trusting his armor to turn any blows someone landed in return while he cropped heads and hands and arms. Blood sprayed as he sheared through flesh and bone, and Dathgar was a battering ram. He ripped into the warhorses with a high, whistling scream of rage, like a dray horse running over children’s ponies.
“ Markhos! Markhos! For the King! ”
The horses squealed, trying frantically to get out of Dathgar’s way, but there was no room to dodge, and Tellian bellowed his warcry as he and his courser literally rode down Cassan’s mounted armsmen. They clove a chasm of crushed and broken bodies-horses and men alike-through the heart of their enemies’ charge, and Gayrfressa charged beside them. Bigger and stronger even than Dathgar, the blue star of her missing eye glaring with blinding fury, hooves like hammers, jaws like axes, and filled with a rage that was terrifying to behold. She rampaged across the courtyard like a chestnut hurricane, and then she and Dathgar burst through the far side of the column, turned hard to their left, and braked to a halt on one flank of that short line of armsmen.
It was too much.
Cassan’s armsmen might have been willing to continue that charge, to continue to attack, but their horses were not. They recoiled, turned and fought their way back out of the hunting lodge’s confining walls and the smoke and the fire and the blood which had consumed so many of their fellows, and they took Cassan and his armsmen with them.
Cassan wrestled his stampeding mount to a halt.
The warhorse trembled under him, snorting, shaking its head, still fighting the bit, but the baron dragged it under control with an iron hand. He turned it, forcing it back, and saw Stoneblade pulling his own mount to a stop beside the lead troop of the company he’d held in reserve. The captain’s breastplate was splashed with blood- someone else’s, obviously-and Cassan’s jaw tightened as he drew rein beside the armsman and saw Stoneblade’s expression…and no sign of Horsemaster.
“You were right,” he said quickly, before Stoneblade could speak. “We should have gone in on foot.”
The admission seemed to defuse at least some of the captain’s anger and Stoneblade drew a deep breath.
“Done is done, Milord.” His grim voice was harsh. “But I think we’d best organize a bit better for the next attack.”
“Agreed,” Cassan said curtly.
The captain seemed to hover on the brink of saying something more, and tension crackled between them for a moment. Then that moment passed and Stoneblade looked away.
“I’ll see to it, then.”
He gave his baron a brusque nod and began barking orders, and Cassan watched him. Then he glanced at Tarmahk Dirkson, and his personal armsman looked back…and nodded slowly.
“Oh, stop fussing, Jerhas!” King Markhos said testily.
“But, Your Majesty-”
“Stop fussing, I said.” The King shook his head. “It hurts, all right? I admit it. But I’m not exactly in danger of bleeding to death, and we have other things to worry about.”
The Prime Councilor looked as if he wanted to argue, but he clamped his jaw, and Markhos grunted in satisfaction. The bandage over the deep wound in his shoulder made an ungainly lump under his bloodstained tunic and he looked just a little pale, but his blue eyes were clear and snapping with anger.
“We won’t be that lucky a second time,” he told Tellian flatly, and the baron was forced to nod.
“Probably not, Your Majesty. Even Cassan’s going to be bright enough not to pack cavalry like that again. They’ll either push an infantry column through the gate or come at us over the wall, the way that first lot did.”
“Why in Phrobus’ name didn’t they do that the first time?” someone demanded, and Tellian shrugged.
“Because he thought his way would work,” he said. “And because all this smoke”-he gestured at the thick columns rising from the fires-“is going to attract someone’s attention. And when it does, the people who see it are going to remember the King’s visiting here. He needs to finish this before any unfortunate witnesses happen along.”
“I think there may be another reason, Milord,” Leeana said, carefully not calling him father. He looked at her, and she grimaced. “The confusion,” she said.
“To create an opportunity for Golden Hill, you mean?” Macebearer said, glaring at the elegantly dressed corpse one of Swordshank’s armsmen had dragged away and heaved onto the pile of bodies heaped into a grisly breastwork for their position.
“No, Milord.” Leeana shook her head. “Or not primarily for him, at least. I’m not at all sure he was part of the plan from the beginning. I think he simply realized his patrons’ position is hopeless if His Majesty survives. He thought he saw an opportunity to make sure you didn’t, Your Majesty, but I doubt Cassan even realized he was here. And even if Golden Hill was part of the plot from the beginning, how could Cassan have been confident he was still alive?”
“Then why create confusion?” the Prime Councilor asked.
“Not for Golden Hill,” Tellian said slowly, his eyes on his daughter’s face. “For his own people.”
“That’s what I think,” Leeana agreed. She looked back and forth between Markhos and Macebearer. “We know the lies he spun for Hathan and Gayrhalan before he killed them, but we don’t know what he told his own armsmen after he murdered them. And when they charged, Your Majesty, they were shouting ‘For the King.’ I think he told his armsmen that we’ve either killed you or taken you prisoner. Most of those men think they’re trying to rescue or avenge you…and he wanted enough confusion for someone he trusts to get close enough to kill you before the others realized you weren’t already dead.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Macebearer nodded slowly and looked at Tellian.
“A remarkable daughter you’ve raised here, Milord,” he said.
“I’ve always thought so,” Tellian acknowledged with a faint smile.
“But if she’s right-and I think you are, Milady,” Markhos said, “-then the way to beat him is simple enough. All I have to do is show myself to his men and call on them to lay down their weapons.”
“No,” Tellian said immediately. The King looked at him, eyebrows raised, and the baron shook his head. “At least some of those men out there do know why they’re here, Your Majesty, and every one of those armsmen has a bow.”
“They wouldn’t dare-not in front of so many witnesses who aren’t part of any plot against me,” Markhos shot back.
“Your Majesty, they don’t have anything to lose,” Macebearer pointed out. “Any of them who were part of this from the beginning know your magi will get to the bottom of it in the end…if you live to order the investigation. And they know the penalty for treason. Any of them with a bit of backbone-or enough desperation-is going to figure he has a better chance of surviving if he engineers an ‘accident’ for you, no matter how suspicious the accident in question might appear.”
“That’s as may be,” Markhos said, “but it doesn’t change the fact that losses or no losses, he’s still got two or three hundred armsmen out there and we have less than thirty in here, even counting those of us who don’t have armor.” He swept one hand in a circular motion, indicating the surviving grim faced, scorched and bedraggled men standing around him with bows and swords in hand. “Eventually, they’re going to simply overwhelm all of you, and when that happens I think it’s unlikely I’ll get out of this alive any more than the rest of you.” He smiled crookedly. “I don’t doubt all of you are prepared to die defending me, but I’d really prefer you don’t. Especially not if I’m not going to survive anyway.”
“Your Majesty, you’re the King.” Tellian’s voice was flat. “You don’t have the right to risk your life the way other men do-not when the stability of the entire Kingdom depends upon you.”
“I have a son, I have a brother, and I have two daughters,” Markhos replied in an equally flat tone. “I am the King, Milord Baron, but there are others to bear the Crown, should I fall.”
“Your Majesty, we can’t-”
