Crown of Vengeance

But even as Vieliessar’s knights galloped forward, the Mangiralas forces were retreating and reforming with fluid grace.

It was the beginning of a long day of fighting. Vieliessar’s forces suffered brutal casualties, for the Mangiralas komen were brilliant riders, and fought with the fury of those who had suddenly discovered war was a costly and terrible event. Destrier and knight moved as one creature, and each taille seemed to know the thoughts of all its members without need for warhorn or signal call. Vieliessar had advantage in numbers, which was all that kept her casualties from being heavier than they were, for exhausted companies of her knights could leave the field for a candlemark or two of rest. But when Mangiralas sounded the retreat a candlemark before sunset, she was glad enough to signal the nearest knight-herald to echo it.

That was not Bethaerian. She had not seen the captain of her guard for a long time. Her banner was now carried by Janondiel.

She took reports from her captains as Avedana helped her out of her armor. How many dead, how many wounded, how many horses killed, how many knights could fight again tomorrow. She’d barely pulled off the last piece of her armor when one of the sentries came to tell her Mangiralas had sent a messenger. She dropped into a chair, barefoot, filthy, still in her aketon and mail shirt.

“By the Light, I hope they come to offer Mangiralas’s surrender,” she groaned to Aradreleg. “Let the messenger of Mangiralas enter,” she said.

The messenger who entered wore, as she expected, the green robe of a Lightborn.

“I am Camaibien Lightbrother,” he said. “I come from Faurilduin Warlord, who is wife to the War Prince of Mangiralas.”

“Greetings to you, Lightbrother,” Vieliessar said. “I am sorry you see us in such disarray, but the battle is but recently over, as you know. Tea? Cider? No? Then I would hear your words at once.”

“Ladyholder Faurilduin demands you withdraw from Mangiralas at once, that you deliver to her to do with as she chooses those who unlawfully slew our knights with arrows as if they were beasts of the forest, that you pay to Mangiralas such teind as War Prince Aranviorch shall choose to assess, and that you acknowledge you have offered battle in bad faith, outside the Code of Battle.”

“No,” Vieliessar said.

There was a moment of silence. Camaibien Lightbrother looked very much as if he wanted to ask her if she actually meant that, but restrained himself. “Have you any further message for Lady Faurilduin?” he asked at last, his voice crisp with anger.

“Say to her that Mangiralas is still welcome to surrender, on the terms I have previously offered. And tell her if she has slain any prisoners she holds, I shall kill her whether she surrenders or not,” Vieliessar said.

“I … shall give her your words, Lord Vieliessar,” Camaibien said tonelessly.

She waved her hand, giving him leave to go.

Komen Bethaerian was not found among the living, or the wounded, or among the dead on the field, nor did Mangiralas send a further message to say it surrendered.

* * *

On the second day of fighting, Vieliessar stationed Virry’s archers at the deosil edge of the field, among several companies of knights positioned as if they were a relief force. This time the infantry had palfreys waiting behind the companies of knights, for the archers were far from the camp. When the call to charge was given, the knights of Mangiralas moved forward at a sedate—even cautious—walk.

When the archers began firing on their flank, Vieliessar and her knights charged Mangiralas at a full gallop. They struck for the tuathal side of the ranks of horsemen, out of range of the archers. Mangiralas’s center tried to take advantage of that, thinking they could strike Oronviel’s midsection while it was unprepared for battle, but the rear ranks of the Oronviel cavalry weren’t just blindly charging after the knights ahead of them. At the signal, they wheeled and struck the center of Mangiralas’s line head-on. And as soon as the archers were away and safe, the “reserve” companies took the field, butchering their way through Mangiralas’s deosil flank.

That evening, Mangiralas fought all the way to dusk. They did not send an envoy.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Aradreleg said that night, when Avedana had finished removing Vieliessar’s armor. “We can’t!”

“How many wounded?” Vieliessar asked, wincing as she felt her ribs. They’d been bruised yesterday and she’d been hit in the same place today. She was only lucky her armor had held.

“Too many,” Aradreleg said grimly. “Here, let me—”

“I’m fine,” Vieliessar said.

“If you’ve learned to Heal yourself, I’m Queen of the Starry Hunt,” Aradreleg snapped.

“You’re exhausted,” Vieliessar protested, but let Aradreleg have her way. She had to fight again tomorrow. “How many of our wounded have died?”

“None—so far,” Aradreleg said. “But everyone injured, stays injured. We don’t have enough Lightborn for anything else.”

“It will be over soon, one way or the other,” Vieliessar said wearily.

“You’re right about that,” Aradreleg said. “Because in another day or two, you’ll be outnumbered.”

* * *

On the third day, when the call to charge was given, the two lines of knights faced each other and nobody moved. Then someone in the Oronviel lines laughed and Mangiralas charged. Their line was ragged, and their knights startled at shadows, jerking at their destrier’s reins so the animals danced sideways, but this time no archers attacked them.

Today Mangiralas devoted all its energy to the banner of Oronviel and the War Prince in silver armor who fought beneath it. Three times in the first candlemarks of fighting Vieliessar was unhorsed as her destrier was slain beneath her—she lost Sorodiarn, Grillet, and another whose name she never learned. Each time a horse fell beneath her, one of her guard gave up a mount so she might ride. Each time, Vieliessar could see Ladyholder Faurilduin only a few yards distant, fighting desperately to reach her and end her life before she could gain the saddle again.

Near midday, when the fighting was at its heaviest, Vieliessar heard a flurry of signal calls. Mangiralas, calling for a new attack. They’ve figured it out, she thought, already too exhausted for anything but determination. Any prisoners they’d taken—and she must hope Mangiralas held prisoners, for both Princess Nothrediel and Prince Monbrauel were missing—could have given up the bit of information that would have let Faurilduin learn that Oronviel’s camp held many wounded, and few Lightborn to tend them.

But Vieliessar had known her secret would eventually be guessed, and so today she had held back two hundred horse and all her infantry and kept them close beside her camp.

She hoped they would be enough.

The press of the fighting was so heavy no messenger could reach her to tell her what had happened. When Mangiralas next signaled, she was so dazed with fatigue that at first all she could think was that she’d failed, that Mangiralas was signaling for a parley-halt to discuss the terms of her surrender. But as the call repeated over and over again, she finally made sense of it.

They’re retreating.

We’ve won.

* * *

As they rode back to the camp, she saw the bodies of those who died defending the camp—and attacking it.

Horses—some dead, some panting pitifully as they lay dying from an archer’s arrow. Knights dead of sword cuts, or crushed beneath a horse, or battered to death by a destrier’s hooves.

And among them, bodies that were not clad in bright armor.

“Ah … no,” Vieliessar said, sighing. The infantry were to have retreated once they’d taken their toll of Mangiralas’s knights. But some had not. They’d stayed, continuing to loose their deadly arrows at the enemy as the moments in which they could escape trickled away. Then, even when their arrows were gone, they had not run, for Vieliessar saw none clad in the chain mail and surcoat of infantry who had died with their back to the enemy.

“All honor to them,” Orannet said quietly.

“All honor,” Vieliessar echoed.

When she reached it, she saw that her camp was untouched.