Outside the fortress walls, Godman soldiers engaged the Cynthians at blade's length, though one could hardly call it true combat. After their initial ambush, the Penlico forces deliberately slowed their advance, their extended spears maintaining distance from the Godmans while showing no eagerness to press forward. "What game are they playing?" Bigmouth Simon demanded, sword and shield in hand, caught in tactical limbo. "I can't reach the bastards, Carl. And these cowards refuse to commit—two steps forward, three back. What's their strategy?"

  "They're buying time," Carl Clawyn replied with certainty, deflecting a spear thrust before counterattacking a Kadenford defender. This probing assault claimed another dozen Penlico soldiers, who retreated several paces while maintaining their defensive posture. "Are we fighting or dancing?" Simon bellowed in Common Tongue. "Fighting!" shouted back a soldier in a rounded helmet from across the line. "We'll send you crawling back to your mothers!"

  Simon hawked and spat contemptuously toward the man's feet. Before he could deliver his retort, panicked shouts erupted behind them. "What now?" Turning, he witnessed most of the Godman soldiers who had been assaulting the walls now abandoning their positions, weapons clutched awkwardly as they fled in disarray. "What in hell's name—?" To his bewilderment, the Kadenford defenders began withdrawing simultaneously.

  "Reinforcements from the castle?" Carl Clawyn asked, also retreating while keeping his sword raised defensively. "Not the castle," Tyler Wynlers replied, his voice heavy with foreboding. "Reinforcements from outside the city, damn it all." He swallowed hard. "We've hit the jackpot."

  A dark mass of armed figures materialized east of the castle—mounted warriors carrying battle standards and singing war hymns with fervent voices. At their head rode a woman whose slender silhouette and flowing silver braid were unmistakable even at distance. Her head bore no protective armor, only an exquisite silver diadem with a purple gemstone that caught and fractured the sunlight. "Who is that?"

  "The Queen of Cynthia herself," Tyler answered grimly. "I cannot determine whether Fortune favors our cause or theirs in this moment."

  "The Queen has been lured into our trap!" Bigmouth Simon exulted. "Clearly Fortune smiles upon—"

  The goddess of luck permitted him no further boast. In that instant, the Kadenford soldiers erupted with cries of "Long live the Queen!" and surged forward, polearms leveled. Carl lunged protectively before Simon, intercepting a flanged mace with his shield. "Silence and fight, Simon!" His words vanished beneath the thunderous roar of converging armies and clashing steel.

  The Godman Task Force abandoned their scaling ladders, battering rams, and half-incinerated siege towers, falling back to join their main force engaged with the Kadenford troops. Riding inexorably toward them came the capital's reinforcements led by Queen Claire Grace of Cynthia herself. She wore gleaming silver-white armor beneath a billowing indigo cloak, her right hand wielding the legendary longsword Illutasingēr while her left bore an elegant fan-shaped knight's shield reinforced with finely crafted steel plates over an oak core. Beneath her rode the pure white mare called Remedios, unencumbered by battle armor save for bridle and saddle, a subtle protrusion crowning its noble head. Behind their sovereign thundered 2,400 Cynthian soldiers, their advance unstoppable.

  A Godman archer concealed himself behind a massive chestnut tree. Middle-aged with hair tightly bound into a whip-like tail, he was renowned among the Task Force for his deadly accuracy. Earlier, a stone slab had crushed his leg while he scaled the walls on steel cables, but he had managed to avenge himself with a barbed arrow through the throat of the Cynthian defender responsible, moments before the cable snapped. Peering cautiously around the trunk, he observed his comrades' retreat with bitter resentment. Suddenly, his gaze locked onto Queen Claire Grace's galloping figure and the Cynthian Bobtail Lion standard borne by her herald.

  In his mind, he already envisioned the Queen tumbling from her saddle, pierced by his arrow. "So you truly came," he murmured, lips curling into a predatory smile. "Let's consider what gift to bestow upon you." Emptying his quiver onto the ground, he surveyed his arsenal of specialized arrows. After careful consideration, he selected a blunt-headed coronet arrow and nocked it to his masterfully crafted recurve bow—a weapon of horn and sinew that had cost his daughter's entire dowry. "You may not like this gift, Your Majesty," he whispered, a nasty smile on his lips. "It's meant to flatten that royal chest of yours for good."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  He released the string. The arrow sliced through air with deadly purpose. Suddenly, the runes etched into Illutasingēr's fuller channel blazed with blue-violet radiance; Claire's peripheral vision instantly registered the warning. With preternatural reflexivity, she raised her shield, intercepting the projectile that would have permanently mutilated her right breast. The archer's arms fell limply to his sides in disbelief.

  "You gravely underestimate me," Claire snarled under her breath.

  Hilltop Fort's gates swung wide. The castle's Kadenford Self-defense Force defenders, inspired by their Queen's presence, poured forth brandishing their makeshift weapons to join the battle. "I maintain that you lack standing to lecture me about sacrifice," Lord Shawn Penlico declared, approaching the Kalkasian warrior already mounted and poised to charge into battle. "Nevertheless, I must express gratitude for what you foreigners have... contributed."

  The Kalkasian threw back his head in uninhibited laughter. "You have a disrespectful tongue, Kalkasian."

  "What significance does that hold now?" he responded, casually tossing his bamboo blowpipe to Penlico. "Viea p? v?g att offear." ("I am about to sacrifice.") Then, raising his gleaming Akali Scimitar overhead, he led his Kalkasian warriors thundering into the fray.

  Penlico examined the bamboo tube briefly before handing it to the horned knight behind him. "Gather our forces. Prepare to ride."

  "Ride? Where?" The knight feigned ignorance.

  "To war, you worthless fool. To join the Queen and my father in dismembering these Godman invaders, you worthless fool."

  "But shouldn't we defend the castle?"

  Lord Shawn Penlico's tone softened unexpectedly. "You may remain here if you wish." He turned to confront the knight directly. "Who sired you? Viscount Claudio? Baron Luke Bode? Or perhaps some wretched village headman who meddles with crops he doesn't understand? I neither know nor care. But I can certainly predict your father's reaction upon learning of your glorious achievement—cowering within these walls under the noble pretense of 'defense' while everyone else marches forth to battle." He shoved the knight forcefully. "Don't know what your father had to sacrifice to have you buzz around my ear like a fly, but I know a coward when I see one. Remain here guarding empty halls if you must. I'll venture forth and perish in your stead. Then you may subsist on the mockery of your peers and the contempt of your family for whatever remains of your miserable existence. Glory through sacrifice or survival through cowardice—the choice is entirely yours." These words evidently struck a profound chord; the horned knight sighed with resignation and followed his lord.

  During the final phase of Kadenford's reclamation, this horned knight indeed made the ultimate sacrifice—not for Lord Penlico or Baron Penlico, but for Queen Claire herself. When the sovereign lost her footing and fell from her mount, he engaged multiple enemy knights to shield her. By the time Claire remounted Remedios, her white mare with the distinctive crown-like bump, the young knight had lost his left hand and perished beneath a flurry of Godman blades. Contrary to Penlico's assumptions, his father was no nobleman but the half-blind village chief of Sundown Village in Kadenford. The elderly man, no longer able to tend crops, had sold vast tracts of farmland to purchase armor and warhorse for his only son. His boy's sacrifice earned him a viscount's title. The village chief accepted the honor with a proud smile during the investiture ceremony. But when the knights of the embassy were gone, he fell to his knees, clutching the velvet banner to his chest as if he could somehow trade it for the life of his son.

  Numerically, the opposing forces were evenly matched. In spirit and momentum, however, there existed no comparison. The succession of blows—encirclement, reversal, the Queen's dramatic arrival, and finally the remaining defenders of Hilltop Fort joining the offensive—left the previously confident Godman forces disoriented and demoralized. Had Devalosfang Dear's Seventh Mixed Detachment not carved a desperate escape route through Kadenford's spearmen formation, the entire Godman West Wall Task Force might have been annihilated to the last soldier. Scattered skirmishes continued until dusk fell, with the once-triumphant Godman forces driven back to their final defensive position near the West Wall, clinging to this last foothold without hope of reinforcement.

  Finally, the sun descended below the horizon, casting long shadows over reclaimed Kadenford. After half a day of ferocious combat, Cynthia's forces had successfully recaptured most of the city. Yet Queen Claire Grace remained unaware that her impressive victory—the inspiration she had provided, the morale she had restored, the territory she had reclaimed—had been purchased at a terrible price paid at Pafaheim.