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The dance began.
Huntley dodged and weaved, struggling to find an opening in Rowan’s plate. The clash of metal on metal rang out as they exchanged fierce blows. Rowan jumped back, parrying a flurry of attacks, sending their swords singing. Huntley flew at him and continued to press the attack. High, low, backslash, overhand, hacking and slashing as fast as his armor would allow.
My God, Rowan thought, he fights well. Rowan slipped on a wet stone. Righted himself just as Huntley’s shortsword jetted down. His boisterous laughter cut through the night.
Huntley’s lightning-fast style made a powerful match for his heavy sword and armor. Their swords met and sprang apart and then met again. Rowan’s blood heated and sang as he pushed the advance and nearly cut Huntley’s blond head from his shoulders.
A good-looking lad. But he won’t be so handsome when I’m through with him.
“You are quite legendary,” his opponent said with a dry smile. “Not half bad for a maiden. Might I have this dance?” he asked mockingly, sending Rowan into a spinning cut.
The banter shall defeat him, Rowan thought, continuing to press the pace with calculated strokes.
He found a sweet opening.
Rowan raised his longsword high and went in for a sweeping slash. Huntley met his blade in midair with his shortsword and stayed Rowan’s arm with surprising strength. They stood locked like that, weapons and arms in midair for what felt like a season. Rowan winced as his arm began to ache. His injury. The one Blanchette had so tenderly attended to…
Loving you isn’t easy.
Huntley swiped a dagger in an upward arc and between where his spaulder met the breastplate. Rowan groaned and stumbled back, intense pain riffling through him. Huntley came forward, not missing a beat.
Huntley poised his dagger and shortsword for the death blow. Rain struck at his face and washed away some of the blood.
Rowan tried to lift his wounded sword arm, but the pain shackled it in place. He groaned and stared at Huntley, who wore his customary smile on his handsome face. His eyes shone with amusement.
“I rather admire you, you know,” Huntley said, his hair shimmering in the moon and torchlights. “Killing you was never my ambition. And neither was killing your squire or so many good men. Perhaps I should have accepted your offer for a one-on-one duel. All these tales of the Black Wolf being unbeatable...” He scoffed and shook his head. “I see now you’re nothing but a lie. Sir Edrick was right. I’m disappointed, Black Wolf.”
Mary’s cries rang in his mind.
He scanned the battle as it raged around him and Huntley.
Who am I, really?
What is this all for?
For Blanchette.
Rowan raised his longsword again as a second wind carried him. As he lifted his arm, Huntley’s dagger was there…
But an arrow came first and embedded in Huntley’s right shoulder, plunging through leather, flesh, and muscle. He staggered backward with a grunt of pain. Clasping his bleeding arm, queasy from his own pain, Rowan glanced up at the battlements. Blanchette stood there looking down, her longbow still poised.
She lowered it slowly and nodded.
I’ve taught her well, he thought.
Then the world melted into dazed chaos.
Thundering hooves shook the ground. Rowan’s gaze shot to the far side of the battle, where the grass and dirt roads lost themselves to the trees. A light cavalry had burst from the coverage and stormed toward the castle guardhouse. Maybe fifteen, twenty mounted soldiers. Leading the charge was King Adam II of Demrov. He wore no crown and didn’t need to. His gilded armor spoke for itself. Even from a distance, he cut a resplendent, kingly figure.
A majestic cloak sewn from layers of cloth of gold hung heavily. It barely stirred amid his charges. Two salamander clasps held it in place, poised to strike, while a third salamander entwined his great helm. Ruby eyes inlaid all three salamanders. His steel-plate armor gleamed with dark crimson enamel and ornate scrollwork. His rondels were sunbursts, and the steel shone like flames in the torchlights.
King Adam brandished an ornate sword above his head and waved it in midair. Rowan could make out the intertwined salamanders that decorated its pommel. “Pull back! Cease the attack! Pull back at once, by order of your king! Pull back!” His lieutenants rode in front and back of him, echoing the command.
Rowan watched with a detached sense of reality as two soldiers grabbed Huntley and pulled him away from Rowan. Huntley continued waving his shortsword and blood-soaked dagger, cursing at Rowan, his eyes burning, gore speckling his face. The din of the retreat and thundering horse’s hooves muffled his words.
“It’s done, Huntley! You hear me?” His men yelled to him over the clamor and Huntley’s curses. “The battle’s over. King’s command!”
Rowan scanned the mounted lieutenants and captains amid the confusion and retreating soldiers, searching for one face and one alone.
