Prince of Dogs

“Any news of those who remained behind on the hill?”

Lord Geoffrey could only shrug. Then, eyes widening, he stared at the apparition that, silent but all the more frightening because of that silence, now commandeered one of the riderless horses and swung up onto it. “Lady have mercy!” he breathed. “What is it?”

The prince flung away the spear and galloped northwest toward the thickest cloud of dust.

“Eagle! Take a horse and ride after him. The king will have my head if he gets himself killed. I doubt he is in his right mind.” With this cool assessment, Lavastine turned back to his cousin. “Has the king arrived?”

“I know not, cousin. It is madness out there, and most of our people long since lost.”

“You’ve done well to survive this long.” But Lavastine did not seem to mean the words as praise, any more than he meant his earlier comment, calling Sanglant out of his right mind, as censure. “Eagle!” His gaze tripped over her where she still stood, gawping, frozen, unable to act. “Go!”

It was easier to obey than to think. She took the mount offered her and left them just as a party of Eika came running and a new skirmish was joined.

Chaos.

Through the streaming battle she rode on the trail of Sanglant, who was himself all movement. Eika fled in confusion or retreated in disciplined groups, and cavalry charged through and reformed and charged back, scattering them, cutting down those who ran and pounding again and again those who held steady.

Sanglant drove his horse wherever the fight was thickest. Certainly he was brave; perhaps he was also insane. After he rallied a group of horsemen who had gotten cut off from their captain, she heard his name called out above the riot of noise like a talisman. She tried merely to keep away from Eika, for in this tempest she had few clear shots and plenty of chances to get hacked down from behind, though most Eika seemed to be running for their lives. It was all she could do to keep Sanglant in her sight.

Through the haze of dust she caught a glimpse of Fesse’s banner. Then it vanished, whipping against the wind as its bearer galloped away in another direction with Fesse’s duchess and troops.

They had come so far over the ground that she did not know where she was. Her eyes streamed from the dust kicked up and the glare of the westering sun. Ahead, a soldier leaned from his horse and struck down one of the dogs following Sanglant and rode on, spear ready to pierce the next which, loping after the prince, was unaware of the threat to its back.

But Sanglant was not unaware. He reined his horse hard around and brought the flat of his sword down against the soldier’s padded shoulder. The man tumbled to the ground and the dogs leaped forward, only to be brought up short. Liath could not hear what the prince shouted, only saw the terrified soldier scramble back onto his horse.

Then, horns. “To the princess! She’s surrounded!”

“To me! Form up!” the prince cried, his hoarse tenor ringing out over chaos. Shining with the heat of battle on him, he was not as frightful a sight as he had first appeared when he was Bloodheart’s prisoner, a wild, chained beast. Men came riding to form up around him, and as his company gathered, they shouted jubilantly, sure of victory. Where Princess Sapientia’s banner had gotten trapped in a strong current of Eika battling their way to the river, Sanglant and the newly regrouped cavalry drove in and scattered the enemy before them.

“The king! King Henry comes!”

Liath could not see the princess, for the entire flank had crumbled. But as the Eika line dissolved into rout, she saw Sanglant struggle free of the crush and ride northwest out beyond the fighting to where neglected fields lay drowsy under the afternoon sun. She fought her way out of the press and galloped after him.

He rode on, not looking back. Three Eika dogs pursued him as he left the battle behind, and she was too far away to shout a warning. At her back she heard horsemen, and she glanced behind to see a dozen or so men wearing the tabards of those he had rallied on the field.

Ahead, a line of trees and scrub marked the course of a tributary. There she lost sight of him as he crashed in among the trees. When she found his abandoned horse, she dismounted and prudently waited until her pursuit came up beside her.

“My God, Eagle!” said the man, a captain by his bearing and armor. “Was that Prince Sanglant? We thought him dead!”

“Taken captive,” she said.

“And survived a year.” Around him, his men murmured. She heard in their voices the melody of awe, composing now the beginning, she supposed, of another story of Sanglant’s courage and cunning and strength. “But where’s he gone?”