A Sword of Bronze and Ashes by Anna Smith Spark

Author:Anna Smith Spark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: feminist literature; flame tree press; celtic mythology; epic fantasy; game of thrones
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2023-07-11T15:04:31+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

Two battles, I remember, when the oath was already breaking.

The first was at an urgent summons from a distant mountain kingdom, beset by a vast enemy host. A fierce people bitter at the world in their mountain fastness, careless of the world beyond their border, selfish, petty, violent to each other and to strangers who crossed the high mountain peaks. Hard to think well of: I…hated them. It was not quite as it had seemed in the Hall Roven at the urgent desperate plea there, frightened and innocent, peaceful gentle simple folk beset by darkness. (It never is.) The valley kingdom bristled with swords and spears and strong armor, not all of it new-forged in panic now from plowshares; the people of the valley knew many words for fighting. (The king’s son, it seemed, had done…had been…so thus the enemy might indeed be…angry…justified, even…. Oh, she was…only…a peasant girl? Yes, I…I think— I see, yes.) They had, in truth, little need for a great captain to lend them her courage, they had certainly no need to be taught battle tricks. Indeed, they had already fought one battle with the enemy, been victorious; the king’s son, the bravest and best of warriors, had led the charge against the enemy. But, alas, the king’s son had been killed in the fighting along with many good young warriors, and all the heart had gone out of the king his father, he had sued, nay begged, for peace. (You returned the woman? With humble apology and recompense? Oh, she left on her own…? Before you could arrange it…? I should say ‘good’, then…. And she was the one who, in the fighting, it was her sword that…? Well…that’s…I mean…. Don’t say ‘good’, Kanda, don’t say ‘good’.) But the people here were indeed innocent, they had no part in the king’s son’s doings, they begged him to let her go, they did not ask for this, any of it. (Did you say it to his face? Tell him what you thought of him? Well, yes, I suppose…I can understand it was…awkward, him being the king’s son, yes….) They are outnumbered, mostly farmers, that is true; the enemy that has come upon on them is savage and hungry, it is not gathered here for revenge against what one boy did. That woman was a pretext only, the enemy has no interest in her sufferings. (Those who lead the enemy must have delighted in what the king’s son did.) From the slopes of the far mountains the enemy came arrayed for battle, eager, hungry, these people will die here butchered if we do not help them. I curse them and I weep in anger at what I am doing, even as I fight. (To dear young Gallyn, who in his innocence sees in the king’s hall only a dead boy his own age, strong and eager, cruelly slain in defense of his gentle people, I must not speak of any of this.)

The second was in defense of a village truly innocent.

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