Lilly the Knight (Chapter 5)

Written by Taylor Lee

Genre: Adventure, Drama, and Fantasy

Audience: All ages

Chapter 5: The Decision of a King

The great hall emptied in a rush of boots and clattering steel, and Lilly found herself swept along with it, out into a morning that no longer resembled morning at all. Smoke had swallowed the sun whole. It hung low and thick over the training grounds, stinging her eyes, filling her throat with the taste of char and stone dust, and through it came the screams, the distant shattering of timber, the deep percussive thunder of cannon fire that seemed to shake the very marrow from her bones. The battle had arrived at last. Lilly did not feel ready, but she knew she had no choice but to be.

"To the eastern wall!" someone bellowed, though Lilly could not tell who. "Archers to the ramparts! Shield-bearers, hold the gate!"

Lilly looked down at her sword and the new armor she had just received in the castle from Aldric. She ran with the other knights to the gate to defend it, her new sword clutched so tightly in her fist that her knuckles ached. Sweat beaded upon her brow as she thought of her father, likely at home now, frightened for her, but she knew she was not the only girl fighting this day. A strange courage rose within her as she looked around while the gate shuddered under the enemy's assault. Lilly told herself that Aldric had not made her a knight on a whim, that he had seen some purpose in her worth trusting with a blade. The sword felt heavy in her grip, but Lilly had always carried an inner strength that matched any young man's.

Necrosia's soldiers surged across the eastern fields like a dark tide, their banners black as pitch, their siege engines groaning as they loosed more stone and fire toward the walls. Beside her, a very young boy soldier, younger than herself, held a small shield and a small knife with trembling hands, his face pale as the moon, and Lilly understood, in that instant, that fear had made soldiers of them all, whether they wished it or not, age 5 or age 50; fear felt universal this morning.

"Nock and loose!" Lord Aldric's voice cut through the din, somehow steady even now. "Archers, do not wait for a clean shot! There shall be none today! Knights and soldiers, this wall shall break, as shall the gate, so let there be no hesitation. Run through and do not stop until every last Necrosian soldier lies upon the ground."

This army was young, with only a handful of veteran fighters among them, and a current of uncertainty ran through the ranks, a shared dread that death might well await this kingdom before the day was through. Lilly felt it keenly, and she suspected Aldric felt it too, though his face betrayed nothing of the sort.

"Archers—release!"

The archers' hands shook as they drew their bows, and for a long, terrible moment, boys who had scarcely loosed an arrow before now found themselves bound fast to the grim business of war. Above Lilly, the archers in the towers held their line even as the wall began to crumble beneath the enemy's assault, and a soldier in Necrosia's colors scaled a ladder braced against the stone, his blade already drawn. It was not courage that finally moved Lilly to act, but something quieter and more desperate, a simple refusal to let anyone near her fall. One of the young archers was struck down by that very blade before Lilly's eyes, and the knights atop the wall towers rushed forward, cutting down the soldiers who breached the ramparts while the archers below continued their work of slowing the advancing horde.

Lilly felt only a hollow, sick unsteadiness, and she had no time to dwell upon it, for already another ladder had found itself upon the stone, and another, and the battle had become a thing with no edges, no beginning, no end, only smoke and noise and the desperate work of surviving one moment so that another might follow.

The clash came swiftest at the postern gate, where a company of Necrosian foot soldiers broke through a weakened section of the outer wall, and there Lilly found herself thrust into the thick of it, no longer merely a girl from a once-flourishing kingdom, but a knight fighting to defend all she held dear. Lord Aldric had declared her a knight, whether she felt herself worthy of the title or not, and still hesitation gripped her as the battle raged on every side. A soldier rushed toward her, and fear gave way to anger, and anger gave way, at last, to a strange and steadying emptiness that let her hands move where her mind could not.

She fought not with skill, for she possessed little, but with a fierce and stubborn refusal to fall. She used her shield to knock aside a blade meant for a fallen recruit's throat. She dragged a wounded stonemason from beneath a collapsed timber, though the effort tore a cry from her own aching shoulders. She shouted warnings when she saw them, and screamed for aid when aid was needed, and somewhere in all of it, she stopped thinking of herself as a girl playing at soldiering and became, simply, someone who refused to let those around her die unaided.

The enemy paid a price of their own. Eldoria's defenders, though outnumbered, fought with the ferocity of those protecting their homes, and for every soldier of Eldoria who fell, a soldier of Necrosia fell as well, their bodies mingling upon the churned and bloodied earth in a grim equality that offered no comfort to either side.

But equality could not hold against numbers, and numbers Eldoria did not have.

"Fall back!" The order came at last from Lord Aldric himself, his voice raw with smoke and grief alike. "Fall back to the inner defenses! Hold nothing that cannot be held!"

Necrosia's forces, bloodied and battered, began to draw back from the breach as well, regrouping beyond the wall rather than pressing their advantage further.

Lilly did not wish to retreat; some part of her longed to finish what remained before them. Every fiber of her screamed against withdrawal, some fierce and foolish instinct insisting that retreat was surrender, was failure, was loss. But she saw the wisdom in it even as she resisted, saw the thinning ranks of Eldoria's defenders, saw how few remained to hold what little ground was left.

Behind the soldiers, the inner gates groaned shut, or at least what remained of a gate, and Eldoria's defenders gathered within, bloodied and diminished, to count what remained of their number, and to mourn what did not. Thankfully, the wall only got damaged in one area and half the front gate still remained.

Lilly finally spoke to Aldric, and he escorted her to the King's chamber, though she scarcely remembered the climb through the castle's winding halls, her borrowed knight's cloak still smeared with soot and worse, her hands trembling now not from battle but from something else entirely, some final gathering of courage that had waited all this long, terrible day to arrive. Aldric said to Lilly, "Thy plan may well work, but it is not mine to decide. That choice lies behind these doors."

King Aldwin stood before the great window overlooking the ruined eastern fields, and when he turned to face her, his eyes held a weariness that made him look, for the first time since Lilly had glimpsed him from afar, like an old man rather than a King.

"You are the girl Lord Aldric spoke of," he said. "The one who wished to speak with me before the cannons found our walls."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Lilly bowed, though her knees felt unsteady beneath her. "My name is Lilly. I was... an archer. A knight now, Lord Aldric says, though I hardly feel it."

"Few of us feel worthy of the titles thrust upon us in desperate hours." The King studied her closely. "Speak, then. What is it you would tell me?"

Lilly drew a breath, and the words she had carried all through the long, terrible day finally spilled forth. She told him of her flight into the forest, of the frog with eyes like patient lanterns, of the tunnel lit by crystals that glowed without flame, of the bridge, the sleeping towers, the well whose water tasted of nothing but clean stone and cold earth.

Lord Aldric had entered partway through her telling, his own armor still dented and bloodied from the wall, and the King spoke at last, though she had not yet finished. "A hidden kingdom," he said, "beneath our very feet, and none among us the wiser until now?"

"I swear it upon my life, King Aldwin. I saw it with my own eyes. Storerooms filled with grain that had not spoiled in all the years it must have sat there. Gardens still green beneath some manner of false and gentle light. Stone walls thick enough to withstand any siege Necrosia might bring against them."

"How large a kingdom?" the King asked, his voice quiet, though something had shifted in it, some flicker of wonder kindling beneath the weariness. "Could it hold our people? All of them?"

"I believe it could, Your Majesty. The halls stretched further than I had time to explore, and I saw homes enough for many families, though I confess I did not count them all."

"And you did not think to tell me this sooner?" Though his voice was tired, there was no true anger in it, only a father's concern for a child who had wandered somewhere dangerous alone.

"I feared you would not believe me. I feared Lord Aldric would have me punished for abandoning my post. And I feared, most of all, that I was wrong, and that I might lead our people into some manner of trap from which there was no escaping." Lilly lowered her eyes. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. I should have spoken the moment I returned."

King Aldwin turned back toward the window, where smoke still curled thin and grey above the distant fields, and for a long moment he said nothing at all.

"An underground kingdom, abandoned by whatever hands built it, offering shelter our own walls cannot provide," he said finally, as though testing the words upon his tongue. "And yet we know nothing of why it was abandoned, nor what dangers might yet linger within it."

"There is also the matter of moving an entire kingdom underground, Your Majesty," Lord Aldric said, his tone careful but firm. "The old, the young, the wounded we now carry from the wall. It cannot be done swiftly, and Necrosia's allies’ forces shall not grant us the luxury of time to attempt it slowly."

"And if we remain here?" the King asked. "If we hold these walls until they crumble entirely?"

"Then we shall lose far more than a kingdom's worth of stone, Your Majesty. We shall lose our people."

The King closed his eyes, and Lilly saw, in that instant, the same terrible weight she had glimpsed upon him once before, in her earliest days at the training grounds, the burden of a man who had sworn never to spill blood without cause, now faced with a choice that offered no path free of risk, no decision that did not demand some manner of sacrifice.

"I took this crown to protect my people," he said quietly, "not merely from the swords of our enemies, but from every peril that might threaten them, known or unknown. I cannot in good conscience lead them into a darkness I have not seen with my own eyes, no matter how fair the girl's account of it may be."

"There is no time for you to see it yourself, Your Majesty," Lord Aldric said. "Necrosia shall regroup, or worse, join with the other kingdoms. Their allies march to join them. By morning, or sooner, they shall test our walls again, and I do not know how much longer those walls shall hold."

"Then I shall make time," King Aldwin said, and something resolute had entered his voice at last, something that steadied the tremor Lilly had heard in it only moments before. "I shall see this hidden kingdom beneath our own with my own eyes before I ask a single soul to follow me into it. Lilly, you shall guide me. Tonight, before the enemy gathers strength enough to breach us entirely."

"Your Majesty, I must protest," Aldric began. "If you are lost within that tunnel, if some manner of trap awaits—"

"Then I shall be lost as a King attempting to save his people, Aldric, and I can think of no better cause to be lost in." He turned to Lilly, and though his eyes remained heavy with the day's grief, a fragile ember of hope had kindled there as well. "Show me this kingdom that hath waited beneath the stars for whoever might find it. I would see if it is truly the salvation you believe it to be, before I ask an entire people to place their trust in what a frog and a frightened girl discovered in the dark."

Outside, beyond the castle's trembling walls, the drums of neighboring kingdoms gathered, and from the towers the watchmen could spot campsites and smoke rising from distant fires. Somewhere in the smoke-dimmed distance, more banners rose upon the horizon, black and crimson and grey, kingdoms converging upon Eldoria like wolves scenting blood upon the wind. It was not Necrosia alone; other kingdoms had joined the march. The towers confirmed what the King had feared most: an alliance of enemies now bearing down upon Eldoria.

There was no time left for doubt. Only the tunnel, this underground kingdom, and whatever lies within it, so the King could make a decision fit for his people.

End of Chapter 5

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This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental.