Jonathan Dunn - The Forgotten King

“Open!” she cried. “For the Queen of Saxony!”

The guards hesitated, until they saw the Admiral at her side, and Osbert and the Fardy brothers behind. They were the rebels who had scaled the wall. After the castle guards were destroyed, and the aiming marks painted, they prepared to destroy the drawbridge. If the queen and her rebel escort had been a moment later they could not have entered. But as it was, the drawbridge was lowered, and they passed silently over it and into the courtyard. Behind them the last exit rumbled shut. Before them, underneath the windows of the Great Hall, were a group of catapults, with a group of men preparing to fire them. The queen turned to the Admiral and questioned him with her eyes.

“There is to be a display, for your amusement,” he said. “An exciting and unexpected display, I should think.”

“Of course,” she answered, and continued forward to the doors of the Great Hall.

They dismounted, giving their horses to a stable hand. He thought nothing amiss, since the impersonators had deposited their horses in the town. The queen led them up the steps to the hall, hurried on by the sound of merriment within. She was angered by this show of contempt – as she thought it to be – from Gylain, in starting the feast before her arrival. Yet her emotions did not show through her face as she grabbed onto the handles of the double door and flung it open. Silence entered the room at her side. Every face turned to the Queen of Anger, the Siren of Saxony, and she returned every look with an invincible facade of power.

“What is this?” she bellowed, and her voice rang out through the lofty hall. “Another guest of honor, to overshadow my arrival?”

Gylain stood and asked, in a tone that told he already knew the answer, “Who might you be?”

“The Queen of Saxony!” she returned, growing heated.

The brown Fardy – seeing that he and his companions had to reach the other side of the hall before Gylain’s men took up their arms – cried out, “Charge! Gylain has turned against us!”

He waved his sword above his head and charged across the room, followed closely by the others.

Chapter 41

When Nicholas Montague saw the brown Fardy’s charge, he knew they had been fooled.

“Quick, Gylain,” he cried, “To arms! These are impostors!”

They drew their swords and stood back-to-back in a defensive manner. Willard was on them in an instant, his golden armor still covered by the black cloak. He jumped over the table and came down beside Montague. Both were skillful swordsmen and neither afraid to die. They each held their two-edged sword in their right hand, while the left sat on their hips and their legs remained firmly on the ground. Willard and Montague were men of great strength – of both body and mind – and they parried back and forth as if they used mere foils.

Willard struck Montague’s blade, catching it along its broadside and pushing it downward. Yet Montague held his advance in check, and neither retreated from the fierce grapple. Then, as if by common agreement, they both pulled back. Montague lunged forward at Willard, knocking his sword to the left; Willard recovered it and pushed him back again. Then, Willard took the charge, and came down upon his opponent’s head with a powerful downward blow. Montague knelt and held his sword above him, holding it at both the handle and the blade. It absorbed Willard’s blow, sending the force of the swing running back to its creator’s arm. Willard fell back for a moment and Montague pressed forward with several scissor strikes back and forth. Willard skillfully parried them. He deflected the blade rather than stand against it, to recover his strength.

As they fought, Montague said, “You fight well, sir. It is an honor to meet a man of such strength, of such skill in destruction. It will be a greater honor to strike you down.” His speech was broken into short segments and accompanied by the clangs of their clashing blades.

“I, too, have fought many lesser enemies – among them your brother,” Willard enticed him to anger.

“It is rare that both emerge alive, when my brother fights a man. I will see that it does not happen to you and I.”

“By your weak left side? I see you are wounded,” and he drove forward with a series of leftward plunges and thrusts. Montague dodged to the right each time.

“Honor will yet be mine.”

“That is not what I would call it,” Willard answered, “For it is but devilry.”

“Perhaps,” and Montague dodged Willard’s sword, dashed to the left, and brought his own sword down at Willard’s head with a momentous downswing.

But Willard was quicker. He tucked his sword under his left arm and rolled in the same direction. When he came to a halt, he sprang from the ground and fell upon Montague, who had not yet recovered from his heavy swing. Montague leaned sharply away from Willard’s blade, his own sword still going downwards. His leaning changed its course; it came for Willard. It was easily dodged, however, and the move cost Montague his footing. Willard fell upon him at once. His loss of balance kept Montague from parrying the blow. Instead, he blocked it with his arm, receiving a large gash between the shoulder and the elbow.

“Impressive, but it will take more to take this demon’s head,” Montague laughed, taking the recoil of Willard’s blow to better position himself.

His feet stable again, he went after Willard with a rage. He came forward with a diagonal blow, going from his upper right to lower left. Willard could not parry, but allowed his blade to take the hit, weakening his arm. Montague looped his sword in a circle behind him – catching its momentum – and brought it down again from left to right. Once more, Willard’s sword absorbed the shock – giving Montague the smallest opening. He plunged at Willard with a leap. Spinning to the left, Willard dodged it and gave a sharp blow to Montague’s blade. The latter was not recovered from his reckless plunge and went reeling backwards for a moment.

“Impressive, indeed,” Willard said, “But I cannot finish this at the moment. You will excuse me, I am sure.”

He pushed a table onto Montague and dashed off to Ivona’s aid. She was being attacked by several soldiers, armed only with a bow and a dagger. She had been forced back, until she abutted the wall beside the throne, which she used as cover. Willard’s cloak was still in place; the soldiers had no idea the King of Atilta was present. Therefore, he was able to slip through them to her side.

The Great Hall was immersed in the battle. Gylain’s forces were a hundred strong, the rebel’s thirty. The Queen of Saxony’s soldiers, however, did not join the fray on either side. The rebels had formed ranks in a tight semi-circle around the windows, while Willard and Montague had been fighting.

Willard came upon the first of Ivona’s attackers without warning and quickly dispatched him. Seeing his comrade thus struck down, the other soldier fled into the anteroom. Willard turned to follow him, but stopped for a moment to speak with Ivona.

“Hurry,” he said, “Join the others, we must stay by the windows or all is lost.”

“And you?”

“I will be there, in time.”

Willard turned again and ran into the anteroom, chasing the soldier. But the soldier, by this time, was no longer in the anteroom. Instead, he had fled into the secret passage, with Willard close behind him. Ivona ran to the window, where she was able to use her bow in relative safety.

Meanwhile, the Fardy brothers, Osbert, Barnes, and the sailor had safely reached the cover of the rebel line, behind the rude barricade of tables that had been set up before their ranks. The rebel soldiers knelt behind the tables with their spears before them, holding the attackers back. There were twenty-eight within the barricade, yet it was small and they could hold it easily – for a time. Behind the soldiers, those who did not have armor were filling the hall with arrows.