Entreat Me by Grace Draven

own mount to greater speed.  His quarry would never make it.  Even from this distance he saw the horse falter and slow, almost pitching its riders from the saddle.  Isabeau’s stalwart mare would have carried her mistress across the heavens if required, but her strength only held for so long.  With two people on her back, she had no hope of outrunning Ballard’s fresher, tougher courser with its single rider.
    The pursuing troupe narrowed the gap, with the perimeter riders fanning out to encircle and enclose their prey.  Ballard rode center and point, anticipating Cederic’s next move once he realized he and Isabeau would never make it to the skete in time.  Disappointment almost overcame the cold knot of rage wedged against Ballard’s sternum when the mare fell to a canter and finally a trot.  He’d hoped to use the crossbow and take down his enemy like the dog he was.  Cederic swung from the saddle to land nimbly on his feet, leaving Isabeau to guide her lathered horse away from him.  Ballard’s own mount never broke gallop before his rider leapt to the ground and charged, sword and buckler in hand.  The two slammed together like battling stags caught in rut.  They sprang apart, swords raised, each waiting for his adversary to strike.
    Cederic’s smile promised a gruesome death and a dance on Ballard’s grave.  “And here I thought you didn’t care about her, Margrave.”  The thrum of steel striking steel as the blades met punctuated his statement.
    Ballard refused to be baited.  They both knew this battle was over land, far more valuable than the woman who claimed it as part of her marriage right.  Ballard had never tried to fool Isabeau into believing empty declarations of love from him.  His greatest regret was that her stubborn faith in Cederic of Granthing’s lies had brought them to this—an elopement made under false pretenses and a fight in which Ballard would shed his last drop of blood if necessary to defend the properties promised to him in the betrothal contract.
    Silent, relentless, he parried his opponent’s blows and drove him across the flowering field with his own strikes until Cederic breathed harder than Isabeau’s winded mare, and sweat dripped off his brow in rivulets.
    “Kill him, Cederic!”
    For just a moment, Isabeau’s shrill command distracted Ballard, and Cederic struck.  His blade raked harmlessly along Ballard’s chainmail sleeve, but the buckler found its target, the shield boss striking a glancing blow across Ballard’s face.  The pop of bone sounded in his ears.  A hot burst of pain filled his eyes with tears and his nose and mouth with blood.  He staggered, half blinded and gasping.  The thin whisper of a blade splitting air gave warning, and only years of fighting as a Marcher lord saved him from Cederic’s next blow.  He dropped into a crouch, under the sword’s swing, and rose again.  Cederic’s forward momentum carried him into Ballard’s reach, and Ballard met him, slamming the pommel of his sword against Cederic’s skull.
    The fight was over as abruptly as it began.  Cederic went down in a cloud of flax flowers, rendered unconscious by Ballard’s blow.  Ballard planted the sword tip under Cederic’s jaw for the killing thrust.
    “No!”  Isabeau threw herself across her defeated lover and glared up at Ballard with a face so twisted by hate all her famed beauty had disappeared.  “Mercy, I beg you!  I’ll agree to whatever you want, you loathsome skít .  Just don’t kill him.”
    Face throbbing from his broken nose and a belly sick with the blood he’d swallowed, Ballard offered his betrothed a gory smile devoid of humor.  “I want what’s in our betrothal contract, Isabeau.  Your hand in marriage, your dower lands and a son to inherit them.  Give me those, or I will give you Granthing’s head on the point of my blade.”
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    “I’ll never understand how so timid a man as Mercer Hallis managed