“Oh,” she said just as softly. “I forgot. B-but … you can still be gravely injured. And what if they have a god-made weapon? You said—”
“The odds of that are very slim. The odds of that weapon meeting my neck in the thick of a battle are slimmer still. Do not worry, Sarielle. It is you I am concerned about, not myself. You are not so well protected. But we will find the armor of a slight man and dress you in it forthwith.”
“Actually, there is women’s armor in the bazaar,” Davine spoke up from Garreth’s elbow. “But you will have to get it yourself, for the vendor is like the one who would not serve her.”
A thundercloud of anger swept across Garreth’s features darkly. “He will serve her or he will answer to me! Sarielle, come! Help me dress in my armor. Then we will see about yours.”
She followed Garreth to his rooms, where a squire was already waiting to help him into his armor. Since she knew little about dressing a man for war, the squire stayed and she helped, watched, and learned. She would be able to do this for him next time, she vowed to herself. She would see him protected and ready. She would help to keep him safe.
Once he was ready, with the wey flower etched and then enameled on his armor at the dead center of his chest, she moved into his arms and touched it with trembling fingers. The wey flower was Weysa’s flower. It was an enormous bloom with large curved petals that came to points at their tips. It was most often a pink flower, although the one on his chest was a white version of it. A rare version of it. It was said the white wey flower could give a man incredible strength if consumed before a battle.
“She will always have you, and I never will,” she said without thinking.
He went still as he looked down at her. “You knew this,” he said softly.
“I knew this,” she agreed. “But that does not make it any easier.”
He reached up and touched a gloved finger to the rise of her cheek, shaping the apple of it slowly. “You have me,” he promised her. “I should not allow it, but I cannot help myself. You have me.”
She met his eyes, hope unfurling in her chest and tears filling her vision. “What are we to do?” she asked.
“One battle at a time,” he said admonishingly. “Let us save this city first, then worry about the rest later.”
She nodded and he took her hand, leading her out of the keep and toward the bazaar. In spite of herself, she began to drag her feet. She didn’t want to go through this. There was enough to cope with as it was. She didn’t need to be reminded that she wasn’t deemed good enough by her own people. By Dethan. By Weysa. Not good enough by half.
They found the armorer, and immediately Sarielle saw a woman’s breastplate, the metal finely etched with a picture of a powerful archer, an arrow nocked and drawn in her bow, the tip of it flaming. The flame had been enameled in red. It was an archer’s armor. Light and strong, the metal brushed so as not to gleam too brightly in the sun, giving away the wearer’s position. It made sense since the only women in their armed forces were archers. The bennesah had deemed females little good for anything else, too weak to go hand-to-hand or sword-to-sword in his opinion.
The armor came with a metal skirt that reached to the knees, the metal like the petals of a flower, each piece overlaying another all the way around the waist, keeping the armor flexible and mobile yet thoroughly protective. There were light bracers and gloves and all the necessary padding. And boots. They were made of hard leather with small squares of metal riveted to them, keeping them relatively light and flexible but protected all the same.
“Go on,” Garreth urged her forward. “Ask the man if you may try it.”
He was purposely baiting the blacksmith to see what he would do, standing back and letting her do all the interacting. She bit her lip and nervously approached the merchant.
“I would like to try on that armor,” she said, pointing to the piece. Garreth was standing in that direction as well, so she hoped the merchant would see him and know better than to behave in a prejudiced manner.
The smith was apparently nearsighted. “That’s not for the likes of you.”
“Why not?” she heard herself asking sharply, wondering where the sudden rush of temper came from. Apparently the pressure of knowing what Garreth would do next had given her the spine to stand up to the smith. For his own good, really. It was better he deal with her than Garreth.
“You’re a scourge,” the smith bit out. “I don’t serve your kind.”
“You will serve my kind,” she hissed, grabbing hold of him by his arm. “Or have you not noticed that things around here have changed?”
“They haven’t changed for me. Now, get your filthy hands off me before I am forced to have you thrown out on your ass!”
“Do you even know who I am?” she asked, her eyes narrowing wickedly.
“I do not care.”
“I am the wrena,” she hissed.
That made the smith’s eyes widen and he looked at her for the first time.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“Shall I prove it to you?” she asked threateningly. “Shall I bring the wyvern to bear against you?”
The merchant hesitated, looking her over again, head to toe. “Show me proof. Show me the mark.”
“I will not. You will allow me access to that armor and you will pray I never show you proof that I am a wrena.”
The merchant was still reluctant, but he begrudgingly took down the armor and handed it to her. Then Garreth stepped forward and helped her to dress in the breastplate, the one piece that might not fit as universally as the others would. The plate was riveted onto strong, hard leather, shaping to her breasts, the archer displayed from the bottoms of her breasts all the way to her lower waist, where the skirt would begin.
“It fits you fine,” Garreth murmured in a soft voice. “As if it had been made for you.”
“Yes, she looks quite good,” the blacksmith was saying in hasty, uncomfortable tones. He had realized who Garreth was and was trying to cover up his earlier behavior with sudden praise. “It is one of my best works for a female. It took me quite some time to perfect it.”
“Then it will be doubly generous of you when you give it to her as a gift.”
“A-a gift?!” the man spluttered. “B-but the armor cost a small fortune to make!”
“Yes, but think of all the money you will make when she wears this and tells all who see her who the maker is,” Garreth said as he stepped up to the man and loomed threateningly over him. “Imagine all the scourge clientele you will suddenly have.”
The smithy swallowed noisily, clearly biting back any response to that particular idea. “Yes. Well … I suppose I could let it go for a greatly reduced rate of—”
“Free,” Garreth said, his tone hard and unyielding.
“F-free,” the smithy agreed at last, although through his teeth.
“Good man!” Garreth boomed out, slapping the smith hard on the back, nearly knocking the burly man off his feet. “We’ll take the entire suit and padding. And you’ll throw in a weapons belt besides. Send the whole of it immediately to the keep. Now come,” he said to Sarielle. “I will rest easier once we find you a weapon to go with this.”
Garreth helped her remove the breastplate. She needed to put on different clothing before she could don the entire suit in comfort. He took her into the further depths of the bazaar and straight to a weapons maker’s tent. A crowd of men was there, inspecting the wares. They were both soldiers from Garreth’s army and guards from the city’s garrisons.
“Now is not a time for you to be acquiring new weapons,” Garreth scolded in a booming voice. “You do not go into battle with an untried weapon! You must practice with it first. Now go. We ready for battle as I speak.”
The men abandoned the weapons maker’s tent with so much haste it was almost laughable. But Sarielle could not feel humor. Not when she knew Garreth was so close to going into battle.
“But I have never wielded a weapo
n,” she said in a small voice as Garreth began to inspect the inventory.
“Nor do I expect you to. Ah! Here we are.” He picked up a beautiful long dagger in a metal sheath, the artwork on it fine and intricate, unlike any kind of detailing she had ever seen before. “A dagger. You are not meant to fight, but I would have you carry a weapon to protect yourself should it come to it.” He handed her the dagger.
“I do not think I could use it,” she confessed to him, coloring uncomfortably. She didn’t want to let him down, didn’t want to appear weak. She didn’t want him to say she was too cowardly to be a part of the battle. She needed to be there. For him. For her city.
“You will find that when you have no other choice, you will use it,” he said intently, holding her eyes the entire time. “I will do all in my power to make certain I keep you safe, but should there be a problem and I cannot get to you … I will feel better knowing you have this.”
For some reason she found herself melting under the words. No. Not for some reason. For a very clear reason.
He cared. He cared very deeply about her and her safety, and it showed strongly in that moment. There was something very invigorating and strengthening about that knowledge. Something tender and loving in the impression of it.
“Then I will have it,” she said, reaching to take the dagger from him. As she held the sheath, he pulled the weapon free of it and inspected the deadly sharp blade. He tested it in a training dummy, which stood in the center of the shop, plunging the dagger deeply into the thing’s straw chest and pulling it back out again with ease.
“Yes, this will do very nicely,” he said.
He paid the merchant and then quickly urged her back to the keep. By the time they returned, her armor was already in her rooms awaiting her. Garreth went straight to her wardrobe and inspected the choices within it. The wardrobe was still relatively bare, in spite of her shopping trip with Davine. But he grabbed one of her older dresses and a pair of shears from her dressing table. He immediately set the shears to the skirt of the dress.
“What are you doing!” she cried out, trying to stop him.
“The skirt of the armor is short for a reason. So you will be unencumbered by long, thick skirts. You will wear this without any petticoats or other underskirts.” He held up the dress with its considerably shortened skirt.
“I will be naked!” she said, her face burning with a blush.
“This coming from the woman who wore practically nothing for me yesterday.”
“That was in the privacy of our rooms,” she argued as he came around her and began to unlace her dress. “I did it to please you!”
“So do this to please me as well. I confess I am already hard thinking of you in armor, your beautiful legs exposed.”
Her blush deepened as he pulled the dress from her body. Poorly banked hunger was in his eyes when he looked at her naked body only minutes later.
“Seems a shame to cover you up again,” he murmured as he leaned into her and hotly cupped her breast in his hand. He squeezed the mound of flesh gently … then more strongly. She was breathless by the time he bent his head to her, taking her nipple into his mouth and toying with it with his tongue. Sarielle felt herself go immediately wet between her legs, and her body coiled with tension. Her nipple came free of his mouth with a small pop of sound and he stepped back from her. He growled low in his throat. “We will continue this later,” he promised her.
“Okay,” she said breathily.
“Let’s get you dressed.”
Before long he had her fully dressed in her new armor and was sliding her dagger into place on her weapons belt. When he was finished, he reviewed her with a critical eye.
“Well done,” he said after a moment with a firm nod. “Well done indeed. Now come. Let’s begin this battle.”
She nodded and went to precede him out the door. But mid step she felt his hand sliding up the back of her thigh beneath her skirt and on to the cheek of her backside. The feel of his leather glove on her skin made her gasp and come to a halt, which brought him directly up against her back.
“Garreth!” she said in a breathless scold.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his grin in no way repentant. “I could not help myself.”
“Well, try!” she said with a laugh.
“If I must,” he said, removing his hand from her body, albeit very slowly.
Together they left the room.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Garreth was on his horse, looking at the top of the keep from over his shoulder. Sarielle stood there, just as she had stood on the walls of the city the first time he’d seen her, a proud and beautiful creature. Only this time she was protected, her fiery red hair braided and hidden from sight. It would not be the banner it had been when he had attacked the walls of the city. No one would notice her as being different from anyone else, and that was exactly the way he wanted it to be. The keep was set a little farther back from the city walls, but the top stood above the walls, so Sarielle could easily see the field of battle.
He was about to ride out of the gates and into the thick of the Zizo army. He did not know what he would find when he attacked the rylings and faced down their magic, but he knew that the rylings were mortal and so were the Zizo. That meant they could be killed, and that was what he was there to do.
Garreth led the charge out of the gates, leaving Dethan to the relative safety of the city walls. Dethan would attack with archers from above while Garreth attacked on the ground.
They took the Zizo by surprise when they came pouring from the gate just as the archers let loose on the bulk of their campsite. The archers had a limited time before Garreth’s army reached the campsite. Once the two forces engaged, archers could not be used for fear they would strike their own combatants.
But the archers rained hell down on the enemy while they could, and the Zizo and rylings found themselves in chaos. The Zizo commanders tried to rally their men together, but they were still at a disadvantage by the time Garreth reached them and pummeled them with the army’s sheer numbers. As Garreth cut down the small men, he realized that horseback was a disadvantage for him. He had to reach farther down, unbalancing himself. So he dismounted and rushed into the thick of it on his feet, calling orders to his men, rallying them with the sound of his commanding voice.
He thrust his brother’s sword into first one, then another, shearing them down. Until he cut one down and the man dissolved into nothingness. Shocked, he looked around and saw the same thing happening all throughout the army.
Illusions. The rylings, he realized. They were making his men work harder to cut down imaginary opponents. It was impossible to know which combatants were real and which were illusions. They had to attack them all, which would quickly wear them out. Garreth might have more actual soldiers, but with the ryling magic making these illusions, it was as though the Zizo army had been doubled. Even tripled. He turned and waved his sword toward the city walls.
On the walls, Dethan was waiting for the signal. Quickly he lit the signal fire next to him. It flared to life, visible to the woman on the keep walls who was waiting for it.
Sarielle closed her eyes and called to her wyvern, who had come from behind as the army had surged out onto the field.
Remember, do not fly over them. Simply blow flame at them. Set them on fire from behind.
Sarielle opened her eyes in time to see Koro’s large body reeling toward the Zizo army. And with a mighty exhalation, he began to set their rear forces on fire. The screams of men rose above the sounds of war. She heard the echoes of it drifting toward her even from her distant perch on the keep walls. She could see it all. See Koro’s attack, Garreth’s attack. Then the mages did their part and flung up huge walls of earth on either side of the Zizo army, trapping them inside a bottleneck. The other mage began to call up the spirits of the already slain men, both Zizo and Garreth’s, and sent them to attack the rylings. The spirits could not be harmed, since they were a
lready dead, and the rylings did not have the necessary magic to dispel their presence. The fey rylings began to fall, in spite of their illusions and their attempts to countermand the powerful earth mages’ abilities.
The Zizo commanders began to call for a retreat … but they were blocked off by a fire-breathing wyvern. They took heavy casualties as they tried to run past Koro’s attacks. Koro remained out of reach as per Sarielle’s constant reminders.
Desperate, the Zizo tried to mow their way past Garreth and his forces, toward the city. Perhaps in the hope of running around the earthen walls blocking them in. It was an act of suicide and desperation. There was no cohesion to their battle plans. Their army was falling apart.
But desperation made an enemy dangerous. Garreth found himself suddenly overrun by Zizo and rylings with their needle-sharp swords. His men were cutting through them with ease, but he was overwhelmed, his arms burning from swinging his sword over and over and over again. He felt a ryling sword pierce through the vulnerable seam of his armor near his armpit, the sword sinking deep into his upper ribs and lung. It was pulled free and Garreth swiftly decapitated its owner. A second ryling sword hacked into his vulnerable neck, but he deflected it before it could do anything more than sever one of the muscles there.
That ended up compromising the swing of his left arm, which held his dagger and had been working in concert with his powerful right sword arm. Two of the Zizo rushed him, taking him out at his legs. He went down.
Garreth fought his way back up to his feet, slaying Zizo and ryling alike, his sword punching through armor, sometimes nearly cleaving bodies in half. Eventually he cleared himself of every enemy, allowing him a moment to see what was happening around him.
The Zizo army had fallen. Given no quarter and with no avenue of escape, they had been forced to face Garreth’s greater numbers, their illusions failing them, their numbers decimated.
The Zizo soldiers fell to their knees and put their hands behind their heads in total surrender. The Zizo leader had been slain in the battle, and his second in command was now brought before Garreth.