Passion's Blood (6 page)

Emric bolted awake at the sound of horsemen entering the camp. Men were calling his name. His dream had turned so abruptly he still felt chilled and confused. Outside it was dark, and he took a moment to gather his senses.

He rose and quickly dressed before flinging aside the opening to his tent. Two riders, armor caked with dust, dismounted from their frothing steeds. They knelt before him.

“What news?” he demanded anxiously, recognizing them as men he had sent to observe Castle Gallitain.

“My lord, the enemy has left the castle and even now approaches,” said the ranking warrior, pulling a grimy hand through tangled and matted grey hair.

“How many?” Emric demanded. He motioned a squire to him and, taking his water flask, proffered it to the riders. They pulled long and hard at it.

“The whole garrison, my lord,” the soldier said. “Easily two thousand men, mostly afoot.”

The gathering throng of soldiers and knights murmured at the report, each man realizing with certainty the narrow possibility of defeating so numerous an enemy.

Emric lowered his head in thought before he finally addressed his men. “Now is the time,” he shouted, “to prove the worth of Wareham steel to those who would seek to enslave us.” A thrilling moment of clarity flashed through him.

“Captain!” he called to Aelfric, who had insisted on being allowed to accompany the prince on his terrible mission. “This is what we will do.”

He gave Aelfric his orders and then placed a hand on the old warrior’s shoulder. “If luck is with us, the predawn gloom will conceal our meager numbers.”

The captain managed a thin smile.

The camp burst into activity and at the center of it all the prince stood, his eyes turned eastward toward the enemy and his destiny.

F
rom the copse that hid him and his men from view, Emric watched a stream run its course like a blue ribbon down a narrow ravine. The walls of the surrounding valley were high, and he understood that while this position made an ideal trap for the enemy, it could also make a tomb for his warriors. The only escape route was behind him through a range of low hills where the rest of his men lay concealed.

He took a deep breath. He could not know if Aelfric and his troops were ready, only that it was too late to change his plans.

One of the knights nearest him called softly and pointed. Emric saw the Heldanner vanguard appear out of the gloom, savages naked but for colored mud. The main host followed. Two thousand strong, their dark mass formed a deadly wall that bristled with spears and fury. Lorccan’s army was a motley collection fused from a dozen different tribes, but they marched with a unity only their terrible purpose could lend.

The enemy host surged forward as Emric’s desperate plan unfolded. Silently at first, but with a growing roar of pounding hooves that sounded like faraway thunder, Aelfric’s men charged from their wooded hiding place. Two hundred lancers pounded into the soft, unsuspecting flank of the Heldanner column, smashing a bloody wedge into the force.

Highlanders fell beneath the charging hooves, lance tips piercing their armor. Turning, they faced the torrent of death that had descended upon them.

“Quickly,” Emric shouted, signaling to sound the charge. “We must strike before Aelfric’s men are cut to ribbons.”

Trumpets blasted and a moment later the assembled ranks of Emric’s knights began their charge. Emric spurred his destrier to a relentless gallop, pounding down the long slope toward the Heldanners as his archers loosed a whistling cloud overhead.

He lowered his lance, couching it at the ready as the enemy ranks drew nearer. His breath came in short gasps, the sound of his pulse filling his helmet with a roar. He saw the enemy’s front lines go down, dissolving under the bright hail of cloth-yard shafts from the bowmen.

Then came a gigantic crash as the first of his knights rode headlong into the sea of flesh, sending lengths of razor sharp death into the lines. Horses screamed and men shouted their last as the charge crumpled into the wall of Heldanners.

Emric discarded his shattered lance and drew his sword.

He could see the two Wareham forces were nearly upon each other; the ploy had been well reasoned. As Aelfric smashed the Highlanders’ flank, causing the main body to turn in response, Emric’s charge fell upon the unsuspecting foe with murderous force. A good third of the Heldann column lay wounded or dead on the blood-soaked earth or was fleeing in panic into the wilds.

A Highlander ran toward Emric, howling and swinging his blade. The prince urged his destrier forward, trampling the man down, but then his mount reared as he found himself beset on all sides. Blows rang against Emric’s armored thighs and clamored against his shield. Many times his blade bit into yielding flesh, and Emric soon covered with the blood of dying men.

All around him the Heldann host surged. He cursed, realizing the force of his surprise attack was now completely spent. And still he delivered blow after blow, his arm numbing with the endless repetition.

Emric fought in this way for what seemed like hours, until the tide of battle shifted away momentarily. He heard Aelfric’s shout as the captain fought his way valiantly to his side. Scarlet poured from a crease in his armor near the shoulder, but his voice held triumph.

“We’ve cut them to the bone, my lord. God knows, ’tis more than anyone would have thought possible. But we must sound the retreat or the Heldanners will rend us to a man.”

Emric started about him and saw that Highlanders were dragging armored knights from their saddles or cutting the hocks of the horses beneath them. Their numbers seemed to be swelling and he understood that his men were being surrounded.

But to flee while the battle still raged? The thought repulsed him.

“Prince Emric,” old Aelfric urged. “Escape will not be at hand much longer. There is no cowardice in living to fight another day.”

Emric hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. “Give the order, Captain.”

He sighed bitterly, taking in the sight of the pitched battle. As he turned his horse, his eye was drawn to a circle of heavily armored Heldanner swordsmen, knee-deep in the cold stream nearby. The Highlanders were tightly packed around a tall, black-haired giant, who struck as mightily as a berserker, his great axe cleaving bone and mail alike. Something in his bearing, or in the way the warriors nearby struggled to protect him, marked him.

“Lorccan!” Emric hissed, a great rage welling up within him. In an instant he resolved to send to hell the one responsible for the death of so many even if the cost was his own life. With a shout, he spurred his mount into the thick, slashing and hewing with reckless anger.

Someone behind him yelled for him to stop, but Emric was heedless, caught in the mad, exhilarated throes of his desperate bloodlust. Men fell like ripe grain around him as his steed splashed into the stream, scattering warriors under its steel-shod hooves. He rode to his death as though to a feast, laughing and shouting until his warhorse was cut from beneath him and he careened with a mighty splash into waist-deep waters.

Emric struggled to his feet, numbly aware that others were fighting with him. He caught sight of Lorccan a mere stone’s throw away and charged, pulling a dagger from his belt to replace his lost sword.

The Heldanner chief wheeled his great axe over his head, swinging it across in a blow that would surely have slain the prince were it not for his helmet, which was sent flying from mailed shoulders. The two men collided forcefully and, at the same instant, the prince’s knife punctured Lorccan’s mail. A crimson tide erupted over the hilt.

Emric struggled to maintain his reeling senses as the body of his adversary slumped below the cold waters. His vision dimmed and his legs collapsed beneath the weight of his own body.

As he passed into unconsciousness, he saw the image of a red-haired girl in a field of yellow flowers. She was weeping and he felt very sad, indeed.

G
od be praised, he’s alive.”

The voice sounded hollow and distant, and Emric could feel someone jostling him roughly.

“My lord. My lord.”

Slowly he opened his eyes. The light of day was like a hammer blow to his head. An armored man he did not recognize was cradling his head, and several others stood nearby.

“My prince,” the man said. “We feared the barbarian king’s dying blow had slain you when you slipped beneath the waters. Thank heaven you live.”

Emric could hear the sounds of battle in the distance. “Are we captured, then?” He managed the words with difficulty.

“No, my prince,” the man continued, as some of the warriors laughed. “Even now the Heldann host is scattering to the winds. Their chief dead, they are making for the hills, and our stalwarts give them chase.” Gently, two knights lifted Emric upright, providing him with a view of the enemy as they fled back out of the ravine in full retreat. “The day is ours, my lord. We have beaten the horde.”

“Call back our men.” Emric’s head swam mightily, but he kept his feet. The wound in his scalp throbbed with pain. “We must take Castle Gallitain now that the Heldanners are routed. Have Aelfric organize the ranks.” When no one responded,
he realized all eyes had grown somber. “What is it?” he demanded.

“The captain is dead, my lord. He died protecting you from the horde when you charged Lorccan’s bodyguard. He had been wounded in the first charge, but gave no indication, urging us to fight on even when we thought all hope was lost.” The man suddenly seemed ashamed.

Emric was stunned by the news. Aelfric had taught him the Way of Sword and Horse as a youth. His passing left him feeling small and vulnerable. “Where?” he asked, his voice sounding hollow.

He followed the glances of the men to a place on the bank of the stream. A body lay amid dozens of others, but shrouded with a cloak in a simple gesture of respect. He stumbled toward it to grieve for his old friend.

In the span of short minutes, not a single Heldann warrior remained in the valley. Those who lived sought escape on foot, blind luck guiding some toward the freedom of the hills, others toward the marshes of the Tenair River and certain doom. Tattered banners flapped forlornly in the breeze, and bodies littered the landscape, their twisted forms jutting heavenward as though in supplication. Most lay dead or dying, moaning their last in the crimson glow of the setting sun.

The march back to Gallitain was long and difficult. Only the wounded were allowed to remain in the saddle, for the horses were exhausted and Emric feared many would founder if pressed.

The weary host arrived at Gallitain by nightfall, finding it dark and unguarded. When scouts reported that the Heldanners had abandoned their garrison, Emric ordered the wounded tended and sent parties to secure the keep.

It was late in the evening when men discovered Lord Gareth’s battered body in the dungeon.

The prince hastened to the row of dank cells beneath the castle where men cradled the unconscious man as the chains that bound him to the rough cold stones were pounded loose.

“Bring blankets and water.” Emric’s command was sharp and urgent.