Kingdom by Robyn Young Read Free Book Online Page A

gleamed briefly in the bloody furrow that separated his lips, nose and right eye, before the servant collapsed.
    ‘Sire!’ His groom was pulling Hunter through the undergrowth. The warhorse was rearing, teeth bared.
    Grabbing hold of the reins, Robert hollered for his brother and Neil to mount up. He hauled himself into the saddle, and shortened the reins in one hand, the other still gripping his broadsword. Hunter wheeled and stamped beneath him. Where, for Christ’s sake, were the scouts? Alexander Seton’s voice echoed in his mind, filling him with icy truth. I say again – I believe you are walking into a trap. Dear God, he had ordered his men to make camp and they had dutifully spread out across the hillside. He had made them lambs in a field. Now, the wolves had come.
    Nes reappeared at his side, mounted on a palfrey, the leather bag over his shoulder. He was carrying a helm and a shield, the chevron of Carrick a bold red arrow on the curved white surface. ‘Here, my lord!’
    As Robert forced his hand through the iron grips, securing the shield against his arm, John and David of Atholl and Malcolm of Lennox came riding into the clearing at the head of several score men, Niall Bruce, Simon Fraser and the Setons among them. Not all were fully prepared for battle, a distinct lack of helms among their number, but they were armed and determination was livid in their faces. ‘ With me! ’ Robert roared, snapping down his visor and urging Hunter into a charge.
    As his men rode around him, their battle cries a fierce clamour, Robert glimpsed a grey shape streaking through the undergrowth. Fionn. A twig shattered on his helm, pulling his attention forward. A larger branch loomed in the narrow slit of his vision and he cuffed it away with his shield. There was a smell of smoke in the air and a ruddy haze of fire somewhere ahead. Suddenly, men appeared out of the gloom, dozens of them, running towards him. Robert raised his sword, then realised they were his own soldiers, most of them commoners clutching spears, confused and leaderless. As they scattered before the oncoming horses, Robert caught faces filled with fear.
    John of Atholl bellowed at them over the thunder of the charge – switching from French into Scots. ‘Fight in the name of your king! On the English dogs! On them! ’
    David rode beside him, lips peeled back as he echoed his father’s cry.
    Many of the peasants heeded the command. Panic changing to purpose, they hefted their spears and made after their king, sprinting in the wake of the cavalry.
    Ahead, through the trees, a fire was spreading – some device of the enemy, or a campfire burning out of control. It had been a dry June and the flames leapt through the brushwood, smoke curling thickly. Silhouetted by the blaze, men and horses made a grotesque shadow-play of rearing heads, thrusting swords and arching bodies. Agonised shrieks juddered through their mass.
    Valence’s knights had fallen hard upon the infantry on the edges of the camp. Those who survived the first moments of the attack had gathered together and were fighting furiously, but peasants in woollen cloaks were no match for armoured knights, who had trapped them in a killing ground, ringed by slicing blades. Other knights were already breaking off to penetrate deeper into the woods, cutting down Scots as they went. As Robert and his men plunged towards the chaos, one such band came riding out of the flame-lit dusk.
    At the sight of them, Robert rose in the stirrups, his sword swinging up in his hand. ‘ For Scotland! ’ he roared, locking on an English knight, whose horse reared in alarm. Lowering his great head, Hunter barrelled into the animal, the momentum adding lethal force to his bulk. Robert felt the wind of one of the horse’s hooves before it connected with the side of his helm. It was a glancing blow, but forceful enough to knock the helm clean from his head, just as the animal was lifted up and thrown back. Swinging his