Trial of Fire (44 page)

Robert saw them too, but it didn’t soften his expression, at least, not immediately. When the silence drew out, he dropped his gaze to his gloves, and he sighed once. ‘You were well chosen, that much is sure.’

‘Oh? And what does that mean?’ Jenn growled back, not sure if she’d won or not. But when he looked up, her victory was written in his eyes, in pleasure and sadness in equal measure.

‘It means that you are a very formidable Ally.’ With that, he reached out, took her hand and kissed the back of it. ‘Come on, let’s get moving. We have a tax collector to meet.’

*

‘They’re late.’

‘It doesn’t matter. How many carts?’

‘Just two.’

‘And men?’

‘Mounted, forty. There are another six for each cart, three at the front, three behind. Draft horses pulling both carts, teams of four each. All look fairly young and strong. They’re also fresh, so we can push them hard for a day at least.’

‘We won’t need anywhere near that long.’ Robert looked up at the sky, breathing deeply, but there was no scent of moisture in the air. ‘It will be a clear sunset, but as they’re running late, it will be dark before they reach us here. So we’ll have to make a few alterations.’

He stepped back, gesturing for the others to make some room. He knelt down and, with the tip of his dagger, drew the road in the dirt, the side of the hill it was wrapped around, the house-sized rock and the two ancient oaks. ‘Payne, you and your men will wait here, just around this corner. There’s plenty of cover, and the moment you see the vanguard turn here, I want you to attack. This will panic the men behind, forcing them back. At that point in the road, there’s very little room for them to manoeuvre. We’ll have archers ready, but it will still be a hand-fight. Just keep a watch out and make sure those horses don’t bolt and take the carts over the side of the hill. I don’t want to be cleaning up the mess.’

He looked up, finding their eyes on him: Finnlay, Andrew, Payne, his lieutenant, Micah, Joshi, McCauly and Jenn. He straightened up, putting his dagger away. ‘Jenn, Patric, the Bishop and Father John will remain on the hilltop as lookouts and will not fight.’ He deliberately didn’t pause but continued on, ensuring she couldn’t argue, at least, not in front of everybody, ‘Micah, you stay with Payne’s group. I’ll keep Andrew with me. Everyone is to stay well back from the road until we receive the signal that the advance riders have passed. Only then do you take up your positions. Any questions?’

A few looked once more at his map, but everybody shook their heads.

‘Good, go make yourselves comfortable. I estimate we have about an hour.’

Without hesitation, they all turned and made for their respective positions; even Jenn left with McCauly, tucking her hand in his elbow and chatting to him, making him laugh.

Then Robert was left alone with Andrew, standing a few feet from the side of the road, where a long line of twisted elms sheltered both sides of the hill. ‘Come on,’ he said and, with a touch to the boy’s shoulder, he headed across the road, into the thicket on the uphill side. He chose his spot carefully, where bushes hid their bodies, but where he could clearly see the road about half a league back. He made himself comfortable, looked over once at Andrew then turned his gaze on the road and kept it there.

‘Are you comfortable?’ he asked eventually, quietly, no wish to alert the others in hiding that he was having this conversation with their future King. Unfortunately, he’d not had the time with Andrew that he’d planned. How was the boy going to react to the fighting? He’d done well at Maitland, during the Malachi attack, but that hadn’t been anywhere near as chaotic as this was going to be. And chances were, at some point today, Andrew was going to have to kill for the first time, whether he wanted to or not.

‘Yes,’ was Andrew’s only reply, his voice soft in the late afternoon.

‘You understand what you have to do?’

‘Yes.’

Robert raised his eyebrows, but didn’t move his eyes from the road. ‘Do you understand why?’

There was a pause before he got an answer: ‘Do I need to?’

For a moment, Robert struggled with disbelief that he could ask such a question, but seconds later, he knew he was being tested – and that knowledge calmed him instantly. ‘Say I get killed in this battle. You will look on these minutes as being your last chance to learn what you can from me. Are you going to waste it so frivolously?’

‘You won’t d-d-die,’ Andrew replied with half-hearted scorn.

Robert didn’t say anything else then, leaving the boy to think all on his own; he would have no choice in the silence. There was still so much to be done with him, so much he had to learn, so many things Robert needed to open up. There was still no sign of his powers, and it was getting perilously late. Though the Bishop had mentioned Andrew’s ability to tell truth from lie, and Finnlay’s story about the blue glow were encouraging, it was all very little. He didn’t dare say anything to Andrew about it, but the chances were, there would be a clash with Kenrick’s soldiers – and possibly the King
himself – in no more than a month. Once Kenrick began to feel the effects of Robert’s rebels, retaliation would be only a heartbeat away.

Noticeably, Andrew hadn’t seen that for himself.

He’d had great hopes of spending months with the boy, of being able to take his time and teach the way he needed to – but there was Tirone’s threat looming above them all; if Tirone didn’t think he was doing enough to stop Kenrick, then they would all have to deal with another invasion from Mayenne – and that would be the end of the rebellion and any hopes Robert would ever have of freeing Lusara.

‘If Kenrick loses this gold, his ability to build a sufficiently dangerous army to fight us is limited.’ Andrew’s voice never rose above a whisper, but Robert listened carefully. ‘Without this gold, he won’t be able to afford to bring in mercenaries, and will have to rely more on drawing soldiers from his vassals, most of whom will be untrained and unprepared to fight a war in the middle of spring, without any warning. Drawing soldiers from the land will be difficult in the extreme, as most men will be heavily involved in spring planting, and unable to comply. On top of that, most men won’t want to fight, and with so many over the border, in exile, Kenrick will find it more and more difficult to bring an armed response against us. His actions, therefore, will be limited, and instead, he will fortify existing strongholds, and reinforce areas he considers to be our most likely targets.’

Andrew paused then, as though he wasn’t sure whether to continue.

‘And?’

‘We should then deliberately shift our attack away from such targets and instead, focus on those goals he has taken resources away from. This will …’

‘Go on.’

‘This will draw him out, stretching his men further from their strongholds, leaving them open to attack. Fighting in such a manner means we in turn have no need for one large army which is difficult to maintain and feed, not to mention hide, but instead, we can work in small groups which are easy to hide and can move much more quickly. For larger missions, two or more groups can join up, and then split afterwards. Depending on how effective the soldiers are, a war fought in such a manner can last a fraction of time compared to a traditional war. Or …’

‘Or?’ Robert did his best to hide his smile of triumph.

‘Or it could last ten times longer.’

With his Senses telling him nothing of the approaching caravan, Robert risked a look down at the boy. He sat there with his legs up, his arms wrapped around them, his chin resting on his knees. He looked up when Robert met his gaze. ‘The Bishop told me to listen and learn.’

‘And where did you hear all that?’

‘I didn’t really. But—’

Robert turned back to the road. ‘Don’t apologise. You have read the situation very well. You’ll make an excellent strategist one day.’ He could almost hear the boy’s pleased smile, but he said nothing else.

The analysis had indeed been impressive considering how he’d been thrown into all this – but his manner was still so tentative, as though he constantly needed to apologise for being there. Aiden had said he’d seen metal in the boy, but Robert had found precious little evidence so far. And he needed to have such metal if he was to survive the next few weeks – or indeed, the next few hours. Serin’s teeth, Andrew was Jenn’s son! Surely he’d inherited her steely determination. How could he have missed out on that?

And they needed to find out what the hell was going on with his powers! Without them, Kenrick was going to flay him alive.

Robert’s breath caught as the demon rose snapping and hissing inside him. He swallowed hard, forcing it down. Now was not the time, not yet. But it was definitely time to push Andrew a little and see how far they got.

‘You stay right by my side no matter what.’ He changed the subject, his tone remaining level. ‘If something happens to me, find Finnlay and stick with him. Failing that, you go to your mother. She’ll protect you against the gods themselves.’

And he said nothing after that; there was more than enough to rattle around in the boy’s head.

*

Andrew closed his eyes, but even then he could see the afternoon turn into evening, feel the change of warmth to coolness, the sounds shift into night. If only time would stand still. If only he could make everything stop long enough to think about all this.

But Robert’s presence at his side was like a wall of rock, impenetrable, immobile, dark and determined. He couldn’t escape it. To be honest, he wasn’t sure he wanted to escape. He wanted—

He heard it before the first signal, before even Robert stiffened on his seat. Some faint shift in the balance of rural noises, the thud of one heavy hoof after another onto a hard-packed road. Before he could even move, the signal came and Robert shifted, inching forward on the balls of his feet, his momentum taking Andrew with him.

Andrew felt ill. His stomach tumbled and turned, grumbled and groaned, leaving him giddy and unwilling to move. But even as the vanguard trotted down the road towards the ambush, even as he almost felt those around him ready to attack, even though he knew, as a loyal citizen, that he should give these soldiers the alarm, warn them they were
about to be attacked, he knew he would never do it, and in fact, as Robert rose and the first cry of attack filled the night, he went with them, his sword high, his feet running downhill, taking him to the first man, pulling him from his horse, fighting him.

Breathless, he swung, deafened by the cries, shouts, orders, panic all around. He twisted his ankle on something, but kept his balance, ducked a wildly flung sword aimed for his head, heard Robert call out some order to someone, smelled the blood and fear, and turned again to face the man before him who was determined to kill him for what he was doing.

And it was Robert and his sword practice, the same rhythm, the same shifts in balance, the same thudding of steel against steel, and the face he couldn’t see because it was too dark, and the man before him stumbled back and Andrew’s sword pierced his side, but he couldn’t stop because they were outnumbered two to one and he had to get rid of his share or he wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye, so he turned for the next one, jumping over the first, meeting this man’s blade before it could be raised, and the hilt in his hand began to grow hot, making him feel every single blow, every crease in his palm, every notch in the handle. He took a double grip as the man before him began to call him names, but it was a language he couldn’t understand, this language of hate, so he just went on, swinging and fighting and fighting and feeling the sword get hotter and hotter and hotter until—

He stopped, his blade buried to the hilt in the man’s gut, his hands still holding it, withdrawing it, burning him until he dropped the sword in horror.

‘Andrew, look out!’

Robert ran, the demon flowing through him with vengeance. With one shoulder, he pushed Andrew back out of the way, with the other, he swung hard, cutting the soldier down with one stroke. With a single fluid movement, he spun, swooped to grab Andrew’s sword and tossed it to him, meeting the blow of the next attacker at the same time, his blade glowing with a power he struggled to contain. This man was too big to stop his momentum, meeting Robert’s sword before he could swing his own again, flames flaring across his body. With a gasp, Robert pushed, crushing the demon, forcing it to obey, forcing it back to where it couldn’t do Andrew any harm. The soldier fell, dead, leaving Robert breathless, turning to Andrew, saying, ‘What’s wrong with you?’

For a second, he thought the boy had frozen, but then he dived back in the fight. Robert had no more time for him then, other than keeping him close to the left wherever he moved.

And the fight went on, horses and men and blood and anger pouring over him like a balm to his demon, easing it, feeding it, living off it. So vicious, so cruel, so very, very black. And how the demon loved it all.

He heard a voice calling, and as the man before him fell, he paused long enough to look up. Here and there were pockets of resistance, but for the most part, the road was clear of soldiers and full of bodies. It was Payne calling him, somebody else passing on the word. The carts were secure and it seemed nobody had escaped.

The demon inside him crowed, but he resisted the urge to laugh out loud. Somehow he knew Jenn would hear it.

He moved forward, ready to begin the clean-up, and found Andrew standing at the edge of the road, looking back towards Kilphedir, wearing a frown, spatters of blood on his face, his hands, his clothes. Then he looked down at his hands, wiped them on his jacket and looked again, as though he were expecting to see something else there.

‘Andrew, come here.’

The boy started, as though surprised to see Robert. Then he came to himself and moved, stepping over bodies the way he’d moved uncaring around beggars on the road – and suddenly it struck Robert what it was he
was seeing, and the realisation sent an icy grip of fear clutching at his stomach.

No, not this boy, too. Not when he had to be King.