could lose her chance to be a knight. But one small but warm part of her heart says no. Neven says stay away from the battle. Trust him.

It takes everything she has to keep her feet rooted and listen to that voice.

“Why would they cast a spell, just to move them a few feet?” Neven asks, gripping his own chipped sword in the way she taught him to before starting a fight. His shield is held ready, as if expecting some invisible foe to charge at them.

She turns it over in her head, quickly yet thoroughly. Answer. They wouldn’t. So either the spell was meant to move them further, or - or what? There’s no answer. Irritation burns through her, as bad as the hollow pounding behind her eyes, and the raw choking feeling in her throat that had been there since the fire. This is her battle too. She should be with them, not standing back and looking at this like some impossible puzzle.

“Boone,” Neven says, his voice pleading, already knowing what she’s going to do.

She shakes her head, stalks down the golden road with her father’s sword in one hand and shield hanging from the other. She hopes her cold arm follows her orders this time. There’s a hesitancy in her steps that she can’t justify. She’s just about to shove it aside by forcing herself to run into the mess of people, and swords, and screams in front of her when she sees something.

Not everyone is fighting. A mass of her own men break off from the others, most of them wearing the red uniform of soldiers. Sir Angus leads them, walking up the golden road toward her with purpose in his steps. He walks with a kind of steady grace she associates with high born women who are taught for many years to find that balance between perfect poise and absolute deference. Only the balance is off. The deference is there, but much less than it would be - which makes sense since Sir Angus is no woman. But -