by S L Farrell
The Archigos shrugged. “You’ve already said it, Commandant: you believe what you see with your own eyes.”
Jan ca’Vorl
The horns sounded “Halt,” and a page came riding wildly down the line to Jan’s carriage. “The Garde Civile holds the road and the fields ahead,” the page said. “They’re drawn up in battle formation, at least three full battalions.”
“This far from the walls?” Jan said. “If I were the commandant, I would have taken them closer to the city. But. .” He shrugged.
“U’Teni cu’Kohnle! You’ll ride forward with the Starkkapitan and me to see this.”
“My Hirzg,” ca’Cellibrecca called from his carriage behind Jan’s. “I will go with you.”
Ca’Cellibrecca was already struggling to rise from his seat, and Jan heard cu’Kohnle sigh. He nearly sighed with him. Jan waved at ca’Cellibrecca to remain. “Stay here, Archigos,” Jan ordered. “You can. . pray for the outcome of the battle.”
“Vatarh, may I come also?” Allesandra asked. “I’d also like to see. How else can I learn, now that Georgi’s gone?”
He nodded indulgently, stroking her hair. “Bring our horses forward,” he called to his attendants. “We’ll ride without banners.”
The sun was heavily westering and the weather had deteriorated, with storm clouds gathering behind Nessantico. The light was dim, and an odd fog clung close to the ground-the Fen Fields were reputed to be haunted and fogs were common here, though generally not in the afternoon. They rode up a small rise toward the front of the Firenzcian column and paused to look down.
The line had halted at a bend in the Avi. There, beyond the long curve, was a field where thick lines of men in blue-and-gold livery waited. Spears hedged their ranks, and the banners of chevarittai fluttered just behind them, moving along the lines as if the chevarittai were impatient for the battle to start, ready to burst through. “There are more of them than before,” Jan said. “The Kraljiki has emptied the city of troops. Good. That will make things easier. Semini, how are your war-teni?”
“Tired from the last attack, my Hirzg, but we’re ready,” the u’teni answered. A small smile curled his lips under his beard. “Those Numetodo-tainted fools will be rather more exhausted than us, I would think.”
Jan chuckled. “Starkkapitan?”
“Their troops are badly positioned, my Hirzg,” ca’Linnett said. “It’s difficult to tell in this damned fog, but I don’t think the lines are deep. They’re too far out from the trees and the river will hem them in further. Let the war-teni and archers take as many as they can, and concentrate on the middle of the line along the Avi. I’ll loose the chevarittai there.”
He pointed north of the Avi, where the trees grew thickest. “They can move them into position while the war-teni attack. Then we’ll drive our infantry straight at where we’ve weakened them-down the Avi-while the Red Lancers take the wing. Drive hard enough and fast enough, and we might still make the city gates before sunset. If ca’Rudka or the Kraljiki have any sense at all, they won’t try to hold the entire North Bank of the city; they’ll pull back near the ponticas.”
“Allesandra?” he asked his daughter, seated in front of him. She tilted her head back to look up at him.
“Can I watch from here, Vatarh, where I can see it all?”
He tousled her curls. “We both will,” he told her. “Starkkapitan, I leave it to you. Send my attendants and pages to me. U’Teni cu’Kohnle, you may start the attack when your war-teni are ready.”
Ca’Linnett and cu’Kohnle bowed low and rushed away. Calls went out along the lines, horns blared and flags waved, and the Firenzcian line spread out slowly to either side of the road. Half a turn of the glass later, they heard the boom and thunder of fire-spells arcing out from just behind the front of the line, followed by the hissing of flights of arrows. The sputtering, roaring glares-a full dozen of them-traced smoky lines over the intervening yards between the armies. Jan watched them, waiting to see if the defensive spells of the Nessantico war-teni would take some of them, but they continued on without resistance, and the men shouted in triumph as the fireballs crashed into the opposing lines, tearing great holes through them. They could hear shrieks of alarm and pain, but except where the fireballs crashed into them, the Nessantico lines held.
“Vatarh?”
The war-teni loosed another barrage, larger than the first, and these also streamed unchallenged across the field to plow into the ranks on the other side. More men fell. The screams redoubled, but other men in yellow and blue slid into the gap. Jan frowned; the opposing war-teni might have been sapped, but he doubted that they had no ability left to counter the spells. Why were they waiting, when their people were dying? This was slaughter, not battle. He wondered how they could possibly hold. .
“Vatarh!”
As a third volley of fire-spells sizzled across the landscape, Jan glanced down at Allesandra. “What, little bird?”
“Look at them, Vatarh,” she said. “Really look at them. The ones next to where our spell-fire strikes; they’re not moving. Not at all.”
As the next wave of destructive suns raced over the field, he did watch-not to where they struck but to the side. It was difficult to see through the smoke and fog, through the gathering dark under thicken-ing clouds, but he saw that Allesandra was right. There was an unnatural stiffness to the soldiers alongside the blasts of the war-teni. They didn’t flinch, didn’t cower, didn’t run. They stood upright, always looking forward, their heads not turning at all as their companions were consumed in fire.
The spell-fire ripped through them as if they were stones thrown through a painted canvas.
“We’ve been deceived. .” he breathed, but it was already too late.
The ranks of enemy Garde Civile shredded away entirely, like smoke driven by a gale. Fire-spells came now from the Numetodo: not from the ghostly ranks before them, but from the southern flank, fire-spells raking the Firenzcian lines. Not far distant came the clashing of arms and the pounding of hooves, and Jan saw the Nessantico chevarittai leading a charge, soldiers in yellow and blue pouring in from the river side of the Avi. “There!” he shouted to his aides, pointing. “Sound the horns! Quickly!”
As the horns began to shriek, as the battle clamor rose below him, he set Allesandra down from his horse. “Go back to the Archigos,” he told her. “Hurry! You, Page, take her!”
He drew sword then, without looking back, and kicked his destrier into motion.
Karl ci’Vliomani
Karl felt Ana shivering with the effort and exhaustion. “Let it go,” he told her. “You can let it go now. .” With a gasp and cry, Ana collapsed into his arms. He held her tightly. Around her, the ground was littered with the prone bodies of men and women in green robes-those who had helped her, who had taken the Ilmodo and fed it to her to create the illusion she’d woven.
He’d seen nothing like this, ever before. He hadn’t even realized it was possible. He suspected Ana hadn’t either.
“Now,” Karl called to the remaining war-teni. “Start the attack!”
He heard the quick chanting, and false suns bloomed above them to go shrieking off toward the Firenzcians. Around them, the Garde Civile gave a whooping cry and surged forward. A knot of chevarittai pounded up the Avi on their destriers, calling out a challenge to the Firenzcian chevarittai. As the hiss and boom of war-fire subsided, the clamor of steel on steel began to rise.
“Karl?” Ana whispered. Her eyes were closed. “Did it work?”
“It did,” he told her. “I don’t know how, but it worked.”
“Good. .” The word was mostly a sigh. “I need to sleep. .”
“Sleep, then. You deserve it.” He brushed the hair back from her head and kissed her forehead, laying her down on the ground. Another flurry of war-fire erupted above them to go shrieking off toward the Firenzcian line, lighting the meadow in a furious yellow glare, but it would be the last, he saw: both the war-teni and the Numetodo were exh
austed. They would all need time to recover; the battle would be decided by steel now, not spells.
Karl motioned to Kenne. “Take care of your Archigos,” he said. “I need to go to the commandant.”
He brushed Ana’s cheek a last time and swung up on the horse that one of the e’teni was holding. As he rode away, he thought of what he’d seen, still marveling.
“I need all of you to do the Opening chant,” Ana had said, gathering several of the e’ and o’teni from the Archigos’ Temple around her while the war-teni and Karl’s fellow Numetodo watched. “Just as you were all taught in your first lessons: open yourself to the Ilmodo but don’t shape it. That’s all you need to do. Now!”
They’d done as she asked, as Ana chanted herself. Karl could feel the power rising around them. He thought he could almost see it, like a mist caught in the side of his gaze that vanished if he tried to look directly at it.
Several of the teni cried out as Ana continued to chant, as she gathered the power they’d opened to herself. “No!” she called to them. “Leave the Ilmodo open. Let me take it from you. .”
And she did. Already, they could see the illusion forming out in the fields and across the Avi in front of them: ghostly men in the garb of the Garde Civile, wreathed in fog and mist that the freshening wind didn’t touch, facing out toward where the Firenzcian army would appear. They stood there: motionless, waiting.
He could see Ana: her hands and lips moving as she controlled the spell she wove, the words lost in the cry of surprise that rose from all those around.
Sergei, watching, had laughed. “The Archigos has done her part,” he called to the offiziers and the chevarittai. “Now, let’s do ours. .” Calling out orders, he had ridden away.
Ana had continued to chant, and the ghost soldiers solidified and became more numerous as she continued to pull the energy from the other teni. It was marvelous to watch. It nearly made him want to believe as she did, if faith in Cenzi could lend her this much power.
For the first time, Karl had dared to think that this would work. .
A shrill of bright horns brought him out of his reverie. He could see the banner of the commandant ahead of him in the press of men, but the cornets were sounding from behind him, and they were blaring the call of the Kraljiki.
Justi, unannounced and unasked for, had entered the field.
Justi ca’Mazzak
“Kraljiki!” ca’Rudka bowed perfunctorily to him. “I thought you intended to remain in the city.” Justi thought he saw irritation in the man’s scarred face, in the way his skin folded around the silver nose glued to his skin. Justi saw the Numetodo envoy standing next to ca’Rudka along with A’Offizier ca’Montmorte. The Archigos was nowhere visible, and he wondered where she was.
“The battle is here,” Justi said to the commandant, “and I intend to fight this time. Word came to me that you were retreating. I will not have us retreat, Commandant.”
“I fell back at need, Kraljiki,” ca’Rudka answered, making no pretense to hide his scowl now. “But we’ve turned again.”
“Then we waste our time here, Commandant. I have brought the chevarittai with me, and they are ready.” The riders with him shouted agreement, their horses stamping impatiently.
“Kraljiki, you should remain here, so that we can place your men where they will do the most good. The pages will bring us news.”
“News?” Justi howled. “You’d have me wait here like a doddering
matron? I sent you forward to stop the Hirzg; you have not. Now I will do it myself.”
“Kraljiki. .”
“No!” Justi shouted. The man denied him his moment, and he would not have that. Better to die on the battlefield than in the Bastida.
Better to die as Kraljiki than as a prisoner. “You can remain here if you wish, Commandant, but I go forward to lead my men in defense of their city. I listened to you at Passe a’Fiume, and you gave up that city quickly. If you have courage, then join me; otherwise, stay here. Who is in command here?”
“You are, Kraljiki,” the commandant said. At the mention of Passe a’Fiume, his face had gone ruddy, and a scowl had twisted the mouth under the silver nose. Justi saw ca’Rudka glance at the ca’Montmorte, at the Numetodo, at the offiziers and pages around them. “Bring my horse,” the commandant said. “We ride with the Kraljiki.”
Justi nodded, grim-faced. He drew his sword and gestured up the Avi, to where the sound of battle was loudest. “Ride, then!” he cried.
“Ride!”
They pounded away, the chevarittai around him, the banner of the Kraljiki snapping angrily in the wind, not waiting for the commandant and the others. The Garde Civile shouted encouragement as they galloped past their ranks, and their cheers drove Justi forward harder.
Ahead, he could see the melee of the spreading front line, and he and the chevarittai plunged into it, breaking the line of infantry and plow-ing through into the ranks beyond.
The fury of battle banished any other thoughts.
Justi hacked at a spear thrust toward him, hewing off the hand that held the weapon, and the man’s lifeblood spurted out as he screamed and fell under the hooves of Justi’s horse. Justi began to strike blindly, at anything that moved wearing silver and black. Around him, his chevarittai tore through the Firenzcians like a plow through earth, blood and death in their trail. They were deep behind the lines now, and the Firenzcian chevarittai had noticed the banner of the Kraljiki and were pushing toward them. “Kraljiki!” Justi heard Sergei shout from behind him. “You’re too isolated here! We must fall back to our own line!”
“No!” Justi shouted over his shoulder. “I will not be called a coward!”
He struck at the nearest man, heard a howl as glittering red spattered his sword arm. He pushed forward. He heard the challenge of the enemy chevarittai, and he shouted back at them defiantly.
They came.
Justi managed to take down the first chevaritt who reached him-a man whose face was vaguely familiar, a ca’ who had perhaps once been at the court or to whom Justi had been introduced on one of his so-journs to Brezno. He didn’t know the man’s name, only knew that his own sword was growing heavier even as their blades met and he thrust hard into the space between helm and chestplate, finding flesh above the collar of the man’s surcoat. Justi tried to pull his sword back as gore splashed over the surcoat’s embroidered crest, but his blade was snagged on bone or armor. There was no time to think; another chevaritt was on him and he could not defend himself. He let go of the sword (the chevaritt tumbling from his saddle) and brought up a hopeless arm, hoping the steel of the vambrace could deflect the blow. . but ca’Rudka’s horse slammed hard into Justi’s attacker, the commandant’s sword slicing through the Firenzcian’s hauberk. The chevaritt slid to the ground under their destriers with a scream.
“Kraljiki-” Sergei started to say, but there was no time. They were caught, snared in the press of foot soldiers and chevarittai. The young chevaritt holding Justi’s banner was down. To his left, Justi saw ca’Montmorte borne under, skewered on a spear, his surcoat and hauberk feathered with arrows. Near ca’Montmorte, the Numetodo ci’Vliomani gestured and fire exploded, but his war-fire was pale and ineffective.
Everything was chaos: screaming and shouting and movement. Pain lanced Justi’s right leg and he cried out in shock, glancing down to see his greave rent and blood streaming from the gash in the metal. Hands clutching at him, threatening to pull him down.
Justi knew that he was about to be captured, if not slain outright.
If either happened, this war was over. Any parley for his release would include his abdication. He struck at the hands with a dagger pulled from his belt, kicking at his destier’s side. But the destrier was hemmed in and though he saw Sergei still fighting desperately at his side, they were surrounded now in a sea of black and silver.
Justi screamed in fury.
Karl ci’Vliomani
He had nothing left. The spells he had prepared s
o carefully before the battle were gone, and it would take too long and he was far too exhausted to call up new ones. His arm was already exhausted from using his sword-and swordplay was hardly his strength, in any case.
He wondered what death was going to feel like. He wondered-briefly-what he might say to Cenzi if He were there in the afterlife.
He heard the Kraljiki scream and saw the man surrounded, about to be borne down.
But the earth answered the Kraljiki’s scream.
The ground erupted as if some demon of the Moitidi had risen from the depths: an explosion of mud and trampled wheat tossed away from them anyone in black and silver, though it left the Kraljiki, the commandant, and the remaining chevarittai of Nessantico untouched.
And Karl.
For a moment, there was silence.
That was a spell. Ana? Where did she find the strength?
Karl saw the commandant grab for the reins of the Kraljiki’s horse; the Kraljiki himself swayed in the saddle, clutching at his leg.
“Retreat!” ca’Rudka shouted to the others. “Retreat while we have the chance!”
Ca’Rudka yanked at the reins of the Kraljiki’s mount. Karl kicked his own horse into movement, dropping the useless sword to better hold the reins. They galloped back toward the Nessantico lines through the tumbled bodies.
Black and silver merged into blue and gold: they were through and behind the lines as the sounds of battle arose anew behind them. “We need a healer!” Sergei shouted to a page as they halted. The commandant was helping the Kraljiki down from his saddle; Sergei slid from his own horse to aid him, but the commandant nearly fell himself with his own wounded leg. The Kraljiki was moaning and fighting their hands; Sergei saw blood pulsing from the wound in the man’s thigh. He and ca’Rudka looked at each other as they lay the Kraljiki on the grass and mud. Sergei was already stripping off his coverlet, ripping the cloth and stuffing it into the wound. “Get his greave off so we can bind the wound,” he said to Karl. “Quickly.”