"Give the signal!" I begged him, desperate. "They’re dying out there!"
At the foot of the fortress, beyond the moat, Selig’s discipline held, ten thousand strong. Gaspar shook his head, ignoring my grip.
"We have to make it out the gate," he said, his voice heavy with grief. "We’re no good to them if Selig’s men can pick us off one by one."
I whirled away from him with a sharp cry, staring across the battlefield.
Near drowning in a sea of Skaldi, still, somehow, the Camaeline infantry held its line. Now they dug in, shields raised, fending off the dreadful numbers, and parted.
Slowly, like a massive gate opening, the line broke and opened. A single horn sounded, clear and defiant, its sound rising above the shouting.
Into the breach, the Camaeline cavalry charged; the Allies of Camlach, all who remained, with Isidore d’Aiglemort at their head.
He betrayed our nation, and all we hold dear. I make no excuse for that. But if the poets sing of the last charge of Isidore d’Aiglemort, they do so with reason. I know. I was there. I saw the mounted Allies of Camlach drive into tens of thousands of Skaldi like a wedge, faces bright with Camael’s battle-fire, swords singing.
The shock of it went clear through the Skaldic army.
I heard the cry that arose, too, as the Skaldi gave way before them, some dying, some swirling away. "Kilberhaar!" they cried, falling and fleeing. "Kilberhaar!"
On his tall horse, Waldemar Selig turned, sensing himself the target of that fierce-driving wedge. All around the sides of battle, Skaldi and Alban fought, desperate and bloody, the Skaldi numbers prevailing.
But the center was coming for him.
Selig rode back and forth. Selig drew his sword, and held it aloft in one massive fist, while the White Brethren flanked him, and his forces roiled.
Isidore d’Aiglemort drove toward his heart.
"Kilberhaar!" Selig roared, pumping his sword-arm skyward. Wheeling his horse, he plunged toward the center of the battle, scattering his own forces. "Kilberhaar!"
Howling, the Skaldi followed.
"Now!" Gaspar Trevalion shouted. His standard-bearer waved the Courcel swan with wild urgency, and the trebuchet crew set torches to the feu d’Hellas and loosed the counterweights. The bucket sprang forward, casting an arching mass of liquid flame over the eastern front of the Skaldi army.
In the courtyard, Percy de Somerville gave a single command.
Up came the porcullis, dented by the battering ram; down came the drawbridge, and the keepers of the barbican loosed a cover of crossbow-fire. Four by four, the defenders of Troyes-le-Mont came streaming forth, reforming in neat lines and falling on the rearguard of Selig’s men.
Truly, the Skaldi were caught between hammer and anvil.
We were all standing clear on the battlements now, forgotten targets, as the slaughter below ensued. Percy de Somerville’s army fell on the Skaldi like lions, a siege’s worth of pent rage in their blood, felling everything in their path.
And at the center, Waldemar Selig drove to meet Isidore d’Aiglemort.
I do not need to tell it; all the world knows that story. How they came together at the heart of the battle, two titans, natural-born warriors both of them. We saw, from the battlements, how the shining wedge of d’Aiglemort’s cavalry thinned, growing narrower, driving still, ever inward. How the silver eagle of death, d’Aiglemort’s standard, faltered at last, dipping and falling, overwhelmed beneath a sea of Skaldi.
And Isidore d’Aiglemort, atop his black horse, fought onward, alone.
They met, at the end; d’Aiglemort went down, the black horse slain. We thought him lost, buried under Skaldi. Then he arose, silver hair streaming beneath his helmet, a Skaldi axe in one hand. He threw it left-handed, as Selig rode up on his tall horse.
He killed the horse.
Always, it is the innocent who suffer, the beasts of the field, the Servants of Naamah. So it is, always, in times of war. Selig’s steed went down with a crash; Selig arose cursing. And they fought, there on the plain, on foot and alone. They fought, the two of them, like lovers staging a Showing in Cereus House. There are those who think it wrong, to make such a comparison. But I was there.
I saw.
How many wounds Isidore d’Aiglemort had taken to get there, I cannot say. They counted, on his body, when the armor was stripped from him: Seventeen, no less, they counted. Some of those were Selig’s. Not all.
Waldemar Selig, proof against weapons. So the Skaldi believed. But while battle raged around them, he fought Isidore d’Aiglemort, the traitor Duc of Terre d’Ange.
Fought him, and died.
I do not scruple to say it. When d’Aiglemort’s sword found a gap in Selig’s armor and pierced it to the hilt, I cried out my relief. Waldemar Selig sank to his knees, disbelieving. D’Aiglemort, dying, sank with him, both hands on his sword-hilt, thrusting it home.
So they met their end.
Chapter Ninety
After that, it was nearly a rout, despite the numbers.
Those tribal fault-lines I had so carefully traversed through the Skaldi encampment turned into gaping chasms as bands of warriors broke away; some by the thousand, others by the hundreds, and some even fracturing steading by steading, in the scores and dozens.
Percy de Somerville’s troops pursued them with merciless efficiency. And at the center of the battlefield…
"Your majesty!" I pointed toward the northeast, where a band of mounted Cruithne was cutting a swath toward the site of d’Aiglemort and Selig’s battle. The standard of the black boar, the Cullach Gorrym, flew proud overhead, and at the forefront, sword swinging tirelessly, rode a familiar figure, scarlet cloak swirling from his shoulders.
"Drustan." Ysandre touched her fingers to her lips, eyes wide with wonder. "Is it really?"
"Oh, it is," Joscelin assured her. "That’s Drustan mab Necthana!"
His riders won through as we watched, forging a ring around the fallen figure of Isidore d’Aiglemort. To the southeast, the war-chariots of the Dalriada raced in mad circles, sowing chaos and terror in the hearts of the Skaldi, and their foot-soldiers carried the Fhalair Ban, the White Horse of Eire.
A clamor arose closer to home, coming from the courtyard.
Later, I learned what had happened; a desperate party of Skaldi, abandoned by Selig and caught by the unexpected emergence of the entire garrison of Troyes-le-Mont, stormed the gate ere it could be closed. They came close enough on the heels of the emerging army that the defenders of the barbican dared not shoot.
That was how, then, they gained the courtyard.
We could see it well enough, atop the battlements. A handful of de Somerville’s D’Angeline infantry had doubled back to engage them. If the field was in chaos, not so the courtyard; a fierce battle was being waged before the inner gate, with a small knot of D’Angelines fending off thrice as many Skaldi.
Gaspar Trevalion called sharply to our archers, and half of them peeled off, clattering down the tower stairs to align themselves along the parapet of the inner wall overlooking the courtyard, but they faced the same problem as the gatekeepers. There was nowhere to shoot without striking the defenders.
The mass of warriors surged, all helms and flailing steel, seen from above. One figure among the D’Angelines stood out, tall as the tallest Skaldi, making a space around him. It was a pity he was so outnumbered.
From beneath his helmet, a long braid of wheat-blond hair swung like a whip as he fought.
Joscelin made a sharp sound; I thought for a second that he’d been struck, "Luc!" he cried, the bright morning air snatching the word from his lips. "Luc!"