Chapter 16

Barony of Lindenwood, Duchy of Kingsheart

Tom Fletcher made his way through the small clearing where his men were camped, stopping to talk to this group or that, offering words of encouragement or just a sympathetic ear. These weren’t soft men. They were farmers and woodsmen, hunters and craftsmen. Men used to long days of backbreaking work.

They all now had a new appreciation for the endurance of soldiers, after two days of marching, pushing from sunup to sundown across the Barony of Ambleton on their way to Lindenwood. Ambleton, like Langmere, was a puppet of the duke, and almost certainly had what men he had available looking for them, which meant they weren’t able to use the major roads, making the journey even harder.

They made it, though. His entire band had breathed a sigh of relief when they finally left the fields of Ambleton. Besides the thick forests which sat at the western edge of the Shatterstone Mountain’s foothills being an excellent place to hide, it was widely known that Baron Thurston was a man of the people and had been shielding his from the king’s new laws. While he might not be in open rebellion against the king, it was unlikely they would be hounded in Thurston’s barony the way they had been in Langmere.

Despite their exhaustion, his men were in good spirits. After their victory in the Cresswell Hills, they’d had two more battles against men from the king and his lackeys, both of which they’d won handily. That had been enough for Baron Blout to turn up the heat on them, which had ultimately been what drove them northeast out of the hills and toward Lindenwood.

Now they were here, and by tomorrow, they’d be deep in the forest, more or less safe from the king’s men. From that point, he’d have to talk to the men and figure out where their next target should be. He also needed to make his way to Lindvale, the capital of the barony that shared the name with the forest they were in, and send a wyvern to their benefactor, whom he hadn’t been in contact with since just before the battle of Cresswell Pass, as their glorious victory was already starting to be known.

Tom had almost made it back to where he’d been planning to settle down for the night when a shout suddenly rose from one of the groups closest to the tree line to the west, followed quickly by more cries. Tom’s head jerked up just in time to see riders bursting out of the woods, surrounding their camp. His men reacted quickly, jumping to their feet and scrambling for weapons, as soon as the warning was given, but the enemy’s surprise had been complete. Even as he pulled his own sword, the enemy was already pushing everyone toward the center of the clearing, the horsemen quickly moving around their edges, encircling them.

“Back. Back,” Fletcher yelled, waving his sword over his head. “Form up.”

His men reacted well. They weren’t soldiers, but they’d been in enough fights to learn a little and had started to listen even more to the men in their ranks with actual time in service to the previous king and his armies. A few tried to make a run for it, cut down before they could get out of the clearing, but the vast majority followed his orders, picking up spears, swords, and bows, forming their own circle, as the attackers now came at them from all sides.

Just in time, too, as a wave of horsemen smashed into their flank. His men managed to push them back, spears and swords injuring animals and men that got close enough, but not without cost. Screams of pain and rage filled the air.

One of the supply wagons toppled, spilling bags of grain across the grass. Three of his men near it fell beneath the swords of the attackers as they tried to get into his lines. The few bowmen they had begun to notch and loose arrows as quickly as they could, taking down a number of the horses and men assaulting them. Not enough, though.

The ambushers kept coming, not losing any momentum. They weren’t like some of the bailiffs they’d encountered, cowards who backed off as soon as they realized the people they were terrorizing weren’t going to back down. No, these men pressed in mercilessly, herding the outnumbered defenders together. Tom could see what they were doing. If his men got backed together tight enough, it wouldn’t take much for them to crush his force entirely and ensure that none escaped.

Even with his men fighting back in all directions, one thing was clear. They were going to be overrun soon.

“Everyone. Concentrate everything to the east,” Tom bellowed, to the men in the center of the camp, closest to him, before turning to Godric, one of the men who’d been with him the longest. “I need you to take that group and hold tight around the rest while they break out. You have to fight hard, keep them looking in that direction, so they don’t see their weak point until it’s too late.”

“What will happen to us when you break out?” Godric said, looking to the west where the largest group of the enemy were attacking.

He was a good man. He’d been a soldier for a short while and read the field better than Tom ever had. It’s why he was the one to lead the rear guard as Tom got the rest out. He’d see where they needed to push to keep the enemy from reinforcing the breach, if it happened, in time.

Unfortunately, he was also smart enough to know what that would mean for him personally.

“I’m sorry,” Tom said, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We need to get as many men as we can out if we are going to continue the fight.”

Godric frowned, misery playing across his face, before he pulled his mouth into a tight line and nodded.

“I understand,” he said, his voice a little shaky. “We’ll do what we can.”

Time was critical, but Tom spared a moment to squeeze his friend’s shoulder, looking him in the eye, trying to say everything he wanted to, but didn’t have the time to say, with a look, instead of words.

Godric nodded, understanding, and said, “Go.”

He didn’t wait to see what Tom did, turning and yelling at his men, getting them to fan out, absorbing as much of the assault as possible, keeping the enemy busy while the rest attempted a breakout.

“With me,” Tom bellowed, pointing at the spot he’d indicated earlier, a portion of the men already attacking the half dozen riders on that side that stood between them and freedom. “Cut through! Pull them down!”

The cost was high, but one by one, the riders were surrounded by angry commoners, pulled off their mounts or stabbed with spear or sword while they sat atop them. Some of the horses were taken with the riders, others sent running as their rider suddenly disappeared.

His men were desperate, the attack brutal. He joined them, stabbing up from the side of a rider who was wildly swinging his sword around his mount, trying to keep the swarm of attackers away, panic in his eyes.

Tom came through on a blind side, his sword sliding easily into an exposed spot where greave met leather chest piece when the man leaned over to attack someone on the opposite side. With a gurgle, the man slid from the saddle and collapsed. Tom pulled his blood-slicked blade free and pointed it at the tree line.

“Run. Into the trees and through,” he yelled.

They would become scattered, and most did not know the destination. He’d try and pick up stragglers as he went, but his number was certain to diminish more than by just what was lost in the battle.

Still, there was nothing for it as Tom sprinted with his group, sparing a look back at Godric, who had spread his line out dangerously thin as the rest made a break for it, the enemy finally realizing what was happening and trying to get through or around them to chase down their escaping prey.

They crashed into the trees and through the underbrush, all of his men pushing hard, knowing it wouldn’t be long until the riders were after them. Godric was still fighting, though. Tom could hear the sounds of clashing steel and dying men, fading but still audible, behind them as they drove deeper into the woods.

He’d gotten maybe two or three dozen men out, from what he could see around him. Perhaps there would be another dozen or so lagging behind or further out running in other directions. Some of those, the stragglers or the ones who’d cut too far north or south, would be caught and captured. If he was very lucky, he’d manage to save fifty of the over one hundred men he’d settled down in the clearing with. In ten minutes, he’d lost half his number, just when they’d thought they’d be safe.

Worse, something had changed. Those weren’t men of the Lindenwood. He didn’t see the branching tree on a field of green, the standard of the Barony of Lindenwood. In fact, he didn’t see any kind of sigil on them at all.

These men were something new. He needed to talk to his friends and find out what was happening.

Valemonde, Lynese Isolde sat quietly next to the soldier as he fell asleep, holding his hand, trying to offer comfort in what was surely one of his final days. Her father had refused to budge, since their argument weeks before, and she’d begun spending more and more time here, where it felt like at least she was doing something that mattered.

Now, more than ever. The hospital had swelled in recent days, ever since the Sidorians forced a crossing of the Chansol River, shattering her father’s army and pushing toward Lysmir Lake, where the Dead Man’s Hills finally narrowed and ended, opening up into the plains of Lynese. She knew these men were only the first, worst cases, sent here by the Disciples, from their field aid stations, where they had a better chance of recovery. Worse, even more of these men, the prime of Lynesian society, would have been beyond all hope, and had passed away without coming south.

She couldn’t help but see the cost of her father’s policies and decisions in every man’s face.

Seeing the young man slip into a sleep, the pain finally leaving his face, Isolde placed his hand back on his chest, patting his shoulder before rising to move on to the next.

She was tired in her heart, but she also couldn’t bring herself to leave. She’d only finished two wards, and there were still three more to go before she saw all of the areas assigned to the soldiers. She’d made a promise to herself not to leave until she’d seen all of the men each time she’d visited, and she intended to stick to that.

Checking on the last three cots she had not stopped at yet, she found each of the men asleep. It was early still, but many of the medicines the Disciples gave were specifically designed to force the patients to sleep, stemming from their belief that, more than any medicine or procedure they could perform, the best chance for men to heal was through rest.

Moving into the next ward, she instantly noticed something different about the setup, something she hadn’t seen here on her last visit three days ago. Normally this room was packed with cots, row upon row, the full length of the room, stretching from one wall to the next. That was still true of the last two wards, but in this one the far corner was cordoned off, a barricade and screens erected and then another barricade past that, with no cots placed anywhere near that section, leaving a large, mostly unused space. Through a gap in the boards, Isolde caught a glimpse of a man thrashing against his restraints. She frowned, perturbed by the sight.

Isolde flagged down one of the Disciples moving amongst the patients. “What is all this? Why is that man bound and separated from the rest?”

The Disciple’s face turned grim, his eyes downcast. “I am afraid he has contracted the Elder Curse, Princess.”

Isolde gasped, taking an instinctive step back, away from the evil. The Elder Curse? She had heard tales of the deadly affliction since childhood and again in her history lessons. How could her lessons not cover it? The curse had ravaged the entire world several centuries ago, wiping out a huge part of the population of not only Lynese but every kingdom in the Shattered Lands before it finally ended. It was quite possibly the most deadly event since the fall of magic itself, claiming more victims than any mortal conflict, even the wars of the great alliance.