Shadows moved around them, but the enemy was invisible, and her men fell one by one. All she could see was darkness. It was enough to set fear into the bravest of hearts, but her men stood fiercely.
“Hold!” Caspian ordered.
She heard the sip of an arrow into flesh, and Liaman stumbled back, bumping against her. In the firelight, an arrow protruded from his chest.
“Liaman!” she screamed.
He waved her back as he forced himself to stand and pull his shield back up. But she knew it wouldn’t be enough. And her panic turned to anger.
Another onslaught of arrows came, and two more men fell. Anger erupted into fury. She had to do something. Her men were dying all around her. How many remained? She couldn’t lose another.
“Enough!” she raged. She ducked out from behind her men, screaming into the night. “Show yourselves, cowards!”
“Norah! Get behind me!” Caspian bellowed.
A haunting call reverberated through the night, and an eerie silence settled around them. Her remaining soldiers pulled tight around her with their arrows fixed on the darkness as Caspian pulled her back again.
A shadow loomed into view—a mounted fiend, larger than any man. His destrier, the color of night against night and plated in dark metal, snorted and screamed like a hell horse of Hammel as it pulled at the bit. The rider sat cloaked in darkness, broad shouldered and armored in shadows and chain. His horned helm was silhouetted against the moonlight.
She recognized the helm—the helm from Nemus’s vision, the helm from Samuel’s paintings.
“The Shadow King,” Caspian said.
“I know who he is,” she seethed. The tension of bowstrings sung around her as her remaining soldiers aimed at the king. But she called out, “Hold!”
His army was there; she could feel them. Ever so slowly, she made out the dark, shadowed shapes. Then Norah’s breath caught as she realized they were surrounded by them. Hundreds, or more, of them, barely visible from behind the black of their shields.
“Demons,” Liaman whispered beside her. He’d somehow managed to stay on his feet.
“If they were demons, they wouldn’t be carrying shields,” she said between her teeth. She looked back at the mounted man, forcing as much strength as she could into her voice. “You’re who they call the Shadow King?”
Even in the night, she felt the Shadow King’s eyes upon her, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
“North Queen,” he responded, his voice thick and haunting.
She stepped forward again. She wouldn’t let him see her fear. “You attack the Mercian queen on Mercian lands. Do you mean to provoke a war?”
“We’ve been at war for a long time.”
She squirmed under his unseen stare, but she didn’t dare turn away. Her fury built. “Stop hiding and fight like honorable men!”
A low rumble came from him. A laugh. “I am not an honorable man,” the Shadow King said.
The whir of another arrow came, and the soldier to her right fell. Two of her archers loosed arrows into the darkness, and a counterstrike of arrows hit them in return, killing both. Another arrow hit Liaman, and he sank to the ground. This time, he didn’t get up.
“No!” she cried, but Caspian clutched her tightly behind him.
It was only Caspian with her now. A dark shape rushed toward him, and her captain swung to meet their attacker. The clash of their weapons echoed in the night, and Caspian kicked him back. Another Shadowman came from the side, and Caspian turned to defend, but he was hit from behind by a third.
Caspian tried to counter but was met by a fourth who swung and cut into his sword arm, making him drop his blade to the ground. He stumbled back, stunned.
“Caspian!” she screamed.
The Shadowman attacked again, and, without a sword, Caspian was easily overpowered and knocked to his knees. The Shadowman grabbed a fistful of his hair and held him before the king.
“Go,” the king growled to Caspian from atop his beast. “Go tell the Bear I have your queen.”
The Bear? She didn’t know who that was, but she didn’t have time to mull over it.
In one final effort, Caspian whipped a blade from its sheath at his side and delivered a quick stab to his captor’s leg, who fell back, releasing him. Caspian let out a cry as he then hurled the blade toward the king, but he’d thrown it with his left hand, and the dagger missed its mark, burying itself into a tree.
Norah jumped forward and grabbed Caspian’s sword from the ground and moved in front of him to meet her enemies. She let her fury drive out the fear. If they didn’t expect a fight, they were mistaken.
“Take her,” the Shadow King growled.
“Norah!” Caspian yelled.
A soldier rushed her with a sword, but she met the attack fiercely, driving him aside and ripping her blade through the soldier’s leathers. Another jumped at her, trying to knock her to the ground, but she sidestepped him and sank her blade into a third attacker. The Shadow King dismounted, drawing his own sword. She inhaled deeply, calculating and focusing her anger. Committing, she attacked with every ounce of strength she had.
But the force of his strike knocked the sword from her hands, dislocated her shoulder, and made her cry out. She gritted her teeth against the nauseating pain and looked desperately for another weapon.
He caught her from behind and picked her up by the waist. She flailed back with her good arm, catching the chin of his helm with her elbow and flinging it from his head. She couldn’t see his face, but her fingers met his flesh, and she clawed at him with her nails. He caught her hand and twisted it down, pinning it beside her. She struggled, but the pain in her shoulder took the breath from her, and she felt her consciousness fading.
“No!” Caspian’s bellow came from behind her.
This was it, she thought. She wasn’t afraid. No one escaped death. She just hadn’t expected it so soon.
Hands gripped her, and she drew in a ragged breath. Pain shot through her chest and down her arm, but she wouldn’t cry out again. She was pulled upward, and it was too much. The pain crept into her mind, and everything grew dark.
The army marched silently through the night as the king carried his prize—a snow-haired queen cloaked in pale blue under the light of the moon.
Chapter twenty-three
Norah woke in a tent, on her side, lying across a bedroll with a thick fur that had been dropped over her. The bedroll gave little cushion to the hard ground, and her joints protested as she stirred. Clinking metal and voices outside swirled in the fog in her mind. It took a moment for her senses to come, and then she bolted upright, remembering. An ache shot across her chest and down her arm.
Her shoulder.
She moved it gingerly. It had been reset, but it was still sore. At least she could move it.
She still wore her riding dress, and even her boots were on. Remembering her knife, she fumbled desperately under the bottom of her skirt and swore under her breath. They’d taken it; only the empty sheath remained strapped around her calf. A tremor ran up her spine as she thought of the Shadowmen searching her, touching her. She bit back the emotion threatening to surface—she couldn’t be emotional now.
She had to focus on the positive—anything that could give her strength.