What was it about the broken red flag that seemed so familiar? Suspended from a long pole mounted on a giant spear, it hung vertically, split into two halves partway across and pointed. A symbol was in the center of the flag – a circle with two slash marks through it. At each point above, below, and to the sides, words had been sewn with gold thread against the red. Not just any words. The script was strange and elliptical and hauntingly familiar.
Reaching into her pouch, Lia withdrew the Cruciger orb and the thought struck her. The text on the flag was Pry-rian. The orb spoke to her in Pry-rian. It was the battle flag of the kingdom of Pry-Ree that caught her eye.
Emotions she did not understand engulfed her. She cried and choked at the same time, not certain which she should be doing but not able to help either. The advancing horses were closing the gap quickly, building speed. Lances glittered in the dawn. There it was, in all its blaze and glory – the battle flag of Pry-Ree. Her flag. The flag of her forefathers – her Family. The feelings were so strong, she could hardly breathe.
He is delivered into your hands.
Part of her mind opened again, just as it had in the Bearden Muir. Just as Almaguer and his men had been delivered into her hands, she realized that the king’s army was delivered up as well. Their arrival at Winterrowd was neither too soon nor too late. No, the Medium had allowed them to arrive deliberately. From down in the field, she could sense Demont’s thoughts, firm and resolute. He did not doubt. He did not fear. He led a small company of raw, young mastons with courage and belief, knowing that the Medium would save them and he had prepared his lines to defend against the rush of knights on every side. Even as death approached on churning hooves, Demont believed he could win and he chose action. The Medium had brought her to save them.
He is delivered into your hands.
If the king’s thoughts fed his army, if his will was imposed on them, then what would happen should he fall? Lia looked down at the orb in her hand. Where is the king?
The orb began to whir until the spindles pointed away from the charging horsemen and to the small hill and the tight ring of soldiers holding the battle flags. The one in the center wore a crown over his helmet, but he was not the king. He was a decoy. She knew that in her bones.
He is delivered into your hands.
Then she understood and gasped. The king held aloft the pole with the Pry-rian flag. Her flag. He could not have known that the one he had chosen was part of her ancestry. She had barely realized it herself days ago. It amazed her. If the king fell, it would change everything. It would alter the future of the kingdom, perhaps even ending the maston-killings. The Medium demanded action from her or Demont’s army would fail. She knew what to do.
Reaching down, she grabbed the ash bow that belonged to Jon Hunter. Confidence surged in her veins. She retrieved a single arrow from the quiver. She remembered all the steps that Jon taught her. How to hold it firmly. How to load it so that the odd-colored feather was on top. Gripping the taut bowstring with the tips of her fingers, she pulled and drew it back to the corner of her mouth. There was no aiming, not at that distance. She had never launched an arrow that far before or hit anything so distant with accuracy. Yet confidence whispered in her mind that the Medium would not let her miss. She never doubted it.
The charging horsemen were almost on Demont’s men. A murmuring groan rose up from the field. A collective gasp before the clash.
He is delivered into your hands or Demont’s army will fall.
The bowstring twanged and the arrow flew. Suddenly the king jerked straight, the arrow catching him in a chink of armor in his neck, then he toppled off the horse. The battle flag of Pry-Ree dropped from the dead man’s fingers, its end stabbing into the hilltop and the wind caught the banner and unfurled it. The power of the Medium surged from Lia into the battle flag, and then spilled throughout the field below, gushing from her like a Leering stone, spreading a web of safety with the breeze.
Spears appeared amidst Demont’s soldiers. As the ends were jammed into the ground, the sharp heads lifted, greeting the horsemen with a row of teeth. The stampede of hooves could not stop in time. A razor edge of spear tips awaited them – a crush of men and beasts and steel. Had the spears been there all along, hidden in the grass?
She watched the horses crunch against the teeth of steel until she could bear no longer the sight of it, or endure the flood of power that was burning her alive. The weight of the Medium crushed her again and she blacked out.
* * *
“It is the mind that makes the body rich. As the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so does honor peer in the meanest habit. A maston is as unhappy or as happy as he has convinced himself he is.”