Энтони Райан - Queen of Fire

“You saw the Honoured Commander fall?” he demanded, a grim fury plain in his craggy features.

“Two assassins,” Frentis said, putting a note of panic in his voice. “They killed the Kuritai as if they were children.”

“Calm down,” the Volarian ordered in his sergeantʼs voice, frowning a little as he took a closer look at Frentis and Rensial, his eyes lingering on their inscribed armour. “Which company are you? Whatʼs your name and rank?”

Frentis glanced around, finding no others within earshot and straightening from his fearful hunch. “Brother Frentis of the Sixth Order,” he said, jabbing his fore-knuckles into the sergeantʼs upper lip. “Here on the queenʼs business.”

He left the man barely conscious but alive. From his reaction to their tidings Frentis surmised he had been a long-serving subordinate to the fallen commander whose son might well benefit from such fiercely loyal counsel.

Dallin waited where they had left him on the eastern side of one of the larger rocks, keeping tight hold of the horses despite their skittishness at the burgeoning uproar from the camp. “Press hard,” Frentis told him, climbing into the saddle. “No rest till sunrise.”

The Volarian pursuit proved more sluggish than expected, the dust raised by their outriders not appearing until well past dawn the following day.

“Back in the Urlish theyʼdʼve been nipping our heels by now,” Dallin observed.

Frentis raised his spyglass to get a better view of their pursuers; thirty men, all bunched together. “Iʼm starting to suspect their best troops are all lying dead in the Realm.”

He ordered Dallin on ahead with instructions for Ivelda and Lekran whilst he and Rensial lingered to leave some obvious traces for the Volarians; an overturned stone, a strip of torn clothing on a gorse branch. He waited until the riders were no more than a mile distant and the infantry could be seen filing along a narrow track in their wake. They rode on for a time then reined in on the crest of a hill, plainly silhouetted against the sky. He could see the infantry more clearly now, a long column of Varitai all moving at a steady run and somehow still managing to stay in step. The outriders were coming on at a good pace, Frentisʼs spyglass picking out two figures in front, a tall young man closely followed by a burly figure with a discoloured upper lip. Grief dispels caution, he thought in satisfaction, turning his mount towards the east once more.

Lekran came into sight some two hours later, axe raised as he waved from atop one of the monolithic boulders, the Garisai appearing out of the rocks on either side.

“All is ready?” Frentis called to him, dismounting to scramble up the boulderʼs steep side.

“The Rotha bitch holds the southern flank with half the Garisai.” Lekran pointed to the box canyon below, a narrow gouge in the landscape some two hundred paces long and about fifty wide. The canyon was closed at the far end where a group of free fighters had made a suitably obvious camp, smoke rising from cookfires and meagre shelters raised among the rocks. “And the hook is baited.”

Frentis knew this was a gamble; he could only hope the Volariansʼ fury would blind them to questioning why their enemies had chosen such a poor spot for a campsite. However, Lekran saw scant risk in the plan. “Volarians see slaves as less than men,” he said. “Incapable of true reason. Trust me, Redbrother. Theyʼll swallow it whole and weʼll make them choke.”

“The gorse?”

Lekran nodded to where Vintenʼs archers crouched among the rocks just back from the canyonʼs northern edge, surrounded by bundles of tight-bound gorse. Frentis began to clamber down from the boulder. “Iʼd best take my place. Remember to let a few Free Swords escape.”

He made his way to the far end of the canyon, finding Illian overseeing preparations. “I told you to make ready the main camp, sister,” he said in annoyance.

“Draker has it well in hand,” she replied, meeting his gaze with little sign of contrition. “And since I have trained these people, I am unwilling to let them face battle without me.”

He fought down the urge to order her gone. She was becoming less deferential by the day, exercising a certain flexibility in interpreting his orders and often more than willing to argue her case. It was not necessarily a bad thing, he knew. There always came a point in the Order when novices stepped from their mastersʼ shadow, but he had hoped it might take longer for her; she still had much to learn and he feared the consequences of her ignorance.

“Stay close to me,” he said. “No more than an armʼs length away at any time. Understood?”

Her defiance softened a little and she nodded, hefting her crossbow and notching a bolt before clasping a second between her teeth in what was now a recognisable pre-battle ritual.

“Brother!” Dallin stood atop a rock pointing to the canyonʼs west-facing opening where the Volarian cavalry had appeared.

“You know the plan!” Frentis called to the others as they made ready, hefting their assorted weapons and arranging themselves in a loosely ordered line. They were mostly his original fighters from the Urlish mingled with the more able recruits gathered on the march, Weaver and his Varitai among them, laden with ropes and cudgels. All had tied dampened cloths around their mouths, something he hoped the Volarians would interpret as an effort to avoid recognition.

“We have to hold the first charge,” Frentis went on. “When their lines break, pair off and cut your way to the centre of the canyon.”

The Volarians came to a halt a hundred paces away and began forming up. There was clearly an animated discussion taking place in the centre of their line, Frentis recognising the tall figure of the commanderʼs son as he bickered with the burly sergeant, gesturing impatiently at the waiting rabble of miscreant slaves. Charging uphill on horseback over broken ground, Frentis mused, watching the sergeant being shouted down before the commanderʼs son drew his sword, pointing it directly at him. Your father really would have been ashamed, Honoured Citizen.

Frentis turned to Illian as the Volarians spurred into a charge, stones scattering as they laboured up the slope. “The big fellow next to the tall man, if you would sister.”

The bolt flew free barely a second after she brought the crossbow to her shoulder, rising and falling in a perfectly judged arc to smack into the sergeantʼs breastplate before the riders had covered half the distance, the burly form falling from the saddle to lie limp on the rocky ground. Illian moved with an unconscious speed to reload the crossbow, grunting as she braced the stock against her midriff, slamming the next bolt into place and biting down on another, all in less than three seconds, a feat Frentis had never seen anyone match. The crossbow string snapped again as the riders came within twenty paces, a Free Sword tumbling to the ground with a bolt protruding from his helmet.

Frentis found himself nurturing a reluctant admiration for the way the commanderʼs son came on, spurs digging into his horseʼs flanks as he strove to get to grips with his fatherʼs murderer, blind hate and rage writ large on his face, seeking to wipe away his shame with courage, a courage that made him oblivious to the fact that the ground had disordered his company and he had outpaced his men to charge alone.

Frentis ran towards a nearby boulder, the hate-filled Volarian now no more than ten feet away, veering to intercept him. He leapt atop the boulder, bringing him level with the son, whirling to deliver a slash that connected with his long-bladed cavalry sword, the Order blade shattering it above the hilt. The Volarian hauled his horse to a halt and tried to wheel it around, fumbling for a spare short sword strapped to his saddle, then arching his back as Illianʼs crossbow bolt slammed into it.