James Lowder - Crusade

Batu met Alusair's gaze, and a curious smile worked across his lips. After a feint to drive the dwarves back, the general held the sword's point to his stomach. He softly repeated three names-Wu, Yo, and Ji-and fell forward. Batu didn't even cry out as the bright steel pierced through his armor and impaled him.

Other dwarves, hefting their silver-bladed pikes, were now charging toward the disturbance. The khan's original guards, still holding their swords, examined the general's body to see if he were truly dead. Satisfied that the suicide had been successful, they left the body where it lay and turned their attention to their fallen comrade.

The ever-efficient dwarves swiftly carried the dead guard away to be interred in the communal cairn they were building, and Alusair looked up from Batu Min Ho's corpse. The khan's strange, final words ran through her mind over and over again, and she wondered who or what he had called for in his final moment. In fact, the death took such command of her thoughts that the princess didn't realize she had walked far into the Alliance's lines until she was hundreds of yards from the flank.

She found Farl talking quietly to a dark-haired man clad in a muddied sky-blue tunic and hose. Where the color stood out on this man's clothes, it presented a stark contrast to the other soldiers' dark tunics or their leather or steel armor. Both men bowed formally when Alusair came near. "Any word of my father?" she asked.

The blue-clad man bowed again, an act that tossed his ponytail over his shoulder. "Your Highness, I am Thom Reaverson, the king's bard and royal historian. I just came from His Highness. The clerics have healed the arrow wound, but he is still unconscious."

"That's not what I hoped to hear," the princess replied, "but it's certainly not the worst news I've had today." The bard smiled warmly at her, and Alusair found herself returning the gesture. "Could you go back to my father's side and keep me apprised?" she asked after a moment.

"Of course," Thom said. "I'll look for you near the Cormyrian standard, Your Highness." He hurried off at a jog toward the Alliance's camp.

Alusair didn't watch him go, however. As soon as the bard had been assigned his task, the princess moved on to other matters. "What's the army's status, Farl?"

After leading the way to a pair of rickety canvas-and-wood camp chairs set up around a nearby fire, the infantry commander gave his report. The Tuigan attack had cut the Alliance's number by half. With only a handful of exceptions, the cavalry had been wiped out, and a third of the wizards had been killed or wounded in the fighting. "I've got the men gathering the dead," Farl reported, "but I'm afraid it's a monumental task."

A quick scan of the battlefield revealed hundreds of torches flickering in the darkness outside the Alliance's lines. These torches illuminated the field for the details sent to retrieve western corpses and search for the wounded. So far, no body found outside the lines proved to be alive; the Tuigan had trampled most of the corpses in their retreat. A low moan continually hovered over the western camp as the injured and the grieving vented their sorrow together.

A sick feeling settled in the princess's stomach as she considered the situation. She rested her elbows on her knees and bowed her head in thought. "Pull three-quarters of the troops off corpse detail," she ordered at last. "I want them breaking down what remains of the Alliance's camp. We should be ready to move if the need arises."

Farl frowned. "But the corpses of our soldiers-"

"— will be of no use to us now," the princess sighed. She noted the shocked look on the general's face and added, "The gods will certainly understand if the heroes who died fighting here are not given the proper burial rites."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"When that's done, organize the remainder of the troops into three shifts. I want the men rested up in case the Tuigan come back," Alusair ordered calmly. "One shift of the three should remain alert, waiting for the horsewarriors, while the others sleep."

Nodding, Farl looked around at the Alliance's lines. "I've already started on that, Your Highness. If the men weren't so frightened, they might be easier to command." He paused and looked into the fire. "I–I share their concern, Princess. I don't think we have the strength to make another stand here."

A pressure had begun to weigh upon Alusair the moment she'd discovered her father was injured, the moment she'd been forced to take command of the army. The princess felt that pressure increase now. Her shoulders tight and her stomach in knots, she placed her hand on the general's arm.

"Then we'd best be ready to move by midnight," she said softly. "Perhaps we can find a more defensible place to the west."

Farl didn't reply at first. Eventually he stood and bowed. "I'll see that your orders are carried out." He paused, then added, "I'm glad you're here, Princess. I don't know how the men would have reacted to your father's injury if you hadn't taken command."

Alusair appreciated Farl's compliment, but the notion that she was one of the only things holding the Alliance together frightened her. She realized then that it was this responsibility that weighed so heavily upon her. Running a hand through her knotted blond hair, Alusair wondered if this pressure was what her father felt every day.

To take her mind off that and other thoughts, she established a makeshift command headquarters in the midst of the western lines. Despite this effort, the princess found that, once she'd set the army to its various tasks, there was little for her to do but wait and think and watch the bright bonfires that had sprung up around the battlefield. Those fires, which might have been the center for a rustic celebration in Cormyr, were the resting place for the western dead. One by one, corpses were hefted onto the blazing pyres, their souls sent to the afterlife unceremoniously on clouds of foul-smelling smoke.

The funeral pyres brought more unwelcome contemplation, and she was attempting to force her mind away from various morbid topics when she heard a spent arrow snap beneath someone's foot. Glancing behind her, the princess saw Thom Reaverson, a smile on his young face. At the bard's side was another man, dressed in a heavy black robe, its hood concealing his face.

"Hello, Allie," the hooded man said.

Alusair sprang to her feet and threw her arms around her father. When the king groaned, the princess backed up a step. From where she stood, Alusair could see Azoun's pale face and haggard expression. She also noted for the first time that he leaned heavily to his left upon a walking stick.

Before his daughter could say a word, the king held up his right hand. "Thom told me you were here, so I came to see you." He shifted his weight on his leg, trying to get comfortable. "I just wanted to tell you I'm all right, and I wanted to see how you fared in the battle. I was. . worried."

The king didn't need to explain the disguise. After seeing how ill her father looked, Alusair could guess the reason for it. "You don't want the men to see you when you're so weak," she said quietly.

Azoun nodded. "In the morning, after I've rested, I'll return from the dead, their triumphant hero." Alusair could not miss the note of self-scorn in those words. She wanted to comfort her father, but he'd already placed his hand on Thom's shoulder and turned to go.

"Wait!" the princess gasped, running a few steps to get beside Azoun. "What are we supposed to do until morning?"

The king cocked his head, and Alusair thought she saw a little color flush back into his face. "Thom told me that you've taken command until I get better," he said, pride bolstering his weak voice. "And from what I hear you're doing everything I would." He hobbled a step, then stopped and added, "I'd move the troops tonight, though. We'll have a better chance of putting some distance between us and the Tuigan under cover of darkness." Thom cast a sympathetic glance at the princess, then the king and the bard moved on.