Pausing to study herself solemnly in a mirror, she couldn’t help smiling. She looked like a country boy. A messenger, perhaps. Well, in a sense that’s what she was.
From her apartments Leagh crept silently down halls and stairwells until she reached the courtyard. Guards dozed at their posts; no-one expected action in Carlon. Not yet.
Holding her breath, she hurried across to the stables and walked silently down the central aisle, searching out the mount she wanted. There. A dark bay Corolean mare, fine-boned and swift, gentle-mouthed and great-hearted.
Leagh soothed the mare with light strokes, then swiftly saddled and bridled her. Her heart thumping, feeling sick from the tension, Leagh led the mare from the stables, fearing with every step that the mare’s hooves would rattle or strike a spark from the cobbles.
But nothing.
In the courtyard Leagh paused again, looked about, then led the mare through the gate.
The guard in his dark niche jerked at the movement of air, but did not wake.
Damn you! Leagh thought. You should be more alert! What if we were attacked? What if Caelum sent the Strike Force?
But just this once she needed them dozing. When she got back – if she got back —then things would be different.
Leagh mounted several blocks away from the palace and kept the mare to a walk through the streets of Carlon. There were some people about, street sweepers and bakers hurrying to early morning ovens, but they all assumed she was but a messenger boy, off on some errand.
No-one stopped her.
Once through the main city gates Leagh turned the mare’s head for the north and pushed her into a canter and, once past the last curve of wall, into a flat-out gallop.
The road was clear and smooth, but the way ahead was treacherous and fraught with difficulties.
By the time the sun was above the horizon Leagh had left Carlon well behind. She turned the mare onto a series of farm tracks that she remembered from her hawking days. They led roughly due north, and would harbour no awkward questions from strangers. The Nordra lapped and laughed to her right, glinting rose and gold in the early morning sun, and the water fowl chirped and fluttered as she rode by.
The army had been out a day before her, but she could move faster than it.
She rode until mid-morning, alternately cantering and trotting the mare, and sometimes running alongside her. Then she stopped by an isolated farmstead, and paid the Goodwife for a mug of milk and a sandwich. Rested, she and the mare continued north beside the Nordra.
They reached the river crossing as evening fell, and the ferryman asked no questions of the quiet rider who paid passage.
She rode for five days, rode until both she and the mare were almost dead with exhaustion, rode until she spotted the camp fires of the army ranged in a wide, shallow valley.
“Thank the gods,” she whispered, and booted the mare forward for one final effort.
She saw as she neared that the camp was a hive of activity. Men milled about, horses were being readied.
War. Was she in time? Or too late?
A guard challenged her, then had to step forward and catch her as she fell from the mare’s back.
“Princess Leagh!” he said, almost dropping her in astonishment as he caught sight of her face.
She tried to smile, but failed. “Good man,” she whispered, her exhaustion making her shake uncontrollably. “Is the Prince Askam to hand? And StarSon Caelum? I must speak with them. Urgently.”
A Da* from Zared pushed his force hard. Maybe too hard. From Carlon they rode north, swimming their horses across the relatively shallow and peaceful Nordra half a league above Grail Lake, then headed due east for a day and a half before swinging north again for another four days’ ride.
The trail of the Norsmen’s passage was clear; dirt trampled with steel shoes, edges of roads flattened, the banks of watering streams and edges of ponds muddied and ruined.
Zared desperately wanted to catch the Norsmen before they combined with Caelum. He still hoped that he and Caelum could come to some negotiated settlement, although he knew that might well be a forlorn hope after the disaster of Kastaleon. But if Caelum had the Nors force to back him, then Zared very much feared he would brook no negotiation. Especially not with a one-armed Askam at his back.
Zared’s mouth twisted in a wry smile as he squinted against the sun on their seventh day out. Askam had never cut a very prepossessing figure, and one sleeve hanging loose and flapping would hardly improve his image.
“Sire!”
Zared straightened in the saddle and squinted even more. There was a plume of dust ahead of him, resolving within a few heartbeats into a bedraggled rider.
Ormond, one of the forward scouts he’d sent out before dawn.
“Well?” Zared asked sharply as Ormond hauled his exhausted horse to a staggering halt.
“Half an hour ahead of you, and swinging back. They have two farflight scouts with them. They saw me. I am sorry, sire.”
“Damn,” Zared muttered. Herme, Theod and several of his captains crowded their horses about, trying to hear the news.
“Their readiness?” Zared asked Ormond.
“Good, sire. They are fresher than us, despite their travel.”
“How do they disperse themselves?” Herme snapped.
Ormond swung red-rimmed eyes at the Earl. “My Lord, I rode as if I had the damned after me when I realised I’d been spotted. But I think they were turning in arc formation.”
“Are you sure}” Zared asked. “I must dispose my force accordingly if they ride in arc -”
“Sire,” Ormond said. “I can only relate what I saw as ,’ turned to run before the sun. It appeared to me that the Norsmen turned in arc formation.” He shrugged tiredly. “But that may be only for the turn back. Who knows how they ride now.”
“I thank you, Ormond.” Zared dismissed the man, then consulted with the others. “Well? What do you think?”
“Spear,” Herme said instantly. “If they do ride arc formation.”
“I concur,” Theod said, and several of the captains nodded.
“Why?” Zared asked Killingrew, one of the younger commanders who was yet to prove his worth.
“The centre of the arc will be weak,” Killingrew replied. “If we hold the spear formation we could break straight through.”
“And leave our flanks vulnerable to the arms of the arc closing,” Theod said. “Zared? What think you?”
Zared stared into the heat-encrusted afternoon as if it could give him inspiration. Sweat trickled down his back, but he was only dimly aware of the itch. “They will be here soon,” he said softly. “Look.” He indicated a faint haze in the distance. “They ride.”
He peered intently. “That dust haze is wide. I think they still ride in the arc. They would have wanted to turn as quickly as they could, race for us, catch us unawares if possible, and the arc would be fittest for that purpose.”
Suddenly he was all activity. “Theod, Killingrew, Urnest, ride back and start shaping our column into spear formation. Fast. Set the supply mules and spare horses free if you have to. Herme, wait here with me. I need your advice. Fikness, I need you to send several scouts four or five hundred paces ahead to signal once the Nors force gets closer. Bonnime, find me eight or ten riders. If I need messages to get back through the force then I’ll need to do it fast. Move!”
The commanders scattered.
The forces met as the sun sank into rose-coloured finery over the distant Nordra. The shining, metal-plated Norsmen, visors down, lances tucked under arms, grim-silenced riders galloping to engage the traitor’s force; the stolid Acharites, fighting once again under the banner of their King – and this time proud to be doing so.
As Zared had predicted, they met in a clash of spear and arc. The Acharite force had formed itself into a three-pronged spear, twenty-seven riders wide at its head, forty-nine at its widest point, the shaft seventeen riders wide. They galloped to the fray, trusting in the lead riders’ sight and pace, nerves jangling as the dust thickened about them.
The Acharites met the Norsmen in a mangle of spear, sword and pike in the very centre of the Norsmen arc. It shattered, being only five riders deep, but it shattered at a dreadful cost to the Acharites. Swords and spears were no match for a well-held lance that was three times as long as the height of a man. Once those lances were past, the Acharites could turn and fight faster than the Norsmen -but again, the Norsmen were better plated and armoured, and even as the fray got down to the meat and blood of sword to sword and mace to mace, the Norsmen more than held their own, even improved upon it.