Page 90 of Arise the Queen
Cavalrymen mounted steeds, horses snorting, their breaths misting in the air.
“Ready for battle!” she shouted, her gaze never leaving the darkening horizon where the enemy approached like a creeping shadow. “To me!” she called out, her command slicing through the rising clamor. “To me!” And she ran toward Aisling, hurling herself into the saddle, checking her boot for Borlewen’s blade.
“By the Ancients, they are legion,” murmured a lad beside her, his eyes wide with the fright of his first battle.
“Fight for your life,” she commanded him. “Today, we carve our fate with the edge of our blades!”
The first arrow whistled through the air, zipping past Gwendolyn and embedding itself into an oak at her back. Aisling reared, pawing the air with a wildness that matched her pounding heart. “Easy, girl,” she soothed. “Easy!”
Málik and his Fae arrived, weaving through the camp. His silver gaze caught her, a spark of fury igniting the wintry blue of his eyes. He gave her a nod, a silent vow that carried through the morning air, more deafening than any war cry, and Gwendolyn returned it, lips thin and hard.
Beneath her, Aisling pranced restlessly, and she tightened her grip on the reins, leaning close to the mare’s ear. “Fly, my sweet girl! Fly!”
And fly they did, charging straight to the head of her army, Gwendolyn’s heart pounding in time with Aisling's hooves. All about her, the once peaceful camp became a maelstrom of motion and clatter. Men and women shouted commands, horses whinnied, the clank and clash of weaponry filled the air. Butthose sounds could not drown out the approaching chaos as her warriors fell behind her.
At the last moment, instead of Kingslayer, she choseClaímh Solais, feeling a rush of satisfaction as the sword lit with flames in her hand. Raising the ancient sword high above her head, she called out, “For freedom! For Pretania!”
None of them had expected this battle.
They were ill-prepared and outnumbered by the enemy.
“Aim true,” said Málik, drawing up beside Gwendolyn as the enemy charged them with a deafening war cry. His eyes caught hers once more, beseeching. But instead of ‘I love you,’ he said, “Remember all I taught you.”
His words were laced with concern… and more.Love. Unrestrained and without apology.His gaze bore into hers. But with no time for words, Gwendolyn nodded before urging Aisling forward, the mare surging beneath her, muscles straining against the clash that awaited. “Hold the line,” she shouted. “Archers, hold!”
Gwendolyn waited for the line of archers to form. Men scrambled into formation, Taryn still inoculating arrowheads even as they took their places.
The first wave of their arrows should even the odds. If the arrows themselves didn’t do the job, the poison would ensure they’d not live to see the morning. And even if they were fortunate, and the poison did not kill them, it would make them feel horrible enough that they would wish they were dead, and lifting a weapon would prove impossible.
The suspense lay thick upon the field.
“Wait,” she said, watching the army’s approach. “Wait!”
Her gaze locked upon the lead rider now, a sense of vengeance settling like a white-hot stone in her belly.Locrinus.
With every bit of her soul, she hoped he himself would be spared the first round of missiles. Borlewen’s blade burned at her boot.
“Wait,” she said. “Wait!”
Once they were within range, her hand rose, signaling the archers. A shower of arrows took flight from behind her, whistling past her ears to blot out the brightening sky before raining down on the enemy line. The dull thud of their impact was lost amidst the cacophony. Screams echoed back along with the clattering of armored men and horses collapsing under the deadly rain. But Locrinus did not fall. His dark form, sword raised, with the crown of Cornwall atop his head, came charging still. A brief moment of satisfaction simmered through her veins before reality set back in.
This battle was far from done.
It was only just begun.
Digging her heels into Aisling’s flanks, she lurched forward into a gallop, and with one hand clutching the reins, she once again lifted the flaming sword. “For Pretania!” she yelled again, leading her troops into battle. Her war cry was met with a resounding shout from those behind her, and every beat of their hooves drove them closer. Locrinus’ forces surged forward, meeting Gwendolyn’s army with a ferocity that matched her own. The clash was inevitable—a violent explosion of steel against steel, flesh against flesh. Gwendolyn was the first into the fray—sword waving high above her head with Málik by her side. The clamor echoed throughout the fields, and she lost sight of Locrinus almost at once. The spray of blood mixed with dust assaulted her nostrils as screams of battle rang through her ears. The battlefield was chaos—a symphony of clashing swords and thundering hooves. Swords shimmered against the early morning light as they smashed again and again, the sharpmetal flashing and glinting, the ground a red tide churned by the pounding of hooves.
Gwendolyn’s grip on the sword tightened, its power pulsating in response to her fury. A stiff wind whipped through her curls, a surge of energy coursing through her veins as she embraced her fate, the battle persisting, brutal and bloody.
The air grew thick with the stench of sweat and the coppery scent of blood.
As the sun climbed to its zenith, so grew the intensity of the conflict. Faced with their enemies’ merciless onslaught, Gwendolyn and her warriors pushed back with ruthless determination, fighting for every inch lost and gained. Gwendolyn herself was a whirlwind of righteous fury, wielding her blade as though possessed. She met every strike with equal fervor, her every movement carrying the weight of her retribution. Enemies fell before her, but for every man she cut down, another seemed to take his place. The tide of Locrinus’ forces was relentless.
By eventide, the pain in her body screamed for mercy, but vengeance steadied her hand even when the handle of her sword grew slick with sweat and blood. She parried and lunged, slashing her way through Locrinus’ men. But there was so much blood on the field that Gwendolyn feared defeat.
But surrender was not an option—not for Gwendolyn, who’d sworn to defend this land and its people against Locrinus’ tyranny and oppression.
And then… the momentum changed.
