R. Salvatore - The Bear

Bannagran didn't flinch.

"And Gwydre your queen?"

Again, the Bear didn't respond.

"What for Ethelbert dos Entel, then?" the laird asked.

"A shining and wondrous city on the Mirianic Coast, with the full support of Delaval and Pryd and Vanguard and the Order of Blessed Abelle," Bannagran promised.

Kirren Howen paused and considered the words for a long while. "My trusted generals and friends," he said at length, and both Myrick and Tyne leaned toward him. "Do spread the word that all quarter is to be given."

For what seemed like a thousand heartbeats, not a sound could be heard about Laird Kirren Howen and the stunning proclamation.

"And tend the wounded," he continued, and he looked at Bannagran as he finished, "of both sides."

Bannagran walked his chariot beside Kirren Howen's horse and held forth his hand. "I have not forgotten our alliance in the east against the powries," he said.

"Nor have I," Kirren Howen replied, and he took Bannagran's hand. As if from very far away, Bransen heard the cheers around Milwellis, heard the laird himself calling for more volleys into the copse.

Bransen held on tightly and concentrated on his soul stone, holding steady his life energy. He managed to glance about, the branches crackling with flames behind him and skipping arrows all about him. He noted the carnage he had wrought this ugly day.

He had killed hundreds and wounded hundreds more.

He held to Gwydre's words, her promise, and the thought of the world his child would come to know. He had to believe that the price was worth the gain. He winced as another arrow invaded his body, driving deep into his shoulder, but the soul stone magic was there, keeping him alive.

He heard one voice above all others, though, and the message that it carried wounded Bransen more profoundly than any dart ever could. For it was Milwellis, rallying his force.

"The demon is dead," Milwellis proclaimed. "And now comes the witch in folly!"

Bransen couldn't see much of the battlefield through the pain and the tears and the smoke and the tumble of smoking leaves, but he quickly came to understand that Laird Milwellis had somehow held his force together. He managed to glance back behind him, toward the western slope, toward the horns of Gwydre. Down the hill she came, he knew, and knew, too, that he had weakened Milwellis's line enough for her to drive hard through those first ranks.

But as he swung his gaze back, Bransen realized that it wouldn't be enough. Not hardly. For those thousands around Milwellis stood firm, and the laird himself sat tall above them, forming them into a countercharge and heartening them with every word.

Bransen's shaking hand reached into his pouch, and he brought forth his fist, clutching a gem.

The soul stone protested as he turned his focus, and he knew then that to relinquish his concentration from the healing magic was surely to die.

He knew it, but he knew that Gwydre was doomed.

The price. The gain. And now she is ours!" Laird Milwellis insisted. He lifted his mailed fist before him in a punch of victory, and all the men began to cheer.

The sharp crack of air interrupted that, though, and just as he started to shout the command to charge, Laird Milwellis felt his own fist, his own gauntlet, smash into his face with tremendous force.

And from that gauntlet, through that gauntlet and through his hand, came a screeching projectile, crushing through bone, tearing through brain, and blowing the back of Milwellis's skull and helm away.

The laird flipped backward from his horse, falling facedown to the mud, quite dead before he ever landed.

"Laird!" Harcourt cried after the moment of shock. "Father, tend him!" he started to yell at De Guilbe, but when he looked at the monk, his words failed.

For De Guilbe sat on his horse behind Milwellis, a strange look in his eye, a weird chuckle escaping his lips. He looked down at his own chest, where blood widened under his brown robes and streamed out the hole made by the lodestone.

He looked at Harcourt curiously.

"I am dead," he said.

And he was. In the tree, Bransen could not see his handiwork, for his sight had turned inward. He pictured Cadayle, beautiful Cadayle, reaching down to him as he lay in the mud, the poor Stork who had been bullied to the ground yet again. He felt her warmth, her kiss… her love. He felt the brush of her brown hair on his face, a gentle place to hide from the pain.

He heard Gwydre's promise.

And he knew, somehow he knew-perhaps it was the cries around him, the calls of Abelle or the old ones themselves come to Dame Gwydre's call.

Somehow he knew that his sacrifice had not been in vain.

He left the battlefield with hope.

Yeslnik stared out from the high window of his keep, beyond the walls of Delaval City to a field blackened by a great and combined army. He had less than two legions, no more, for in the rout many had died, many more had fled, and many, so said the rumors, had turned against him, joining the ranks of the Bear of Honce.

"Milwellis," he whispered, he begged to the wind, praying for the Laird of Palmaristown to come forth and crush the army before his gates. He looked to the river, where an armada of his warships and those of Palmaristown had gathered, but they remained far out in the river, out of range of Bannagran's archers.

He rubbed his face.

"He will come," Olym assured him when he turned around. "Harcourt will tell us."

She referred to the news that had come to Yeslnik's chambers only a few moments before, an announcement that General Harcourt of Palmaristown, Laird Milwellis's second, had somehow managed to bypass Bannagran and Gwydre's tens of thousands and enter Delaval City.

"When will Milwellis attack?" Yeslnik demanded of Harcourt as the man was escorted through his door.

The general stopped his march and cast a curious look Yeslnik's way. "Laird Milwellis is dead," he replied. "And his army scattered before the rage of Dame Gwydre and some demon dactyl known as the Highwayman."

"What?" Yeslnik screamed, coming out of his throne and trembling. "I lent you legions!"

"The carrion birds feast well in Blenden Coe," Harcourt replied. "The army was broken and the battle ended, even before Laird Bannagran arrived with thousands more to bolster Dame Gwydre's cause and with the warriors of Ethelbert dos Entel beside him to bolster the cause of both."

"But surely you have something left?" Yeslnik pleaded. "I see the armada in the river!"

"Crewed thinly," said Harcourt, "and by no force that might do battle with the Bear of Honce."

"But you got in here, and so we can escape," Yeslnik said, grasping at any hope he could find.

Harcourt laughed at him. "Laird Bannagran, who has my sword in surrender, sent me in," he explained, and Yeslnik fell back into his throne. "He demands that you yield. Delaval City, all of Honce, is his, is King Bannagran's." He paused and drew a deep sigh. "And Queen Gwydre's, curse her name."

"No!" Yeslnik screamed, slamming his fist on the arm of his oaken throne. "No! We must kill them! You must kill them!"

Harcourt looked at him with an expression of pity… not pity for feeble King Yeslnik but for all of Honce, it seemed. "All is lost," he said somberly, and he bowed and exited the room.

Yeslnik sat as if frozen for many heartbeats, then finally leaped from his throne and rushed out of the room, to the top of the long stair.

"You cannot leave me!" he screamed at the man now far below. "You cannot! I command that you kill them!"

Yeslnik felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and he swung about to see Olym before him. "You do it!" she screamed at him, pounding on him frantically. "Strengthen your army! Hold strong the walls until they are gone! You feeble fool! You should have stayed on the field as your generals demanded, to defeat Bannagran out there!"