Read Chapter 26: The Viscount's Gambit

The muster horn had barely faded when a second sound cut through the pre-dawn grey—a distant, rolling thunder that Thomas knew in his bones was not weather. Horses. Many horses, moving fast, from the west.

“That’s not the French army,” Will said, his young voice tight. “That’s not a march.”

Thomas spun toward the baggage lines. The quartermaster, old Hobden, was shouting at the carters, pointing toward the tree line where the fog lay thick as wool. Thomas saw them a heartbeat later—shapes moving low and fast between the wagons, too many to be lost men, too deliberate to be scouts. And at their head, a tall figure on a black horse, one arm raised.

The Viscount.

“Archers to me!” Thomas bellowed, drawing Greyhill’s sword. “Baggage! Now!”

The camp erupted. Men stumbled from tents half-dressed, reaching for bows that were not strung, arrows that were bundled. Thomas did not wait. He ran, boots sliding on the wet grass, Will at his side. The French raiders had already reached the far wagons, where the reserve arrow crates sat stacked like coffins waiting for burial.

Hobden stepped into their path with a cudgel. The Viscount swung down from his saddle with the ease of a man who had spent his life in the stirrups. His blade took Hobden across the throat without slowing. The quartermaster crumpled, and the raiders tore open the first crate.

Thomas was still fifty yards out. He could see the oil-soaked rags being pressed between the arrow shafts, could see the torch being struck.

“Will—the horse lines! Cut the pickets loose!” He did not look to see if the boy obeyed. He only ran.

The fire caught. One crate bloomed orange, then another. The raiders were already pulling back, not lingering to watch their work. The Viscount was at the far side of the wagon, boots in the stirrups, when Thomas came around the corner and nearly collided with his mount.

The black horse shied. The Viscount saw him. For a moment, they were close enough for Thomas to see the pale line of the scar he had put on the man’s cheek in the wood, close enough to see the hate in his eyes.

“Fletcher,” the Viscount said, almost pleasantly. “I told you I would find you.”

Thomas swung. The Viscount twisted, taking the blade on his forearm—the mail turned steel, but the force of the blow shoved him back in the saddle. His horse, already wild-eyed from the smoke and shouting, bunched its muscles.

Thomas grabbed for the reins. He missed.

The Viscount laughed and kicked his heels. The horse lunged forward—straight into Will’s path, where the boy had not gone to the horse lines at all but had circled around, war bow in hand, arrow nocked.

“Will!” Thomas screamed.

The boy drew. Thomas saw his shoulders shake from the weight of the warbow, saw the arrow waver, saw the Viscount’s eyes go wide. The shot flew—not true, pulled left by a boy’s trembling arms. It took the horse in the shoulder instead of the man.

The black horse screamed and reared. The Viscount, caught mid-turn, lost his seat. He went down hard, one foot still tangled in the stirrup for a terrible moment before the leather gave way. He rolled, came up with his sword drawn, blood streaming from a gash across his forehead.

For three heartbeats, they faced each other across fifteen feet of churned mud. Thomas heard the crackle of the burning arrows behind him, the screams of the horses, the war cries of the archers closing in.

“You burn my arrows,” Thomas said, low. “You kill my quartermaster. You crawl through the dark like a rat.” He raised Greyhill’s sword. “But you will not take this field. I will see you dead on it, or I will die trying.”

The Viscount smiled through the blood. “One of those outcomes pleases me.”

The fog swallowed him. Thomas lunged, but the man was gone—a shape dissolving into wool-grey nothing. For a moment, Thomas stood at the edge of the mist, sword raised, breathing hard.

Then the black horse staggered to its feet. The arrow still lodged in its shoulder, it stood trembling, eyes rolling white.

Thomas sheathed his sword. He walked to the horse slowly, spoke soft Yorkshire nonsense, laid a hand on its neck. It flinched, then stood still. He pulled the arrow free—the horse shuddered but did not bolt—and tossed the broken shaft aside.

“You’ll do,” he said.

Behind him, the archers were beating out the flames. Two crates were lost, blackened and curled. Four remained, and a stack of unstrung bows lay untouched at the end of the line. He counted the cost and felt the weight of it settle in his chest like a stone.

Will appeared at his elbow, eyes wide, bow still in his hands. “I missed. I was meant to—I tried to aim for him and I—“

“You shot the horse,” Thomas said. “You brought down a destrier worth more than a French knight’s ransom. That’s not missing, boy. That’s making do.”

Will blinked. “He got away.”

“He got away riding a dead horse.” Thomas looked at the black gelding, at the blood running down its shoulder. “He’s on foot in fog he doesn’t know, with a wound that needs stitching and a grudge that’s already cost him everything but his life.” He clapped Will on the shoulder. “He’ll come to us. He has no other road left.”

The horn sounded again. Closer now. The French were advancing.

Thomas swung onto the captured horse’s back. It bucked twice, then settled, and he felt the animal’s strength betraying its hurt. It would carry him as far as he needed.

“Back to the line,” he said. “Bring the arrows that survived. All of them. Every bow that still has a string.” He looked toward the east, where the fog was thinning, where shapes were beginning to move in ordered ranks. “The field will be ours, or it will be our grave. There is no third way.”