“Leger Mertone, I am Evand Grano,” I said. “You make an impressive general. It is an honor to meet you.”
“This is not the time for a meet and greet. What are you up to, Evand?”
“How stand the greencoats?” I asked and looked to the streamer-covered Chaukai officers at the forward edge of each formation. “It looks like they have religion.”
“Some. They hold to books one and two, if that is what you are asking. Explain yourself. My king is yelling across the field at you.”
“I am rallying the Hemari. Every man. Every division. I will see no blood spilled today. If the rest move to follow me, I will call on you to do the same.”
“You’ll not get those with Yarik to move.”
“I will, and when I do, you will join me.”
“You ask me to defy my king.”
“No, Leger Mertone. I ask you to hold true to what we always have. At the moment, Hemari face Hemari. This is a crime. My father taught his sons to murder each other, and if we are left by ourselves in a tent to decide the outcome, this field will be painted red. It has been the Hemari that have keep chaos at bay. You know this. Join me.”
Leger sat unmoving in his smoldering saddle. The soul-irons around him had not been offended.
“Without you, Leger, today has only one outcome. Decide it.”
The ghosts beside him said, “You know he is right.”
“Shut up, Gern. You don’t need to say it. Make your ride, Evand, and do not fail.”
I struck one worry from the day’s long list, turned, and raced my good horse toward Rahan’s lines. Blathebed was upon a proud Akal-Tak, forward of the men of the 5th as any good general would as such events unfolded. The triangles of entrenched priests behind his thick blue line sickened me, and I did not like the look of the thin yellow smoke rising from those nearest Yarik’s men.
I focused on the old general before me. He could upend everything with a word. I raced in at him and drew my sword. His eye went wide as I thundered in and circled close.
“Are you Hemari?” I demanded.
“How dare, you,” he bellowed, and drew his sword.
“Will your division move as you order? Or do those priests hold your leash.”
“One more insult from you, Evand, and I will cut you down. Explain yourself.”
“Today will be the end of us if the Hemari do not stand as one. I mean to take command. The greencoat will join me. March the 5th and the 6th straight across to my hill.”
“Leger is with you?”
“Only if you are, Blathebed. He leaves it to you.”
“Leger Mertone waits on me?” he asked and turned a circle, sword still in hand. He looked thirty years younger at the prospect of such a magnificent action. “How will you move Yarik’s men?”
“The same way I moved the 4th in Alsonelm and created the 7th in as many days. Leger will join your left, I will lead Yarik’s Hemari out on your right. We cannot let Hemari stand on opposite side of the line.”
“Damn you, Evand,” he said with a laugh and a growl. “You will be the death of me.”
“One more time, Blathebed, will you be the first man forward?”
“Gladly,” he said and then turned. Order rolled from him, pennants flashed, and thirty thousand men began to move as one. The eagerness of 6th to be across to Emilia was as plain as the sun in the sky.
Blathebed rode up and down his line, bellowing what lesser men trembled to hear. His men took up the call.
“Hemari! Hemari! Hemari!”
I turned east as the chant became a rolling thunder and approached Yarik’s lines. The prospect of my death had never been so real, but I saw none of the activity that would have given me pause. Blathebed’s motion was so sudden and so unexpected, the fields was frozen in place.
Barok and Rahan were still running back toward their commands, but in their robes they were much too slow. Yarik, to my utter surprise had taken up the chant. He’d had his blue dalmatic in hand and waved it overhead as he screamed with the rest, “Hemari! Hemari!”
The first man forward from Yarik’s left flank was a lieutenant of scouts and his ready troop.
“If you please, lieutenant,” I said with a salute, “I am Evand Grano, and request that you call upon your colonel.”
He returned the gesture out of habit, and he could not refuse so proper a request. I knew where to find the officer in the formation before the honest scout turned, and the colonel came when called. The colonels to his right and left rode out as well, as was required for direct interaction with a superior Hemari officer from another division. I met them within a spear’s throw of Yarik’s lines while scouts raced word of me back to their generals. Nine of them there were, by Emilia’s count, and none of them very much in charge.
A great blue light warmed the sky for a moment, and all eyes turned toward my hill and the healing magic that glowed warm upon the bodies of every man in my command.
Emi’s timing was perfect yet again.
The colonels and their men looked to it hungrily. The 4th in Alsonelm has been the same, with uncounted small hurts they could not afford to heal. Two of the officers were Urmandish, the third a Bellion. All three made kit upon their horses the same way I did, and two were my age. I turned away from the fading blue light and asked, “What years were you three, 88 or 89?”
“I was in your class, Evand,” the Bellion said, his eyes still upon my hill. “Don’t be coy with me. Put away your sword and explain yourself before we are told to put a spear in you.”
It was a Yentif curse to never remember names or faces. His accent solved it though. “How are your sisters?” I asked. He had seven of them—all older than he was.
His counterparts chuckled, but their eyes scanned the 5th and 6th. They and their men were tense and glanced back at the general’s stand, wanting and needing orders.
“I am wondering how fit you are,” I said. “Every Hemari division upon the field is about to get moving. Can your brigades manage a pivot at speed?”
“Mine can,” the Bellion said, still stinging from the old tease about his sisters. The other two nodded. “But what by the ice does that have to do with anything? The order that is going to come down in a moment is for us to murder you.”
“Pivot and attach yourselves to the right side of the 6th as they fast march by. They’ll be teaching classes about today’s action at the academy for the next hundred years. Would you care to have your names in book three when it is written?”
“You would have us move now? Turn our formation and join Rahan?”
“Not Rahan. Me. I am taking command of the Hemari. This field belongs to us, not the men who have aimed us at each other.”
“Our generals will not give that order.”
“And what classes did they graduate from?” I asked.
“None of them have done the fifty days.”
“Then they are not fit to command those who have. Stand with me.”
“Did you really allow a captain of the 1st and his men to withdraw from the Ribbon unscathed?”
“I did. I would no sooner spill your blood than theirs. 184,000 men upon this field wake with book one and book two. I am calling them together. Get to your brigades. You are out of time to decide it.”
The pace of the 5th and the 6th was swift. The colonels looked at each other once and were off, calling captains in as they went.
“Order,” I called and raised my green pennant high. “Hemari 3rd, pivot by the company line-to-line and quick march north,” I called, and repeated the order as I rode north. The officers behind those brigades laughed at me until the three colonels to their left obeyed the command.
The general’s stand upon the hill behind them was animated, but no pennants had gone up. Command by committee had doomed them.
The colonels at the end of the line did proper work, and the monstrous complexity of swinging men by the thousand from one line and into another dazzled my eyes. By the company, one brigade afte
r another pealed forward, pivoted, and fell in line with the 5th and the 6th as effortlessly as an average man sticks his legs into trousers.
I rode back west toward the abandoned pavilion and pointed at Leger Mertone.
Barok was standing beside him when Leger gave the order. I could not judge at that distance what Barok thought of the move, but if he objected, Leger did not listen to him.
The wall of greencoats swung in, mirroring the move by the 3rd. The mass of blue and green, five full divisions now, was moving as one and were about to collect up the men of the 1st. Rahan and other were undoubted out there, bellowing at them to stop or turn but their authority had been spent.
The officers behind the brigades of the Hemari 1st further up Yarik’s line looked to each other with alarm as the chat rolled louder and louder toward them. On their left, the 3rd had already swung out, and when it was time for the next colonel in line to follow suit, he was not only ready, but eager. Captains and lieutenants here and there, younger for sure and not affected by nostalgia or the prospect of healing magic would hesitate, but the sergeant on the working end remained the magic behind the madness. A thousand men like Blathebed hollered lines into shape as they added their voices to the call. It shook my bones.
“Hemari! Hemari!”
The Urmandish generals never managed to give a single order. And even if they’d summoned the spine to challenge me, their Hurdu were out of position, far to the rear, and no amount of yelling could get an unruly body of militia to move against eight division of Hemari.
Up toward my hill men marched, and every man marching north with me looked at the ready formation of the 4th and 7th and grinned at the great turn they were all about to perform.
“Relay order! By the division, reform. Phalanx forward southeast, regimental order. Signal stations to the center.”
Lieutenants raced the instruction down the line. The many colonels, each a trained choreographer, sent order that filtered down to grinning sergeants. The resulting swirl of blue and green was a bedlam it would seem to the rest. On the move went, as certain as the fall of an arrow while relay officers from each division began to race in toward the ready risers behind my position.
I rode along before reforming host. There was not one family of note across all of Zoviya that did not have at least one of its sons standing there with us. Feseq, Grano, Furstundish, Bellion, Kiel, Bleu, Karesetti, Pikesh, Kennculli, Roto, Botten, Cynt, Raydau, Corneth, Bleau, Serm, Vlek, Hooak, Sepsion, and Pormes. It was as a proper a thing as had ever been done.
Leger rode forward on my right and Blathebed on my left as the last move began to swing the lines into final position. With a final chant of our proud name, the Hemari turned and stood as a solid, unmovable line aiming a forest of spears at the rest. A resounding silence washed the fields beyond Courfel. We were only a third of the men upon the field, but there was no doubt which side carried the most weight.
A pennant went up upon my well seated riser telling me that Emilia and her healers were ready.
“Relay order,” I called, “All companies make ready for a touch of the blue.”
The word went out and a hungry growl rose from the Hemari that had never felt the touch for free. The magic flashed white this time, baking every body upon my hill and some of those beyond it. Hundreds of men fell as they were overcome by the removal of some great hurt. Their fellows helped them up, and the ranks vibrated as their bodies were perfected.
“Hemari,” I called and swung my silver green pennant through the air. My army shook the Kaaryon with its reply.
We looked across the field at what the rest of Zoviya was like without us. All order had been lost. The militias and provincial regulars were in shambles. Rahan’s priests, Yarik’s archers, and the Hurdu had begun moving, but without any measure of cohesion. Men from all points began drifting toward us like boys coming in hopes of being welcome at a parade.
On my order, Blathebed and Leger sent scouts companies down, and bit by bit we collected up those who wished to stand on our side of the field. One man was brought past the captains and colonels of scouts all the way to me.
“Where would you have me, brother?” Yarik asked. It seemed he’d sprinted all the way there, the way he was out of breath and had torn his robes and dalmatic. “Are you in need of an able officer?”
I’d given a great deal of thought to where my brothers would best fit into my army. “You graduated cavalry with honors, yes?"
He nodded, sucking air.
“The colonel commanding my relay has never managed more than two divisions and graduated infantry. I’d have you be his second, if answering to a younger Grano will fit in your stomach.”
“I would call you my Exaltier if you asked.”
“No gods have chains on me, brother. I am King Grano of the Kaaryon and Marshal of Hemari. Nothing more.”
He nodded, and I waved him to follow me back to my riser. Liv and Emilia stood with Colonel Wayland before the ordered tents behind the tall platform of ready signalmen. The contingent of men they’d to select assist with command and control had everything ready.
Emilia offered my brother her hand. “You are looking better.”
The moment was almost too much for him, but he managed to take her without fear and saluted Wayland properly.
“Let’s get you fresh kit,” Wayland said and waved a lieutenant in to see to my disheveled brother. He went without complaint, and I did not need to ask Emilia if he would be okay.
“All the divisions are where they should be,” Emilia said, “and there is no new movement from Geart. He cannot interrupt the day.”
I thanked her and said to Wayland, “Send my letters down to Barok and Rahan, and sent word down to the Urmandish. They have until sundown to surrender themselves to me and place their men under my command.”
The messengers had not yet left our hill when Emilia said to me, “They are yours.”
“Get Colonel Benjam’s scouts working to roust and replace the disaffected officers. We don’t have time for Blathebed’s method of folding them in.”
“He’s already got my list,” she said and pointed at a signalman. A yellow pennant went up next to mine, and I could not have enjoyed the sight more.
76
Queen Dia Vesteal
Evand Grano
No books will be written about the tumbling folly of the old men who tried to make mischief that dark night. Of far more interest was the letter that Barok and Rahan received from the man who wished to be their king. It spoke of children who did not wake in fear, cities without warrens, and mist-covered forest free of ghosts and other terrors—a future without blood sacrifices and unknown magic. It named no gods and made no promises. He asked only that they accept his rule without reservation until fight was won.
I was standing with Evela and our children when Barok and Rahan committed themselves to Evand upon his hill and he accepted the surrender of the Urmandish and their Hurdu. Yarik, to my delight, was already upon an Akal-Tak and wearing a white-crested helmet.
Evand Grano had become our King.
For how long, none of us could say, but we all wanted the fight to be over. The Kaaryon slept well that night either inside Bessradi’s walls, west upon its river, or north upon a tithe road. There was no one left in Geart’s path, and fresh scouts rode east at dawn with proper orders to bring us word of the coming darkness.
While the day was still young, Evand called many to a plaza between Talley Bridge and the clock tower he’d chosen for his headquarters. Emilia, Soma, and Liv stood with him looking west upon the rest of us. Behind them were his generals, the red brick of his tower, and sun-washed horizon that disguised the horror upon it.
Leger and his soul-irons occupied their own space to my left while Lilly, Evela, and Barok stood with me in the center. Avin and a clutch of his priests were on our right. Behind us were the hundreds who’d made that day possible and from which so much more was yet to be asked.
Evand said to us,
“for more than a thousand years this city was the center of Sikhek’s mad fantasy. Soma and Barok expelled him from this place last year but now the darkness is returning. What weapons can we call upon to fight this enemy?”
Rahan called on Avinda. My old friend shook his head, his gray hair thin and his eyes muddy. “We chased many inspirations while Emilia occupied her tower in the Iron Arsenal. All of it was folly.”
Rahan began to protest.
“No, hear me,” Avinda said. “I sent west, men untouched by the Shadow to take hold of Alsonvale without bloodshed. They sang the songs we learned and the Shadow took hold of each. I’d not understood how terribly they fell into his grasp until Barok brought word of what was left of the city. Every song we sing is a seed of the coming darkness. To make magic we call the Shadow, and the stain we are driving deep into earth is beyond any cure of simple magic or metal. You wished for us to use our songs to blast away the Hessier. With each we would invite only misery and destruction. We will do what we can to hold away their dark touch, but no more song can be sung, not even the healing magic that had preserved so many. The Sermod may be able to sing a while longer before the Shadow’s whisper become to sweat for them. But we are finished.”
He and the men with him started away. Barok and I tried to take hold of him, but he refused our embrace with a soft word and withdrew. He took off his robe as he walked away and let it fall onto the cobblestones. All the priests with him did the same.
Rahan was not the only one surprised by their exit, but there were not many. Magic did confound and lie to those who use it.
Evand turned to Barok. “What say you, Barok, can we fight them without magic?”
He and I were ready for the moment and all the things he would commit to while I tried to find another way to save our children.
“We can and must,” Barok said. “We have many with us who can hold away the Shadow’s touch. We will kill what comes.”
“And when this is not enough?” Evand asked. “This song I have heard of from the time before Sikhek—would it set aside the darkness?”
The Vastness Page 64