and I’m not alone. I have hundreds of men with me. And we’re not trying to hide. The Brigantines should see us, should see me, and they should be afraid.
They advanced to the River Ross, then headed west all afternoon, seeing no sign of the enemy. After a bend in the river they climbed a small hill, which gave an excellent view of all sides. Catherine halted to take it in. Far in the distance was the dark blur of Rossarb, with the ruin of the castle spiking up from it. And on the plain before it was a mass of horses and men. The Brigantine army.
It was vast.
Once more Catherine felt fear threaten to overtake her, but she cast her eyes over her own troops and it was a reassuring sight. The white-hairs behind her were numerous enough, but away to her left she could see Davyon’s blue-hairs moving in from the coast. From this distance they also looked like ants—but thousands of them.
“I’ll advance the white-hairs farther, Your Majesty,” said General Ffyn. “This is a good position for you to remain in—you’ll be visible to our men but protected from the enemy.”
Catherine agreed, and her bodyguard set up a small camp on the hill as Ffyn led the main force of white-hairs farther forward. By early evening, the Pitorian army was ranged across from the coast to the river. At dawn the scullers would land on the north shore. The Brigantines would be surrounded and forced to give battle.
By the light of a flickering candle, Catherine wrote and dispatched two messages—one to Tzsayn and one to Davyon. “Don’t mix them up, please,” she instructed as she handed them over, imagining Tzsayn receiving the formal notification that her forces were in position while Davyon opened the more intimate message meant for her husband.
And then . . . nothing. Catherine remembered this from the battle of Rossarb, how the waiting was the worst of it. She paced around her small camp, talking to her men, trying to look relaxed, trying to think positively, but desperately wanting to get on with it.
EDYON
CALIA, CALIDOR
ANOTHER DAY, another dungeon. Edyon would have laughed, except he felt that he would never laugh again. Not after seeing Byron and everyone else killed on the Pilar, and not after being dragged through the castle, seeing the bodies of nobles and servants lying in blood. Death literally was all around him. He couldn’t escape it.
Is it me? Is it my fault?
Maybe if I wasn’t here, death wouldn’t be either.
Edyon sat in the dungeon of Calia Castle. It was dark, damp, and smelly. Not so bad as Lord Farrow’s hut, but worse than Tzsayn’s cells in Rossarb.
At least this will be the last one I see.
Edyon was sure of that.
Just don’t let me die slowly and painfully. Make it quick.
The boy who had locked Edyon in the cell had told him, “Harold will want a big audience for your execution. You might be on the cart.”
“Cart?”
“A cart pulled by donkeys, with a big blade on it for cutting people in two.”
“Ah. Useful to have it mobile, I’m sure.”
“He likes his contraptions.”
“Shame that he doesn’t like peace, order, fairness, civilization, serving his people, a quiet glass of wine, and a good view, or just being nice.”
“Who wants to be nice when you’ve got his power?” And the boy slammed the door on Edyon.
I want to be nice. I want Byron alive and all the people of Calia alive and . . .
Tears fell from Edyon’s eyes. There was nothing nice left at all, and the sooner he got away from it, the better.
As it happened, Edyon wasn’t kept in the dungeon long, as the boys hated coming down to feed him. He’d not eaten a thing for a day when someone must have remembered him, and he was taken up to the Throne Room. Only a few weeks earlier he’d been crowned here. Now he was chained to the wall like a dog, with a bowl of water and some stale bread, and he was given a special guard—Broderick.
Broderick, however, was less interested in Edyon and more interested in watching the other boys play dice. They were betting with boots, daggers, and coins—all plentiful and all of which, Edyon assumed, had been pillaged from the bodies of those in the castle. But what was not plentiful was food, which was becoming increasingly valuable. Edyon watched from the side. The boys were disorganized, aggressive, rude, and lazy, and they’d soon starve.