“We’re too exposed,” the Lord Constable shouted.
He knew. Blast it, he knew. Open field meant death. But the only cover close at hand was the treeline in the distance, the treeline that was sure to conceal an ambush.
At the bottom of the ridge, chaos reigned. Blades scraped free. Steel crashed against steel. Shouts cut through the din—shouts of panic, of fear. There was no way to tell friend from foe.
No way to tell who was killing whom.
Arrowfire thickened, falling like rain. “Father!” one of his Sons shouted in warning before an arrow slammed home, silencing the man forever.
With a snarl, Aldric wheeled Mourn around. Toward the dark forest. The unknown. “Trees! Now!”
Kyn stared at him, clearly uncertain. But he refused to lose another man out here. He refused to let his Sons sit here and be slaughtered.
A choice between open massacre and an obvious trap?
The Lord help them.
“Go! Leif, get them out of here!” Aldric shouted, holding his horse on a tight rein as his men finally peeled away and rode hard for the trees, led by his eldest Son. Only Rakon and Calix hung back, guarding his right side.
Sir Easome hesitated. “We can’t abandon our troops to die.”
Our troops. Aldric grimaced. “Which ones are ours?”
He let the rhetorical question hang between them for but a moment.
A moment too long. Another precious second gone.
Easome’s jaw clenched. Uncertainty flashed in his eyes.
Aldric snapped, “I don’t want to leave you, but I will!”
The Lord Constable spurred his horse onward, flying down the ridge and toward the trees. Finally letting Mourn have his head, Aldric followed.
His warhorse surged, narrowly avoiding a dying man who staggered into their path. The smell of blood soaked the air. Calix’s bowstring twanged behind him in a rapid-fire volley.
Rakon shouted over the chaos, “What’s the plan, boss?”
“Break line of sight. Secure the treeline. Pick off incoming enemies. Survive,” Aldric commanded, the plan forming in his mind even as he spoke. The trees loomed closer—dark, unfamiliar. Already, most of his Sons were within.
Twisting his lips, he added, “And find my useless usuru so we can get a message to Goldreach,” before he plunged in after them.
Elmorian forests were different. More oak than pine, with no fog from Kuni spilling through the trunks. A creek burbled nearby. Fallen leaves crunched beneath Mourn’s hooves, smelling of wet earth. Decay.
Calix released his breath on a hiss and readied another arrow. “We don’t exactly have time to stop and pen a letter,Your Majesty.”
He shot his second-in-command a sharp look—a warning. “Thenmaketime.” Sera had to know what was happening out here. There was no way he could ride back to Goldreach in time to warn her, but Soot? Soot was fast.
And he might as well do his job for once.
“Kyn,” Aldric barked, locating his medic amongst the shuffle. “Find Soot’s harness. Get a message back to Goldreach.”
Reyla. Sera.His chest constricted at the thought of them both—a taste of panic he couldn’t afford right now.
He shoved the feeling away.
They were elsewhere. There was nothing he could do for them now except survive. Dame Florence could take care of Reyla. And Sera?
At least she still had her attack rat with her.
