“We’ll make one.” The exile heaved his blade and began hacking at the stone of the rear wall. Sir Ernold hurried to join him. Chips and sparks flew as they carved open a rough door, kicking with their boots to widen it, stone and mortar tumbling. “Get the prince up!” Emeric shouted, as the open field appeared through the breach. “Get him up! Carry him!”
“I can walk.” Prince Raynald laboured to stand, swatting aside the men who tried to help him. They’d wrapped him around a dozen times in the bandaging, but already the blood was starting to seep through, red on pristine white. How long it would hold Emeric Manfrey could not say, not without inspecting the wound. “You’re going the wrong way,” the prince said. His voice was hoarse, but determined. “They’re out that way.” He pointed at the door and grimaced in pain. “We have to fight. I cannot abandon my men.”
Sir Ernold Esterling moved over to him. “That is noble, my prince, but Emeric is right. Our first priority is to protect you.” No sooner had he said the words than the dragon swept by in another assault. The tower shook as more stone came down, fire flooding through the open roof. “Now! Out now!”
They rushed for the breach, Sir Ernold bundling the prince out into the open air. The rest of the men followed, just as the flames licked down to tongue at the floor. They hissed and spat, raging for a moment and then retreating just as quickly. Emeric pressed back inside the tower, through the smoke and fume, and pulled open the door. The battle had swelled outside. Mooton was in the midst of it, swinging wildly with his greatsword in one hand and his greataxe in the other, the rest of the Tukoran soldiers trying to keep the horde at bay. More were coming up the hill, hundreds of them screaming their warcry. “Sir Kevyn!” Emeric shouted.
The Bull of Bolt turned.
“We’re taking the prince through the back. Hold them. Hold them here, sir!”
The man nodded.
Emeric spun. He did not want to leave Mooton, but what could he do? I am Tukoran, no matter where my life has taken me. Raynald is my prince, no matter who his grandfathers were. Emeric had a duty to help protect him.
He rushed back through the tower and out of the breach. Sir Ernold was shouting commands as he took the lead. To either side of the prince, several other household knights and men-at-arms formed a cordon, while another helped him along. It was a force of only a dozen.
Emeric hurried to join Sir Ernold at the front. The Emerald Guard was of an age with the exile, not yet forty, with a high forehead, thinning hair at the crown, short brown beard well salted at the sides, and a misshapen nose that had never properly set after a bad break. He scowled at the skies; the dragon had circled off out of sight to the south, and they had to hope it would keep nibbling at the tower or else fly off after some other prey. “The city’s too far,” Esterling called. “And burning besides. We’d never make it.”
“We make for the woods,” Emeric said. They were burning badly to the east, but further north small thickets clothed the land and among the boles they might find salvation; a place to stop and take stock and try to mend their prince.
Sir Ernold had the lead and did not see any other way. He shouted a command and set off at a run, the company pressing on through the swirling smoke, puffing and boiling from fires and pits. The earth was treacherous underfoot. Bodies lay everywhere, men of north and south scattered as far as the eye could see. Is there no end to this battlefield? Emeric had always heard tales of the Battle of Burning Rock, but the scale of it always sounded unimaginable. Two hundred thousand men and mounts clashing across miles of hills and plains. That might have described today. The Battle of Burning Woods, he thought. The Fight of the Barrel Knight’s Folly.
Borrus had been a fool. He would not hear of Rikkard and Torvyn’s calls for calm. He did not listen to sense. The moment he saw his father’s head in a bag, that was it. He’d bellowed for the men to muster and charge, and out of the gates they’d stormed. Oh, it was a stirring sight, no doubt. All those banners cracking in the wind. The warhorns blasting their long rousing calls as they poured out into the dawn. But how many had died for it? How many tens of thousands of men and boys had Borrus doomed when he looked into that bag?
Emeric could not think of that now. What’s done was done, and the horse had bolted, and now they must make do. Yet all the same he could not help but wonder which of his friends were dead. The men he’d travelled with since the Tidelands in particular. Jack and Braxton, Pete and Sid. Even Turner, back in the city, was not safe from harm. These men were sailors, not soldiers, and none of them should be here. Sir Bulmar will watch over them, he tried to tell himself. The Blackshaws will keep them safe. But that was the thought of a child, devoid of sense and logic. In truth the Blackshaws too could be dead. It would take one dragon, one gush of flame, one charge of dragonknights or a surging horde and that would be it, none would survive.
A shout intruded on his thoughts, and that was all for the good. It came from one of the men defending the flank. “Sunriders!” he called. “Brace!”
Emeric turned in time to see the pack charging through the smoke. It was not just Sunriders; several Starriders prowled and leapt among them, and there were paladin knights too atop their mighty camels, all loping and galloping in a fierce formation, crying out and swinging their curved blades as they went.
“Defend the prince!” bellowed Esterling.
Men jumped ahead of him, throwing up their shields, as Sir Ernold and Emeric and a pair of other men rushed for the front, blades brandished. The riders were on them quickly, a storm of shouts and thrown spears. Emeric deflected one with his blade, pinging it away into the fog. Another took one of the men-at-arms in the chest, punching through his caste-forged breastplate as he was thrown backward off his feet. The company came charging through, knocking two more of the guardsmen aside, hacking with swords and long-axes. A scarcat leapt atop one man, slashing with its claws before pouncing away as the defenders lashed out.
And then they were past, surging beyond them. Amid the din Emeric heard their commander give a shout in Piseki; an order to circle and charge again. His hopes that they would carve their way onward through the battlefield were dashed. “They’re coming back!” he roared.
They turned to meet him. Emeric got a better look at them this time. They were a gleaming force, lords and Lightborn, and the Sunrider in their middle, the leader…
The garb gave him away. The rich armour, beautifully detailed. The fine cape that waved at his back in dark gold and shimmering black. On his head was a helm with a sunwolf roaring from its crest, wolf claws holding his cape at the shoulders. Beneath the dark leather saddle on which he sat charged an enormous sunwolf, thick-shouldered and powerful in the chest, with a bright golden mane flowing out from its armour. Blood covered the beast’s maw and stained the fur around its face. It was the wolf Gragaro, ridden by the Sunlord Avar Avam.
Emeric’s eyes narrowed upon them.
“Form up! Form up!” shouted Sir Ernold. He swung his cloak over his shoulder and stepped forward, holding his longsword in two hands.
Emeric glanced at Raynald. The boy prince was held down by two men as he fought to stand and fight. Brave boy, Emeric thought. He turned his back and faced the enemy, eyes trained on Avam as they came again. Spears flew and blades met, steel clanging and kissing. Another two of their own were killed, and Sir Ernold cut a paladin down, but Emeric’s thrust at the sunlord missed its mark and the company went charging by.
“We have to move!” someone shouted, one of the men huddled over the prince. “They’re picking us off. We have to run!”
“We can’t,” Sir Ernold shouted back. “They’ll charge us down. Our only chance is to…”
A dragon bellowed. Emeric swung about and saw the air shifting as the beast crashed down to land before them, the earth shuddering underfoot. The Fireborn in its saddle wore bright green and muddy brown, a mockery of the colours of Tukor to match his leathern steed.
“He’s back,” cried a voice. “He’s found us again.”
“He’s mine.” Prince Raynald battled the men away and pulled the sword from his hip. The blood had darkened and spread across his bandage. “You,” he tried to shout. “Fireborn. Finish the job if you dare. I challenge you to a duel, an honour-duel, just me and…and…” And he fell forward, passing out into the mud.
The dragonrider gave a cruel laugh. “Boy,” he sneered in a brutal attempt at their northern tongue. “Sick boy. Dead boy.” Emeric did not know him. The dragon he rode was large and fearsome, thick and muscular, a brute. There were some cuts to his shoulder and neck, leaking blood. Emeric wondered if the prince had inflicted them before the tail ripped his belly open.
The exile went out to meet him, striding forth alone. The dragonrider laughed again as he saw him stepping near. Smoke swirled and snorted from the dragon’s nostrils, fire burning deep and hot in its chest. Emeric could hear the sunlord and his company racing back across the field to his right, snapping and snarling. Sir Ernold was shouting for them to brace, to protect the prince, but they were outmatched and outnumbered, and would shortly be overwhelmed.
Emeric stood to face this new foe. His feet shifted into Glideform, quickest of the stances, best to avoid attacks. The dragon reared in response; it was larger than the one he’d slain. Its rider stood in the saddle, tore his blade from its sheath and raised it. This is it, Emeric thought. This is where it ends.
A new roar filled the world.
A deep thunder thick with rage, trembling the very air.
The dragon’s great head swung north toward the sound, its body tensing, lowering. It stood bulky as a warship, claws digging into the earth, a tongue hissing and quivering from its open mouth.
The smoke ahead of it moved, eddying. The ground shook, boom doom, boom doom, like a drumbeat. Boom doom, boom doom, it came, boom doom, boom doom, it neared, growing louder and stronger, and then suddenly he was there.
Tathranor, monstrous in white, his fur hardened to a thousand savage crystal spikes. Between the great moonbear’s shoulders stood Timor Ballantris, armoured in glittering scalemail in silver and blue and black. Down his back draped his cloak of lion fur, striped black and blue and white at the collar. Tall he stood, and grand and peerless. He raised his own gleaming sword aloft and shouted, “Jah Kavosh!” at the dragonrider, as Tathranor thundered on.
The dragon coiled its bulk, tearing great ruts in the earth as he sprung forward. Tathranor met it upon an open stretch of field, lifting his enormous forepaws from the earth to grapple and tackle the dragon to the ground. Emeric watched in awe as they crashed down into the earth. The sounds they made. The way the world shook. Great clods of dirt flew and rained about them, fire gushing, smoke swirling thick and black. The moonbear roared and the dragon screeched as they wrestled amid the burning shroud.
Emeric tore his eyes away and turned. He could not watch, nor could he help. Behind him, Avam’s Lightborn host was charging through Raynald’s guard. Emeric saw Sir Ernold knocked aside by a massive camel, but the Emerald Guard landed in a graceful roll and sprung right back to his feet, hurling a spear he found in the mud to catch the paladin knight in the back. Two other men were engaging a Sunrider. Another knelt with the unconscious prince, trying to revive him. A starcat was racing in behind him, preparing to leap, but Emeric tore his dagger from its sheath and threw in a single motion, catching the cat in the shoulder. It stumbled and fell, gouging a rut in the earth, the Starrider caught in the stirrups as he tried to crawl free. Emeric got their first. Cat and rider both fell to the edge of his blade as he cut them down with two quick swings.
The rest of the host were coming back around. Some were dead, others fled, the animals bolting at the sight of the moonbear. But not the sunlord. He charged low in the saddle, shrieking some Piseki battlecry as he made for the dying prince, the rest fanning out to face the others. No, Emeric Manfrey thought. He’ll not die today.
