Duchess Rampant, page 1
DUCHESS RAMPANT
THE SEVEN REALMS OF AR’ROTHI
BOOK III
ALISON NAOMI HOLT
Denabi Publishing
CHAPTER 1
Aurelia “Bree” Makena, Duchess of Danforth, reined in her battle mare, Lioth. The two made quite a sight as the pure-white horse pranced in the waves at the edge of the Cascadian Sea. Bree’s azure-blue surcoat bore the golden image of the Lion of Bendi, an honor that had been passed down through the Danforth familial line for five generations. No other duchy but hers could use the symbol, which proclaims the bearer the Defender of the Crown.
She lifted a hand to shade her eyes as she studied the Orgundian fleet arriving off the shores of Anacafria. The habitual gesture did little to help, as the sun hadn’t yet made an appearance through the dense fog the ships’ masters had used as a shroud to hide their silent approach. The fog painted them as ghost ships to those watching from the shore, their billowing sails barely discernible behind a sheer curtain of near invisibility.
But now their bowsprits broke the leading edge of the heavy mist, the sails on their foremasts, mainmasts, and mizzenmasts gradually emerging one after the other until the entirety of each galleon appeared as a dark silhouette on an even darker backdrop of a foggy dawn.
Bree’s spies had already reported most of the ships sailing her way were hulking, four-masted vessels. As such, their keels ran deep, and they’d be forced to use landing boats to bring their soldiers close into shore.
Bree absently noted Queen Desdamea’s standard flying from the foremast of each ship; a yellow shield with serpents coiling around the blades of two crossed swords. She counted ten ships in all, each one capable of carrying two hundred soldiers—one hundred if they carried cavalry. The ships spaced themselves evenly along approximately one-half mile of shoreline.
Deckhands ran this way and that, furling great, oversized sails as the ships heaved to. Enormous chains snaked over the sides sending anchors plummeting into the sea. Each of the mainmasts fell and Bree could faintly hear the captains of each ship shouting orders in the controlled chaos that ruled aboard a sailing ship-of-war.
King Leopold’s spies had warned him that over the past several months, Desdamea, the Queen of Organdy, had amassed an army of unprecedented proportions. She’d conscripted or captured the ships of free merchants and had recalled every ship in her fleet in order to deliver the largest landing force to ever land on Anacafrian’s shores. She intended to rule Leopold’s kingdom, and if Bree couldn’t completely stop her today on this stretch of the shoreline, then she’d at least cut their numbers down by half.
She swiveled around to view the fifteen hundred soldiers waiting in battle formation on the beach. This group, under the command of Marshal Kilrik Sandresin, made up half of her troops. The other half, under Marshal Andris Toker, hid in homes, shops, and warehouses throughout Port Emnal.
Marshal Toker was the Baron of Lakeland, but both Lakeland and Port Emnal were part of his father’s Duchy of Salth. Bree had taken advantage of the fact that the people in the port city knew and trusted him. Despite his arguments that Salth was his father’s duchy and he should be the first into battle, Bree used his familiarity with the populace to smooth ruffled feathers when she’d commandeered homes, businesses and warehouses to hide half her troops.
Bree looked to the north, toward Port Suliet. Even though several hard days of riding separated them from the port, she could still picture the layout of the city. King Leopold had accompanied Jathez and his three thousand troops to confront the largest of two invading armadas. She wished the queen’s tactics weren’t quite so sound. Desdamea had effectively divided Leopold’s forces by attacking from two fronts.
Looking back at the ships, she wondered about the rectangular rank flag of the prime fleet admiral flying from the mainmast of the second ship of the convoy. Desdamea only had one prime. Bree would have bet twenty gold rions he’d lead the armada invading Port Suliet due to its strategic location as a jumping off point to attack the king’s castle in Cafria. Instead, here he sailed with the secondary landing fleet north of the lesser maritime city of Port Emnal.
When the spy masters named Emnal as the queen’s second target, Bree had known exactly where to place her troops. The sheer faces of the towering grey cliffs of Stonetalon bracketed the port city both to the north and to the south. Emnal lay in the opening of a mile-wide chasm that extended from the sea all the way back to King’s Crossing on the Le’ena river. After studying the nautical charts of the area, she’d placed her people to the north in the only plausible location to launch landing boats. Because of the shallow, rocky shoreline of Black Boulder Bay to the south, it would be nearly impossible for a ship to get close enough to launch an amphibious assault.
Lioth danced in place, eager for battle. Bree put her hand on her neck to quiet her, and as she did, her banner, fluttering behind and to her left, drew her attention.
She glanced back at Baron Humphries, from the Barony of Tessarod, whom she’d chosen as her standard bearer. He looked impossibly young. Who am I kidding? She thought. He is impossibly young.
He had somehow managed to wrestle his mass of curly black hair under his helm, but a few inches still brushed the bevor protecting his shoulders and neck. He sat tall and straight on his piebald gelding, the butt of the standard held solidly in his boot cup with the pennant snapping in the ocean breeze. He was a well-built, but not powerful man, suited more for finesse in battle than for any type of fighting that might involve the use of brute force.
He noticed her scrutiny and studied her face to see if she needed something. When he realized she didn’t, he respectfully dipped his chin.
Smiling to herself, she remembered Jathez approving of her appointment of Humphries and how he’d nearly lost his teeth when she’d told him she’d assigned Liris and her followers as her personal protection detail. She’d been lucky the Estians had earned the respect of the rest of the troops. Very few Anacafrian soldiers had complained. In fact, two of Bree’s best soldiers—a swordsman and a woman renown for her archery skills—had asked for and received permission to serve in Liris’ squad.
Lookouts shouted warnings from the top of towers built near the water’s edge. “Landing ships! They’re launching the troop ships!”
Bree turned back to the ships and muttered under her breath, “Finally.” She’d given orders for all of her units to be in formation before sunrise. She worried that the discipline would begin to weaken with each hour the Orgundians made them wait.
She wasn’t concerned about the standing armies of the various duchies the king had placed under her command. They were comprised of seasoned soldiers who would stand through a blizzard until they dropped as solid blocks of ice if so ordered. But mixed in among them were members of individual town militias. The king only required these civilian units to train quarterly, so they’d have plenty of time to farm or work their shops and smithies. Unfortunately, those weeklong sessions didn’t engender the same level of discipline as the standing army.
She rode out of the surf and cantered back to where Humphries sat facing her troops on his gelding. Turning Lioth so she had a good view of the enemy, Bree felt the battle calmness settle over her. Her shoulders relaxed, and her focus sharpened. The world narrowed to nothing more than this battle and the tactics she’d need to defeat her enemy.
Humphreys backed his horse until its head came even with Bree’s knee. This way, with him facing the army and his back to the sea, he could hear her slightest command and relay it to the officers in charge.
Bree quietly ordered, “Archers.”
Humphries bellowed, “Archers.”
Three hundred archers ran to the water’s edge and assembled according to bow type. Those with longbows formed three rows, leaving a space between rows. They spread out far enough that Bree could just make out the last person in line in either direction.
Inserting themselves behind each row of longbows, crossbowmen knelt in three rows of their own.
Behind the formations of archers, a row of shield bearers took their places and settled in to wait.
Humphries wheeled his horse around so he faced the Masters of the Bow.
Bree watched as boat after boat descended the sides of the sailing vessels. Each of the ten ships launched four boats at a time, loaded them with soldiers, then lowered four more when the first four pushed away from the hulls. She marveled at how quickly the sea resembled bees swarming the surface of a honeycomb.
For what seemed like the hundredth time, Bree scanned the horizon looking for sails of the ships the king had assigned to patrol this part of the shoreline. To her growing discomfort, the Orgundian fleet had sailed into the shallows completely unmolested.
Not a sound could be heard on the beach except the occasional cough or creaking of leather or armor.
Liris rode forward on her mule, which she’d named Fancy, and she and her squad formed a semicircle between the Duchess and the oncoming hoard. She unsheathed her falchion and quietly commanded, “Draw.”
In unison, all eight riders drew their swords.
Bree only heard the shick of what sounded like one sword leaving its sheath. She smiled slightly at the sight of Liris on the back of a huge gray mule that the Master of the Stables had counseled against using in battle. Liris had countered that the mare had a fighting spirit and ‘attitude,’ which the Estian said she valued highly when in the midst of a fight.
Liris’ Spirit Guide, Legan, appeared and stood by her side. A
Liris acknowledged his warning with a slight nod. She hadn’t considered the threat the Teivaiedin posed in the upcoming battle. Turning toward Bree, she brought her fist to her chest and, quite inappropriately for the occasion, felt the familiar longing that had been growing for the past several months. She’d watched Bree riding Lioth through the waves earlier in the day and marveled at how badly she’d fallen for a woman completely and utterly unattainable in every sense of the word.
Bree acknowledged her with a lift of her chin.
Liris conveyed the message and then once again turned to face the oncoming hoard.
In a calm, confident voice, Bree said, “Ready bows.”
Humphries bellowed, “Ready bows!”
The archery masters repeated the order, with the voice of each successive commander sounding like an echo down both sides of the formations leading away from the center.
Bree watched the boats as they neared the shore and did a quick tally of the numbers she was facing. Six rowers in each boat faced away from shore, their muscular backs straining with each pull of the oars. The oarsmen sat two abreast: two in the bow, two amidships and two in the stern. In between the bow and midship rowers she counted three rows of three soldiers each and between midship and stern, another three rows of three.
Each soldier wore a red leather helmet consistent with the yellow and red of Desdamea’s standard. The leather on the back of the helmets extended down to the shoulders providing a modicum of protection for the warrior’s neck. Each helmet had a single, silver spike no longer than the length of Bree’s little finger jutting up from its crest.
The soldiers sitting next to the gunnels held compact, perfectly round shields that hung over the sides as a protective barrier against her archers. Bree thought it telling that Desdamea’s forces were so well-organized that the shields alternated red and yellow down the length of each gunnel. She glanced down the line of boats and couldn’t find a single instance where a color had been placed in the wrong position.
Shaking off her musings, she quietly continued with her calculations. “So, nine twice is eighteen plus six rowers.”
Humphries nodded.
“Twenty-four to a boat, four boats launched from ten ships in the first wave, that’s—” She stopped to think.
Humphries, who excelled in math, supplied the answer. “Nine hundred and sixty.”
Bree blinked at the number and then nodded. “So…. twice that number with the second wave they’re launching is more than we’d hoped for, but our archers will cut the numbers to our advantage.”
While she waited for the boats to approach, she stroked the leather of her reins with her thumb, the only outward manifestation of her growing unease. She’d counted on the king’s navy to either sink or engage some of Desdamea’s ships, but obviously something had happened to keep them away.
After years of serving in the Queen’s Brigades during the Estian Wars, she knew the longbow’s range intimately and intended to wait until the last possible moment to give the order to fire.
Humphries, who had no battle experience and therefore no understanding of patience and timing, kept nervously glancing at Bree, who flicked an irritated glance in his direction.
She addressed him while continuing to mark the distance of the landing craft. “When I made you my standard bearer, what did I say would be the most important thing for you to remember?”
Humphries blushed furiously when he realized his mistake. “Never, ever, show fear, nervousness or a lack of faith in you or your orders.” He noticed the banner he held was leaning forward slightly, and he quickly pulled it erect. He riveted his gaze onto the advancing army and made sure not to glance her way again.
Bree watched the oarsmen pull toward shore. Well-trained, the boatswains made sure their crafts advanced steadily in rows of eight, with none of them pulling ahead of or lagging behind the others.
Bree quietly ordered, “Nock and mark.”
Relieved she’d finally given the order, Humphries shouted with slightly more conviction than necessary, “Nock and mark!”
Masters repeated the command up and down their lines and archers fitted arrows to their strings.
“Draw.”
“Draw!”
A line of bows lifted toward the sky.
Bree waited a few moments to make sure her calculations were correct. “Loose.”
Humphries repeated the order.
At that, the masters took over and began issuing their own commands. The first wave of arrows soared into the sky, reached their apex and descended on the landing craft. Well-trained, the invading troops locked their shields together above their heads to block the rain of arrows.
The instant the shields lifted to the sky, the first row of crossbowmen rose, stepped into the gaps left between the long bowmen and loosed their arrows directly into the unprotected bodies of the soldiers holding their shields aloft. Despite the shields mounted on the bows of the boats to protect the front pair of rowers, the majority of the arrows found their mark.
Cries rang out from the injured and dying.
A volley of arrows from the second row of archers immediately streaked skyward, not giving the boatswains time make the tactical adjustments necessary to avoid the crossbowmen’s arrows.
Once more, as soldiers raised their shields toward the heavens, a second line of crossbowmen stepped forward and loosed their arrows. The first line stepped back, knelt and reloaded.
It took another volley before the boatswains organized half the soldiers to hold their shields forward while the other half protected them from the arrows raining down from the sky.
So, Bree thought, not so well trained after all. Granted, not many armies utilized crossbowmen quite like she did, but they should have been prepared none-the-less.
As is the case with many landing forces, Bree knew most of the people in the first boats would never make it to shore. Her gut twisted as she watched the normally pea green sea turn red with Orgundian blood. Such a waste of good men and women, most of whom had probably been conscripted for just such a position.
With grim determination, she ordered, “Shift right.”
Humphries gave the order.
In unison, three hundred archers turned forty-five degrees to the right. This move allowed the crossbowmen easier access to their targets through the gaps between the enemy’s shields, which were more accessible from an angle than from a straight on shot.
Once more, the masters gave the order and hundreds of arrows streaked through the sky. Next came the crossbows.
Bree nodded as most of the arrows found their mark.
As the oarsmen continued to row the boats closer, Bree prepared her next offensive move. All of her archers shot with deadly accuracy, but none held a candle to the small contingent of Royal Archers she’d appropriated from the king’s elite troops. She’d requested all sixty, but King Leopold held back half for his defense of Port Suliet.
Several days earlier, Bree had ordered Ruthok, the Master of the Bow for the king’s contingent, to calculate the points where the waters ran shallow in the early morning hours—an educated guess as to where the attacking soldiers would probably disembark. Now, at each of those points, triangular pennants waved from the top of the nine and ten foot saplings Ruthok’s people had embedded deep into the ocean floor.
Bree had given very specific instructions to the Royal Archers; hold their fire and watch the soldiers in the boats. To the best of their ability, they were to pick out the men and women they guessed were the leaders among the twenty-four people in each boat.
