Page 54 of Bright We Burn

There was more activity around her—more and more men entered the mayhem. “Hey!” one shouted, grabbing her arm. She stabbed him in the side and kept on toward the animal pens.

Toward the back of the camp, the fighting was happening in earnest. She had hoped to draw the bulk of Mehmed’s men here with her initial five thousand, mire them in fighting, and then hit them from behind with the reserve. From her vantage point, it looked like the Ottomans had several thousand engaged in combat. Not enough yet. Crossbow bolts, fired by her men in the hills, sang through the air, claiming Ottomans running around her. She risked being claimed by one herself if she did not hurry.

Women screamed as they ran through the main section of tents. Seeing them, Lada wanted to laugh. They were not Ottoman camp women, but Wallachian women, armed to the teeth, pretending to flee while cutting down as many Janissaries as they could. When they reached the far end of camp, they would circle back and meet up with the forces coming down from the hills.

Everywhere was confusion. Chaos. Blood and fire.

For once in her life, Lada longed to join the women. They were doing exactly what she wanted to. But she was needed elsewhere. She was not here as a soldier, but as a prince.

She skirted the tents, then ran into the hills, where she found her rendezvous point with Bogdan and her other leaders. They were waiting, anxiously watching the progress of the assault.

Lada shouted as she ran up, “Anyone with a Janissary uniform, go into camp to take up the cry that the sultan has been murdered!” Several dozen men took off. Bogdan raised his eyebrows hopefully.

Lada hated to admit defeat. She shook her head. “They were waiting.”

He looked concerned, but he nodded and moved on. “Are we ready, then?”

Lada bit her lip. She wanted more time for order in Mehmed’s troops to break down, but she also knew if they waited much longer they risked the opposite. The Ottomans could organize and form ranks. The fighting had intensified on the supply end of camp. It was a full battle now, one her men would not be able to sustain for long.

“Do it,” she said.

Bogdan gestured to the trumpeters. The notes were brassy and clear over the tumult of noise in the camp. Lada watched the hills, waiting. Runners stood beside her, ready to take commands at a moment’s notice. From here, she would direct everything. From here, she would watch Mehmed’s army fall.

Something was wrong, though.

“Do it again,” she said.

Again, the signal sounded. Lada’s heart sank within her. The camp burned, but not bright or fast enough. Her men at the wagons fought, but not enough Ottomans had been committed there. Where were her boyars with the rest of her men? With the Hungarians Matthias had sent?

As the trumpets gave one final, trembling plea, Lada remembered Radu’s response when she said he had no idea what she had planned.

He had.

He had known all along.

Her eyes desperately combed the hills for some hint, some sign she was wrong. That they were coming. That they could end it all tonight. If they had but trusted her, if they had followed her plan. The faithlessness of men, to take whatever false advantage Radu offered instead of choosing the valiant course. The course of blood and victory, the course of struggle and triumph for Wallachia.

No one ever chose Wallachia.

Lada dropped to her knees, throwing her head back to the smoke-choked stars. She screamed her rage and despair. Then she stood and drew her sword. If no one would help her, she would do it herself.

She took two steps forward when someone grabbed her around the waist.

“Let me go!” she shrieked.

“Sound the retreat,” Bogdan said, his voice soft.

Lada twisted, snarling like a feral thing. Bogdan held tight, talking in an even, soothing voice. “They are forming ranks. No help is coming. But I count nearly fifteen thousand of theirs dead, countless pack animals slaughtered, their gunpowder stores destroyed. Now we run.” He paused, then spoke again. “If we escape, we win.”

“We did not win!” Lada kicked once more, then went limp, only Bogdan’s arms holding her up. “We could have destroyed it all. We should have.”

“Sound the retreat!” Bogdan shouted over his shoulder. He lifted Lada onto a horse and got on behind her, squeezing her leg in clumsy reassurance. “Your welcome awaits them at the capital. We run and fight again.”

Lada heard in those words her entire future stretching out before her. She would never be able to stop fighting. Even victories that should be hers would be taken from her by faithless men. They would forever choose each other instead of her—choose treaties and tradition over a genuine chance for change.

It would always be a fight. Hunyadi had told her as much. Her dreams of decisive triumph drifted up like sparks, only to go dark and cold as ash.

Outside Tirgoviste