Zoltan shoved aside one of his dying men and swung at her head with his axe. It whistled past her ear as she ducked aside. Too close; he was moving faster than she’d have thought possible. He came back around, but not quickly enough, and she’d have got underneath his defenses and disemboweled him if two of his men hadn’t thrown themselves suicidally into the path of her blades.
By the time she got clear of them, she had to face horsemen again. After that, another battle to free Gyorgy from a fierce attempt to seize the weapons. She settled that fight and came back around to see Zoltan regrouping yet again.
Cries and screams of men and horse filled the air. The smoke was roiling over the top of the wall and licking the side of the barn. If someone didn’t open the barn doors, Brutus, Skinny Lad, and the rest would burn to death.
The crowlord had lost dozens of men and horses already. He was trying to call his crows to the attack with a clenched fist, and didn’t seem to notice the old man standing in one corner, using his sowen to scatter the birds. Many of Zoltan’s men, too, were dispirited, wounded, and exhausted, their auras shaking with uncertainty as they tried to close with Narina from all sides.
Yet the crowlord still refused to call off the attack, and it seemed that he had only begun to tap his strength, as more men kept leaping off the roof of the farm compound wall or riding through the ruined gates. And his soldiers were apparently willing to throw their lives away to the last man. There were so many of them willing to kill or be killed.
Narina clenched her teeth. Time to finish this slaughter.
“Zoltan!” she cried as she fought through horsemen, with more injuries and deaths resulting. “End this. You can’t win.”
“The only thing I’m ending is your treachery. Ya!”
This last was a command, and his forces renewed the attack. Her swords blurred in front of her. Spears, cut in two. Swords, hacked off at the hilt. Sword arms, severed. Her demon was dripping with blood, and the arm carrying the dragon had done so much parrying, thrusting, and slicing that her arm felt numb. She might have also suffered a hammer blow on that side, but there was no time to consider the matter.
It took several long minutes to fight her way through the increasingly desperate knot of men no longer trying to overwhelm her, but to protect their master. She held off a counterattack with one arm, continuing to fell the crowlord’s defenders with the other, one after another. Soon there were five men at Zoltan’s side, then three.
The crowlord himself came at her, snarling. A sweeping axe blow, narrowly dodged. She slashed the legs of two more defenders in the moments while he brought the axe back around. This swing was more feeble, and she dodged it easily, then came up with her dragon blade and gave it a terrific thrust.
The dragon went clean through his belly and came out the other side. She dragged it out with a sideways jerk of the wrist. Zoltan fell with a groan. His axe thudded to the ground as it fell from his grasp. One shudder, and then he was still. A cry of anguish and rage went up from the remaining men.
Their lord and master was dead.
#
It took several more minutes until the last attackers lost their courage and fled, some still on horses, others fleeing the battlefield on foot.
Narina cast a weary look around her. The scene was a slaughterhouse of dead and dying men and their mounts. More dead littered the roof, some hanging halfway off, with blood dripping from limp hands and legs. The farmhouse was on fire, with flames spreading along the wall and to the barn, too hot and widespread to extinguish.
Kozmer stood to one side, his eyes closed, head bent. His sowen was barely intact, and an aura of grief and frustration radiated through it.
“What are you upset about?” she snapped. “This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? A demonstration. Looks like you got your wish.” Her anger continued to radiate heat. “Well? Don’t just stand there, you old fool, get the animals out of the barn before they burn alive.”
She turned to see Gyorgy standing by himself with the weapon cart, which was thankfully far from the flames. Zoltan hadn’t wanted to burn them, after all. Her student looked gray, but not about to do something silly, like throw up or cry. Narina wished they could indulge in such displays, but there was still work to be done.
“See to the injured horses,” Narina told her student as Kozmer made for the barn. “Put the poor things out of their misery.”
“What about the injured men?”
“The men can help themselves or not. It’s the animals that deserve our mercy.”
Narina winced even as the words came out of her mouth. It had come out harsher than she meant. These men had been fighting to protect their lord, and whatever else Zoltan’s faults, he seemed to have inspired loyalty. And it wasn’t like she wanted them suffering, but she couldn’t stop to evaluate this man or that, which one could be healed and which should be put down like an injured horse. Could she commit that sort of mercy killing, anyway? She didn’t think she could. Strange that one could be more compassionate toward an animal than a human.
Narina picked up Zoltan’s battle-axe and was surprised to see blood on it, which led to a self-examination. She discovered a gash through her tunic right below the left breast. He’d apparently nicked her with the point side during one of their fights, though she hadn’t felt anything at the time. After tossing the axe into the cart, she looked around for the other temple-made weapons and found two spears and a sword of medium quality. These, too, were added to the cart.
Moments later, Kozmer drove the farm animals out of the barn and through the gates, while Narina and Gyorgy yoked Brutus to the cart. The giant goat was angry, biting and kicking with his shod hooves, and it was all they could do to calm his aura enough to let them do the job. Skinny Lad was jittery, and his aura said he wanted to bark or run or bite, but the rat dog was well-trained, and held still until they were ready to go.
At last, they were out through the destroyed farmhouse gate, while the entire compound burned behind them. Narina refrained from looking back.
They traveled in near silence for the next hour, only communicating so far as needed to bandage a pair of light wounds on Gyorgy’s arms and see to her own bruises and cuts. Narina felt filthy, both inside and out, and her sowen lay in tatters. Yet even as she fought to regain control, her mind continued to work at matters. When they came over a slight swelling to see an open road ahead of them, empty of enemies, she felt ready to talk.
“I want answers, Kozmer.”
“That was a horrific scene, and I’m sorry it had to happen.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know. I’m not sure I have any answers to give. You won, and you proved yourself—that’s all that matters for now. Over a hundred men cut down by your blades alone. Another handful from the boy. Your student acquitted himself well.”
“I didn’t win, damn you. I didn’t want to fight in the first place.”
“The fight was going to happen whether you wanted it to or not.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. The fight was unnecessary from the beginning. We didn’t need to take the direct route, we could have gone home at the first sign of trouble, then taken the slow route through the mountains. For that matter, if my father hadn’t agreed to sell so many blasted weapons at one time, we’d have never been attacked in the first place.”
“I think maybe your father. . .no, there’s no thinking about it. I’m sure of it.” Kozmer sighed.
“Sure of what?”
“Narina, your father knew what he was doing. He knew he’d be attacked at the temple. In fact, he might have let himself be killed.”
She felt hollow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean Master Joskasef let his sowen slip during the fight. He let that spear point enter his body, and then he purposefully did not heal himself until it was too late. He needed you to take up the mantle—or Katalinka or Abelard, if you fell short. One of you, though. A younger, stronger bladedancer.”
“Kozmer, please. By all the demigods and demons, what are you talking about? Why would he do such a thing?”
“Because he read the signs, just as I have. In fact, I’ve read them twice,” Kozmer said, and let out a bitter laugh. “Only this time I’m right. All the evidence is there—the sleeping volcanoes coming awake, which means the dragons will be rising out of their mountain lakes. It’s a time of prophesy. Narina, the time has come to choose the sword saint.”
Chapter Twenty
Miklos stood at the edge of the hillock watching events develop on the plain below. Davian stood at his side, his bearded face scowling. His scar turned white as he clenched his jaw.
Runners arrived with messages from the lieutenants and captains in the field, then tore off again, sometimes with fresh dispatches, sometimes without. The incoming messages were argumentative or pleading in tone, depending on the temperament of the one sending it, but all were upset with his orders. Lord Zoltan had chosen his men well—they knew what a successful assault looked like, and this wasn’t it.
At first the battle had gone surprisingly well for Zoltan’s forces. Or rather Miklos’s, as he’d taken full command of the crowlord’s army, and didn’t expect the lord to return. The sudden, unexpected advance hadn’t caught Lady Damanja’s men by surprise, exactly, but it was clear that she’d drawn up battle plans with another conflict in mind. Her frontline troops were armed with pikes for stopping a direct assault by cavalry—one of Zoltan’s favorite tactics—and carried a motley collection of swords as backup, some of which should have been supported with shields or better armor.
In addition, Damanja’s archery companies started shooting early, when Zoltan’s men weren’t yet in range. The largely female force of archers might have been masters of their art, but they were only as skilled as the ones commanding them, and those commanders mistimed the initial volleys.
As a result, a good number of arrows fell into her own forces, which led to a great cry from the affected men, who dove to take cover. Damanja’s front lines were ragged when the charge Miklos had ordered broke into them. For several long minutes, his forces drove a wedge in the enemy ranks, and there were shouts and chants from the men Miklos had held in reserve as they thought victory was at hand.
But then the north-facing point of Damanja’s horn formation closed in against Lord Zoltan’s left flank, and her superior numbers began to tell. The cheering slowed on the hillside, then died entirely. More of Miklos’s men began to arrive on the battlefield, but piecemeal, which allowed the enemy to respond appropriately.
The enemy sent a flock of crows against a force of two hundred men Miklos had sent in for relief, blinding them with aerial attacks, while she finally moved her vaunted archers forward and to the flank where they could be better positioned against the incoming enemy. A pair of heavy volleys flattened the assaulting companies. At that moment, the chance for victory ended.
“Now?” Davian asked. His voice was low and tense, and his expression mirrored the anxious faces of the small knot of personal guards still holding position in front of Lord Zoltan’s tent.
Miklos kept his own voice low to keep the others from hearing. “Too many troops yet. More of our men must fall. We need the offer to look plausible.”
He put a hand against his chest, where a familiar throbbing chill worked beneath the skin. The cursed wound wouldn’t leave him alone. This was it, this was the moment of highest danger.
The risk was that a battlefield loss would turn into a total rout, with Damanja’s forces overwhelming his army and perhaps even assaulting him on the hillside. If that was the outcome, he’d have no choice but to grab his sword and cut his way out of here. Damanja’s troops might advance all the way to the mountains, or they might wheel around to sack Belingus. Either of those possibilities must be prevented.
Thankfully, the lines held. The battle raged for another hour before he began an orderly withdrawal. Time to see if the vaunted Zoltan discipline would help, or if the enemy’s victory would send them throwing down their weapons in headlong flight. But it was nearly dusk, and Damanja’s forces had been bloodied as well. She looked ready to charge after him, then seemed to flinch at the last moment, content to take her victory without risking a counterattack in the dark.
At almost the precise moment the enemy began to withdraw, riders came streaming from the south in a ragged, bloodied file. They bore grim news. Their company had been gutted. Lord Zoltan himself had fallen to the swords of a bladedancer from the mountains.
All the men on the hill looked skyward for confirmation. There was no sign of their master’s large crows. They had fled with the death of their master.
The timing was perfect. An hour earlier and the news would have sent panic through the ranks while they were still in the field of battle. An hour later and the surviving captains and lieutenants would have been gathered, and there would have been angry demands for Miklos to step down as field commander. His generalship had led to defeat, and with the death of their master, new leadership would have been found until the matter of an heir could be worked out.
Instead, Miklos had a few precious moments, and he worked swiftly to consolidate his rule before these military rivals gathered. He sent three of Zoltan’s most loyal officers riding north at a gallop to carry orders to the forces facing Balint Stronghand’s army. Withdraw at once. Protect the heart of the fiefdom.
Another loyal Zoltan lieutenant left with fifty riders to carry word of the crowlord’s death to the man’s wife. The most important point, Miklos told the lieutenant, was to protect the lady from those who might assassinate her in an attempt to seize power.
Shortly, any rivals to Miklos’s field command were either dead or riding away on other missions. That gave him time to reinforce the hillside and put his own loyal men into command of the individual units of the army.
He spread word. It had been a defeat, yes, but they were not yet beaten. Hold their nerve, keep their discipline, and tomorrow would bring more promising news.
#
Miklos rode toward the enemy encampment at dawn. Davian was beside him, carrying Zoltan’s banner on a pole: a crow on a white field with its beak holding jagged yellow lightning bolts. The flag had been deliberately torn down the middle, and flapped in two pieces, while long white ribbons streamed behind.
The ripped banner represented submission. The white ribbons begged for a truce. He’d waited until riding out of Zoltan’s camp before unfurling it, afraid of provoking revolt if the soldiers saw that he’d torn their lord’s flag in surrender.
Miklos carried two weapons. One was his own sword, strapped over his back where it could be drawn in a single fluid move. The other was a second warbrand, not so skillfully made as the first, but still of a kind that had rarely been seen on the plains. This one he’d wrapped in soft kidskin and bound with thongs. The beautiful pommel was visible, however, wrapped in carefully tooled leather and inlaid with onyx where it met the hilt.
There was a tense moment as Miklos and Davian approached Damanja’s outermost picket. The dull-faced spearmen holding the line told the pair they had to disarm before they’d be allowed through.
“We’re envoys,” Miklos said. “We have a right to be armed.”
“Aye, so you say,” one of them said. “How do we know you ain’t assassins? Took a beating on the battlefield yesterday, so you figure you’ll settle it with treachery, is that it?”
“I won’t submit to the likes of you. Men at the pickets—your best use is to dull enemy swords with your skulls. Run and fetch your master, tell her I want through.”
This brought angry grumbles, but they went off, and soon a cluster of hard, intelligent-looking men on horse arrived, forced a gap in the picket, and ordered the two riders to be allowed through. They let Miklos and Davian keep their weapons, including the second falchion wrapped in its kidskin, but made them dismount, and kept them hemmed in by riders as they were escorted to their master’s command tents.
; Lady Damanja stood with her personal bodyguard in a circle of tents on a patch of high ground between what had once been rice paddies, but had been grazed down by horses and trampled to mud. She was a tall woman, dressed in a tunic belted over trousers, black boots studded with iron, and a silver buckle at her waist in the shape of a wolf head. Her hair was pulled into a short dark braid, and she wore a long dagger in a sheath. She had a puckered scar at the hollow of her throat that looked a good deal like one Miklos had seen on Davian’s shoulder, where an arrow had penetrated his flesh. She was damn lucky to be alive if she’d taken an arrow there.
One of the riders dismounted, holding the torn banner with white ribbons Davian had carried. She drew her dagger, cut it off the pole, and sent the men back to guarding her perimeter. For a long moment, she rubbed a thumb over the crow stitched into the middle, her gaze distant.
When Damanja looked them over at last, she fixed them both with a hard gaze, before her eyes settled on Miklos. “Your master is dead.” It wasn’t a question.
Miklos allowed a frown across his face, though he was glad she’d received word; there was too much to discuss without trying to convince her that Zoltan had fallen. “Yes, my lady.”
“I am a crowlord. Address me as you would have your master.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Miklos, field commander of Zoltan’s armies. The captains and lieutenants have vested in me the right to negotiate.”
She waved Zoltan’s banner. “And this is what?”
“An offer.”
Her eyes fell to the wrapped sword, still carried in his hands, then met his gaze again. “You still have several thousand men in the field. They didn’t break and flee. My supply lines are stretched. Even with Zoltan dead, it hardly seems the time for you to panic.”
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