Page 224 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“Duncan,” Garric cut in, pushing through the cluster of hovering men with urgency, expression stricken. Blood rushed down the side of his face. “How are you feeling?”

“Let me help you, Your Grace,” Sven said, offering an eager arm.

Duncan accepted it. With Kora bracing him on the other side and Garric steadying him from behind, he rose slowly to his feet.

Then he lifted his head and looked out across the plains. The sun had nearly set. Around him lay a scattered ring of his men, likely those who had fought to hold the space after his fall. His mare stood a short distance away, prancing anxiously through the slush.

Beyond, the field had changed so completely from the last moment he remembered that it seemed the land itself had rewritten the battle in a single breath. Countless Kryovarre soldiers lay pinned to the frozen ground or slack among thousands of twisted vines.

“What…” Duncan began. No words felt equal to the moment.

Kora studied him with visible hesitation. “Wolmer has arrived.” Her eyes drifted uncertainly across the scattered stems. “The Citadel is securing the ground.”

“Yet Kryovarre refuses to concede defeat,” Garric said through clenched teeth. He opened his mouth to add something more, then seemed to think better of it.

Duncan straightened slowly. The last warmth of Emberglade faded from his lungs as his thoughts settled back into focus. “Where is he?” he asked firmly.

“Last we saw him,” Kora said quietly, “he was keeping to the back of the line.”

Duncan nodded.

He allowed himself a moment to remember his father’s fading figure in the valley.

He let the memory go.

He leaned down and kissed Kora once.

“Get her off this field,” he told Garric as he strode to his mare. Then, to the men of his Guard, as he vaulted into the saddle, “Do not follow me.”

One sharp kick sent him surging across the battlefield.

“I will not bear this any longer,” he said to the wind, the words rising from the place inside him that grief had hollowed and certainty had finally filled.

Chapter 101

Duncan

Duncan charged past the last pockets of fighting, weaving through scattered bodies and broken lines until the rear of the enemy formation came into view. Valdir derDobroiov lingered there like a carrion bird beyond the reach of a storm.

The duke stiffened the moment he saw Duncan racing toward him. “Lemierre,” Kryovarre croaked, shock cracking across his face. “Impossible. I saw—”

“And yet,” Duncan called as he closed the distance, “here I am.”

Kryovarre lifted a hand. His guards angled their horses between the two dukes.

“Ah.” Duncan slowed his mare to a controlled prowl. “Afraid of me?”

“I am being wise,” Valdir snapped. “Your skill with the sword is well known, and I am but an old man raised in the Spectrum.”

“Where you should have stayed,” Duncan replied, drawing his blade. “Let’s do this. Just you and I, as I offered before.”

“Never,” Kryovarre hissed. He slashed his hand through the air and his guards charged.

At any other moment Duncan would have recognized the truth of the odds. Five against one was not a contest a sane man expected to survive. But the wound that should have killed him was gone, and the doubt that had shadowed him since he inherited his title had burned away with it. They could have sent a hundred men against him then, and he would still have ridden straight into their advance, certain he would prevail.

The first rider came in fiercely from the left. Steel rang as Duncan turned the strike and drove his sword beneath the man’s ribs. The soldier toppled from the saddle before his horse had finished the charge. Another rushed from the right. Duncan ducked the first swing, caught the second on his blade, and answered with a cut that sent the man collapsing across his horse’s neck.

Two more pressed forward together. Duncan drove his mare between them before they could close the gap. His sword flashed once to the left, once to the right. One rider slumped sideways while the other pitched backward with blood spilling down his armor.