Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga 2)

They ran up the hill, scrambling between trees and boulders. Everyone found a different path and fanned out. Lada led the way, running and sliding and climbing. It was not easy going, but they made good time. The sound of men and horses screaming drew them closer to their goal.

Finally, scraped and sweating, they reached the rim of the canyon immediately above the fighting. Both sides had bottlenecked, leaving only a few men in front to fight. When those men died, the next went at it. Lada looked down the Bulgar line. It stretched too far. They could push harder and longer.

Hunyadi was not far beyond the front line. Everyone there would die. He had to know that—had to have known it going in.

But he had left Lada’s men behind. If she had been in charge, she would have sacrificed someone else’s men to wear down the other side. Instead, he had kept them out of the battle with a charge to protect the village if his efforts failed.

Hunyadi had killed her father and brother. Before that, he had been the reason her father ransomed her to the Ottomans. And he had invited her to join his troops with only a marriage in mind. She had every reason to let him die, even if she was grateful he had protected her men. But Wallachia called to her, and she had to answer. How could she win this for him?

“They will all be killed,” Petru said, frowning.

Lada and her men were too high up for accuracy with arrows and bolts. And the Bulgars wore heavy armor. They would waste all their ammunition with very little effect.

But…

“Have you ever heard the story of David and Goliath?” Lada remembered that one. She only really cared for the old stories, the ones about battles and lions and armies. She had no use for Jesus with his parables and healing. She liked the wrathful god, the god of vengeance and war. She picked up a large stone, tossing it in the air a few times.

Lada looked across the canyon at Nicolae. She hefted the rock, then pointed at the rear of the Bulgar line. There was an area of the hill that spoke of years of rockslides—no trees, dirt recently churned up—and at the canyon’s rim a collection of boulders waited patiently for time and the elements to free them.

Lada mimed pushing, then let the rock fall from her hands. Nicolae looked at the boulders. He waved an arm, then ran with Stefan and several men toward the boulders.

Lada waited, Petru crouching next to her. The sound of the battle beneath them was terrible. She had never seen one this big, this close. She watched, fascinated. It was not what she had expected. Her only experience with hand-to-hand combat had been with assassins or in practice. She saw how Hunyadi directed his men, how even from the ground he acted as though he had an aerial view.

She also saw how, in spite of his intelligence, he would lose. He had chosen honor instead of practicality. He should have sacrificed her men to slow the Bulgars, then regrouped elsewhere, ignoring the threat to his village.

But he had not counted on her.

A clatter that shifted to a rumble snapped Lada’s attention back to Nicolae’s work. The boulders crashed down, accompanied by a huge plume of dust. The fallen boulders were not enough to fully block the canyon, but they were enough to make it impossible to get more than one man at a time back the way they had come.

Hunyadi looked up. Catching sight of Lada, he shouted something, gesturing angrily toward the rocks. Lada laughed, knowing what it looked like. They had just guaranteed that the Bulgars could only go forward, into Hunyadi.

Lada picked up a rock, so heavy she had to use both arms. Then, with a loud whoop, she threw it.

The rock sailed downward, landing with a metallic thunk on the helmeted head of a soldier in the middle of the Bulgar ranks. He slumped in his saddle, then slid to the ground.

On either side of the canyon, Lada’s men set to work. There was no shortage of rocks. The Bulgars were packed in so tightly that there was no need to aim. Throw a rock, hit something. It was as simple as that.

The Bulgars started to panic, trying to shift out of the way, but there was nowhere to go. Their horses screamed. Soldiers dismounted and tried to climb up the sides of the canyon. They were met with rocks. A few kept their wits and pulled out crossbows, but the distance was too great and Lada’s men had too much cover.

The Bulgars in front made a desperate push, but Hunyadi had grasped that his role was to block them. He set up a firm line impervious to the chaotic attacks of the Bulgars, and then waited.

By evening, Lada’s arms screamed with weariness as she tossed a last rock down. Then, exhausted, she sat. Nicolae and her men on the other side of the canyon followed suit. There were so few Bulgars left, it would be easy for Hunyadi’s men to pick them off with crossbow bolts. It looked as though a careless god had passed through, tossing bodies aside like refuse. Men and horses clogged the path, broken and tangled together.

When Lada and her men stumbled down from the hills, they were greeted with roaring fires and waiting food. Hunyadi’s men cheered, welcoming them with open arms. Hunyadi pushed through to Lada. He picked her up and spun her in a circle. “That was brilliant!” he shouted, laughing.

She waited until he put her down. Then she met his gaze with an unsmiling and unflinching one of her own. “Yes,” she said. “It was. You are no king, and I am no wife. I am a leader and a ruler, and I want your support.”

Hunyadi nodded solemnly, his fingers once again disappearing into his beard. “You have much value outside of marriage.” He did not say it jokingly or dismissively. Lada could see in his eyes that he considered her differently now.

She stood a little straighter. She had done something good. She had secured an ally through her own merits. And she would use him however she could to destroy her enemies.

IT WAS A FESTIVE day in the port city of Bursa.

Ribbons adorned everything, whipping gaily in the perpetual wind that blew from the Sea of Marmara and through the streets. Children laughed, darting through the press of people. Vendors called out their goods—mostly food, and most of that fish—over the noise of the crowds.

Radu let the crowd pull them along. Nazira pointed out a young girl carrying a screaming toddler nearly as big as herself. The toddler managed to wriggle out of her arms. The little girl grabbed his wrist and dragged him on determinedly.

“Does that make you miss your sister?” Nazira asked.