Enchanting the King (The Beauty's Beast Fantasy Series) (10 page)

Their breastplates were old-fashioned leather ones, dyed that ghastly red, more like sturdy vests, really. Philippe had forbidden them real chain mail, and Aliénor rather thought he was right about that. They weren’t strong enough to wear that heavy stuff—she’d rather they be able to move.
To run
. Beneath their brave red breastplates they all wore plain-colored split-skirts for riding and their sturdiest boots.

Violette toyed with the dagger at her side, drawing it in and out.

Aliénor reached over and gently squeezed her handmaiden’s hands to get her to stop her fidgets. “It’ll be all right.”

The girl pursed her lips but nodded. She didn’t look like an Amazon. She looked like a child playing dress-up, frightened and queasy. Aliénor felt the same. Noémi was the only one among them who wore her armor as easily as she had worn her gowns. Once they were all dressed, the stout handmaiden had settled back into sewing with never a pause, looking completely unruffled. Aliénor deeply envied Noémi her poise in this moment.

The wagon rolled over a large rock, making Aliénor sway and throw a hand out to steady herself. They all tilted a little as the wagon rolled its way up a steep hill, ever further into the mountains. Aliénor fisted her hand against her knee but then forced herself to uncurl her fingers, trying to calm the ragged hammering of her heart.

But even as she did, a piercing cry filled the air. Not of fear, but of fury. A loud wail.

The three women in the wagon jumped. Violette uttered a small shriek and buried her face against Noémi’s shoulder. The men outside cried out, their voices dulled by the heavy wooden walls of the wagon.

Aliénor crawled forward, tossing aside the decorative pillows as she moved. She called out to her driver, a stout sailor from her island. “Michel, what’s happening?” She could only just see the red hillside looming ahead through the gauzy curtains that divided her women from the outside world.

Beads of sweat poured down Michel’s temples, and he half-turned, his face screwed up in fear. “Some shrieking barbarian on a horse came tearing down out of the hillside, swinging that curved sword of hers like a madwoman. She tore right into our line of men.”

“A woman?”

“Ay, these Tiochene even make their women fight, my lady.”

Aliénor swallowed. “Just the one warrior?”

“Yes, my lady.”

No arrows yet, and no spell-casting, either. “Is she dead?”

Michel shook his head, his face pale. “No, that’s the worst of it. She rode straight up and lopped off one of our own lads’ heads, then went tearing off back up the hillside. Gone out of sight, and none of us dare follow.”

“No.” That would surely lead to an ambush. Aliénor pressed a clammy palm to her throat, her pulse pounding.

“
Aieeeeeeeee.
” The hills around them erupted with sound. This time it was many voices, all screaming as one. The whole hillside seemed to vibrate around Aliénor, as if the very rocks and sand were screaming for the blood of the Jerdic army.

Something dull thumped against the wagon’s side, and then another
thump
and another until it sounded almost like raindrops falling.

“Michel, what is—?”

Michel let out a low, pained grunt and toppled sideways off his horse.

Thomas and his men had stopped to water and rest their mounts. The first sounds of battle reached them even as he rechecked the straps of his horse’s bridle. He and his men were still close enough to the mountains that the cries of the soldiers could faintly reach their ears, but the terrible sounds were faint, far away. They could have been bad memories or half-remembered nightmares.

Except they aren’t
. Thomas stood braced, staring at the hard line of the mountains behind them as if he could send himself there through sheer will.

“What are we going to do, Your Highness?” Godric asked.

Thomas tensed all over, as if his body were straining to go without permission from his mind.
How can I ask it of them?
After he’d led his men into disaster once, how could he ask this of them again?

“They wouldn't have helped
us
,” Ned murmured, but loudly enough so all could hear.

Godric wheeled toward the boy, his nostrils flaring with indignation. “Which is why we should lend Jerdun our aid and teach them better manners.”

Thomas drew close to Llewellyn. “What do you think of all this, my friend?”

“I think it is a fine bit of foolishness, and we might all be killed.” Llewellyn’s lips gave a wry twist, and his eyes were sad. “But I don't see that there is anything else you can do. This is who you are.”

“An incompetent leader? A vainglorious fool?”

“A good man.” Llewellyn turned at the words and swung into the saddle of his own horse, taking it for granted what order his king would give. “Better to die in battle than starve in the desert anyway, eh?” His eyes twinkled with the light of adventure.

Thomas puffed out a pained laugh. “Mount up, men.”

As the wagon driver’s dead body rolled off the lead horse, Aliénor gritted her teeth to keep a scream back. She crept forward and peered out, everything in her vibrating with sick fear.

A rain of lethal arrows battered her husband’s army. Each arrow found its mark with deadly accuracy, which made her believe they were guided by supernatural means. She watched men fall all around through the gauzy curtain that divided her from the world. It felt unreal, almost dreamlike, watching the arrows punch their way into the men, watching the men fold up like forgotten dolls.

The wagon horses sidled in their traces, their eyes rolling over white with fear. The fact that the arrows kept missing her horses also seemed to argue for magical intervention. She was sure these desert raiders could use good mounts.

Another shriek of fury washed down from the mountains as hundreds of their enemies bellowed at them from the hilltops. The wagon trembled.
An earthquake?

But no. The Tiochene emerged from the hills at last, pouring down to rush the line of Philippe’s army. The raiders rode furry, stocky little ponies that moved like the wind, and they carried thick, short bows that they fired from their horses’ backs. Their arrows sang through the air with a precision that made Aliénor shiver. Most of the warriors wore heavy wool tunics in various bright colors. Some had strange scale-like armor all over their bodies. Others wore northern chain mail likely looted from King Thomas’s poor dead soldiers.

Several riders lifted their arms high, their hands glowing, full of spell-fire. As the first of the Tiochene spell-casters hurled their deadly curses, she closed her eyes. But she could not shut her ears to the screams of the soldiers, the crackle of flame as men were burned alive.
Just like Thomas said
.

The wagon lurched forward, and one of the horses whinnied.

Aliénor swallowed and forced herself to move.

“My lady, come back inside!” Noémi cried.

Holding her breath, Aliénor slithered out of the safety of the wagon’s back compartment to huddle atop the empty driver’s seat. It was like swimming up from the quiet of underwater to the surface to find the world in chaos above her. For a moment she could only sit stunned, bombarded by the screams and cries as the men around her grappled with one another. The arrows had stopped, and most of the spell-fire. The Tiochene hacked their way through the line of surviving Jerdic soldiers now, the foreign warriors faster and fiercer than anything she’d ever seen.

Small spells still sounded occasionally with flashes and booms around her. Screams rose from a clump of Jerdic soldiers as a fiery cloud engulfed them, setting fire to their surcoats and hair. Heat blasted Aliénor’s face, and one of the horses on her wagon half reared in its traces.

The path ahead was a tangle of fresh bodies, horses and men jostling and swiping at each other, blood splashing on the path and against the men. Her wagon horses shrieked again, and the wagon rocked as one of them kicked out at a jostling pair of soldiers who came too near. Her personal complement of guards was either dead or locked into the melee ahead of them on the road.

Tears stung her eyes.
Papa’s songs never spoke of this.
Even from a distance she could tell Michel was quite dead, one arrow through his eye and another in his neck. She hovered on the edge of the wagon seat. Either she needed to go out and get the reins from Michel’s body, or she and her ladies needed to leave this wagon. Neither option appealed. Still, nerves jangling, she eased her way forward, ready to hop down.

A Tiochene warrior came roaring up. He slashed at one of the horse’s sides, and the animal screamed and pitched forward to run. The other horses, alarmed, stampeded forward too. She tipped backward and might have fallen straight off the wagon had not her two ladies reached out to grip her arms.

The wagon rocked and lolled, wallowing over the bodies in the road, and then it burst forward at a breakneck speed. The panicked horses kicked their way through the chaos to a small strip of clear land just off the road, and then they
flew
. Aliénor jolted upward in her seat as the horses fought their panicked way over rocks and small hillocks of sand, trying to escape the chaos of the battle. Without a driver, there was no way to regain control of them. Aliénor didn’t quite have the courage to attempt a leap onto one of their backs in this wild, tumbling run.

She held on, her muscles screaming protest as she fought to keep her seat amidst the pitching, bumping path the horses led them on. They rolled over another large rock and her teeth jarred together. Beneath her a crack sounded, and the wagon suddenly listed to one side.

“The axle!” Noémi cried from the back of the wagon.

Another large rock loomed ahead, and their wildly bumping, tilted wagon was about to sideswipe it. The horses could dodge around, but the wounded carriage was going to hit it almost head-on.

“Hold on!” Aliénor threw herself into the safety of the back compartment. She rolled herself into a tight ball and prayed her other ladies did likewise. With a terrible crash, the wagon collided with the boulder.

Thomas and his men made good time riding back toward doom and disaster. The mountain pass and the river road paralleled each other a good bit of the way. Soon enough, Thomas could hear the chaos of the battle, although he had yet to see any Tiochene or Jerdic soldiers. Not even dead bodies.

He called a halt and rode with several of his men a little ways off the road to huddle in the bushes while they held counsel on what was best to be done. His nerves twitched and his body ached, wanting to be moving, wanting to be doing. But it was no good riding headlong into the battle. They needed some sort of plan. Thomas crouched in a small circle among his men. “All right, Llewellyn, do you think you’re strong enough to create the distraction alone?”

“Since that is our only option, I will do what I must.”

Thomas pressed his friend’s shoulder. “Without injuring yourself?” Llewellyn was known to try his strength too far, even to the point of illness and collapse.

Llewellyn snorted. “Do not worry about me, my king. It will be a strain, and I don’t know how I can create something big enough alone, but perhaps I can—”

A low, animal grunt sounded from the brush to their right, and a shaggy-furred brown bear reared onto his hind quarters. He was a massive, heavily muscled brute with large, powerful paws as big as Thomas’s head and claws half again as long.

Llewellyn slammed his hand onto Thomas’s shoulder. He and Godric yanked Thomas back, dragging him through the dirt, away from the bear.

The beast’s head swung round and surveyed them, but he did not charge. The animal only sat there staring at them, tilting his head to the side to scrutinize them in a very un-bear-like way. Llewellyn frowned and eased closer to the bear, his own head cocked in a fascination that almost mirrored the beast’s.

“Llewellyn…” Thomas reached for his friend’s arm to haul the damn idiot back.

Llewellyn sat back on his heels with a short, somehow bitter laugh. “Mistress Helen, is this your work?” he called out softly.

The bear slammed down onto all fours, then lowered himself to lie on the ground, like nothing so much as a tame dog. Brush crackled away to their left, and Thomas whirled around to watch Mistress Helen pick her way through the heavy bushes toward them.

Dirt and streaks of blood smudged her pale skin, and her hair was a dark cloud of tangles. She grinned as she approached them. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were farther along the road, and I should never catch up to you.”

“Impressive work with the bear,” Llewellyn murmured.

Mistress Helen waved that away. “With all the soldiers occupied, I needed some way to defend myself.” She clasped her hands together then and gazed beseechingly at Thomas. “Please, please, gentle king, give me one of your horses and get me out of here.”

Thomas recoiled, and eyed the witch up and down in surprise. “You would abandon your army? Your prince?”

Her face contorted, her lip curling in a sneer. “King Thomas, you've already watched the slaughter of one army. What makes you want to watch another?”

Thomas reared back, as startled as if she had slapped him. Where was her loyalty? Her compassion? “We are going back to save what men we can, or die trying.”

“They're all dead already, and you will be too if you keep riding.” The blood witch had been walking toward them. Now she stopped and braced her weight on her heels, poised as if to run. Thomas felt Llewellyn tense beside him, watching the woman.

Thomas kept speaking, hoping to keep her attention on him. “Nevertheless, we mean to continue. I hope you will help us.”

“What? A poor, feeble woman like me? Oh no, my king. I cannot. I've no strength left.” A scimitar-sharp smile crossed her face, and her gaze flicked toward the bear. Behind them, the bear rolled onto his hind legs and voiced a low, rumbling growl. The blood witch wheeled around as if to run.

Llewellyn flung his hands up, magic coiled around his hands, pooling against his palms like liquid fire. “No, you don’t.” He flung the spell like a snowball and it thwacked gently into the bear’s chest. The witch let out a shriek of outrage even as Godric caught her by the shoulders and banded his beefy arms around her body.