The battle spread out on the plains before them, the closest line of men less than half a league away. Therrador shifted in his saddle and surveyed the men with him. They looked tired. He’d necessarily pushed them and their horses hard to get here-and straight after the fight at the fortress-but he had no other choice. The battle for their country had already begun without them and, if it was lost, the kingdom would be lost along with it. And his son.
If he still lives.
The soldiers looked back at him, awaiting his orders, and he wondered if any of them doubted their traitor-king, or if he’d shown enough to win back their loyalty. He narrowed his eyes, tried to look into their souls; none of them faltered, none of them looked away from his gaze.
“This is all we have, my friends,” Therrador said, his voice low, intense. “There is only this battle and nothing more. If we defeat the witch and her troops, the kingdom is ours. Our kingdom. Your wives will live, your sons will carry on your names. If we do not, none will survive her rule.”
The men stared at him and he saw in them hatred of the enemy and the fire of battle, and he knew they were his. Therrador drew his sword and thrust it in the air.
“For Erechania!”
The steel of eleven swords sang against leather.
“For Erechania!” the soldiers responded.
Therrador spurred his horse on, trotting first, then urging it into a canter, then a gallop. He heard the rumble of his fellows following, the cadence of the hoof beats reaffirming his determination to make right his transgressions.
He thought about Graymon as he rode with the wind blowing flakes of snow on his cheeks to melt like tears. He thought of the boy’s smile, of his little boy laugh and the devious, mischievous look he would get in his eye. Then he thought of Seerna, his dear wife, taken from him before her time, and wondered if it was the Gods who took her, or the witch. He gritted his teeth and leaned forward in the saddle.
Finally, he thought of Braymon, his fallen king and lost friend. His memory brought pain to his heart; at the end of it all, the fault for King Braymon’s death lay with him and no one else. He’d allowed himself to be manipulated instead of trusting his closest friend. And again, behind it all stood the witch.
By the time Therrador reached the first Kanosee soldier, his blood was at a boil. He bellowed a primal cry from the bottom of his gut, using it to gain the man’s attention so he would see his death coming on horseback. The enemy soldier turned, and Therrador had a fraction of a second to see the blood on his face and the blank look in his eyes before the king’s sword flashed, separating the man’s head from his body.
Therrador reined his horse in and hefted the sword; wielding it felt more comfortable-not yet natural, but more comfortable. He swung at another man, removing the soldier’s arm, then swiped a gash across the chest of a third.
The thrill of battle fortified Therrador and his sword rose and fell again and again, slashing, swiping, stabbing. The sweat of exertion formed on his brow, the ache of a muscle not accustomed to such use developed in his shoulder, but he set his jaw and pushed on.
The yells of his men sounded in his ears, cheering each other as they cut down the enemy, warning their fellows of an approaching threat; in contrast, their foe-men were strangely quiet. No cries of pain, no grunts of effort, no begging for mercy. Another soldier fell upon Therrador, then another. He hacked and slashed, defended and attacked; somewhere, in the back of his soldier’s mind, he wondered why they’d encountered so many foot soldiers yet so far from the battle, why they were so quiet.
He realized the answer when he faced the one-armed man.
Therrador stopped mid-swing and narrowed his eyes: the same soldier he’d met earlier. The king had cut off the man’s arm himself, seen him fall to be trampled to death beneath the hooves of his horse, yet he fought again like he had no more than a scratch.
How is that possible?
More soldiers pushed in behind him and, for the first time, Therrador saw Erechanian armor amongst the Kanosee, and the same blank stare on all of their faces.
The king’s eyes grew wide.
She’s raised the dead.
He hacked down the one-armed man, then turned his horse to see how his men fared. In the focus of battle, Therrador had seen nothing but the enemies threatening his life. Now, he saw the sea of the dead-Erechanians and Kanosee alike-risen from the battlefield to swarm them.
One of his men had already been cut down, his frightened horse bolting from the field. Therrador saw another pulled off his horse by six undead soldiers who clawed at him until he fell from the saddle and onto their blades. Two of his attackers wore Erechanian armor.
The dead were everywhere.
“Press on, men. It’s all or nothing. If we don’t die here, we die in a dungeon cell.” Therrador slashed at a hand grasping for him and pivoted in his saddle to face the man.
He looked down into the watery blue eyes of Sir Matte Eliden.
“Matte?”
The old knight looked wasted, his eyes sunken deep into his head, his cheek bones prominent. As they faced each other, Therrador saw a maggot crawl out of his nose and into his mouth. The king shivered.
For an instant, it seemed as though Eliden recognized the man he’d fought beside for the last two decades, then his mouth opened in a strangled growl and he swung his sword. Therrador caught the blow with his blade and coaxed his horse back a step. Dead or not, the king struggled with the idea of putting steel to a soldier so faithful and loyal in life.
He heard the scream of one of his men succumbing to the undead soldiers’ greater numbers, then another hollered for assistance. Sir Matte advanced at Therrador, slashing the air between them with his sword as the sounds of yet another man falling reached the king’s ears.
So this is it then.
Therrador’s lips thinned to a flat line as he clenched his jaw, preparing to remove Sir Matte’s head. He cocked his arm back, steadied his sword to deliver the blow, when a sudden swirl of snow blew around on him on a blast of warm wind from overhead. The dead man he once called friend raised his eyes to the sky as a shadow fell over them.
The red dragon passed twenty feet above Therrador’s head, the flap of its massive wings stirring the air with enough force to put them both off balance. The king gaped at it for a second; he’d never believed the legends that such beasts truly existed; he’d thought them the product of a fanciful imagination. Until now.
More of the witch’s trickery.
Without further thought to it, Therrador released Sir Matte to the fields of the dead with a swipe of his sword to the old knight’s neck. His head toppled off and his body hit the ground at the same instant the dragon touched down on the field ahead of them, its weight making the earth rumble.
The beast reared back on its hind legs, threw its head up toward the sky and released a deafening roar before coming down on all four taloned feet. When it settled, Therrador saw the man seated on the dragon’s back. He wore no armor, only a white shirt, black breeches, and a dark cloak around his shoulders.
A mirrored mask hid the dragonrider’s features.
Chapter Twenty-Five
They’d found a horse large enough to accommodate both Khirro and Graymon, but the only other beast they’d located was the wayward donkey, and it struggled under Emeline and Iana’s weight. Graymon bounced in the saddle, his arms wrapped around Khirro’s waist, while the donkey followed behind, slowing them, its lead tethered to the horse.
The battle will be done before we arrive.