The Bear

TWENTY-SEVEN

King Yeslnik sat atop his coach, tapping his fingers on the oaken arms of his gilded throne. On the ground before him stood Captain Descarde of the Seventh Legion, one of the battle groups Yeslnik had granted to Bannagran. Beside the king stood a nobleman of his court, an advisor who had read the note from Laird Bannagran, and atop the nearby wagon to Yeslnik's right sat Queen Olym, arrived at last from the city.

"It is good that you have come forth," Descarde said, stumbling over every word as he tried to unsaddle himself from the burden of having delivered the obviously unwelcome proposal. "I might return with all haste to Laird Banna…" His voice trailed off as Yeslnik began talking to Olym, ignoring him fully.

"Did you hear that, my queen?" the king asked. "An end to the war, so says Bannagran, this man you think so grand a champion."

Around him, unnoticed by Yeslnik, several men shifted nervously, for there could be no question of the impressive nature of the Laird of Pryd, whose exploits in the war were legendary throughout the ranks of Delaval's garrison.

"We simply stop! How marvelous!" Yeslnik chided. "And since my victory is at hand, assuredly, now is the time for me to divide my kingdom among several smaller kingdoms. Oh, my, but how wonderful, with Bannagran getting his own!"

The advisor at Yeslnik's side strained to laugh at the mocking tones.

"Alas, but he has seen too much of the war," Queen Olym replied. "I have heard of such things, where mighty warriors become cowardly. It is a great loss, but no matter, for our kingdom is at hand. Indeed, my husband, perhaps it is better that a once-mighty laird so nearby to Delaval City has lost his loins for the fight."

King Yeslnik chuckled and nodded, fixing his stare back on Captain Descarde.

"You would have me return to Laird Bannagran and tell him that his offer is refused?" the man asked.

"Oh, more than that," Yeslnik said dramatically. "I would have you go back to Pryd-take extra horses and ride through the nights!-and tell my subject of the situation. Dame Gwydre and her pitiful forces flee straight at my army, trapped north and west by the great General Milwellis and with Bannagran and the thousands I gave to him blocking her way to the south. Tell him to come forth and join in Gwydre's slaughter, or I will remove him from the seat of Pryd in disgrace. Perhaps he can yet salvage a place among my generals, perhaps I'll even allow him to join in the rout of Laird Ethelbert, but I'll not tolerate his hesitance. Not now."

The captain bowed.

"Go!" King Yeslnik, so full of pride and power and glory, yelled at him.

"Bannagran needs to be leashed and lashed," Yeslnik remarked to his queen.

Olym tittered and arched her eyebrows at that, and Yeslnik scowled at her, fully understanding where her lewd mind had run off to.

An interesting proposal," Harcourt said to Milwellis.

Milwellis didn't immediately respond, considering more carefully the implications of Bannagran's curious and unexpected ploy. Surely Yeslnik would be outraged… particularly at this moment, with one of his prime enemies about to be utterly destroyed.

Of course, Bannagran likely did not know that. "We must move more quickly," he instructed Harcourt. "I would catch and destroy Gwydre even before she encounters the Delaval garrison, if that is possible."

Harcourt looked at him curiously, obviously expecting more.

"And since Bannagran will not likely come forth…" Milwellis said.

"All glory to Palmaristown," Harcourt finished, now nodding.

"And who better to absorb the Holding of Vanguard than Milwellis of Palmaristown?" the laird asked. "With our ships dominating the gulf and securing the trade routes."

"Bannagran's hesitance plays for us," Harcourt agreed. "Might he even evoke war between Delaval City and Pryd Town?"

"A marvelous possibility," Milwellis said. "But one stride forward at a time, my friend. Let us crush Gwydre and quickly, that none share in our glory. Then we will let King Yeslnik determine our course, be it to Chapel Abelle or even to distant Ethelbert dos Entel. I will be the good and loyal prince." He glanced down at the parchment from Pryd Town. "While Bannagran pauses to irrelevance."

A wry smile spread across Milwellis's face. He looked to the south, toward the distant army of Vanguard, soon, perhaps even this fine day, to be conquered.

"An interesting proposal," he repeated back to Harcourt, who nodded in silent applause to the obvious inner workings of Laird Milwellis. This will be the field of battle," Dame Gwydre decided as the great force pursuing her grew closer throughout that day. She stood on a ridge, looking east across a descending slope to a wide field interspersed with small copses of maples and elms.

"Blenden Coe," said one of the nearby monks, a man from the region. "There have been other notable battles here."

"I had thought we would find higher ground, more rocky and defensible," Brother Pinower remarked.

So had Gwydre, but the choice had been forced by the proximity of King Yeslnik's forces in the other direction. She had walked into the trap determinedly and knowing all the while that any chance of survival hinged on the magical prowess of Pinower's monks and any chance of victory on the decision of Bannagran, whose forces sat immediately south of her position.

She looked that way as she considered the Laird of Pryd, and her turn did not go unnoticed.

"If he does not come?" Pinower asked, the question that was on the minds of all, save Bransen.

"Then we flee to him," Gwydre replied. "He'll not stop our run."

"Bannagran will come," the Highwayman assured them all. "He goaded Milwellis forward with a message and gave King Yeslnik pause. That was his intent, and only because he would have us fight them separately."

Dawson's sigh turned the lady and Bransen his way, her expression one of surprise and curiosity.

"There's no telling what a man like that'll do when his world's on the line," Dawson said. "He's all a friend to ye when you visit, to be sure, but how might that friendship hold when fifty thousand warriors are chasing you to his town?"

Gwydre held her hand up in concession, and, for a brief moment, she appeared very old and tired to those around her. She had taken an awful risk here, and now, faced with the converging armies-either of them far outnumbering her own-she couldn't help but second-guess her gamble. She could have left her five thousand in Vanguard, far from Yeslnik's reach. Surely, he could not have so easily sent tens of thousands against her in that remote and forbidding wilderness. She could have left the prisoner army and the brothers inside the thick walls of St. Mere Abelle, for would any army ever breach that mighty fortress?

"This is not about us," Bransen interjected, and he stepped up beside Gwydre, who was glad for his support. "We are here for the people of Honce and the misery they will surely know if we desert them to the whims of King Yeslnik."

"This will be the field of battle," Dame Gwydre said again, more resolutely. "Prepare it quickly, for Milwellis will come on eagerly and will not pause to wait for King Yeslnik. All glory to him, he believes, and Yeslnik is a day's march away at the least."

"The rise is for me and my brethren to defend," Brother Pinower explained, pointing halfway down the descent.

"Their horsemen will break into a charge at the base, no doubt," said Bransen.

"And that is the time to hit them the hardest," Pinower agreed.

"What else?" Dame Gwydre asked Bransen when Pinower scurried away. Bransen's surprise at her obvious uncertainty was clear. "This is not the type of battle we fight in Vanguard," the dame admitted. "Rarely do armies there number in the hundreds, and here we face thousands with thousands."

Bransen swallowed hard, realizing only then the responsibility that would be his. He thought of the Book of Jhest, that marvelous tome he had memorized in his youth. Much of the book was devoted to personal fighting styles and philosophy, but there were many verses regarding the great battles of the great wars.

Bransen looked around at the landscape, picturing the battle in his head, playing it out as a bird might witness it. "Logs," he said.

"Logs?" Gwydre and Dawson asked together. Word traveled fast along King Yeslnik's line: Dame Gwydre had stopped and turned to face Milwellis before the jaws of their trap could engulf her.

"Faster, then!" demanded Queen Olym when the word reached the pair, riding atop their respective coaches. "I would see their blood!"

"Drive on!" King Yeslnik agreed. "And where is Bannagran? Bid him come forth! There can be no escape for the witch of Vanguard!"

Within an hour, King Yeslnik had his answer, for across the wide fields to the south appeared an army more than half the size of his own and flying the wolf-emblazoned pennants of Pryd Town.

"Gwydre's end!" Yeslnik proclaimed at the sight, and he flailed his fist into the air, overwhelmed with joy. Where could she go, caught between three forces, each far superior to her own?

Soon after, a contingent of heavy war chariots rumbled across the fields, and cheers for Laird Bannagran preceded the man's ride to Yeslnik's coach.

"I feared that I would have to ride all the way to Pryd Town to pry you from your hole," the king greeted the laird. Yeslnik seemed quite pleased with himself as he looked down at Bannagran from on high.

"I sent you a courier, an offer," Bannagran replied, and he didn't bow and didn't refer at all to Yeslnik's title, as protocol demanded.

Yeslnik sputtered, trying to find a reply.

"Five holdings and an end to the war," Bannagran clarified.

"The war ends this day!" Yeslnik screamed back at him. "Dame Gwydre will fall to Laird Milwellis right before our eyes and to our blades as well, if we do not tarry."

"Even were that so, it would only preface a continuing war."

"Ethelbert?" Yeslnik said with a dismissive snicker.

"And the brothers of Abelle and Vanguard itself." Bannagran paused and stared hard at the King. "And…" he hinted.

"What do you say?" King Yeslnik demanded.

"I have your answer?" asked Bannagran.

Yeslnik sputtered again. "My answer?" he shouted incredulously, angrily.

"I ask you one more time," Bannagran said calmly, "abandon this war and divide Honce accordingly."

King Yeslnik trembled with rage. "Honce is mine!" he screeched. "Mine! From Delaval to Ethelbert dos Entel, from the Belt-and-Buckle to the forests of Vanguard. Mine! How dare you? Honce is mine!"

"We shall see," said Bannagran, and on his nod his practiced brigade whipped their teams into a gallop and rumbling turn.

"What?" Yeslnik yelled behind them as they rumbled away. "Treason!" he shouted. "Stop them!"

And, indeed, some of the king's men moved to do just that, with one in particular barking commands at his soldiers and at Bannagran to surrender.

The Laird of Pryd lifted a spear from the bucket at his feet. His throw was true, as usual, and strong, the spear plunging through the commander's chest and driving behind him to the ground, pinning him in place. He was still standing, but his arms swung limply at his sides, for he was also quite dead.

With Bannagran at their tip, the wedge of his skilled charioteers thundered through the scattering ranks of confused Delaval soldiers, back to the south and their lines.

"My king?" more than one of Yeslnik's commanders pleaded with him back at the coaches.

"Fight them! Kill him!" was all that the stunned and terrified Yeslnik could demand. He leaped from his throne and scrambled down the ladder at the side of his coach, disappearing inside and slamming the armored door behind him.

More than one commander raised an eyebrow at that, but these were skilled warriors, men who had trained and fought under the able command of Laird Delaval. They scattered to their respective battle groups, turning the lines, readying the archers, and forming defensive squares as the fields south blackened with lines of warriors marching under the flag of Pryd, not Delaval, then charging without hesitation to the command of the Bear of Honce.

The ground shook when they came on, driving into King Yeslnik's flank, led by Bannagran and his devastating wedge of veteran charioteers.

The sky blackened with arrows.

The fields reddened with blood.

The air filled with the screams of battle, of rage, of agony, of terror. There was no shortage of second-guessing on the ridge west of the low field known as Blenden Coe when all the higher ground north and east darkened with the soldiers of Laird Milwellis. Shoulder to shoulder and many ranks deep, their sheer numbers mocked Dame Gwydre's plan or any rational hope that she could win the day.

Those enemies in the north held their ground, planting their long spears in the turf and standing at ease, while in the west, the great force began to move, spilling down the northern slope into the bowl of Blenden Coe, forming into squares.

"How many to each?" Gwydre asked Dawson McKeege, who stood beside her.

The old sailor snorted. "Five hundred? A thousand?" he said as square after square rolled over the eastern crest and marched down into Blenden Coe. Three squares across and five deep, fully fifteen were in sight.

"Beware the line in the north," Gwydre warned.

"The ground up there is difficult, and we've archers and monks ready to sting them if they try to run about us," Dawson assured her. He left it unspoken, but his ending snort told Gwydre that he was thinking the same thing as she: With the overwhelming force marching straight at them, what need did Laird Milwellis have of any tactical flank?

Fittingly, the sky darkened as storm clouds rushed on brisk late-summer winds and stole the late-morning sun.

"If we sting them hard enough, be prepared to break and run," Gwydre said to Dawson and to all the other commanders about her. "To the south and Pryd Town."

"If Bannagran won't come to us, we'll go to him," Dawson muttered under his breath, and, like Gwydre, he looked to the south.

Milwellis's leading squares were halfway across the mile-long field by that point, all shields and spear tips and the rattle of armor and the thunder of marching boots. The storm clouds above seemed to mirror their approach, the sky darkening as the field darkened with cavalry groups, few chariots, but scores of riders, positioned between the second rank of squares, riding about the lines and tightening the formations, barking orders and encouragement.

"Come on, then," Dawson muttered when the first line paused just beyond the slope at the western end of Blenden Coe. He glanced back over his shoulder at the second contingency, and he noted a rider fast approaching along the western road.

Dawson tapped Gwydre's shoulder, and when she turned to regard him, he motioned to the distant man. Both were still looking on curiously, back to the west, when the storm broke in the east, the leading three squares coming on with a howling charge.

"Let fly! Let fly!" the commanders shouted to the lines of archers up on that ridge, and lines of Vanguardsmen bent their bows and sent their killing darts into the air.

But the shield walls stopped most of that with only minimal damage.

Behind the leading squares, groups of Palmaristown archers rushed into place and tried to return the volley, but from the lower ground, they couldn't yet reach Gwydre's position. Seeing that as their enemy's only advantage, Milwellis's commanders urged those first squares on faster.

Up the slope they charged, screaming wildly and beating their weapons against their shields.

And a second storm broke, a thunderstorm, and not from the skies above, but from the ground before them, as the brothers of St. Mere Abelle popped up from their concealment and blasted Milwellis's ranks with stunning bolts of graphite lightning.

And most powerful of all, centering the line of Dame Gwydre's monks, came the magical explosions of the Highwayman, and while many men fell wounded to the lightning of the monks, those who fell to the power of the Highwayman did not rise up.

Stroke after stroke crackled into the tight formations, scattering electrical charges across the iron-banded shields like the interconnected strands of a spider's web. Men staggered and stumbled as the focused assault became a confused and faltering jumble.

More lightning came forth, and atop the ridge Gwydre called for more arrows. Again the sky filled with deadly darts, and this time, with the enemy formations compromised, with much greater effect.

"Let fly! Let fly!" Gwydre and all of her commanders implored their archers, for the only hope for the brothers below, who were now running up the hill and stopping only occasionally to launch a weak lightning stroke, was continued confusion among Milwellis's front ranks. The Highwayman bounded among the fleeing monks, helping brothers to their feet and shoving them along their way. When he stopped and turned and let fly a blast of lightning, all pursuit in that region simply ceased.

Still, arrows chased those monks up the hill, and several brothers fell thrashing to the ground. From the ranks below came riders, just a few, galloping up the turf, braving the hail of arrows to catch a wayward brother and cut him down.

And farther below, the second rank of squares methodically marched past the retreating first groups, continuing up the hills.

"They're not all up," Gwydre said to Dawson when he turned to shout out more commands.

Dawson turned to her, shaking his head. "Now or not at all," he said. "And sure if not at all, then we're all lost."

Dame Gwydre closed her eyes and tried to steady herself with long, deep breaths. She thought herself a fool for continuing her march; she should have returned to St. Mere Abelle… or to Vanguard! Come along and ride hard," Milwellis said to Harcourt and Father De Guilbe as they watched the second rank of squares ascend the hill, victory all but assured. "I wish to be there when Dame Gwydre begs for her life."

The two shared a laugh at that long-awaited prospect, and both were just about to kick their mounts into a run when over the crest of the far western ridge came a curious sight: several burning logs in a long line. At either end of each stood runners, holding ropes affixed to those clever barriers. The runners didn't hesitate and didn't slow, charging down at the marching enemies, pulling the logs between them. With their fires raging along their oil-soaked lengths, those logs gained momentum and outran their pullers, bouncing and rolling down the hill.

How the soldiers of Milwellis scattered before that conflagration! More logs appeared atop the ridge and followed the first barrage down the sloping ground and more after that.

Running beside that third wave of rolling firebombs came the brothers of Abelle once again, gemstones in hand, and with the ranks confused and dodging and scattered, their lightning strokes sent many men shuddering to the ground.

"The beasts!" exclaimed Father De Guilbe.

Laird Milwellis let out a growl of outrage. "Onward!" he bade Harcourt, as if he meant to turn the tide all by himself.

Harcourt grabbed Milwellis's mount's bridle and held the laird back. "Swashbuckler's flash," the general explained, referring to a sea term to describe the technique of a particular type of swordsman, who used exaggerated movements and flair to disguise often ineffectual maneuvers. "Be at ease, laird. Their display is far more impressive in appearance than effect, I am sure."

So they waited and watched, and Gwydre's forces pressed from the top half of the ridge with volleys of arrows and magical explosions. The screams of pain echoing in Blenden Coe were those of Milwellis's men, then and for what seemed like a very long while.

But it was not, and, as Harcourt had predicted, nothing dramatic changed in the greater scheme of things. Gwydre's ploy had killed many of Milwellis's men-a couple of hundred, perhaps-but the swarm of the laird's army continued their indomitable march, and even those shattered formations worked fast to regroup and begin again the press.

"Swashbuckler's flash," Milwellis said back to Harcourt, great relief in his voice. "How many more tricks might Dame Gwydre have to play?"

"Not enough," Harcourt assured him.