the rear of the shield wall they had just breached. They were doomed.
Horns sounded behind him, but he didn’t have time to spare looking back. Will was determined to take as many of the enemy with him as he could before he died. Something hard knocked Dave back, and Will had the wind knocked out of him as something hard slammed into his stomach. He only saw the spear as it pulled back, but there was no blood on the point. Already exhausted, Will drained as much turyn from his attacker as he could and used the power to stay on his feet.
Then the Darrowans began to back away, and some of the Terabinians around him started cheering. Sergeant Nash yelled for the advance to halt, and their line firmed up. With the enemy pulling back, Will was finally free to look back, and for the first time that day he felt a surge of hope.
A huge army was advancing from their rear, and they bore the banner of Terabinia, a silver falcon against a blue background. Will saw a second banner beside it, quartered into red and black sections with gold oak leaves overlaying them. He wondered which lord the other banner belonged to.
The remnants of Lord Fulstrom’s force waited, and soon the new arrivals passed by them and formed a new defensive line. Will counted the companies as they passed and tried to estimate their numbers. His best estimate was somewhere near two thousand soldiers. It was five times the size of the remnants of Fulstrom’s army, but nowhere near large enough to retake the pass. Is that all of them? he wondered.
The Patriarch had at least three times that many that Will had seen, and there were potentially many more still in Barrowden.
The commanders of the new and old forces met, and soon Company B was on the march again, continuing their retreat to Branscombe since they were in no shape to stay on the field. It wasn’t long before Dave resumed his usual commentary. “Look! They’ve got skirmishers—and archers. Aren’t they fucking fancy? Cavalry too!”
“I’m just glad they’re on our side,” said Will.
“We could have won if we’d had all that fancy shit,” said Dave sourly.
Tiny broke in, “Technically, we did win.”
Dave agreed. “Damn right, we did! They’re just the clean-up crew.” The ever-energetic thief jumped up and pointed back the way they had come. “The shit’s back there, boys! Go dig us a latrine!”
Will grabbed the slender man’s shoulder, pulling him back into line. “Damn it, Dave! Don’t get me in trouble. It’s still my first day as a corporal.”
Dave grinned at him, then gave an overly pompous salute. “Yes sir, mister Corporal, sir!”
Sergeant Nash had already noticed Dave’s antics. “Corporal Cartwright! Put a leash on your idiot before I have to stop and build a stockade to put him in!”
***
They made it back to the camp outside of Branscombe in the afternoon of the second day. Will would have preferred to find a bed and vanish for a week, but of course the army didn’t work that way. There was always more work to do. The only allowance made for their exhaustion was allowing them to retire as soon as their tents were pitched, but Sergeant Nash made it plain that they would be expanding the camp in the morning to make room for the reinforcements that were a day behind them.
Will couldn’t just put his bedroll down and sleep, however. His curiosity was killing him. There was someone he wanted to see, so once his squad was settled, he left and headed for the medic tent.
He found several things had changed when he got there. A second, much larger pavilion had been set up in the open space in front of the usual medic tent. It was already filled with the most seriously wounded of Fulstrom’s returning soldiers. Men were stretched out everywhere, some on cots and others on the ground.
If she’s here, she’s probably busy as hell, thought Will. But why would she be here? She was only pretending. A figure moved by in his peripheral vision, and when he looked, he saw Isabel. She was clad in a loose, woolen robe that had probably been a clean gray earlier in the day. Now it was marked with numerous blood-stains.
I shouldn’t be here, he realized. He started to turn away when he heard her voice call out to him. “William!”
Turning back, he saw her face. She looked happy to see him. “Hello,”