“As is written in her majesty's hand,” Dmitri murmurs, and Lorraine smiles.
“Then we forgive our sister all trespasses, and embrace our new alliance.”
C.E. Murphy
The Pretender's Crown
IVANOVA DUROVA, THE IMPERATOR'S HEIR
21 June 1588 † Brittany
Her mother is missing her by now. Will have been for weeks, indeed, because Ivanova Durova rode with her army when they left Khazar. She has watched pigeons race back from the generals' tents: pigeons carrying no- doubt frantic tales of how military men cannot find one young woman amongst the thousands of soldiers who march on Gallin. There have been inspections and spot checks; it even seemed, for a little while, that the entire army might be called back so the imperator's heir could be found. Ivanova wrote her mother a note of her own then, promising she was well and promising, equally, that she intended to go to Gallin and watch war happen whether the army continued on or not. Better, surely, to have her protected by the troops than to have her riding alone.
Do not, she had also written, send more men to try to find me. They will fail. Irina knew nothing of the power Ivanova commanded: not even the priest and counselor Dmitri, who had trained her thoughts to shape that power, realised how much she'd come in to what she privately thought of as magic. What else might it be, this influence that let her change men's minds or slip among them unseen? It was that talent that had permitted her to join the army; had even left an impression of herself behind, so her whirlwind maid and others about the palace had vague recollections of seeing her even in the days after her departure. That simulacrum had faded with the fourth day: she'd felt it, and not long after, messenger birds had begun winging their way back and forth between the capital city of Khazan and the generals leading the march.
Ivanova knows perfectly well she oughtn't be as bold or as gleeful as she is: the price for her daring will be high. But it will also not be paid today, and in very little time her army's long journey will be over. She stands in her stirrups as the regiment she rides with crests a hill, and suddenly there's a battlefield before her.
Aulun and Cordula clash in a broad valley between low hills: Ivanova can see glimpses of the straits beyond those hills; glimpses of the ships Aulun sailed on. They're resplendent, the Reformation soldiers, wearing their red coats as they rush in from the north. Ecumenic Cordula's soldiers are a rainbow of discord, uniformed in green and blue and mustard yellow as they ride from the east and south. There were more of them, before the armada: the Ecumenic church should have commanded enough bodies to overwhelm Lorraine's troops, but no more. They are close to evenly matched now, and for a breathless instant Ivanova sees patterns in the chaos of war, surging back and forth like a living creature. Her own army comes from the east, down the rolling hills and into the field, and Ivanova, like her brother soldiers, shouts with raw enthusiasm as they race to change the tide of war.
JAVIER DE CASTILLE, KING OF GALLIN
21 June 1588 † Brittany's battlefields
The Khazarian army swept through the countryside and slammed into the back of Javier's army with the force of a hammer to the anvil. Those who were meant to be reinforcements arrived as mercenaries at best, traitors at worst, and what had been planned as a ruthless crushing of Aulun's army turned into the pulverisation of Javier's own troops.
Javier stood on a hilltop and watched it happen: watched Aulun, bewilderingly rally themselves when they knew Khazar was encroaching. Watched them attack with the confidence of a young bull, smashing into Javier's front lines, thinking, perhaps, to kill as many of the weary Cordulan soldiers as they could before facing the fresh Khazarian troops. It was an idiot's ploy: they'd be exhausted by the time the lines opened and Khazar poured forward to meet an Aulunian army that had nothing left with which to defend themselves. Javier'd saluted the brave and stupid men and sent a curse toward their generals: they might be the enemy but wasting lives in that manner was an affront to God. Tomas had begun praying for the souls of the dead, and had yet to stop.
Khazar's army was visible from miles away tens of miles, if he'd had the height to see them, but even on nothing more than a hilltop, the distance turned brown with dust rising, and began to shake with the impact of tens of thousands of feet. They had come a terrible distance to fight this war for Javier, and they would be given no time to rest before meeting their first battle. He had saluted them as well, in honour of their determination and in thanks for the overwhelming favourites their presence would lend his victory.
And then, screaming their queen's name and cursing Rodrigo's, the first ten thousand soldiers had crashed into the Cordulan army's unprepared flank and obliterated them.
Even now if he closed his eyes Javier could see it, the way so many men literally overran his army, flattening what had been tents and food supplies and camp followers; bowling over soldiers who had seconds ago stood cheering their arrival.
It shamed him how long it had taken him to react, though recounting the moments said it couldn't have been more than minutes, and perhaps not nearly that long. No, Javier was certain it had been that long, his slow thoughts reeling with incomprehension. There was no doubt they were the Khazarian army: they flew banners bearing the complex knotwork that was a symbol of Khazarian pride; they wore the black uniforms with brightly coloured epaulettes that made streaks of brilliance even through the dust and the distance. Those who rode did so as though they'd been born to the saddle, with such grace it seemed impossible that the crimson flying from their swords was blood, or that the men who fell before them did so of anything other than awe. They were all the things the endless Khazarian army was meant to be: great and terrible and strong.
And the enemy.
That, ah, that was what Khazar had always been: the enemy, a force too vast to be defeated, and Javier's heart went cold and sick in his chest as he stepped out of himself and saw for the first time what he and Rodrigo had done: invited an unstoppable army into Echon, all the way to its western coast. Horrifyingly, that empire could now consider Echon to be in its clawed grasp, with nothing more in its way than a few armies of smaller proportion by far than their own.
Javier unleashed the witchpower.
Belinda had stood on shore, on shore, the Aulunians said, and had brought down his fleet, miles away in the midst of the straits. Miles from where she could see them, and Javier could see the leading edge of the Khazarian army, could see more than that as they boiled over low hills and into the flats that had become the battleground. If she could affect what lay out of sight, he certainly could destroy what he could see.
Silver lashed out, brighter than sunlight, and rolled into the Khazarian army with all the destructive willpower that Javier could channel behind it. He had held back for the sake of his men's morale, had listened to their fears of an invisible magic as deadly as cannonballs and had made his magic a thing less terrifying for their sake. Now, for their sake again, he let go of that gentleness and revelled in wanton slaughter. A release sweet as orgasm shuddered over him, and then again, as though the witchpower rewarded him for using it.
Bodies turned to red mist on the battlefield below when his magic hit them, and the wind caught that fine crimson fog and sprayed it across his army and the Khazarians alike. Part of him heard screams, some of agony and others of blood-mad joy. Later he would hear stories of how men in his army smeared pale streaks across the blood drying on their faces as they'd heard the Columbian savages did, and, mad with battle lust, threw themselves into the Khazarian front.
Threw themselves against an unstoppable force and, to a man, died, but their story became a thing of legend.
Others, their swords and pistols lost in battle, scooped up limbs torn from bodies and literally beat their enemy to death; Javier felt that, too, riding back on the waves of power he flung toward the attacking army. His vision burned red, even the silver magic drowned in blood, and all the helpless rage he'd felt at his mother's death, at Belinda's betrayal, at the unstoppable shaping of events, poured out of him to tear the Khazarian army asunder
