Book 5, Chapter 36: Across The Plains
The enemy looked small and far away from this distance, but spread across a large space. They didn’t advance. Took their positions and held. Cheered for themselves. Jeered at us. I couldn’t make out their faces. Cloud carefully bore me down the path our troops had laid out for the Laemacians. Full of crooked turns and zigzags until we got nearer the flat plain and then straight on to the waiting enemy.
This was probably stupid. Ok, well past stupid and straight into baffling insanity. I just couldn’t think of what else to do. It’s not like he could really harm me anyways. Only if I let him. Was I heading to danger only to justify causing untold death?
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want this at all.
Memories returned. Bechalle torturing me. The father-inquisitor stripping me naked to do worse. Now I was giving myself to a man who’d proved himself a murderer. Invader, conqueror. He’d killed for power, would sell people into slavery for wealth, pillage cities, probably enjoyed the occasional torture session.
Yet it was this or the people behind me would almost certainly be killed. The few friends I had in this world. Morry, Brin, Tread. I even started liking Carlisele until just a few minutes ago. The remaining soldiers and conscripted villagers killed or enslaved, then the rest of the kingdom. What was left of it. Besieged by war on all sides, shredded apart, basically because of me.
Maybe this is how I become a deity. Enshrined for my sacrifice.
I shook these thoughts off. Thus far, I’d avoided killing people who hadn’t attacked first. Though I did incinerate my foxes and this saddened me. And I was just awful to furniture. Tables, chairs, tents, probably mounting a class action lawsuit even now.
How would I get through this without killing everyone? I felt a great urge then, to turn the horse around, look back at the army I was leaving, the friends watching me. See them one last time. Wave. Such a foolish plan! Hafthon was right to doubt it, doubt me. Relying on the kindness of an emperor who rose to power by killing this body’s family and taking Laemacia by force.
Right. Sure. Just the kind of person to listen carefully to the words of a young girl.
Marriage was one thing, but if Hafthon was right, Otholos no longer cared for it. Would I let myself be killed to preserve this world? Tortured? Given my experience, maybe I could take it. Yet, even if I did, all my friends would die in the coming battle.
And rape. I sure hope Otholos wasn’t into rape.
Maybe I could just laser him without setting the beast off. Declare myself empress. After all, it was my bloodline and these people cared about such things. Yes, I smiled, that’s right, I’ll just kill their leader and take over, like in the movies. Simple!
My stomach was queasy. Near three hundred thousand men, banging their shields, hungry for battle and laughing at the lone figure coming, directly in front of me. Naivety didn’t begin to cover it. I was a fool. Try as I might, I couldn’t summon the beach, the waves, nor stop my hands from shaking.
About the midpoint, I dismounted, gave Cloud a hug, sent her back. Watched her ride off at an easy gallop at first, then settling into a trot. Riding back to safety, to horses she was familiar with, hung out with on the march, her friends.
I watched for a bit. Didn’t wave. Turned around at some point, began walking toward the enemy. My army, my people, little by little, further and further behind me. Each step brought me closer to a decision I did not want to make. A horror, once made, a thing of immense and unimaginable power to terrorize this world.
How easy it would be to just give in! Two hundred, three hundred thousand, they were nothing to me! I could arc a massive laser across the field, cut every one of them down right now!
I paused. Hands were cold. Closed my eyes. Cleared these thoughts away. Made fists, released them. Began again.
Caws and shrieks in the sky above. My birds! Circling on warm currents, so many of them, a number uncounted. They brought a smile to my face, despite everything. Clockwise they went, lower and lower, until a wall of endless black fluttering, the horizon gone, and thousands upon thousands of ravens and crows landed on the ground in front of me.
No more cawing, nor banging of shields, nor jeering, and the wind carried nothing but silence. Black eyes staring and staring in my direction. As many pointed, fury ears poked up through the high grasses, foxes standing on their hind legs. All suddenly bowed at once.
I raised my right hand to them.
Suddenly the air was full of cawing and cackling birds as they took wing. Up and up they went until they once again, circled on the high winds. The foxes vanished back into the brush. Until I could see once more the horizon, I did not drop my right hand, unmoving.
Alone again.
The wind whistled once more, and I continued toward the enemy.
No paths where I walked, placing one foot in front of the next, the occasional tall blade of grass striking my legs. It wasn’t high, so far up north, and mostly trampled from the Laemacian’s previous advance. Little blue flowers lay among it here and there. A rock jutted out of the grass, yellow and dark orange lichens on it, which seemed so out of place.
At first, the murmurs of men caught up to me. Then, the banging of shields as they found their courage again, jeering and taunting. Brave, it seems, only when my animals, my faithful, were away and hiding. Waiting.
A lone arrow fell against the ground near my feet and I felt a sudden rage. Target me, will you? I stopped. Stared at them. Thousands and thousands of men, daring them to loose another. See what happens.
After a time, I continued. No longer looking at the ground, the grass, but at the soldiers before me. Angry.
I hadn’t put up a white flag. They probably wondered what I was doing. But they didn’t send attackers. No more arrows, either.
As I approached within a hundred yards, the banging grew louder. Yelling. I guess that was intimidating. It would have been when I first got here. I smiled, thinking about that, walking as I was, and wondered what they would do if I loosed an energy beam through them. It would, at the least, stop the noise and so might be worth it. Especially if I could find enjoyment in the subsequent noise, the screaming and pleading and crying.
Their front line parted, seven riders coming through. Four wore golden cloaks that wafted on the air as they rode toward me, curved golden scabbards at their belts, carrying golden spears. Two held hefty banners aloft, a black tiger’s paw on orange, riding atop large horses with white manes. I couldn’t quite make out the last man, riding at the back of them all.
They rode up, circling me, riding around and around, dust and grass kicking up. Stopped. The man on the horse in front of me, wearing black and gold trim, a silver scabbard as his waist, and a lovely, wide brimmed hat that brought a tiny smile to my face said, “They send a lone girl to challenge our army? Who are you that carries such a large and lustrous danger to our troops?”
I locked eyes with him, “I am Cayce Nevarre, Princess of the Nevarrelund Kingdom and rightful Empress of Laemacia, and you will bow to my rule lest I destroy you all.”
Silence.
A horse huffed.
Then they all laughed and laughed.
I held my hands at my side. Fists ready. How they would burn! Deep breaths, pushing it back down, waiting, waiting, crossed my arms then, my jaw firm, and I took control away from the beast. Forced myself to relax.
I wasn’t afraid of them. Nor, really, for them. But of me.
“Princess Cayce? You? Here instead of your army? You’ve come as a gift to our Emperor Otholos, I see.”
Inhale. Looked up, cocked my head, counted to ten in Ancient Hebrew, watched a bee head to a flower. “I came for tea. A visit with the usurper. We agreed not to war each other.”
“The emperor will like that you’ve offered yourself to us.” He looked at one of the other horsemen, narrowed his eyes and gave a quick shake of his head.
That man dismounted without pause, leading the horse to me, and waiting. “My lady.”
I mounted it, patting its neck in apology for possibly soon killing it, and looked up.
“Princess Cayce, if you will follow me.” The man led me into the depths of their vast, vast army.
He needed correcting. “Empress Cayce.”
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