Page 187 of Disillusioned
Lilac stepped out from behind the tree. They were several yards inside the treeline, the grass within and outside the forest borderlitteredwith bodies. Human bodies—armored corpses—maybe thirty of them, scattered among the bluebells stained in red. It looked like thirty, though there were probably more.
French and Breton alike, dead or on the verge of it.
Most of them were of the opposing party, some headless with a clean cut while others still had their heads intact but their throats and ribcages had been ripped open. Lilac put a hand to her mouth, speechless in her horror.
Yanna had moved; she was several feet away, crouched just in the shadows,picking her way over the bodies. She sobbed as she touched some of them, the ones with her guards’ plain uniform of leather and metals. Trembling, Yanna sniffled and grabbed one that laid face down, shifting to turn him over.
“Yanna,” Lilac said, her own voice a broken sob as Myrddin watched helplessly, his fingers intertwined above his head.
“Gwendal,” called Yanna. “Oh, Gwendal. Please, please…” She shook her head vehemently and heaved—the dead man flopped over, an oozingbullet holein his forehead. Yanna cried out in a mixture of horror and relief at the sight of his features, stumbling back into Lilac. She caught Yanna under the arms and steadied her.
The forest edge overlooked a lush, grassy knoll covered in casings and blades among the wildflowers, guts, and blood. Between the bodies lay scattered swords and muskets, some still in-hand.
muskets.
They were a new advancement. Her father had a couple prized pieces in their armory that he’d used for hunting last winter—one, a gift from one of his earls, the other from a foreign king, but her own armies were never supplied with them.
A pair of hands clamped onto her shoulder and mouth; Lilac struggled against the warlock’s hold, but he held tight as she clung to Yanna, who’d slumped into shoulder-tremoring sobs in Lilac’s arms.
“There’s someone still here,” whispered Myrddin, tugging them back into the shadows.
He was right. There was rustling near, on the outskirts of the treeline—and more noise, she realized, between her own labored breaths. Voices and rustling. The restless whinny of horses and clomping of hooves.
Someone was shouting in the near distance.
“Albrecht!” It was Henri. Her father’s broken voice, somewhere between a somber moan and a wail. “Albrecht!”
Lilac’s heart thundered in her ribcage. Yanna turned her head to them, her eyes terrified and questioning, but Lilac slowly shook her head.
Henri’s calls were met with silence.
“He left, Your Grace,” said someone else. One of their guards. His voice shook so hard, Lilac could barely understand him. “Was that Maximilian’s emissary?”
“Yes.” A quiet sob from her father. “Yes, it was.”
“He was—w-was a monster?—”
“He spared us,” Henri spat, sounding broken with disbelief. “Savedus.”
“Are you all right, Your Grace?” asked another guard. “Did you get hit?”
“No. No—get off of me!”
There was another beat of silence, followed by labored breathing.
Then, the second voice again. “He got shot, didn’t he?”
“Twice,” said Henri. “It didn’t stop him.”
“Ma Doue,” said the first guard. “Thirty men. Just like that.”
There was a muffled sound—a high-pitched moaning at Lilac’s feet, making all of three of them jump. It was one of the two bodies, presumably the one with its head still intact. Blood soaked the ground beneath their boots; the sound wasn’t a cry for help. It was the last broken sound his body could manage. A cry begging for the end.
There was movement, closer now. “Hello?” one of Henri’s guards fearfully called out. “Do you hear that?”
“Can you glamor us, Myrddin?” whispered Lilac. “Make us invisible?”
“Not with them this close. Not with them already looking this way. Plis, I feel my arcana growing fatigued. I don’t want to waste it if I have to get us out of here fast.”
