Page 155 of A Crown of Lies

A meaty hand closed around Ieduin’s throat and Simeon lifted him from the ground, feet kicking. The edges of Ieduin’s vision pulsed as Simeon squeezed off his air supply.

And then a war hammer smashed into Simeon’s ribs, knocking him aside. Ieduin flew with him until he let go, and then Ieduin rolled through the blood-dampened dirt.

Rixxis yanked him to his feet a moment later. “What are you doing in the fray, you idiot elf?” she snarled and punched the buttspike of her hammer through someone’s helmet. “You’re an archer!”

“I can’t find Rowan!” Ieduin answered. “We need to fall back and recover the plan, but I have to find him first!”

She swung her hammer with a grunt, giving another knight a glancing blow. The knight stumbled and Ieduin capitalized on his poor balance, driving a dagger into the base of his skull when his helmet came off. He kicked the dead knight away and scanned the battlefield.

The Greymarkers were easy enough to pick out. They were the ones without all the armor. The oneslosing, and badly. A Brotherhood knight swung his sword through the skull of one Greymarker before knocking three men back, creating room for him to step in and kill two more.

Ieduin tore his gaze away.Rowan. Got to find Rowan. Come on. Where are you, you red-headed hothead? There!

A small area cleared enough that Ieduin picked him out, fighting his way through a small pocket of the Trintan lord’s men.

“Rixxis,” he shouted, kicking away a knight with three arrows stuck in his shield. The knight was half dead. He just didn’t know it yet. He fell and Ieduin wrestled the shield away from the dying man, securing it on his arm. “Order the retreat!”

“Fall back!” She shouted. “Greymark, fall back!”

Ieduin pushed into the crowd of heavily armored knights, the stolen shield out in front of him. He arrived at the small clearing in the fighting just in time to stab someone sneaking up on Rowan from behind. The Trintan soldier went down, Ieduin’s dagger still in his back. Ieduin knelt and yanked it free. “We need to go!”

“But Divina,” Rowan snarled.

Ieduin grabbed Rowan by the shoulder. “Stick to the fucking plan or we are going to lose, and Ewan will have died fornothing!”

That seemed to cool Rowan’s rage enough that he could listen. He blinked and looked around, seeming to hear Rixxis call the retreat for the first time.

Ieduin gripped him by the shoulder of his breastplate and pulled him toward a horse that was running in circles. He yanked the dead knight from the horse and shoved Rowan toward it. “Get on, or I drag you.”

Rowan climbed up into the saddle and Ieduin got up behind him a second later. With the horn sounding the retreat behind them, they rode back to the woods.

Trinta’s soldiers let out a victory shout.

“After them!” shouted a commander. “No quarter!”

“Are you hurt?” Ieduin asked as they rode.

Rowan looked down at himself as if he had just now noticed he was covered in blood. “I don’t think any of this is my blood.”

“I thought we agreed no stupid risks,” Ieduin said through clenched teeth.

“Where is Rixxis?” Rowan asked, looking around.

“Right behind us.” At least, that’s what Ieduin hoped. If she let herself get cut off, she’d be trapped behind enemy lines and have to fight her way through an entire army to get to them.

Rowan took a deep breath and turned his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“Not now,” Ieduin growled. “Apologize later. Win now.”

“Can we still win?”

Ieudin snorted and smirked. “Trinta is about to get royally fucked. Trust me. I’m an expert on the subject.”

Forty-Seven

Rixxisswungherhammer,caving in the skull of another Brotherhood knight, and looked around, breathless. Corpses littered the ground. Trintan soldiers and cavalry rushed past in nearly every direction. A few Greymarkers were still fighting, but they fell quickly under the onslaught of Trintan swords.

Emboldened by her call to retreat, they’d doubled down their efforts to chase the fleeing Greymarkers into the woods. Ieduin’s plan was working. There was just one problem. An army of enemy soldiers now stood between her and where she needed to be.

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