The Dame

ELEVEN

We’re driving them hard,” shouted Erolis, a nobleman from Pryd who had so distinguished himself in the fighting that Bannagran had given him one of the ten chariots in his elite team.

Bannagran could only nod as others chimed in above the din of pounding hooves and rolling wheels. They had started to the north on the hunt for the Highwayman, as Yeslnik had demanded. That alone had bothered Bannagran more than a bit, given the Highwayman’s reputation among the commoners. Indeed, Bannagran had let Bransen go after the death of Prydae for just that reason, a potential revolt among the people of Pryd Holding.

Word had caught up to them after their departure, though, that King Yeslnik was soon to be engaging the forces of Laird Ethelbert far to the east of Pryd, along the western banks of Felidan Bay, the long inlet that separated Honce proper from the large peninsula of the easternmost regions known as the Mantis Arm. Yeslnik had recalled Bannagran with all speed.

And so the good general had followed his orders, wheeling his group of ten back to the south and then east, rumbling to the limit of the horses’ strength along the cobblestone roads. They were getting close, Bannagran knew, and that was a good thing, for more than a few of the twenty horses drawing the war chariots would need to be replaced.

“Smoke in the northeast,” Erolis called as they neared an intersection in the road.

“Stay east,” Bannagran replied. He knew this land-he and Prydae had battled powries throughout this region, driving them to the sea, years before.

“Some town is burning,” one of the others said.

“Good enough for them,” another added.

Within a half hour, they came upon the stragglers of Yeslnik’s rearguard and, they learned, southern flank.

“Ah, but never have me eyes looked upon a more blessed sight!” cried one man-a man from Pryd, Bannagran knew.

Bannagran pulled his chariot up beside the beleaguered footman. “You are Farmer Grees?”

“Ah, Laird Bannagran,” the man replied with a low bow.

Bannagran scowled at him from the chariot for using that title, one not yet officially proclaimed. “Where is King Yeslnik?”

Grees halfheartedly waved generally north.

“The town and smoke?”

“Nay,” Grees answered. “That’d be Milwellis, we’re hearing. The king’s due north of us-might even be back to the west a bit.”

Bannagran didn’t have to probe further to get the hidden meaning there, that Yeslnik, as usual, was safely to the rear of the fighting.

“Can ye go to him?” the man asked suddenly. Bannagran looked at him with surprise.

“Might I be speaking without getting yer spear in me chest?” Grees asked, his voice low.

“What are you about?”

“About to die, I’m guessing,” Grees answered.

Bannagran scowled; behind Grees several other footmen shifted nervously.

“Go and tell King Yeslnik, I beg ye,” Grees pressed.

“Tell him what?”

“He’s got us spearheading straight east,” Grees explained. “And the front groups’re making great gains. The enemy’re falling back before them.” He sighed and lowered his voice as he added, “None to the south of us. None of us, I mean, guarding our flank. But there’s a road there.”

Bannagran looked to the east, then the south, trying to get a feel for the situation. Farmer Grees was a veteran of many battles, as were most of the men of Pryd. His tone spoke volumes more than his actual words.

“Mighty spearmen are the folk o’ the Mantis Arm,” Grees added. “Who spend their days harpooning the fishes.”

“They’ve crossed the bay?”

“Aye, Prince Milwellis hit them hard in the north and cut them off from the mainland-he’s built a fortress at the north tip o’ Felidan to keep the men o’ the peninsula on the peninsula. But aye, they’ve got boats a’plenty.”

“You’re being flanked to the south,” Bannagran reasoned. “While the Felidan Bay villagers retreat, their allies from across the bay are sliding in beside and behind you.”

Grees didn’t have to answer.

“How many? How far west have they pushed? And how far east are the front runners of your surge?”

“I can’t be knowing, but they’re there. They’re falling too fast afore us, letting us push east and stretch thin. These folk are no strangers to the way of battle-they’ve been fighting powries all their lives.”

“Why are you men back here?” Erolis interjected, accusation heavy in his tone. “If your line advances with all speed, then why are you so far behind?”

Farmer Grees pointed down at his foot, which was heavily bandaged, but showing blood through the wrap. “All of us here been taking hits and can’t keep up.”

“And when you heard of the southern flank, you hesitated more,” Bannagran remarked, and Grees and many others shifted uncomfortably.

“Good fortune that you did,” Bannagran said even as Erolis started to launch another accusation. “And good fortune that you are rested.” He turned to his charioteers. “We go south, and these men will run behind us. We’ll cut the enemy off along the road.” Turning back to Farmer Grees, he instructed, “Your men come in behind us and turn fast to the east. Our enemies will be in rout and retreating, so run among them and kill them.”

“What of them that’s already crossed the road?”

“The chariots will hold the road,” Bannagran declared, loud enough for all to hear. He snapped the reins and his team leaped off, rambling across an open field to the road running south beyond.

“For the Bear of Honce!” he heard more than one man cry enthusiastically behind him. He hated that nickname, hated being compared to some animal, but he couldn’t deny its power to rally men, and he surely needed that energy and hope at this time.

Flames hungrily ate the thatched roofs, billowing thick black smoke into the air. Men, women, and children screamed and rushed about in stark terror as horsemen weaved through the village, launching torches onto the roofs, launching spears at the pursued, or just running down the smaller ones and trampling them under hoof.

Prince Milwellis of Palmaristown kept his horse running and couldn’t stop laughing at the frenzy before him. This village, of no name worth remembering, had sent some men to the north to… to what, Milwellis still wondered. To parlay? To defend? In either case, they had utterly failed, since Milwellis, eager to be the first to Yansinchester, the target city of King Yeslnik’s diversion to the coast, just sent his large force swarming over them and into their village.

Out of the corner of his eye, Milwellis noted a man darting behind the corner of a building. He kicked his mount into a short gallop, spinning around the corner, spear ready, to find the man huddled with his back against the stone, his hands open and defensively against his chest and belly.

“Oh please, good sir, please don’t kill me!” he cried. “I’m with no one, not Ethelbert. Just a fisherman, I am.”

“Be at ease, good man,” Milwellis said and lowered his spear across his lap.

The man straightened, his arms going down by his sides. “We’re just simple folk,” he started to say.

“Then no real loss,” Milwellis interjected. He thrust his spear into the man’s gut. The fisherman shrieked and doubled over as Milwellis tore his barbed weapon back out, taking along the man’s entrails.

“I would carve the crest of Palmaristown in your forehead for your treachery against King Yeslnik, fool!” the merciless prince shouted as the man crumbled to his knees. “But I haven’t the time!”

The fisherman fell flat on the ground, and Milwellis whirled his horse about, stomping over him as he went back to the fun at the village center.

A large group moving east-to-west,” Erolis confirmed from his perch up in a tree. “Slipping in behind Yeslnik’s line as they spearhead east.”

“Heartbeats?” Bannagran asked from his chariot below.

“Hundreds, five hundred, perhaps.”

Bannagran nodded and motioned his man down from the tree (and since the wind carried great bite this day, Erolis was more than happy to follow that order.

“You follow as swiftly as you can,” Bannagran commanded Grees and the fifty other footmen he had rounded up. “We will turn them and send them running, and the quicker you are among them, the more confusion they will find. So, for your own lives, warriors, run!”

As soon as Erolis stepped up into his chariot, Bannagran set his own off along the road, the other nine quickly sweeping up in his wake. Bannagran kept the pace measured for a short while, trying to gauge his timing for maximum effect at the enemy crossing point.

As usual, his instincts proved perfect, and when he set his team into a full charge along the last span to the enemy crossing, more than three dozen warriors from various villages of the Mantis Arm were within striking distance of the road.

Bannagran’s armored team and chariot roared down at the Ethelbert soldiers. The warrior led with a series of spear throws, plucking them from the stand before him, launching them with precision and great power, all the while aiming his team at the largest concentration. A couple threw spears back his way, but they were more concerned with trying to get out of Bannagran’s path, and their missiles proved ineffective.

Men rushed about wildly, and some broke. Some who thought they had dodged the brunt of the charging horse team found their legs literally cut from under them by the great jagged blades protruding from Bannagran’s wheels.

Screams echoed east and west of the road, including cries of alarm that the Bear of Honce had come. And from the north, where the other nine charioteers similarly pounded into Ethelbert’s forces, the fifty footmen howled and hollered and ran on at full speed.

The road was cleared in moments. Bannagran pulled his team up to the side, took up shield and spear, and leaped away. None could stand before him. Indeed, his enemies knew him and shouted his name in terror as they broke and fled before him.

All that Bannagran had hoped came to fruition in short order. The concentration of enemies moving to flank the southern end of Yeslnik’s line fell apart almost at once, and those who managed to escape the catastrophe ran back the way they had come, to the east.

Bannagran and his nine fellows gave short chase, launching spears, inciting further terror. Grees and the others swept by, cheering their leader, the great Bannagran, who had arrived to turn certain disaster into victory yet again.

“To your chariots,” Bannagran ordered the nine. “Those who have already crossed the road will try to strike at us from the west. They are caught alone!”

As predicted, the peninsula warriors did come on from the west, trying to break through to secure their reinforcements. But this was Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, the hero of Pryd, the hero of Yeslnik’s Honce. Their spears were met by brutal and unforgiving charges of chariots. At one point Bannagran even grabbed a handful of javelins, leaped from his chariot, and chased after a group of five who ran back to the west.

Not fast enough for one, who caught a spear in the back, and then another, who took one in the back of the thigh, and then a third, whom Bannagran hit with a flying tackle, burying him in the dirt.

Just before Bannagran cut that one’s throat open with the serrated edge of his short sword, the man cried, “I surrender! Oh, but it’s not my war! I’ve children!”

Bannagran held his slash, stood up straight, and hoisted the man to his feet beside him. He looked back to the man he had hit in the leg, thrashing on the ground, and to Erolis, closing in for the kill.

“All quarter!” Bannagran called, and Erolis nodded. “These, too, are men of Honce!”

“Hail King Yeslnik!” Erolis called back.

Bannagran scowled at his prisoner.

“Hail King Yeslnik!” the terrified man answered, and Bannagran nodded grimly and pulled him back toward the road.

Soon after, Grees and the others returned, full of cheer and bluster. “We ran them off for good!” the farmer asserted. “And many’re down.”

“Well done,” Bannagran congratulated him. “Now we turn west and quickly. Those out there are cut off from their allies and families, and they know it.”

“How many?” Grees asked, concern in his tone.

“It matters not,” Bannagran assured him. “They’ll have no heart for the fight.”

Proud of his men and glad that he had again ably led them, Bannagran left the western fields of victory, driving for Yeslnik’s position in the center of his extended line. As it seemed that the fighting had ebbed-all warriors he passed on his way told him that the enemy had retreated to the fortified coastal towns-Bannagran eased his pace, so that his charioteers and footmen and their hundred prisoners, taken in those western fields with hardly a fight, as he had predicted, could somewhat pace him.

He wanted them to arrive in view of King Yeslnik soon after he and the unpredictable young nobleman had begun their conversation. In dealing with Yeslnik, Bannagran knew, it was always wise to somehow gain an advantage.

He found the young king basking in luxury in a grand tent, surrounded by so many layers of sentries that Ethelbert’s entire army, had it come at them, would not likely have gotten to Yeslnik. Inside, around a table set with lavish foods, Yeslnik and his field commanders dined and drank.

Bannagran wasn’t surprised.

“Ah, but the great Bear has come,” said Yeslnik.

Bannagran winced at the mocking tone.

“I expected your arrival this morning,” Yeslnik went on. “You were seen not far to the west many hours ago. I told you not to tarry.”

“I happened upon a situation that needed to be addressed, for the good of my king,” Bannagran explained. “I had not the time to ride to you and to correct the breach in your defenses.”

“Breach?” Yeslnik replied, his tone going higher and betraying his sudden anxiety.

Always the brave one, Bannagran thought.

“The success of your maneuver at your southern flank was obviously unanticipated,” Bannagran carefully explained. “Huzzah for the men of Delaval, so obviously eager to please their new king!”

Yeslnik smirked at him, and Bannagran knew that the king understood the criticism behind the compliment. A buffoon in many ways, too prideful for his or his subjects’ good, and possessed of ridiculous vanity and deceit, Yeslnik was nevertheless not a simpleton, particularly not in matters politic. Bannagran silently reminded himself never to forget that.

“The peninsula warriors made a fatal mistake,” Bannagran went on. “They tried to flank your spearheading advance by secretly advancing to the south of the southern end of your line. But they stretched themselves too thin. They are more used to fighting on the sea, methinks, or at the seacoast.”

They heard a commotion outside the tent, and Bannagran knew that his men had arrived with the prisoners-and not a moment too soon, he thought.

“They were desperate against your bold gambit in the south, and so they erred,” the Bear of Honce finished. He led Yeslnik and the other commanders present to the tent flap, coming in view of Bannagran’s forces leading the long line of captives.

“What is the meaning of this?” Yeslnik asked Bannagran, surprising the champion.

“It means that our enemy’s gambit has failed,” he started to answer, but before he could finish, before his group even fully entered the encampment, horns blew from the other direction and a great cheer went up among King Yeslnik’s forces.

Yeslnik led Bannagran and the others from the tent to come in view of the new arrivals, Milwellis and his forces.

“They have razed a line from the neck of the Mantis Arm to here,” King Yeslnik explained to Bannagran. “They have struck fear into the hearts of the fools who would oppose my reign. Never again will the men, what few remain, of the Felidan Bay villages take up weapons in support of Ethelbert. The region is nearly secured.”

He turned to Bannagran. “Do you notice anything absent among Milwellis’s ranks?”

Bannagran looked hard, but found no answers to the curious and curiously leading question.

“Laird Bannagran did not hear of your edict, my liege,” one of Yeslnik’s other commanders remarked. Yeslnik nodded.

Bannagran looked at them with puzzlement.

“The days, the months, nay, the years, of merciful war are ended,” Yeslnik explained.

“Merciful war?” Bannagran echoed with confusion.

“Merciful?” Yeslnik spat. “The reason this uprising of Ethelbert continues is because of false mercy!”

Bannagran let the description of the war as the “uprising of Ethelbert” go without the obvious challenge. This war was more a matter of Laird Delaval’s expansion of his substantive holding than anything else. As soon as the roads had been completed, Laird Delaval, with his large resources, had moved to unify Honce under his banner. Ethelbert, the second strongest laird, with the support of many other lesser lairds and with ties to Behr in the south, had opposed him.

“Only when the cost of their choice is clear to those who would oppose me will they cease in their folly,” Yeslnik explained.

“What would you have me do, my king?” Bannagran asked, a bit tentatively, for he was truly afraid of where this curious conversation might be leading.

“Tell me what is missing from Prince Milwellis’s grand entrance,” Yeslnik replied, and loudly, so that the approaching Milwellis clearly heard.

Bannagran scratched his head, not wanting to answer.

“Prisoners,” Yeslnik said with a hiss. “The day of false mercy is ended. We do not offer quarter.”

Bannagran swallowed hard, his mind whirling through the myriad of troublesome implications of such a ruthless edict. Why would any of those loyal to Ethelbert ever surrender with such a fate before them? He wanted to speak out, to explain to King Yeslnik that his own victory that very day would have been hard to achieve and would have cost him dearly had not the disoriented and fearful warriors of the Mantis Arm surrendered in those western fields-surrendered, despite outnumbering Bannagran’s forces two-to-one, because they knew there was no long-term solution to their dilemma.

“Execute them,” Yeslnik instructed Bannagran, the king’s words snapping at the champion like a jolt of lightning.

“I took them fairly, upon my word,” Bannagran dared to argue.

“My word overcomes your word.”

“Yes, my king,” Bannagran stammered, “but you cannot take from me my honor if you wish me to remain valuable to your cause.” His justification sounded inane to his own ears as he improvised the words, but he had to say something, anything, to dissuade Yeslnik from this course. Bannagran could kill any man or woman in battle without the slightest regret; he was a warrior and had been since his youth. But to kill unarmed, defenseless prisoners on such a scale, many of them simply folk caught up in the folly of lairds?

“Are you refusing me?” Yeslnik asked, the threat clear.

“No, my king, I am asking your deference in this matter.”

Yeslnik stared at him hard.

“Oh, just kill them quickly and be done with it,” said Prince Milwellis. “My liege, allow me,” he added, staring at Bannagran as he spoke, as if this request was surely elevating him against the champion of Pryd, who many believed to be Milwellis’s primary competitor for the favor of King Yeslnik. “As a reward for my efforts in the north.”

Yeslnik looked from Milwellis to Bannagran and gave a little laugh, then motioned for Milwellis to proceed. The fearsome prince of Palmaristown eagerly climbed back upon his horse and motioned for a few of his most deserving and trusted comrades to follow.

“It would seem the situation here is well in hand,” Yeslnik said to Bannagran in dismissive tones. “I expect that you are not needed after all. Take your charioteers and return to the hunt of the Highwayman.”

Bannagran gave a curt bow and spun away, rushing to his chariot and motioning his nine to follow quickly.

“And do not fail me again,” King Yeslnik said to him.

Bannagran snapped his reins and sent his team charging away, hoping to be far from this place before the screams of terror and agony filled the air.

No such luck.