Teren said, “That’s not what he wants.”
Lo’isha replied, “Nor is it what you want. Nor even what I’d want, if I had a choice. None of us do, though. The Storms have blown the slate clean for us down on the Plains.”
He took a final sip of tea and placed the cup down on a clear spot amid the clutter.
“I believe they have for Valdemar as well.”
Chapter 11 - Fog of War - Ben Ohlander
Gonwyn pressed the bloody, filthy rag down onto where his teeth had been broken by the arrow hit. The helmet’s cheek-piece had saved his life, but pain from the splintered molars flared as he tried to stanch the bleeding. He spat more blood and fragments onto the leafy ground. Distant fighting flared up, the rattle of combat carried across the torn ground. His part of the field might have gone quiet, but fighting still raged in the center and on the left.
He nudged Rath with his heels, and they moved together up the draw,and through the trees. The Companion, fastidious about her hooves, stepped around the windrows of fallen bodies. Tedrel and Valdemaran lay commingled, embraced in death.
He crossed into the rally point, well behind the lines . . . at least until the lines had moved and brought heavy fighting. The low mounded hill and its sparse trees stank of blood and loosened bowels, thick with the stench of death. Nearby wounded had been gathered here, at least until the Tedrels had swept the Valdemaran forces back. Now, the injured felt no pain.
He thought Adreal lay dead, propped against a tree with a bloody blanket pressed to his middle. The Herald Master opened his eyes and reached for his notched sword, bringing it up in defense before he recognized Gonwyn.
Gonwyn slid out of the saddle and moved closer. Claris, Adreal’s Companion, came into sight, lamed by a gashing wound in her left rear leg. The skin lay open, exposing the muscle beneath. Blood slicked the Companion’s side, running from haunch to hock.
“Where the hell was our support?” Gonwyn asked. “It was raining anvils on us over there.”
Adreal half-smiled at him. “You sound like you have a mouth full of marbles.”
Gonwyn made an apologetic gesture toward his blood-crusted face. “Got hit by a spent arrow. Lost most of the afternoon asleep in a warm pile of dead other people. Was missed by the Tedrel looters.”
“There’s your answer.” Adreal shook his head. “Tedrel happened. Their cavalry never showed. The Lord Marshal took all the reserves and our horse to go deal with something clever the Tedrels thought up. They took all the Heralds who were controlling movement on this side. They went out of play just as they would have been useful.”
Adreal coughed as he shifted his weight against the tree. “You do know that King Sendar was killed?’
Gonwyn winced as he brushed his tongue over the damage. “Yes.” It came out as “yeth.” “I heard he was down but was back up. Rath told me he was killed when I came to. What happened?”
Adreal shrugged and coughed again. A thin spittle line of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His tone remained dry and normal. “Don’t know the full of it. He took what body of troops was near and charged into the center. Cracked it. Most of the Tedrel forces fell on that wedge. Just about everyone in that charge was killed, but it took the pressure off the flanks.”
“What about the Heir?” Gonwyn asked.
“Alive.” Adreal wiped his hand across his face. Gonwyn could see the sweat even in the cool air. “Selenay is alive. I heard Alberich got her out before that part of the line got swamped. There was some kind of assault or raid. He got her out.”
Gonwyn spat again and reached into Rath’s saddlebags for sour field wine. He rinsed his mouth, winced at the astringent bite, then offered the bladder to Adreal. The Herald refused with a shake of his head.
“He didn’t turn on us?” Gonwyn asked. “I always thought he was too good to be true.”
“Nope. Mr. ‘Hide in Haven’ was all over the map today, bad cess to the Tedrels. He got Selenay out after Sendar died, kept the attack going in the face of the King’s fall, and led the regrouping in the absence of the Lord Marshal.”
“Where’s Talamir, then? Where’s the King’s Own?”
“He was near Sendar when he went down. They got Tavar.” Both men shared a glance, first at Adreal’s Claris, then at Gonwyn’s Rath. The ultimate horror for a Herald, the loss of bond and blood, of a Companion’s fall. Gonwyn knew both that he would take his own life if Rath fell, and that they talked about a dead man.
They both glanced as the fighting on the left side of the Valdemaran line grew more intense. Distant horns followed by a giant crash as two forces came together.
That took Gonwyn by surprise. “Lord Maybe got off his ass?”
Adreal laughed without mirth. “No. Once Sendar fell, the center went mad with fury, and most of the inner parts of the line bent inward. Commanders farther out on the flanks held back. Either they had farther to go, or there were local problems.” He didn’t say what Gonwyn had heard again and again through camp rumor . . . that the less reliable commanders were to be put the farthest on the flanks.
Adreal ignored his expression and continued. “Sorcha went to Lord Maybe to press home on that side and avenge the King. The rage was on them, too. Sorcha was arguing with him, and Maybe was saying “maybe,” when something the size of a crow came and took his head off.” He smiled grimly. “Sorcha’s Elissa was impressed, and Companions don’t impress easy.” Adreal coughed again. “That Eastholder Sergeant . . . Split-Face . . . took over, and two candlemarks later rolled up their right side like a carpet. This was midafternoon. You can still hear that part of the fight.”
Gonwyn was surprised. “Not one of Maybe’s officers? They brought enough.”
Adreal smiled. “Have you seen that bastard? Looks like he got his mug cut in half with an ax? Would you tell him no?”
Gonwyn shook his head. “I saw him once, when I was running messages for Colonel Perfect Boots. You’d need stones the size of catapult shot to go up against him. ”
Adreal shrugged then, though it cost him. “I think the Lord Marshal put him there deliberately. You should have heard Maybe squawking about command interference. Threatened to take the matter to the King.”
“Anyway . . .” Adreal picked up a broken arrow and drew in the dirt. “Split-Face broke through their right side and is driving into their center and rear. Their entire right side collapsed, with many routing into the center. Most of that was thrown over by Sendar’s charge. What’s left of the Tedrel right wing folded back like a gate, but Split-Face ripped right through that. He’s now somewhere back in there, cheerfully tearing their rear echelons to shreds.”
Gonwyn tried to whistle and settled for a wince. “He’s that good?”
Adreal shrugged. “Seems so. They’re outnumbered, but I’ve never met an Eastholder yet with enough brains to do basic math. It probably hasn’t occurred to him yet that they should be getting swamped. They’re all still in a blood fury, so that helps.”
He made more marks to show the original Valdemaran lines, then scratched them out. “If we could hold, then we might be the anvil to their hammer, but as it stands, he’s pushing them all into us.”
A wounded Guardsman approached with a water bottle and a loaf. Gonwyn took the bottle and gratefully swigged from it. He sluiced out a mouthful of pink-tinged water before he drank. He considered the bread, the state of his mouth, and passed on the loaf. It was not a hard choice.
“Can Sorcha hold him up, give us time to reknit?” he asked.
Adreal stabbed the arrow into the dirt map. “No. She went down a little after midafternoon. With Eiven dead, she was our last link to the far flank on that side of the line.”
Gonwyn winced. “Eiven and Selim. Sorcha and Elissa. That’s seven pairs today.”
“Eight” Adreal corrected. “Morevon got hit with one of those floating, flaming bastards. Pinned him and Elath to the ground.”
Gonwyn made no response for a long moment. “It’s been a
rough day for the Companions Field.”
Adreal laughed again, a dry humorless laugh. “It’s been a rough day for us all.” He stabbed the arrow into the ground. “There, I’ve shown you mine, you show me yours.”
Gonwyn wiped Adreal’s marks with his boot. He absently noted that blood had already stained the leather. He flexed his stiffening hand.
“Not much to tell”, he said, “I was on the ass-end of the line supporting Captain Arland’s Guards Regiment,and a herd of Orthallen’s militia. This morning I was all the way past where the oak grove burned, watching for Tedrel cavalry trying to push our flanks. We were still holding in our original deployments. The militia gave a good account of themselves. They broke the shock troops well enough. There was no serious effort to turn our flank . . . they were just keeping us in play at first.”
Gonwyn made more marks to show the evolving fight. “We’d started to give ground after we got intelligence that the Tedrel cavalry was missing and to watch our flanks. Arland had just refused his line to double spears on the right, when every damned Tedrel ever born washed over us. I saw the Terilee in flood once, rising up a dike. That’s how it felt. Arland called me and his scouts in at that point.”
He laughed. “Ormona was Mindspeaking for Arland and called for reinforcements. She got, ‘Sorry, they’re busy. Good luck.’ ” He stabbed the dirt with the arrow.
“The line bent, but we were doing okay. Then we got word that Sendar was down, and Orthallen . . . he commanded the bulk of the militia . . . ordered everyone back to the second rally line. Disengaging in the middle of a fight is damned hard, and while the militia was doing well, they weren’t up to this. Arland’s regiment got sorted out, but the militia shattered like a dropped pot.”
He shrugged. “They would have had us, except that a whole horde of Tedrels took off and started running for the center. There were enough left to make us pay, but it thinned them enough to give us a chance.”
Gonwyn flexed his hand and stared at the trickle of blood that ran down between his middle and ring fingers. The wound in his shoulder had broken open again. “Most everyone got back into the trees,” he continued. “We were scattered from hell to breakfast in those woods. Once those black-hearted bastards sort out Split-Face and figure out we’re broken, they’ll turn the position. Then, we’re done.”
Adreal paused, assessing Gonwyn’s report. “It’s not that easy. Looks like most of the Tedrel leadership went down in Sendar’s charge. There are a whacking great lot of them still out there, but their army is breaking up. Nonetheless, I take your point. This fight may be won, but it isn’t over.”
Gonwyn nodded, feeling the need to explain his own presence away from the fighting. “We’d just gotten word that the King wasn’t down . . . the message got garbled somehow. Rath thinks we picked up a piece of the local chatter—that the King had gone down into the valley . . . but who knows?”
He continued to draw with the arrow. “We heard from Horvis, who was up closer to the center, that King Sendar had charged down into main body, and we were to press forward in support. Orthallen was nowhere to be found. Ormona was supposed to be Mindspeaking for Arland, but Orthallen took her with him, so we got word from a very confused Guardsman riding his captain’s horse. He was looking for a Captain Elesarn, who was supposed to have a cavalry troop, when he found us. He was about a quarter compass off the mark, looking for a horse unit that were gods’ only knew where at that point. We policed him up.”
“Arland ordered us forward, but it took a few minutes to Mindspeak with Horvis and Ormona and get everyone singing the same hymn. Orthallen was supposed to join back up, but Arland didn’t wait. He did a half-left with what he had and started sweeping in toward the center. I think our linear distance would have been about two miles at that point.”
“Most of the Tedrel shock troops scattered when we came back out of the tree line. I was with about a half-company . . . a mixed bag of Guardsmen and militia. We’d hit what was left of the Tedrel shield wall and were doing okay until I got hit with this . . .” he made a gesture at his marred face, . . . “and I went down. When I came to, anything that wasn’t dead was scattered. Arland and the regiment were long gone. I worked my way back to the rally point . . .” He dismissed an hour’s terror, sharp fighting, and the shoulder wound with a shrug.
He looked around at the piles of dead and dying,and the evidence of heavy battle. “. . . Such as it is.”
A shared glance with Adreal told him that the history lessons were over.
“I’m staying here to redirect whoever tries to make the rally point back to the assembly areas below the village. That’s where Her Majesty is trying to spin dung into diamonds.”
“You want me to go there?” Gonwyn asked.
“No,” Adreal replied, “What I want is for you to get to Split-Face and get him to back off . . . but you’d never make it.” He looked at the battered chainmail on the bloodstained Herald. “You were a Guards officer before you were Chosen. I need you to get into those woods and start rounding up the stragglers. There are parts of units all over these hills, and we have to get the strays moving back toward the village . . . that way Her Majesty can knit something together that buys us time. If I can break through the Companion babble, I’ll get word to someone on what you’re about.”
Gonwyn reached down and gripped his friend’s arm. “Be careful. I saw something in the woods that made a Karse demon look like a kitten.”
Adreal returned the grip. “Probably was Karse. The Tedrels raped and burned their way across the country, even if they were in the Sunlord’s pay. This battle is the best thing that ever happened to them. If Tedrel wins, they get a weakened and defeated Valdemar with a Tedrel client for a buffer. If they lose, then they get rid of an annoying and expensive problem. If it calls a draw, then they bleed us. Three throws, and they win each one. So Karse’ll be watching this all very closely.”
Gonwyn looked at the bloodstained blanket and knew the answer beforehand. “Can I help you?”
Adreal lifted the blanket. Gonwyn saw the poniard rammed to the hilt through the chainmail and between Adreal’s ribs. A bright bubble of blood leaked out as he exhaled. “Healer Janse took the pain when they first brought me here, so it doesn’t hurt. I passed out.” He pointed with his chin to where the wounded had been slain as they lay. “When I awoke, this was over.”
He shifted the blanket to cover himself. Gonwyn bent to offer his hand in farewell. Adreal grabbed it with a fierce strength, his expression direct and forceful. “Gonwyn, do you remember what the King said before he left Haven? You like handstrokes too much, and if we’re going get out of this we need brains. Leave the sword in the scabbard. Promise me you’ll steer clear of fights.”
Gonwyn dipped his head, acknowledging without promising. He raised his hand in salute. “See you on the other side.”
Adreal raised his hand in reply, then let it drop. He turned his attention to obliterating every vestige of their quick maps. That was Adreal, careful beyond careful. “Get something to eat and wash your face.” he said, as Gonwyn turned away. “You look like you’ve been wading in an abattoir.”
Gonwyn returned to where Rath stood. The Companion had all but demolished a pile of oats poured from a bag and onto the leafy ground. He could feel the hunger in the big mare, and the bone-deep fatigue.
:No rest for the wicked.: With Rath, there were never questions. Just statements. It used to annoy Gonwyn, but he’d had twenty-five years to get over it.
“Is there ever?” he replied.
The wounded Guardsman stood nearby. He held a soot-stained, steaming pail of water, the handle wrapped in rags. Blood seeped through the bandage on his head and ran down the side of his face. Gonwyn looked at him . . . one pupil the size of an olive, the other a pinpoint.
“Just put it down, son,” he said gently.
The Guardsman looked at him, confused and still.
Gonwyn took the bucket from him. He watched as the young sol
dier drifted back to where a larger pot of water boiled over a fire.
The Companion answered his unasked question. :His brains were dashed about. Severe, but not fatal if he is well cared for. There will be damage.:
Gonwyn poured most of the warm water into a pail, mixed a double handful of oats into it, and squatted on his heels to use the rest of the hot water to wash off some of the blood and filth. He took a rag and gingerly swabbed the contusion on his temple from when he’d been knocked off Rath. The mare had nearly done a backflip to avoid stepping on him but had still clipped his head and put him out.
:You done making yourself pretty?: Rath was still nose down in the pail, lipping out the last of the steaming oats.
“Yeah,” Gonwyn replied. “You ready?”
:Yes. We should go. Too many oats will make me fat.:
Gonwyn looked at her. With Rath, you could never tell. She might even be serious.
He tightened the bellyband and mounted, settling in the worn saddle.
Herald and Companion moved back down the hill and across the narrow draw at a ground-eating canter. They avoided the lines of dead by unspoken agreement, angling away from the road and down through the leafy drifts to the stream that had been the control feature for the Valdemaran reserve line. They followed it some quarter of a mile, to where it bent sharply to the right. The stream went straight ahead on their crude map.
That had been the beginning of a very bad day. Turned out the map they’d copied was wrong. There were two streams, about a quarter of a mile apart, which meant some of the troops had withdrawn to the wrong stream when Orthallen called retreat. Then, when they’d tried to turn it around, the units were hopelessly scattered, and the reserves were gone. Everything else about this campaign had been a dog’s dinner, so why not the maps?
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