Dragon Heartstone > Chapter 44–In The Center

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Katun and Britta rode slowly behind the army’s center, watching their soldiers march toward the chaos of clashing cavalry ahead. The distant screams of the wounded mingled with the metallic clang of weapons. The scent of churned mud and blood lingered in the air as the afternoon sun cast long shadows across the battlefield, making the carnage more hideous and surreal. A Preytar rider galloped up to Britta, his horse’s flanks heaving, and delivered Nikolas’s warning about the Nagun.

Britta closed her eyes, pressing her fingers against her temples. The dull throb of an oncoming headache pulsed beneath her fingertips as the pieces of Faline’s strategy clicked into place with sickening clarity…When she opened her eyes, the battlefield had transformed. No longer just chaos—now a deadly puzzle with pieces moving precisely as Faline had intended. To the east, she tracked a cloud of dust rising against the sky. To the west, another. The Nagun. To the north, refugees still fled through the storm of steel and blood. To the south lay the river—and survival.

Her throat tightened. Before she could voice her thoughts, Katun leaned closer.

“Do you want my advice?” he asked, his voice gentle but urgent.

She nodded.

“If we stand and fight, we can win. The Nagun are notoriously undisciplined; even if they attack in greater numbers, we can break them. We cannot turn our backs on the refugees or the rest of the inhabitants of Keihl.”

The enormity of the choice twisted her stomach in knots. Time seemed to slow as Britta surveyed the battlefield. To the north, she could make out individuals among the refugees—a mother clutching a child to her breast, an old man stumbling forward on a makeshift crutch. Even at this distance, their faces were etched with desperate hope—hope in her.

But then she saw another vision: Faline’s armies sweeping across Bretagne unopposed, village after village falling, with no defenders left to stand against the tide. Thousands more would suffer then. Tens of thousands.

A cold, rational voice spoke with crystal clarity in her mind. One decision saved a few today; the other preserved hope for all. The weight of the crown had never felt heavier.

Britta’s hand tightened on her sword hilt until her knuckles whitened. She drew a deep breath, feeling as though ice water flowed through her veins instead of blood. The moment stretched, taut as a bowstring.

“My Queen?” Katun prompted, his voice seeming to come from very far away.

Britta swallowed hard, tasting bile, and forced steel into her voice. “No, we retreat. Establish a rear guard on the river and order everyone back to it. Have all our horsemen, Preytar and Bretagne, disengage and ride back to the bridge.”

Each word felt like a stone placed on her chest, making it harder to breathe. But she kept her back straight, her eyes steady.

Katun’s jaw dropped. “But what of the refugees and the city?”

She met his gaze, her eyes hard but glistening. “They must fend for themselves. The Army must be saved, for without it, no one will survive for long, including Bretagne.” She forced herself to look at him and the weight of his judgment.

Disappointment etched deep lines on Katun’s face, but he swallowed unspoken protests. His disapproval stung more than she’d expected, but she couldn’t afford to second-guess herself now. Turning to his aides, he barked out Britta’s orders, the implications of each lancing into her soul. The messengers grimaced, nodded, and rode off to deliver the death sentence to hundreds.

* * *

Banoch urged his pikemen forward into the swirling mass of battling horsemen, their ordered ranks a stark contrast to the chaos ahead. The familiar thrill of impending victory surged through his veins. Then trumpet calls pierced the clash of steel on steel, the notes carrying an unmistakable command. Bretagne and Preytar horsemen wheeled their mounts and galloped south, abandoning the field—and the refugees—to their fate.

The survivors, seeing their saviors vanish, screamed and ran in blind panic. Banoch’s men cut them down with mechanical efficiency, their weapons rising and falling in bloody arcs. His gaze swept the field. A long swath of bodies—men, women, and children—lay sprawled across the fields of Keihl, a grotesque tapestry painted in red and horror.

Banoch cursed and shook his fists at the retreating enemy. This wasn’t how Faline had planned it. The prey was escaping a carefully laid trap. The Bretagnian foot soldiers halted their advance and began falling back in disciplined order as their cavalry passed through their ranks.

He spat on the ground. Faline would not be pleased. And when she was displeased, heads rolled—sometimes literally. He turned to his lieutenant. “Send riders to the Nagun. Press their flanks now. Breakthrough to the river.”

* * *

Banoch watched with grim satisfaction as the Nagun advanced like nightmare-made flesh on the flanks. Some ran upright. Others loped on all fours, their mass flowing across the battlefield like a tide of teeth and claws. They moved faster than the Drachnorian infantry, their hunger for battle driving them ahead of their allies.

The Bretagnian flanks had held back, forming a defensive line rather than advancing with the center. They wheeled to face the Nagun. Pikemen squatted three ranks deep, a wall of steel points waiting for the savage horde. Behind them, three ranks of archers nocked arrows to strings.

The first volley darkened the sky, falling among the Nagun like iron rain. Scores of tribesmen fell, but those behind clambered over their bodies, neither slowing nor showing fear. They crashed against the pike wall like a wave against rocks. The first rank died on the steel points, but their deaths meant nothing to those behind. Clawed hands grasped pike shafts, snapping them like twigs. Sharp teeth found flesh and inhuman strength tore through armor.

The archers turned and fled first, then the pikemen retreated by ranks, falling back through the lines behind them. Banoch smiled thinly. Perhaps the Bretagnian discipline was finally crumbling. But then, the retreating ranks reformed and set themselves firm as the swirling hordes of Nagun probed and prodded for gaps in the line but found none.

Banoch gritted his teeth and returned his attention to the center, where the Drachnorian advance met equal resistance. Bretagnian archers loosed their arrows, tearing ragged holes in the enemy formation. The Drachnorians returned the exchange, but their volleys lacked the same precision, and their arrows found fewer marks among the retreating ranks.

“Advance!” Banoch’s voice carried over the din of battle as he rode along his lines. He needed to maintain pressure on their center—if they could delay the Bretagnian retreat even slightly, the Nagun would have time to close the trap from both sides.

The Drachnorian pikemen moved forward like a bristling beast, their weapons forming an impenetrable forest of steel. Pikes clashed against pikes, thrusting and stabbing in the ancient dance of line infantry. Blood soaked into the thirsting earth, and bodies began to pile up, making the ground treacherous for those still fighting.

The Bretagne retreat had begun, but it remained to be seen whether they could break contact before the Nagun closed the trap.