“Did we win?” Sylva whispered. She held out her arm, and Fletcher lifted the elf to her feet. They leaned against each other like drunken sailors.
Despite the silence, Fletcher felt no fear. It was out of his hands now. He had done all he could.
“Let’s go and find out,” Fletcher murmured.
Ignatius lowered himself to the ground, and Fletcher winced as they eased onto his back. Sylva sat in front of him so he could hold her in place if she fell unconscious again. She rested her head on Fletcher’s shoulder.
“You sure you’re strong enough for this, buddy?” Fletcher asked, stroking Ignatius’s side. “You lost a lot of blood.”
The demon barked, and with a slow leap they were flying through the air, spiraling upward to the broken dome. Fletcher shuddered as they passed through the jagged hole, emerging into the empty skies and gliding on the wind.
He gripped Sylva tightly as they saw the result of the battle below, obscured by gunsmoke, blood and mud. The screaming of the injured drifted on the wind, and he felt Athena’s body shudder on his chest.
Death and devastation had turned the battlefield into a mess of scorched earth and corpses. Men walked like sleepwalkers through the fields of dead, putting the orcs that remained out of their misery.
In the distance, elks and their riders rode out over the plains. And just beyond them, a horde of orcs, retreating into the red-stained horizon.
“We won, Sylva,” Fletcher whispered, hugging Sylva to his chest. Her hands covered his, and they gazed at the horrors beneath them.
There was no triumph in this victory. Only sorrow. Only loss.
“We won.”
EPILOGUE
FLETCHER THOUGHT LOVETT had never looked more beautiful as Arcturus wheeled her down the ramp of Raleightown’s church. The townsfolk cheered as he lifted her from her chair and carried her to the horse-drawn carriage.
White suited her. Marriage suited her.
Arcturus was beaming from ear to ear, his face red from the wine he had drunk at the reception. Fletcher threw another handful of rice over the pair, and Sacharissa sneezed as it fell around her. Her hair had been brushed and curled, and a bow had been tied around her like a collar. She gazed darkly at the revelers, daring someone to stroke her. Fletcher couldn’t help but grin.
“Wait, wait,” Lovett said, stopping Arcturus in his tracks. He turned her around and she grabbed Fletcher’s face, planting a wet kiss on his cheek.
“Thank you for organizing this,” she said, her face glowing with joy.
“Think nothing of it; I owe the both of you a thousand times over,” Fletcher said, raising his voice so he could be heard over the cheering crowds.
The entire town had attended, as well as most of the Vocans staff and servants, a score of battlemages and a few dozen dwarves. Even the grumpy Major Goodwin had attended, though he was now sleeping off a full jug of ale beneath the church altar. It had been a celebration to remember. Fletcher only wished his mother had been there, but she was still too ill to leave the hospital. And Berdon, who had been called away on urgent business in Corcillum.
The guests were gathered along the streets, waiting to cheer the couple as they made their way back to Corcillum, where Harold had prepared a room for them at the palace. Now that Alfric was dead, killed by an orc on the field of battle, the young king had full run of the place.
“Fletcher, stop distracting them,” Othello said, throwing an arm around Fletcher’s chest. “Or they’ll be late for their dinner with Harold.”
Fletcher winced. Even after a month, his ribs were still sore.
Sacharissa nudged Arcturus with her snout.
“All right, all right,” Arcturus laughed, allowing himself to be pushed forward. “We’ll come visit soon, Fletcher.”
“You’d better!” Fletcher called after them as Arcturus carried Lovett into the carriage.
Fletcher felt a delicate arm thread through his own as he waved the couple away, the crowds surging past him as they chased the carriage down the cobbled streets.
“Didn’t they look happy,” Sylva said, smiling. “Who would have thought it?”
“I had some inkling,” Fletcher said.
“You liar,” Othello butted in. He raised his voice.
“Cress, Fletcher reckons he knew Arcturus and Lovett fancied each other.”
“Liar,” Cress called, eating a fistful of cake in the church’s doorway.
Fletcher grinned and began to walk Sylva down the street.
“Come on, I haven’t shown you yet,” he said, beckoning the dwarves to follow.
As they walked, Fletcher could see some gremlins lurking at the town’s borders, though few of them had summoned the courage to enter and take part in the festivities. Blue had set up a new colony beside Watford Bridge, where food was plentiful and the soil was stable enough to dig a new warren. They traded their fish with the people of Raleightown, and a budding friendship had sprung up between the two peoples. Still, most of the gremlins were timid things and watched the celebrations from the safety of the savannah.
The four trudged past the statue that Fletcher had erected over the old passage in front of the town hall. It had been installed that very morning, much to the admiration of his guests. A dwarf, a man and an elf, standing side by side. And beneath, a plaque, with the names of all who had died in defense of Raleighshire.
Names like Atilla, Rory, Dalia, Sir Caulder, Rotherham and more than a dozen others. Too many. Othello paused at the plaque, a hint of pain passing across his face.
“They died so that we could live” was all he said, tracing his finger along Atilla’s name.
“Heroes, one and all,” Fletcher replied solemnly. He stared up at the dwarf’s face, and Atilla’s own stared back at him.
“I wish you’d put up a statue of Didric, maybe outside the latrines,” Cress said, kicking a clod of earth. “With what he did underneath, so his cowardice lives on forever.”
“I think the king’s solution was far more eloquent,” Othello said, a smile touching the edges of his lips.
Didric’s refusal to fight had not gone unnoticed by King Harold. In his new position as ruler, he had punished not only Didric but the rest of the Triumvirate as well. Great fines had been levied against the three families, and the money used to rebuild what the orcs had destroyed.
From what Fletcher had heard, the Cavells were left penniless and had last been seen on a ship to Swazulu, carrying nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
Better still, the Beartooth Mountains, which covered half of Lord Faversham’s lands and all of Didric’s, had been gifted to the dwarves as compensation for the Triumvirate’s crimes against them. Already dwarven colonies were springing up along its peaks, with new homes carved deep into the rock.