Enchanting the King (The Beauty's Beast Fantasy Series) (11 page)

The bear sat there blinking a long moment, the spell soaking into his fur like water. The animal swung his head around, unsteady as a drunkard, and looked at Llewellyn. Llewellyn made a small flicking gesture with his hand. “
Go
.”

The bear slammed onto all fours again and took off running. The brush crashed and swayed at his retreat. As Thomas approached, Mistress Helen squirmed and thrashed in Godric’s arms, but the large knight had her securely pinned. Her face was parchment-white with outrage and fear. Though Thomas was closer, her burning gaze fixed itself firmly on Llewellyn. “You're a spell-caster.”

“Mistress Helen,” Thomas murmured, “meet my royal magician, Master Llewellyn.”

Llewellyn made a small bow as he eyed the blood witch in assessment. For her part, Mistress Helen let out a high keen of rage and redoubled her efforts to break Godric’s hold on her. “
Fools
. You’re all fools riding back to that slaughter. Leave
me
out of it.”

Thomas drew close, and—though he did not like touching her—he turned her chin gently toward him so she could look at his face. “Come along now, Mistress Helen, let us see what can be done for your army, eh?”

The blood witch spat on him.

Aliénor’s head buzzed and she slowly woke up, groggy, her body aching. She stared around, wondering how the wagon’s pillows had come to be so scattered about.
Why is there blood on the walls?

“Aliénor.” Philippe’s voice. He tucked his hands under her arms and tugged. She wished he wouldn’t. Everything in her ached, and her head felt woozy.

“
Damn you
. Help me get her out,” Philippe snarled. More hands, more pulling, and a sort of weightless sensation as she was lifted up. Screams and cries still filled the air, but they sounded farther away, distant.
The battle
. The sun stung her eyes as the men carried her from the wagon. Philippe had about two dozen of his soldiers surrounding them. The wagon was a broken wreck. The horses gone. “Noémi? Violette?”

“Can you walk?”

Aliénor touched her aching head and gasped when her fingers came away bloody.

“Dammit.” Philippe hefted her awkwardly in his arms and took off at a trot over the sand. She blinked and stared into her husband’s face as he shot her a harried look, fear lurking in his eyes. He stumbled once and nearly dropped her. “Aliénor, I need you to walk.”

“I…think I can.”

He set her down at once, and she wobbled on her feet to be so abruptly standing, but she didn’t fall. The battle did lie behind them, but not far. Any moment some of the Tiochene warriors might break free to pursue them up the road.

“You’ll ride with me, Aliénor. We must
go
.”

Even as he said the words, some half dozen Tiochene plowed into the line of his men, cutting them down, breaking the protective line. “
Go!”
Philippe grabbed her arm and jerked her along after him toward his horses. A group of Tiochene rushed forward, cutting off Aliénor and Philippe’s route to their mounts. Philippe slid to a stop, breathing hard, eyes frantic.

Aliénor yanked on his arm. “The river.”

“What?”

She tugged on him, trying to get him to move with her. “Their spells won’t work over water. Maybe we can swim downstream. Get away.”

He wheeled about, towing her along behind him. The two of them cut over the long mountain road and stumbled down a rough patch of hillside. Slipping and sliding in the loose dirt, rocks cutting into her feet, Aliénor could hear more Tiochene yelling behind them. Following them, it sounded like. Sweat beaded at her temples. Her Amazon armor cut into her thighs and armpits as she ran. Philippe held her hand painfully tight as they made their frantic stumble down the hill, but she gripped him back just as hard.

Water gurgled ahead, the sound like music, and her heart clenched.
Please, oh please
.

More shouting behind. A skitter of pebbles banged into her ankles, and she dared to turn around. A half dozen Tiochene had chased them this far. They too were jumping and sliding their way down the treacherous hillside. Philippe shoved her ahead of him as the silver glimmer of the river came in sight.

Aliénor rushed into the stream, the water sloshing over her ankles, then her knees. It was still so cold, like a slap that shocked her to breathlessness. Dizzy, off-balance, she teetered on her feet and reached back for Philippe’s arm. He wasn’t there. “Philippe, come on—” When she looked back, Philippe had not followed her. He stood a few feet behind, guarding her back, and drew his sword as the Tiochene came on toward them. Aliénor’s heart throbbed inside her like someone had squeezed it in their fist.

Philippe squared his shoulders. “I surrender and demand ransom. I am the Prince of—”

One of the Tiochene lifted his short bow before Philippe could finish and put an arrow neatly through her husband’s neck.

Aliénor screamed. Philippe’s hands pawed futilely at his neck, trying to stop the bleeding or wrench out the arrow. He folded up facedown on the ground, his blood soaking into the damp earth of the riverside.

The archer drew his bow again, aiming for Aliénor. She flung herself backward into the river, letting the water rush over her face and body. The arrow sliced into the waves, nicking her arm. Too befuddled to swim well, Aliénor stayed under but clung to the roots of one of the trees snuggled up to the water and worked her careful way downstream. This area of the river was heavy with bushes and trees that had been swamped by the river’s rising levels the night before. Carefully, hidden by the screen of a half-submerged bush, she lifted her head to survey the shore.

Several Tiochene stood by the riverside, arguing amongst themselves. The archer pointed angrily down the river in Aliénor’s direction, though they couldn’t seem to tell that she was still close. A female Tiochene wearing ornate robes stepped forward and held her cupped hands in front of her. Spell-light gathered in her palms. The woman rolled her hands as if she were making a dough ball, then flung the accumulated magic toward the river. Aliénor flinched as the spell drifted in her direction. But as the magic sailed over the water, the spell seemed to unravel. The light dissipated, and the spell-caster turned to her fellow Tiochene with a shrug. The archer stamped his feet angrily, then motioned for everyone to follow him back up the hillside toward the battle. They left Philippe where he lay, facedown in the dirt.

Aliénor waited, heart hammering, for them to walk out of sight up the hill. She worked her way back down the riverside, pulling herself from one submerged tree to another. At last, she dragged her sodden, shaking body out of the water toward her husband. “
Philippe
.”

He was still alive when she turned him over. His skin was clammy. He fastened his gaze on her, eyes wide with fear, his face ghastly pale. His mouth moved, but only blood leaked out.

She caught his hands and clasped them tight, her vision blurring with shocked tears. “I’m here, Philippe. I’m here.” Her voice sounded thick, cracking. She shook her head, pushing the wild tangle of emotions back. She smoothed her husband’s dark hair and held his gaze as his limbs stopped flailing, as the light in his eyes died away. She wrapped her arms around him. Philippe closed his eyes and rattled his last breath out against her heart.

She held him for another moment, feeling dizzy, storm-tossed, as if the whole world were spinning around her, whooshing, roaring. Faintly she heard a trumpet sound somewhere in the distance, but she couldn’t think what it meant.

As the heavy metallic smell of blood dug its way into her senses, her gut roiled. She eased back, laying Philippe against the ground. Her armor was almost entirely stained now with his blood. Her skirts clung wetly to her skin, the blood and river water mingling to turn the fabric pink. Her hands were bright red, sticky with his drying blood.

Her mouth burned, and she crawled sideways a few feet to vomit away from his…body.
Oh Fate spare me. Oh please
. The ground was sharp with rocks and over-hot, but she wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and lie there until the world slowed down. Until her life made sense again.

Cloth rustled beside her, and she startled away from something glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. As she tumbled backward onto her rump, Violette loomed above her. Only Violette. “My lady?” Tear tracks shimmered on the young girl’s face, and she cradled her wrist against her belly. “Are you all right?”

No
. Aliénor’s stomach clenched as savage emotions whipped through her, shaking her head to toe. Her gut hurt holding it all back, and she gasped for breath as more hot tears burned her eyes. The walls of her mind might have been caving in. She felt wild and numb and utterly lost.

“My lady?” Violette sounded terribly young and frightened.

Aliénor shook herself. “Yes, yes. I’m fine.”
All right
.
Enough
. The Tiochene might be back at any time. Her hands shook as she used her own damp skirts to mop what blood she could off her hands. She swallowed and set one hand on the ground, using the other to dash the last of the wetness from her eyes. Scuttling across the ground on all fours, wet, dirty, what a picture she must make. Philippe would be scandalized—

The thought slashed at her chest like a sword wound. Philippe would never be anything. Never again. She closed her eyes, but the image of his body flashed through her mind at once. His eyes emptying, the fear on his face as his life bled away.
Oh Philippe
.

“My lady?” Violette knelt beside Aliénor, and the younger girl’s chin trembled, though she tried so bravely not to cry.

A loud blast of trumpet sounded again, startling Aliénor into standing. “What was that?” Her heart felt twisted and raw, like a garment wrung out after a hard wash in the river.

Violette shook her head—she’d seen Philippe’s body and was now sobbing too hard to speak well. She pointed up the hill.

“Is it safe?”

Violette nodded and rubbed her cheek against the shoulder of her gown to wipe the tears away in a heartbreakingly childlike gesture.

Right
. Aliénor composed her own face, and if it felt like she was holding herself together with only her bare hands—and that not very well—it didn’t matter. Her legs were still uncertain as she moved. Still, she worked her way up the hillside with Violette. The sun beat hot against Aliénor’s back, drying her clothes and warming her armor until sweat beaded against her chest to trickle between her breasts.

As they crested the hill, she forced herself to look back at the mountain pass, then had to swallow sickness down as she did. The Tiochene had fled, yes, but they had left seemingly all of her husband’s army dead behind them. The men who hadn’t been killed with arrows and swords had been burned with the horrible spell-fire. Bodies of soldiers and horses littered the ground. Now that the fighting had stopped, vultures were already landing. Aliénor looked away when the carrion birds began to feed.

Violette’s good hand crept into Aliénor’s. “My lady, what are we to do?”

That brave, bright trumpet sounded again, and Aliénor turned in the direction of the faraway call. Once she did, she found it very hard to look away again from such a sweet sight. Shimmering in the distance like a heat mirage, the proud line of an army approached. No Tiochene army either. These were men of the colonies, men of Anutitum perhaps. It might even be her cousin leading them. She hugged her arms around her belly and drank in the faraway vision. “Was this why the Tiochene left?”

“Yes.”

Then this could be no fevered heat dream, for the Tiochene had seen the army as well and fled. Aliénor glanced sidelong at Violette and softened her voice. “How—how did you survive?”

Violette sucked in a long, ragged breath. “We were in the wagon, and we heard the fighting outside. Noémi hurt her head in the wagon, or opened the wound on her head again from the storm.”

“Yes?”

“Anyway, her head was bleeding very badly, and she reached over and smeared some on my face too. Then she whispered for me to lie still and quiet. Play dead. The Tiochene were…well, it took them a long time to…to deal with Philippe’s guards. After that, they only glanced inside the wagon. Everything was all tossed about, you see.
We
had a terrible time getting out without help. They would probably have had a difficult time crawling in. I think they were all too tired after the battle to try.”

Aliénor reached over and squeezed Violette’s good hand. “I’m so glad you’re all right. And Noémi?”

“Yes, yes. She didn’t feel up to the hill to check on you and Prince—to find you.”

Aliénor swallowed. “I understand.” She gave Violette’s hand a small tug, toward the wreck of the wagon.

The colonial army still shone like a beacon on the horizon, though they seemed no closer yet. “We must ride out to meet the army. Is Noémi strong enough to ride?”

“Yes. Like me. My lady, we want to get
out
of here.”

“All right.” The weight of responsibility settled on Aliénor like an over-heavy cloak. “All right.”

“The Tiochene have almost all cleared out now,” Godric reported as he peered over the edge of the rock they sheltered behind.

“Any sign of survivors?” Thomas asked, although he had little hope of it.
Too late. Too late again to be any use to anyone
. The Tiochene were swift and thorough.

Godric peered anxiously around the vast mountain road then swallowed. “None…none yet, my lord.”

“Can I drop this bloody glamour then?” Mistress Helen snapped, her fingers twitching as if she meant to do that very thing.

“You will hold that glamour until we are certain the Tiochene have gone.”

Mistress Helen’s lip curled at Thomas with dislike, but she continued plucking and strumming at the air above her as if playing an invisible lute. Beside her, Llewellyn sat with his eyes closed. Thomas could almost imagine his friend was sleeping except for the tense lines etched on Llewellyn’s face and the sweat beading on his brow.

“How are you holding up, Llewellyn?” Thomas whispered.