A Rising Moon
Page 17
She could feel the shades of the dead draoi crowding around her and hear their voices calling. This time she didn’t want Iomhar. “Mam!” she cried into their wailing. “Mam, come to me!”
In her doubled sight, she could see a forest of pikes set in the ground before Eideard’s chariot, with grim faces behind them. They were plunging headlong toward them, their chariot now ahead of even Greum’s and the ceannàrd’s. Eideard shouted back to her over his shoulder. “Now, Orla! Take them!”
Orla could feel the power gathering, drawn by her mother from the storms of Magh da Chèo, and she forced herself to thrust away all the doubt and the memory of her guilt after killing the sailors and workmen in Muras.
I have to do this . . . She began to chant, her hands moving to weave the net for the spell. She took it in, gathering more and more until a new sun sent shadows racing from between her fingers, burning. When she could hold it no longer, she flung it away with a word: “Teine!”
A ball of fire arced from the chariot, growing as it raced toward the Mundoans and dribbling a trail of fiery rain behind. It struck the line of pikemen with a fearsome roar and thunder, sending the pikes to ash and tearing a great hole in their ranks. Men screamed as they were burned, as they died, their terror ringing in Orla’s ears as Eideard’s chariot surged through the opening she’d made—as other chariots down the line did the same. The opposing lines of the armies smashed into each other with a din unlike anything Orla had ever heard: cries of rage and pain, the clashing of metal on metal and blade on flesh, the screaming of horses maddened with the smell of blood.
Orla heard Eideard’s yell of triumph.
Tadgh pulled on the reins, and their horses reared, smashing down on the soldiers before them with metal-clad hooves as the bladed axles of the chariot chewed at the pressing Mundoan troops around them. Eideard’s mouth was open as he thrust again and again with his spears at the nearest enemy soldiers, his armor and body flecked with red.
Glass-like shards of hard ice shot outward like a deadly flight of arrows, and the Mundoan soldiers around the chariot went down in response, grunting and writhing as the ice penetrated through armor, flesh, and bone. Now it was Eideard who shouted “Tha!” in response. “Tadgh! Forward!” he ordered as Orla sagged in the ropes that held her upright, exhausted from the effort of casting the spells amidst the chaos.
But the screams and cries still sounded in her ears, and Orla screamed with them, the sound tearing at her throat.
* * *
“The Moonshadow . . .” a breathless messenger said to Altan as he stood in his chariot, desperately trying to make sense of the welter of men and banners before him. “Sub-Commander Ilkur said you should know that the Moonshadow has returned to battle. The draoi who holds the Moonshadow opened our line and has already killed hand upon hand of our soldiers. The formation’s broken, and the Cateni are pouring in behind her. The sub-commander is trying to hold the lines, but we’re being pushed back. They say . . .” The messenger swallowed hard. “The sub-commander said to tell you that the Cateni say it’s the Mad One’s daughter who holds the Moonshadow now, and she rides with the new àrd of Clan Iosa, Maol Iosa’s nephew.”
Sudden dread filled Altan with the news. “You’re certain it’s the Moonshadow and the Mad One’s daughter?” The messages he’d received from Onglse told him not to be concerned about Orla’s presence at Bàn Cill or the reappearance of the Moonshadow. The notes that had come to Altan from the north had claimed she would never be able to wield the Moonshadow as her mother had. Was that information wrong? Was it all a deliberate lie? If I’d known before the Battle of Siran that I had the Mad One’s daughter nearly in my grasp, perhaps I could have bargained with her mother, or even the daughter after the battle. Now she rides with Iosa’s àrd, as her mam did. Have I made a terrible mistake? Is Greum Red-Hand even in control of his draoi anymore?
He shook away the thought; the truth had come to him too late. Too late. The very ghosts of the past had risen to assault him and shatter the plans he’d made.
“Yes, Commander,” he heard the man answer. “We could hear the Cateni shouting her name. And the power of her—I’ve never seen the like.”
Too late . . . Altan cursed aloud, causing Tolga to glance at him over his shoulder. From the chariot alongside Altan’s, Sub-Commander Musa spoke. “We still have surprise and numbers, Commander. They weren’t prepared for us. Let me send three of my experienced cohorts to help Ilkur on the left flank while we take the right. We’ll crush them as we did at Siran, even if the Moonshadow’s truly here.”
“Siran was hardly a victory,” Altan reminded Musa. Ahead and to the left he could see the banners of the ceanndraoi and ceannàrd on their chariots. He wanted nothing more than to order Tolga to plunge into the fray, to lose himself in the furious confusion of battle. If the Red-Hand has decided that he can truly win here, he’s a poor tactician; no, he’ll retreat as he should, and we’ll parley. Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt is old and never had Maol Iosa’s flair. They’ve already made a critical mistake assuming we only had one avenue of attack; they’ll make another. This will still work.
“I agree, Musa,” Altan said. “You command the right flank. I want you to push forward hard, try to break their line, then close with Ilkur against their front. I’m going with your three cohorts to Ilkur.”
“Sir!” Musa responded, saluting. “Flaggers!” he shouted, holding up three fingers and pointing to the west. The flagger signaled to the cohorts in reserve, and men and mounted officers began to move in response.
Altan nodded to Tolga, who in turn slapped the reins down on the backs of their warhorses, shouting to them. The chariot turned violently, and they raced off behind the lines. As they approached, Altan caught sight of the ceanndraoi’s banner, with that of the ceannàrd and Clan Iosa close by and Ilkur’s banner before them. He could also see the flashes of spells being cast, followed by the shouts and screams of the dying and wounded. Even as he tapped Tolga on the shoulder and pointed toward Ilkur’s banner, he saw a new spell cast from the direction of Iosa’s chariot: a fireball brighter than the rising sun rushed outward, and the pure, terrifying whoomp! as it exploded in the ranks of the Mundoan line nearly made him clap hands over ears. Altan felt the concussion in the air pound at his chest, the echo thundering belatedly from the hills to the north.
He knew that power. He remembered it all too well, and he knew that he’d been told a lie: Voada’s daughter was at least the equal of her mother. The Moonshadow had found a new and unfortunately competent draoi. Altan cursed under his breath. Ahead he saw Mundoan foot soldiers fleeing the front lines, running toward them as they pushed forward. Altan snatched a spear from the rack, brandishing it and shouting at those retr
eating. “Turn and fight, you cowards!” he cried. “You shame the emperor! Back to your lines!”
Some of them, seeing their commander’s chariot as well as the cohorts that were following him, shamefacedly halted and began trudging forward again; others kept running south, open fear on their faces as they dropped weapons and armor in their flight. Altan had no time to worry about the defections as his chariot, leading the new cohorts, plunged into the melee.
Altan was appalled by what he saw as he approached Ilkur’s chariot: the field before them was strewn with Mundoan bodies, some of them still writhing on the ground, and the air was thick with the ugly smell of charred flesh. There were clusters of fighting between Cateni warriors and Mundoan soldiers, but a terrible stillness followed where the chariots moved along the front with their draoi. Altan waved the cohorts forward, their officers screaming orders and putting them into ordered phalanxes that advanced over the broken and bloodied ground. Tolga pulled Altan’s chariot alongside Ilkur’s. Ilkur shouted to the archers behind the lines: a cloud of arrows arced over them to fall amongst the Cateni, who raised shields against the deadly rain.
Even as Altan tried to make sense of what he was seeing, another spell flashed out, this one from the ceanndraoi’s chariot, hurtling into the ranks trying to reform and tearing open a hole that rapidly filled again as more soldiers pushed forward.
So the Red-Hand has come to think he might prevail here. So much for our agreements.
“Commander! Thank the emperor you’ve brought the cohorts we need!” Ilkur cried. His face was bloody, and there were soot marks on both his chariot and his armor. The spear he held dripped blood and gore from the leaf-like blade. “The draoi are concentrated on this flank, and our sihirki are worse than useless against their spells. I’ve tried to hold as best I can, but our lines broke and ran when the draoi-fire started coming. I’ll have each of the cowards’ damned heads for desertion when this is over.”
“We knew that was likely to happen when we sent the emperor’s new troops forward and kept back the experienced men, Ilkur,” Altan told him. “Too many of them are new to Albann and battles here. They’ve never seen what the war draoi can do; now they have. Next time they’ll hold their lines, or I’ll have the archers shoot them down from behind. The cohorts I’ve brought are old hands. They remember what it’s like; they’re not going to run.”
“They’d damned well better not,” Ilkur grunted. “And us, Commander? You told me to stay back, but I’m growing tired of watching the Cateni chariots moving about so freely.”
“So am I,” Altan told him. My plans can burn in the pits of Pamukkale now, for all I care, and the Red-Hand will pay for his hubris. “Musa will be one end of the pincer; you and I will be the other. You take the ceannàrd’s chariot; I’ll take the ceanndraoi’s.”
“And the Moonshadow, Commander?”
Altan could only shake his head at that. “To kill a two-headed beast, you must cut off the heads. The Moonshadow’s dangerous, but she’s only part of the body. Iosa’s nephew isn’t the ceannàrd, and Voada’s daughter isn’t ceanndraoi. Not yet, anyway, and we have to hope that they never become that.”
“Then the ceannàrd it is.” Ilkur saluted Altan, then shouted to his driver, pointing to Mac Tsagairt’s banner as his chariot lurched forward.
Tolga glanced over his shoulder at Altan. “The ceanndraoi?”
Altan nodded. Tolga slapped the reins down on the horses as Altan hefted the spear in his hand.
I will pay the man back for his betrayal. . . .
* * *
Her mam continued to feed her energy from Magh da Chèo without heeding any of Orla’s protests of exhaustion.
Orla had lost count of how many times she’d had to weave a spell cage to snare the power and cast it away again, lest she be injured or killed herself. In between she sagged against the ropes holding her upright in the chariot. The frightening realization was that she could go far beyond what she thought were her limits, that it was actually becoming easier to control the energy and use it.
Eideard cast spear after spear into the Mundoans around them, sometimes leaping from the chariot to engage them with a sword until Tadgh circled around to pick him up again. The floorboards of the chariot under Orla’s feet were slick with blood, some of it from Eideard but mostly from Mundoan bodies. To Orla, the battle had shrunk; her world consisted only of Eideard’s chariot and the press of soldiers around it that she kept back with fire and ice, all of it overlaid with the dark landscape of the anamacha’s Otherworld. The din was no longer something of which she was truly aware: the cries; the screams; the shouted orders; the hissing of spells being released; the clatter of blade against blade—it was all just eternal background noise that made no sense to her.
Through her doubled vision, she saw two Mundoan chariots: one racing toward the ceannàrd’s banner, the other toward the ceanndraoi. Eideard saw them as well; he shouted to Tadgh, pointing, then looked back at Orla. “You have to do something,” he said. “We can’t reach them in time.”
Orla blinked, trying to clear her vision. They were nearest to the ceanndraoi’s chariot, and Commander Savas’ chariot was bearing down on it. The ceanndraoi’s hands were moving to form a spell cage, but as Orla watched, the commander threw a spear. The warrior in Ceanndraoi Greum’s chariot raised his shield, but too late—the spear slid past the edge and into Greum Red-Hand’s shoulder. The ceanndraoi roared in pain; the spell cage he was weaving shattered, and the energy inside flew off in a hundred directions in a shower of angry blue sparks. Orla saw Greum look around desperately; she knew he saw her readying to cast another spell, and the Red-Hand looked with wide eyes toward Savas, who had snatched up another spear.
But Orla had also seen Magaidh just beyond the ceanndraoi. She appeared as exhausted as Orla, and Comhnall struggled to lift his own shield and spear as the chariot of the Mundoan sub-commander raced toward them. The Mundoan sub-commander hurled his own spear, and though the ceannàrd managed to raise his shield in time, the impact sent Comhnall sprawling on the floorboards as his shield fell from his hand, leaving both Magaidh and the ceannàrd helpless. The sub-commander plucked up another spear to throw. As Comhnall tried to rise, Orla saw his left arm hanging limp at his side.
Orla’s spell cage was glowing full; she raised her hands and shouted the release word.
The fireball flared and hissed past Greum’s chariot, slamming into the earth just in front of the sub-commander’s chariot. The ground exploded, taking down the horses and overturning the chariot. Both the sub-commander and his driver spilled out onto the ground. From the floor of her chariot, Magaidh lifted her hand in salute to Orla while the ceannàrd struggled to rise again.
Commander Savas’ chariot had stopped; she saw the man staring toward her. Greum Red-Hand glared at Orla, blood streaming down his clothing. He shouted to his driver, who jerked the reins hard, sending the chariot careening onto two wheels as it fled the field of combat. As Greum’s chariot abandoned the battle, the ceanndraoi sent a flaring orange light arcing and hissing high into the morning sky.
The voices of the anamacha were all screaming at her as the carnyx, the Cateni war horns, began to sound the call of retreat—in response to Greum’s signal, Orla realized. At the blare of horns, the Cateni warriors turned and began to run northward, back toward the hills beyond the floodplain. The ceannàrd’s chariot turned to follow that of the ceanndraoi. Orla saw a look of disgust cross Eideard’s face. “The bastard Red-Hand’s given up!” he shouted. “We can’t stay here alone.” Eideard the
n called to Tadgh to follow the retreat. The chariot bounced over the broken, shattered field, jarring Orla in her bonds.
She looked back to see Commander Savas watching them closely, but he did not pursue.
15
Licked Wounds
“HOW IS THE CEANNÀRD?” Orla asked Magaidh. The encampment was furious with movement and sound: warriors having their injuries cared for; wives and husbands keening over the loss of loved ones who hadn’t returned from the battlefield; the terrible screams coming from the archiaters’ tents; people hurriedly readying animals and packing in anticipation of further retreat back into the folds of the high green mountains to the north.
“Comhnall’s shield arm is broken. He’s in pain, but hopefully the archiater has set the bones well,” Magaidh answered. “But he won’t be fighting again for some time.” Her face was drawn, her hair and skin flecked with dried blood; she appeared drained and exhausted, but then everyone looked much the same. Magaidh reached out and pulled Orla to her in a quick embrace. Orla heard Sorcha, standing alongside her, draw in a breath. Magaidh’s own breath was warm on Orla’s ear. “My son Hùisdean took an arrow in his arm as he drove the horses, but he’s young and will heal quickly. All three of us would be dead if it weren’t for what you did, Orla. And for that my family will always be in your debt, both myself and Comhnall.”