The Sleeping King (69 page)

He scowled as understanding broke over him. This was a diversion. Anton planned to occupy the Boki force here with slaughtering Leland and his hired army while Anton and a few of his personal guard circled wide of the fight and went after the Boki treasure. Leland smiled bitterly. He would not be alive to see it, but at least he had the satisfaction of knowing Anton was doomed to disappointment.

A scout came sprinting out of the north and Leland winced at how young the lad was. Barely more than a boy.

“Boki coming. A lot of them.”

“How long?” Leland asked tersely.

“One, maybe two minutes behind me.”

That was not long. But perhaps for the best. It was not a good thing to dwell too long upon one's imminent death. Leland turned and strode down the line of worried soldiers behind him, standing along the south edge of the clearing. He paused before his contingent of Hyland men, who looked strange to him swathed in nondescript cloaks instead of the green and gold Hyland colors. They had flatly refused to leave his side.

“Remember,” he murmured to his sergeant, “stay well back. You are
not
to follow me to the front of the line. That's an order. This battle is but a diversion for Anton's real objective. It is not worth dying for. Understood?”

The soldier nodded, a surly look on his face.

Leland moved on. The man would get over it in a few years when he was alive to see his children grown and grandchildren frolicking at his feet.

Leland did not have much time to find what he sought, and he passed quickly down the line.
There.
A squad of barbarian warriors arrayed in full battle paint and the leather loinskins they preferred to fight in. This group was thirty strong, with a half-dozen archers more behind the main force.

This crew had been bickering and scrapping among themselves the entire march out here, but when a common enemy presented himself before them they would band together and fight as fiercely for one another as brothers.

“Sons of Rage, hear me!” he shouted. “Your blood calls out for battle. You were born to it like wolves to the wood. A mighty pack you are, and even the mighty bear falls to the power of your pack!”

With each shouted word, the barbarians yelled louder, brandishing their weapons and stamping their feet until they'd whipped themselves up into a fine frenzy.
Perfect.
These barbarians were possessed of their kind's ability to battle rage. He would need their rages today.

We battle the bringers of the Green Fire this day! Snuff their lives like so many torches and
our
fires will burn this night, not theirs!”

Another hoarse shout.

“These monsters seek our doom, that they may feed their trees with our blood! If blood must flow like water, then make it Boki blood!”

Another enthusiastic roar.

He glanced across the clearing and thought he spotted the gleam of sharpened metal through the trees. It was time.

“Then to blood and chaos and glory we go! Charge!” Leland shouted with all his might. Raising his sword, he turned and ran pell-mell toward the Boki army before him.

The Boki met his charge, roaring out of the trees in force. Gads, there were so many of them. But his stride never faltered; his pace never slowed. Thankfully, the barbarians behind him were so bent on blood that they never hesitated. Which was exactly why he'd chosen them to lead the charge.

He drew close enough to see the open maws, the yellow tusks, of his foes, to smell the meat the Boki had eaten for breakfast. He grasped his sword in both hands.

“Freedom!” he bellowed.

He engaged the enemy. And counted the blows until Death found him.

He'd been plowing into Boki flesh for about a minute when he caught a glimpse of green out of the corner of his eye. And gold. He almost didn't catch a wild axe swing on his sword in time as he half-turned to stare in shock. As it was, a shallow slice appeared high on his left arm. He felt no pain from it, though, and classified it as not serious enough to impair his fighting.

In the next momentary pause in the Boki's attack he took another look. A wedge of Hyland colors was making its way to him. His men. They'd ignored his order and were coming to join him in full Hyland regalia.

“Noooo!” he shouted. He waved them back violently with his free arm, but they kept on coming. A giant Boki leaped into his path and he was forced to bend all of his attention to the warrior before him. No untrained youth was this orc. The Boki's eyes were ferocious, rimmed in red fury. Leland was forced to give ground under the enormous power of the orc's blows. His wrists ached and his fingers were fast going numb under the punishing flurry.

He felt the surge of support at his back more than saw it. And then Hyland swords joined the fray, flicking in and out beside him, picking off the orcs pushing his flanks.

“Go back!” he screamed at his men.

“We stand with you!” the sergeant shouted back.

“You die with me!” he retorted to no avail.

Dismay lodged in the pit of his stomach, but there was no time to do more than register it vaguely, for the Boki he fought was slowly but surely breaking down Leland's defenses. A nick opened up on his lower calf and he vaguely felt blood running into his boot, making stepping on that foot a squishy affair. His mind shifted into an oddly detached state, observing the proceedings from afar.

So.
This was the face of his death. He'd always assumed it would be an Imperial soldier who killed him in the end, although maybe he wasn't so far wrong. His duel with the Boki had turned enough for Leland to glance off to his left to where Anton hid in the trees, far enough back from the fighting to be safe himself, watching. Grinning with glee to see his old enemy dying like this, no doubt.

Two of his men pressed close and teamed up with him to drive the Boki warrior back. For the moment. The orc would collect two more Boki to even the fight and would return soon.

“Get back!” Leland bellowed. “They will match as many warriors as we present to them with the same number of theirs! Let me do this alone!”

But his men either did not hear or chose not to. More of his men swarmed around him until a total of ten joined him. He tried to spot which two had already fallen or been beaten back, but the fighting was too chaotic for him to tell.

The Boki had correctly identified him and his men as the tip of the spear of this attack and were concentrating all their forces upon the knot of soldiers in green and gold. Leland couldn't believe his men had dared to defy Anton and donned their colors for the fight. But it was comforting to be surrounded by his own colors in this, his final battle.

It was too late now to send his men back to safety. Their fate was sealed. They would meet at the Heart, then.

*   *   *

Raina shoved her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming in horror as she spied the leader of the charge onto the battlefield.
No. No, no, no! Not Sir Leland.
He'd been kind to her. Helped her when he did not have to. Had looked out for her best interests. He was decent and honorable and noble!

What was he doing out there, charging into the face of a huge Boki army? He would
die
.

Eben groaned on her left, “Oh no. Not my lord. What is he thinking?”

The Boki kept pouring out of the trees and the two forces clashed in a tremendous crash of noise and shouting and clanging metal. In a few seconds the groans and screams of the injured and dying joined the din.

The battle was gruesome. Raina saw men gutted and beheaded, saw limbs flying up into the air spraying perfect arcs of scarlet blood. She saw dying men trampled into the mud. And in the midst of it all she could not take her eyes off Sir Leland, fighting like a man possessed in front of the entire Imperial force.

Eben was muttering and groaning continuously, literally quivering in need to join his liege lord and defend Sir Leland. Cicero shifted place to lie beside Eben, placing a firm hand upon the jann's shoulder.

“Steady, man. You could not help him anyway.”

“But he's like a father to me. I already lost Marikeen and Kendrick. I cannot lose him, too. He is all the family I have left.”

Eben's grief washed over Raina like ice water.

Cicero murmured sorrowfully, “Hyland's already dead. The Boki have brought at least a hundred warriors to this grove, and Anton's engaging about the same number of his own men. You know as well as I do that they'll be cut down to the last man out there by the Boki.”

Raina did moan aloud then. She could not sit here and watch Sir Leland and his men slaughtered like sheep. A strong arm came around her shoulders and she leaned into Cicero, burying her face against his chest.

Sha'Li hissed angrily from her right, “What is Anton about? Why doesn't he send all his men? He lets these ones die like fish in a barrel!”

Eben snarled, “He's a coward. And a whoreson. He has always hated my lord. He sent Sir Leland out there alone and undermanned intentionally! I'll kill him—”

“Easy, Eben,” Cicero murmured, getting a firmer grip on Eben's upper arm. “We have our own quest to think of. None of us can afford to throw ourselves upon our swords. We must stay together and, regretfully, stay out of this battle.”

Eben swore violently. Raina echoed the sentiment in her head. It was not fair. It was cruel and unjust and vicious of Anton to take his revenge upon Leland in this manner.

“Ahh, stars!” Eben cried under his breath in agony. “The Boki elite take the field!”

Raina looked up from Cicero's shoulder.

Leland and his men squared off against a force of nearly a dozen Boki warriors, all of whom looked nearly twice the size of the humans arrayed before them. Unquestionably, that was at least a sub-thane leading the force of elite Boki warriors. The two forces charged each other.

The fight was violent and bloody. And fast. The Boki warriors sliced through Leland's men as if they were babes, cutting them down with brutal efficiency. Leland was the last left standing, and the largest Boki of them all charged him with a roar.

The fight slowed to a near stop in time as Raina took in the unfolding nightmare. The Boki feinted high with his right-hand axe. Leland raised his sword, bracing the blade with his free hand to take the blow. The axe slammed into the blade and sparks flew. But as the weapons connected, the Boki swung his left-hand axe. It started low, nearly at the ground, and swung up in a slow-motion arc. It bit into Leland's groin and traveled up the length of his entire body, eviscerating him from stem to stern in a single horrendous blow.

“
Nooooo!
” Raina screamed.

Leland froze. The Boki's axes fell to his sides. Leland staggered back a step. Looked down at his own dismembered body. Looked up at his foe. Nodded once. Smiled. And collapsed. Dead.

“Nononononononono…”

Raina wasn't sure if she moaned the syllable over and over or if it was Eben. Or maybe both of them.

“A healer. Where is a healer?” Cicero bit out frantically. “Why doesn't one come to him?”

Sha'Li answered bitterly, “We've been scouting the Imperials for three days. Have any of you spotted a single Heart tabard among them?”

The others' only answers were grim, damning silence.

The lizardman girl snarled, “Anton brought no healers on this expedition! What better way to ensure that his mercenaries fight for their lives?”

Raina stiffened in fury. Sha'Li spoke the truth. And it was outrageous. Irresponsible. Criminally negligent. Make that plain criminal.

Then Raina cried out, “Rosana! You wear Heart colors. You can go out there onto the field of battle and heal him! Hurry! His spirit only has a few minutes!”

The gypsy shook her head, the look in her eyes agonized. “I cannot. The Boki do not let anyone heal their kills. Not even the Heart. They would cut me down the moment I set foot upon the field. Even if I took a spirit form to get to Leland, the Boki surround his body. As soon as I took solid form to heal him, they would cut me down.”

Raina's flash of hope dissipated in her mental wail of despair. He was lost then. Leland was well and truly gone. Grief ripped into her until she felt as eviscerated as his mangled corpse.

She looked on in dismay as the Boki thane commenced chanting something. He pulled something long and thin out of somewhere on his person. It looked like a small stake carved of the same red wood as his club. The thane finished his chant and slammed the stake down into Leland's body, through his heart, and into the ground below. Raina turned her head away in horror as the thane lifted his head and roared in exultation.

“What about you?” Eben asked suddenly from beside her.

Raina lifted her gaze to him. His face was a multihued blur behind her unshed tears. “I wear no colors. I would stand even less chance than Rosana of making it to his body alive, let alone being allowed to heal him.”

“But what of the White Heart tabard in your pouch?”

Raina stared. Hope and dismay erupted in her gut in nearly equal parts.
No. Not that.

Eben continued urgently, “The Boki know Balthazar and let him live among them. They will honor those colors. You could get to Hyland. You could save him.”

Stars, but at what cost?
The rest of her life? Except it was Leland. Mentor. Friend. Father-protector to them all. Guardian of their quest. The quest—Hyland had sacrificed himself out there to buy them time to complete the quest. As soon as the thought struck her she knew it to be so. She
owed
Hyland. They all did.

She closed her eyes. Reached deep within herself for the strength to do this thing. It was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. She looked up at the battlefield and could not see Leland's body through the mud and blood and clashing warriors. But she felt his spirit slipping away even as she hesitated.