Dark Court: The Final Hour Read online

  "I haven't forgotten."

  "You must fight for us. You can't just let her come in here and run roughshod over us. These people will tear us apart if you give them a chance to. Don't ever forget that. They have no love for us, and they'll have no mercy. Please don’t be blinded by anything she meant to you in the past."

  "You should go back to your estate and protect it as best you can."

  "We are better off here where there are walls to protect us."

  "You are not safe here," Roisen said ominously. "Even the guard have deserted us, in case you didn't notice."

  "Do you see them in her camp?"

  "No."

  "Then they haven't deserted us. If not you, Wierstoke will not show her any mercy. He means to kill her, and you should hold the same ambition."

  Roisen didn't answer. He didn't want her dead, but she had to be stopped. Wierstoke had no qualms and maybe Roisen should simply let him get on with it. Then it would be out of his hands, but he knew that wasn't true, and he hated that he was backing off from something that needed doing. Ashra was the one who had made herself an enemy, and he couldn't simply stand by and give her leeway to do that. it would be an important message that a lot of people would observe—and think him weak as a result.

  Down in the courtyard, the troops were preparing for battle, sharpening weapons and mending armor. A lot of blood would be spilt, but it was better to bring the battle to her than to have them come into the citadel, because then they could control the battleground and use that decision to favor themselves. No one wanted to see them knocking on the gates below.

  Tearing himself away from the sight, he walked over to the table where his weapons lay, the sharp sword in its scabbard. Another battle to fight, but he didn't have the anticipation with this as he did fighting Wierstoke. The people below in the valley weren't soldiers, and neither was Ashra. How she assumed she would lead people into battle, he didn't know, but Ashra never backed down from anything she wanted. Somehow she always managed to justify her actions to herself, saying it was for the greater good.

  "Wierstoke sees this as a mere distraction that needs to be taken care of," Fiedra continued. She had obviously spoken with him. "One battle and they will fold. Maybe he is right. The sight of our armies rushing toward them will have them all soiling themselves. They'll turn tail and run."

  Fiedra, like Wierstoke and most other Naufren, assumed the peasants were weak-willed and cowardly. Roisen suspected it would be more of a fight.

  *

  Riding at the head, Roisen headed out through the portcullis. There was always a nervous energy before a battle. It was also unlike any battle he'd known. There was an unknown element as they weren't fighting soldiers, instead peasants with a general who’d never been in battle. It would be easy to assume it would be a slaughter.

  Further down the citadel, he saw Wierstoke emerging with his army, ants streaming out of their burrow. Two armies against one weak but numerous one. Their collective journeys here had been long and fraught. A great deal would be decided today. A great deal.

  The air was cold and fresh, soon to be soiled by the smell of war, blood and sweat. Fear had its own scent too.

  They rode to the east, declaring the battlefield before them. It would be in view of the citadel, so anyone in residence would be able to see it unfold. On the battlefield, Wierstoke's men were closer to the citadel and Roisen's further away. Being two armies they were going to struggle to act as one.

  As he watched, Roisen identified the two commanders that conveyed Wierstoke's directions. Wierstoke tended to stay back, away from the fray. There was that inherent cowardice in him, and it wasn't something you could hide. Quite a few of his uniform were scattered in the enemies ranks. There were clearly defections.

  A part of him wanted to take Ashra alive. It would solve a great number of things if he could simply take her hostage. Wierstoke would want to kill her, probably very publicly, but that wasn't going to be a problem. Making a martyr of her at this point wasn't going to serve the Naufren well, even if many would find her death very satisfying.

  As they settled into their positions, a silence fell for a moment as everyone anticipated the start to battle. Adrenalin flowed, heightening senses and strength. Roisen's horse was impatient, expecting a burst of action that would signify the start.

  Ashra's side broke first. The ragged men started running with their pitchforks and sickles, a wave of men rushing forward. Wierstoke gave him command and his men rushed to meet them. Roisen followed, unleashing his forces. They met with a roar of noise and the screams started.

  Surveying the battle for a moment, he noted that Ashra herself was well defended. Wierstoke hung back like normal. Finally Roisen urged his horse forward. From his elevated position, he had a reach few of the enemy could get past. He only cut down people who went for him. They all knew who he was and it would be a point of honor to cut him down. Unfortunately for them, his skill was well beyond theirs—a fact some men didn't take into account. They learned a fatal lesson.

  Ashra wore armor and the loose curls of her hair were wild. She made a good symbol for these people—beautiful, strong and determined. It was almost as if they had been waiting for her and now she was here. She was also too protected to succumb in this battle. It was, however, Wierstoke's number one objective.

  The melee continued, more men succumbing to injuries. This was going to be a bloody battle. "Take a third and flank to the south," Roisen told one of his commanders. It would be interesting to see how Ashra reacted to that. His commander rode away to organize his instructions. A part of his forces was going to come at Ashra's army from the side. They would either hold or they would be cleaved in two, weakening them.

  Roisen rode forward and engaged, hacking and slashing until his arm tired. Battle tired everyone quickly, and that suited Ashra well, because her men, for what they lacked in skill, they made up for in stamina. They were used to working long and hard, while the trained soldiers, even with all their training, were more used to working in high energy spurts.

  They had to do something before this battle was called to a halt, or worse, it turned in Ashra's favor. Her men fought with zeal and rage. They died in droves, but there were more to replace them. It was time to act.

  Turning his horse around, Roisen rode back and away from the battle. His sword was bloodied, leaving a trail behind him. Looking back, he observed the battlefield and saw part of him army gather to execute the flanking maneuver. He wanted to see how Ashra would react to this challenge, but first, he wanted to deal with Wierstoke who stood at the very back of the battlefield.

  "What are your men doing?" Wiersoke demanded, riding forward as Roisen approached. His horse looked rested and his gear unused. The man had probably never used his sword. Or perhaps it had been. Wierstoke had done his fair share of punishments for Raufasger, so he wasn't entirely unused to violence, but then, as now, he probably sat at the back, far from risk and told others to risk their necks.

  "Flanking," Roisen said.

  "You should have told me," Wierstoke replied tartly, annoyance clear in his voice. "I could have moved on the northern side as well. We could have gotten them from three sides. How are we supposed to get anything done if you move around completely on your own? No notice at all. A wasted opportunity."

  "How indeed," Roisen said, bringing his sword up and ramming it forcefully through the armor on Wierstoke's chest. The man stared at him in disbelief, his mouth opening and closing as if he couldn't get a sound out. He looked down at the sword in his chest and then up again, to eventually slid gracefully and slowly down the far side of his horse, finally dropping heavily to the ground. "You take orders from me now," Roisen roared at Wierstoke's two commanders, who stood staring with open mouths. "There will be no more split orders. Take a third of your men and flank from the north."

  If things went well, they could cut off a good portion of Ashra's men. And Roisen had managed to finally take care of the pest that was W
ierstoke. How the man hadn't seen it coming, Roisen didn't know. This made him the liege now and it was time to claim his throne, and sort this challenge from his lover and her people. This made things much simpler. It was just him and her now.

  Chapter 18

  THE BATTLE WAS HORRIFIC. It was the only way Ashra could describe it. She didn’t participate as such, being kept toward the back. At times, she simply wanted to flee, unable to take the horrid sights, but they turned to her for guidance. And when the enemy started coming from the south in a flanking move, she had to direct them.

  Prior to coming, she’d known this was what would happen, but it was still horrible beyond anything. She’d read every book of battle strategy and tactics she could get her hand on, and she saw what the enemy was doing, and she retreated her men as they tried to flank her on both sides.

  At one point, she got a glimpse of Lorcan sitting on his black horse. He rode out with the men and fought, but then she’d heard about that from his battles against Wierstoke. One of his deserting soldiers told her all about his tactics on the field, so she knew what he tended to do.

  She managed to keep her men together. It had ceded territory, but they were strong enough to push back as a group. Their numbers were their strength, and when they moved as a unit, the enemy was forced to move back.

  The battle was coming to an end. All energy had been expelled. Ashra didn’t dare think what the damages were. There were bodies on the ground, endless numbers of them.

  How could this be worth it, she wondered. What had they achieved here? Logically she knew they had to unseat the Naufren—who were never going to give up power willingly. They had to be brought down, at least substantially weakened. A clear sign of weakness and people would start seeing them as weak—as defeatable. Then things would slide out of their hands. It was the reason this battle was necessary. The people of the land needed to know they could stand up to the Naufren, and they could do so successfully.

  Ashra was gaining ground, but she was doing so as her men were getting sloppy due to exhaustion. The question was at what point did they stop? Could they push the Naufren to the point of surrender? The books said to regroup and attack again, but it felt as though victory was close. That was a misnomer. It felt close, but she could well be giving gains away as her men exhausted. Best to end the battle on a high note, to take the gains and let that news spread across the land. She had the upper hand.

  Or should she pull back and let the Naufren exhaust themselves? That was called a Pyrrhic victory. The enemy would technically win the battle, but they would be weakened ahead of the next one. It was a question of whether she could afford the news to spread that they had ceded territory.

  The best thing to do was to hold her territory. They wouldn’t advance, but they would hold. Uncertainty assaulted her. Was it the wrong tactic? Would the skill of Lorcan and Wierstoke’s men devastate her lines? They had to hold; the men had to use the last of their strength to hold the line, because they couldn’t afford for a retreat to be seen as a defeat.

  She gave the order, and her men drew together and held steady, defending only when attacked. It conserved their energy, pushing back only when a point in their line was attacked. Those attacks grew shorter in duration and less often. The enemy was tiring too, and eventually the fighting just ceased. This was the end of the battle. Neither had won, but she had stood her ground. They had stood up to the Naufren and they hadn’t been pushed back. They’d held. It was as good an outcome as they could hope for under the circumstances.

  Now her mind could return to the horror around her. For a while, she had pushed it away, honing in on what she needed to do, and which of the range of tactics she had studied she would deploy. In truth, she hadn’t been sure she could pull off any of it, but somehow she had managed. She hated everything about this, but knew it was necessary. Peaceful resistance would only have seen them partitioned and slaughtered. They didn’t have any leverage over the Naufren, except their labor, and they could never organize enough to be more powerful than the punishment exacted on them. This war had to be done.

  Was it cowardly to not want to face the aftermath? Yes. She wouldn’t skulk away. Men had died because they believed she could free their families.

  Wierstoke and Lorcan’s forces were retreating, gathering their dead. Why had they died? Paid or threatened was the answer. Some of them perhaps prospered under the reign of the Naufren, but Ashra doubted it. The Naufren didn’t have to share. They had the power, except when the people stood up like this and fought—en masse. It was the only viable strategy they had.

  Recognition stirred in her as she surveyed the damage. Bryce walked toward her. He was bloodied and tired, having been in the middle of the fray. “We held,” he said as he came to a stop. “Next time we march to the walls. No more of this refined battle. We march on the citadel.” Bryce always wanted the spectacular. His voice had a shaky quality from exertion and adrenalin.

  “The citadel is too vast to take,” Ashra said. “We must fight like this again. Besides, we don’t have battering rams and trebuchets to batter the walls. This is how we will win.”

  “How is this a victory?”

  “We held the line. We stood up to them. People will see it is possible.”

  “It’s not enough,” Bryce said, the impatience making his voice thin. “We have to take the citadel, or else we will battle out here every day. They return to the citadel and sleep in their own luxurious apartments, depending on the men they pay to fight their battles for them.”

  “A defeat on the battlefield will mean a victory.”

  “It isn’t much of a victory.”

  “We still can’t lay siege to the citadel. It’s miles of walls, and if we breach a particular point, what will it achieve? Lots and lots of death.”

  “It will say more if we breach the citadel.”

  “And have them fire endless arrows down on us. We would lose numbers every day and they wouldn’t. They would be strong when we finally break through and we would be weak. Their men are trained, ours are farmers. This form of battle suits us. Here we have the advantage of numbers. We can hold our own. Streaming through a hole in the citadel wall, which we could only achieve by losing massive numbers of people, we would merely be lining up neatly for slaughter on the other side.”

  “This isn’t a defeat,” he said, swinging his hand around to the scene in front of them.

  “You are too impatient,” Ashra said curtly. “We can’t just rush in and spend our resources without carefully planning it.”

  “You seem to think planning will solve everything. It is only a true show of force that will end this. We have waited years for this.” The frustration was clear in his voice. “We lost countless men today and what did we achieve?”

  “We sent a powerful message,” Ashra said.

  “A message?” Bryce said disbelievingly. “We need more than a bloody message.”

  Ashra sighed. Bryce always seemed to think that if they decided to, they could simply roust the Naufren, that the power of the people was undefeatable if they only decided to do it. This stalemate they had reached wasn’t enough. It was always black and white in his mind—there was never any gray. “If we could not defeat them resoundedly on the battlefield, we certainly can’t in a siege. We will battle again in a few days, and we have to stay strong, at least hold our ground. It was a good outcome today. Perhaps not the spectacular result you wanted.”

  Bryce snorted. In a way, she just wanted to throw up her hands and say, ‘You do it then,’ but she knew it would end badly, and these men deserved better than that when they were laying down their lives for this.

  “You play too much politics,” he accused.

  A man came running up and they both turned to him, wary of the intrusion. “There is talk that Lord Lorcan killed Lord Wierstoke. Outright killed him. Rode up and ran him through with a sword.”

  There was silence for a minute. “That doesn’t surprise me,” Ashra finally said.
So, Wierstoke was gone, and now there was only Lorcan. “When did this happen?”

  “It seems just after he ordered the attack from the south.”

  This meant that Lorcan had ordered both his own and Wierstoke’s men to perform the flanking from the north that she had successfully defended against. “Wierstoke’s men are accepting orders from Lorcan. It is now a unified army.” It was the last thing she wanted to hear. The discord and confusion between the two armies served her well. Lorcan was always more considered and cunning, which meant they had to consider their step even more than they had.

  The last thing they needed was some ill-advised siege, but she did understand Bryce’s frustration. This had to all seem like game playing to him, and in a sense it was, but that game had more importance then he gave it credit for.

  “He will be aiming for victory in the next battle,” she said. “He did this to get rid of his own weaknesses. They will act as one unit next time, and Lorcan is skilled at directing an army.”

  Even Bryce was quiet now and she was glad not to have another round of his inflamed rhetoric. He had a habit of overestimating their capabilities. “We must be clever,” she said. They had to find a tactic to use against Lorcan, something that used the very strength he depended on now that he was addressing his weaknesses.

  Chapter 19

  THE RIDE BACK TO THE citadel didn’t take long. When Roisen had seen Ashra hunkering down to hold her line, he knew it wouldn’t be worth continuing. She would use her men’s superior stamina to further weaken him, and it wouldn’t serve him in the long run.

  She had more dead and injured than him, but her numbers were far more. They had to get on with this next battle before more joined her army. There had been no victory in this battle, but it had been a victory for her. What he had to fear now was her further inflaming the people, which she would do to her advantage. Hence he shouldn’t wait too long for this next battle. They had to be beaten back at the very least. His aim was a true defeat, her forces cut up and surrounded.