Battle Mage

by Tim Niederriter

  The Fox Tribe army emerged first, arraying themselves in squadrons along the creek. A hundred yards or so further to Edmath’s right, the lesser bears of Buro Vonta’s troops arrayed themselves, though there were many fewer of them than the greater foxes that the Roshi rode upon. Edmath turned to look to his left, and a bizarre sight greeted him. Men riding great flightless birds with long red wattles came forward to join the Roshi battle line.

  Edmath scowled. The men drew longbows and lances from the birds’ harnesses. Chelka looked up at him from her greater Elk’s back.

  “Palatani mercenaries on greater roosters,” she said. “Buro Vonta hired another local company of them, but just wait. One moment.” She pointed into the center of the Roshi line. A fox rider and a single greater bear came forward bearing a white flag of truce hoisted from the bear’s back, followed by a half-circle of other greater foxes. “I’m going with the War Empress to meet them.” Chelka gave Edmath a grim look. “We’ll see what they have to say.”

  She leaned forward and said something in the ear of the lancer she rode behind. In turn, the lancer spoke to the greater elk, and the animal trotted up to the place where War Empress Marnaia Hayel and the huge Bear Lord, Cersun Palanse sat upon their respective tribal animals.

  Edmath couldn’t quite make out what they were saying after the point when Buro Vonta called a greeting to Cersun Palanse in the bear language. The two men clearly knew each other already. Buro’s expression betrayed surprise to see the other general at all. After a quick exchange of bows, the slender, red-haired fox lord, Eberal Bullosto said something that brought an expression of disgust to Marnaia Hayel’s face. The War Empress replied with a few curt words.

  Guiding his bear closer to the edge of the water where the War Empress’s greater elk stood, Buro Vonta said something that drew a loud shout from Eberal Bullosto. The War Empress waved her hand in Chelka’s direction and the elk she rode turned and closed with the end of the Zelian lines.

  “Array for battle. Follow your commanders,” Hayel called to the leading squadron of greater elk.

  Chelka said something Edmath couldn’t make out to the lancer guiding her elk. The creature carried her closer to Edmath and Orpus Lengbyoi. “Ed, stay behind the line. This battle will be fierce, but not long.”

  “Take care, my dear.” Edmath slipped a striker ring from his pouch and put it on his finger before drawing his stethian.

  With a silent glance at the ground as Orpus Lengbyoi started moving again, Edmath struck to test the current. All the magic flowed slowly toward the space between the two armies. Edmath drew in as much of it as he could and opened another tear before making the sign of the branch. Buro Vonta and Eberal Bullosto rode back toward their separate formations.

  Edmath watched as the squadrons of greater elk spread out before him. The formations wheeled to get into position with lances and bows bristling from every great hairy back. He had heard at least two-hundred of the massive creatures made up Marnaia Hayel’s personal force, and the rest were gathered from a regular legion. Each of them had two soldiers on its back.

  Chelka rode along behind the first line, stethian flaring with fresh light and tears opening where she struck the air. Behind the greater elk, the two squadrons of greater bears moved up, and after them, the lesser elks and then the infantry. In total, the War Empress’s army might have a third again the size advantage over the Roshi force. Edmath began to worry about the fierceness of Roshi skills. The battle could be bloody.

  Then, the bear tribe soldiers and their animals along with Buro Vonta broke ranks and retreated from the Roshi’s right flank.

  Beneath the gray sky, Edmath squinted and saw Eberal Bullosto at the fore of his fox cavalry stare with terrified surprise at where the bear cavalry had once protected his force’s flank. Edmath furrowed his brow. He was unsure what the War Empress and General Palanse had told Buro Vonta, but he was grateful for it. Buro Vonta’s forces joined the other Zelians against the Roshi.

  The rooster riders on the other flank were the first enemies to retreat after the Zelian cavalry charged. In fact, their departure from the battle was almost immediate. Mostly surrounded by a ring of elks and bears, the fox cavalry lost badly and surrendered before Edmath could reach them. Except for the Palatani’s and a handful of fox riders who escaped the ring, the battle was a complete success.

  Only a handful of Zelians had a fallen and the Roshi were taken prisoner all the way up to Minister General Eberal Bullosto.

  Chelka explained what had happened to Edmath after the battle. “Lord Vonta thought the High Emperor died a week and a half ago. He supported his old comrade’s claim to the throne out of misinformation, but he is only brash, not stupid. When he found out his grace was still alive he ordered his troops to pull back. The Palatani were only mercenaries in his pay. The Roshi’s victory meant nothing to them. We got very lucky.”

  Edmath could tell even as the arrangements were made to sell the Roshi back to their Minister Regent. As it was, the war was too new to execute them, and their disgrace could keep them from fighting again anytime soon. A detachment of infantry was given the task of taking the prisoners to the border forts while the rest of the troops marched on toward the Worm Tribe’s crown city of Niniar.

  They arrived on a plain to the south after two more days of marching. They lit late-night campfires on the hill leading down to the seaside where Niniar lay. As Edmath and Chelka pitched their tent on the ridge leading up to the crest of the hill he wondered if the Worm King would be better prepared here. As if in answer to his unspoken question Cersun Palanse arrived nearby on his brown-furred greater bear and dismounted.

  He approached and assured them that the next fight would not be as easy as the previous battles.

  “We will have warriors enough to invade the city in the morning. Columns move by night,” he said. “I fear the Crab Tribe army has already set up their camp around Fort Ash. If nothing else, they will be difficult to shake from their position.”

  Edmath remembered the Roshi crab soldiers from reading about them in his bestiary. They were one of the few human-animal combinations in the entire world, along with the Enchiel. As the flames began to rise from the great piles of wood and bark the troops had gathered, three massive shapes moving at the edge of the Roshi Camp. He started when Cersun Palanse spoke from behind him.

  “Crab kings. They are the greatest weapon of the tribe, much like a single-race levoth, but even larger and more dangerous. We are lucky our own levoths will be fresh for the fight. Fortune and Serem be with us tomorrow.”

  Edmath stared at the great creatures moving in the night. Their shells reflected light from the sliver of moon that hung among many stars. He picked out men sleeping on each crab king’s broad shells. Cersun Palanse moved off through the camp.

  Surely the crab army would be their greatest opposition the next day. Besides Ursar Kiet, Edmath could scarcely think of a more fearsome opponent than a royal crab warrior with so many of his animals around him. He scarcely noticed Chelka rise from her place by the fire and walk over to him.

  She crouched down beside him and followed his gaze into the darkness. Her hand fell onto his shoulder, making him shift slightly to look at her. She gave him a smile.

  “You know, I think it’s a little more comfortable where it’s warm.”

  Edmath glanced at her and then shook his head.

  “I think it is. I only wish I cared at the moment. I mean, General Palanse doesn’t seem to mind the chance of being killed.”

  “Do you, though?” Chelka sat down on the grassy slope. Nowhere in her face could he see even a shadow of humor. “I know I do.”

  Edmath almost smiled at how similar Chelka’s train-of-thought seemed to his.

  “Me too.”

  Chelka crawled closer to him on the grass and kissed him on the cheek. When she withdrew he looked in her direction only to see her stand back up.

  “Come rest soon. We are to s
trike Fort Ash at dawn.” She rose and then walked off toward the tents.

  “Of course, Chelka.”

  He looked back at the campfire before slumping back onto the ground. Orpus Lengbyoi approached him silently from the opposite direction. The tree’s voice was soft.

  “Edmath, what is the matter? I have never seen you so sad.”

  Edmath sat back up and looked at the tree. The glowing blue points and ring of the seal pulsed, dimming then brightening.

  “You haven’t been around too long.”

  “I know I am inexperienced, Edmath, but don’t be sad. I can’t see how this works. Your wife loves you and you are never alone.”

  “Of course, that is the problem.” Edmath got to his feet and walked over to the tree. His voice fell to a whisper as he stood under the seal. “Say, Orpus, you are lonely, are you not?”

  The tree’s seal pulsed thoughtfully in the darkness.

  “For my own kind, yes, but the soldiers are company, and so are you.”

  Edmath sighed heavily, feeling a weight in his throat.

  “Now, Orpus Lengbyoi, would it worse to never have a person that cared for you, or to lose someone who cared for you so much it hurt both of you sometimes?”

  Orpus Lengbyoi propped up its back with a pile of ghostly roots and leaned over Edmath, seal pulsing alternately with dimness and light.

  “I think, Edmath, I understand,” it said. “You fear to lose Chelka in the battle.”

  Edmath laid his hand against the tree’s smooth trunk and smiled wryly.

  “Yes, Lengbyoi, I fear to lose Chelka. That is why I came to where I am now, but I also fear to lose you.” Edmath felt overcome with weariness as he leaned his head against the trunk of the Orpus. A pair of roots slipped up from under the earth and bore him up over the ground.

  “You are sleepy, Edmath. Let me return you to your wife now.” The rough wood pressed against his cheek. Edmath wondered if Lengbyoi knew how much the feeling comforted him.

  “Thank you, Lengbyoi. I do hope I am wrong to be afraid.”

  The battle plan for the day was as complex as anything Edmath could remember from his Saale studies. He and the other Saales, including Chelka and the newly arrived Tusami Gesa and Morior Lem would accompany Marnaia Hayel’s elk cavalry in their attack on the flank of the crab soldiers that protected Fort Ash.

  Cersun Palanse would attack the opposite flank, closer to Niniar, while Doshi Kurium’s eagle cavalry landed inside the city itself.

  In the center of the line, the Moth Legion and Sullian Bovet’s citizen army would advance with pikes in support of ten land levoths Cersun Palanse had brought with the army from Diar.

  Oresso Nane had gone with the sky levoths to attack the port from above, making way for the sea levoths carrying Ahenesrude Naopaor’s troops.

  The coordination of the entire battle would be done with signal fires on the hill, in Fort Ash, and in the city. The first fire on the hill signaled the departure of the air levoths and the second, the charge of the cavalry.

  The key to the entire plan was to capture or kill Kassel Onoi, who would almost certainly be inside the walls of Fort Ash with his elite guards and his Roshi advisers. The role of the vanguard to storm the fort had been given to Cersun Palanse’s force in the most likely situation. Edmath knew that meant the Saales would be responsible for a large part of the fighting within the walls because the greater bears could only go so far inside.

  Fort Ash had fifteen-foot-high walls of stone. Above the stone, they were reinforced with taller battlements of wood that could not survive the charge of greater elk, or bear, or land levoth for long. Edmath and Orpus Lengbyoi took their place among the animals. Chelka and her lancer rode alongside him. Tusami Gesa and Morior Lem each rode behind another lancer, opening tears all along the charge. The magic flowed with them and they drew it in. Chelka and Edmath did the same as the formation thundered closer to the line of crab soldiers.

  In the distance a battery of ballistae fired from the walls of the fort, aiming for the troops in the center of the line. A handful of heavy bolts flew from the walls and toward the charging cavalry.

  Edmath made the sign of the branch and shielded himself behind a wall of iron hardwood. He only wished he could protect the others the same way, but he heard the scream of an elk as it was hit, though he could not see the animal or its riders anywhere in the crush. Orpus Lengbyoi sped up, racing toward the enemy alongside the second line of cavalry. The crab soldiers grew larger in Edmath’s vision, huge shelled heads and bodies with tiny black eyes. Human arms bore shields and axes. Each had four legs where a human would have two. A sudden burst of light filled his vision, brighter than the rising sun.

  He glanced at Chelka, his vision blurring. Her stethian unleashed torrents of smoke. A bright flame burned among the crab soldiers and blackened bodies fell to the ground in a ring around the remains of those she had struck. Edmath realized with a sense of dread that the crab kings he’d seen the previous night were nowhere to be seen.

  The earth to the left of the fort shuddered and burst open to reveal a huge carapace. Edmath had only a second to stare as the thirty-foot-tall crab crashed into the far flank of the lesser elk cavalry, and then Orpus Lengbyoi’s stride hurled him into the line of crab soldiers along with the rest of the bears and elk.

  Edmath raised his stethian with his right hand and pointed it from behind his ironwood shield as he made the sign of the thorn. Razor-bladed vines flew from the tip of the weapon and knocked a crab soldier already stuck on the end of a lance to the ground. He made the sign of the branch, and let fly a spear of wood into the ranks of the crab soldiers before him. The battle became a blur of signs and striking as he searched for more power. The greater elk in front of him went down with its only remaining rider stabbing at a crab soldier with a broken spear. Orpus Lengbyoi’s ghostly root pierced through the crab’s midsection and pinned it to the ground.

  The violence of Lengbyoi’s motion surprised Edmath. He swallowed hard and looked away from the kill. The tree’s voice cracked with fury over the din of the battle, loud and ferocious now, not soft or kind. Chelka’s blazing and smoking stethian cut a path through the crab soldiers. Finally, she leveled it at the wall where the human troops were massing with pikes and swords. Light shot forth.

  A huge burning rent burst in the wood and spilled a section of the wall down to the ground. Crab soldiers bit and hacked at the elk cavalry but when greater bears attacked from the third rank, their resistance quickly fell away. The crab soldiers retreated or fell before the bears.

  Lengbyoi carried Edmath closer to the wall. A spearhead stuck in his shield of wood with a loud crunch of breaking bark. Standing behind the shield, he made the sign of the thorn. Bladed vines swept pikemen off the battlements. Edmath sprang out onto an exposed branch and sent a stream of nettles into the warriors before him. He ran to the wall in the ensuing chaos. The screams and stench of burnt flesh filled his senses.

  Cersun Palanse appeared beside him, his bear must have carried him up the wall, climbed with great claws. The bear lord brought his heavy-bladed halberd down on a worm soldier. Though the man blocked with a metal shield, the blow forced him to the ground. A trio of other bears hit the wall and scaled its side.

  Edmath caught a glimpse of Tusami Gesa sending a stream of black venom into the rallied crab soldiers to the left. He scrambled onto the highest level of wall, following the bears. Kassel Onoi’s high stone keep rose up before him in the center of Fort Ash.

  Behind him, the elk cavalry broke off the attack as the bears scaled or smashed the battlements at all points. Chelka flew up the wall on a summoned vine and, in a flash of light, blasted a trio of Worm Tribe pike men out of Edmath’s path. He stared at the place where the soldiers had stood. Charred shreds of cloth drifted through the air over the blackened stones.

  Chelka gave Edmath a glance, her face grim. She approached him, keeping a low profile. Morior Lem dropped onto th
e battlements beside them. The old Saale folded the wings of his eagle tosh and struck a fresh tear.

  “Careful,” he said. “Be sure you have the power left to attack.”

  Chelka took cover behind a low wall of wood Edmath summoned on the inward edge of the battlements.

  “I understand.”

  The worm and crab tribe archers in the center of the courtyard scattered as another wide section of wall tore away to the right of Edmath and the other Saales. Cersun Palanse’s greater bears scattered foe after foe. Soon the battle on the ground broke from organized formations to countless small and desperate struggles for survival.

  Morior and Chelka led the way along the wall, attacking with spells. Edmath and Tusami followed them, throwing out defensive spells as they went. Morior did not seem to have the same level of specialization as the younger Saales. The small, older Saale must have had time to master multiple styles. His rapid switch from a shield of flexible chitin to a torrent of bone spikes to a whirling storm of burning bile impressed Edmath. As they reached the keep, a great roar came down from the sky. The fractal-winged shadow of Tamina Roshi’s mirache heralded the arrival of the Roshi’s second army.

  He glanced up at the sky and then ducked, his head turned. Behind him a crab king tore through the wall to get at the bear cavalry who seemed to finally be getting worn down by the defenders and their long pikes and arrows. The fighting bears wore chain and plate armor, but the Worm King’s soldiers had begun to find their weak points. Edmath knew he needed to turn away, to return to his own battle. He moved, but too slowly.

  The mirache dove at a circle of bears, which stood surrounded in the center of the courtyard, near the breach, and sent one tumbling to the ground. Tamina flew parallel to Edmath’s position, lances of light shooting from her hand to pierce equally bears and riders. Several of the great creatures fell and Edmath’s teeth went on edge.