King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three
Page 51
“Will they try a nighttime attack?”
“I can’t say. Their eyes are different than ours. If I had to venture a guess, and I doubt any of us want to stake our lives on a guess, I’d say they cannot see well in the dark. I don’t remember that from Ashenbrook. It could be the disease. I know that it’s affected their stamina. If it hadn’t, we’d all be dead. As it is, we’ve fought hard but taken far fewer casualties than I would have expected.” She paused. “We have to hold. It will be days before anyone can reach us. They are all marshaling at Ashenbrook. It’s where we met them last. It’s where they were swept up from. It’s where they should have returned!”
“But they did not, and now it’s up to us.”
“Can we hold?”
“We’ve no choice. We have some tactical advantage in that they are plagued by illness and their own weakness. Since they’re Raymy, I’ll take any advantage I can get.”
“They seem disorderly and disoriented. We can outthink them. We should be able to outlast them.”
Gandathar inclined his head. “That, my lady queen, is my deduction.” He handed her a hunk of jerky. “I set sentries but only half the number I would normally have put out. Better to have rested men at dawn.”
“I want us moving before dawn.”
“Where to?”
“To the far side of the meadow, into the grove’s edge. I want what men can get up into the trees—archers, spearmen—to do so.”
“Attack from above.” His lower lip tightened. “Might help.”
“Axmen are to drop branches down. We need to build a barricade.”
“Of course.” Gandathar stood. “We should start now.”
“It would be wise, but in shifts. We all need to be ready at dawn and that means some sleep.”
“We will have sleep enough when we’re dead.”
She made a noise at that. He patted her on the shoulder as he moved away and quietly, so quietly she barely heard his voice, began to cull his axmen from those gathered. Lara chewed at a corner of the dried meat and discovered that she hungered and finished the bit eagerly. The stringy meat left threads in her teeth that she picked at carefully, before finding a waterskin and drinking sparingly of it. The Andredia flowed not far away, but she could not measure the risk it would take to reach it. Not with the Raymy overwhelming the countryside. Low, murmured conversations surrounded her, quiet voices, not wanting to lure the enemy out, but still needing the connection of talking, punctuated by the sound of soft snores as the exhausted slept. Now and then, Lara could hear the high-pitched whistling hiss of a Raymy accosted by a fellow reptile as they battled among themselves. They ate their dead. They might be feasting now.
She could hope, but knew it would be in vain, that they might destroy themselves overnight. They would not. And if another storm blew in, there could be greater numbers yet to drop. Where was Daravan when they needed him again? She remembered the fields of battle at Ashenbrook and Ravela and knew the opposition had come pouring out of a mountainside and into the stony valley, seemingly without end. She feared there were more to come. Could they hold out? Would anyone be able to reach them in time? She had no answers.
And she felt alone.
“ANY NEWS IN THE NIGHT?” Lariel woke to a day not yet dawned, still curtained by heavy night, and one that had not yielded much sleep. Her captain stood over her, barely distinguishable in his blues, his quiet touch alerting her.
“None worth noting,” Gandathar said, passing down a pannikin of porridge that smelled both sweet and savory, though thin enough to drink.
“Their numbers held, then.”
“Unfortunately.”
She sipped the porridge down. It tasted surprisingly good, and she could only wish there were more of it but knew there wouldn’t be. “At least they have not increased.”
“Right at that, my lady. I had a few fires struck. I’ve had the lads boiling water and making sure they keep as clean as possible. The corruption is as far downwind as we could manage it.” He paused. “Even the skraw are cautious scavenging the bodies.”
Carrion even the scavengers avoided? That could only reinforce her caution. The Raymy died, becoming plague dead that only cold earth and scalding fire might welcome.
“Fence up?”
“Not only up, but sharpened. It should hold a substantial charge, and then the boys will only have to watch those coming over the top or flanking us.”
“You let me sleep too long.”
“You gave your orders. We knew what to do, and your mind needs to be clear.”
She cleaned the pannikin out with a swirl of her finger and licked that clean. “Excellent. Now we move into position.”
“Nearly all the men are already withdrawn to position.”
Lara blinked in surprise. That meant he had left her open, exposed to the enemy if the Raymy could have seen better in the dark.
“It’s all right, my lady. I left the archers behind, and ten of our best swordsmen.” He put out his hand to help her to her feet. She stood without touching him, though her mail weighed her down, her body used to its burden.
Chastain stood beyond her captain, his bow in his hand, arrow ready, and attention across the meadow warily. Lariel watched him for a moment. Would he know when she entered his mind? Would she have to make sure that he did not survive this engagement even if he deserved to? And where was Sevryn? She turned away.
They backed up to their new position, facing toward the enemy, moving together in a concerted effort, and she was almost disappointed when they made it without incident. Gandathar let out a muted sigh. She listened to the sound of the horse line behind them. The cooling canopy of the grove, intermittent though it was because the trees here had been thinned by logging, would still protect them when the sun came out. If it came out.
They attacked at dawn. Silently, out of the grasses, rearing up and at the barricade before the Raymy were even sighted from the treetops, their mottled skins perfect camouflage in the flattened grasses. Lara watched as Gandathar set the archers into place. She went to the horse line and tacked Yarthan up, his ears flicking forward and back alertly, his nostrils snuffling at the blood already being spilled in the morning. He ducked his head so she could pull his headstall up and over and fasten it securely. His withers danced as if her hands tickled him when she put the blanket and saddle on, but the blanket did more than pad the saddle’s weight, it protected his flanks and much of his stomach from injury, the fabric and fibers of such a weave that even arrowheads couldn’t pierce it easily. Lara tightened the girth firmly. “You’ll be better protected than I will,” she told the gelding. “Mostly.” Her gold Sentinel jewelry from Tranta glinted in tiny, sun-catching flashes about her.
She could hear Gandathar barking short commands and her men answering above the grunts and hisses of the Raymy as they clashed. A look back over her shoulder revealed that the Raymy were coming over the barricade—not easily and not quickly, but inexorably. Cued by her actions at the horse line, a dozen of her armsmen were mounting up as well so that when she swung up into her saddle and Yarthan came about, she had a detail at her heels. She used her pole arms, snugging the heel of her poleax deep in its pocket in the corner of her saddle harness, and shook the reins at Yarthan as she cried “For Larandaril!” and charged out of the forest, angled at the Raymy flank. Battle cries followed her.
The first hit jolted her teeth in their sockets and felt as if it knocked her elbow into her shoulder. Her target fell hissing and growling, but it did not get up. She freed her weapon and reset it quickly as the Raymy began to swing about, realizing the enemy angled at them. After that, she could only concentrate on keeping alive, keeping her horse on its feet and her in its saddle as the Raymy fought to cross their meridian.
Gandathar handed her the reins to a fresh mount and threw her aboard with a sharpened sword and a small shield at
some time when the sun had sunk past its high mark in the sky. She relinquished the poleax only when he did so, letting it drop to the ground. Her hand and arm felt numb. Her mind felt numb.
“Casualties?”
“They’re taking the worst of it by far, my lady.” Her captain did not look her in the eyes. He watched as she washed perfunctorily and then lifted a waterskin, gulping its contents down a throat both hoarse and dry that water seemed to help little. “You could take a breather.”
“Are you?”
“Only long enough to see you remounted.”
“Can you afford even that?” She started to turn about in a circle and he caught her stirrup, staying the horse in its tracks.
“What we can’t afford, Lariel, is losing you.”
“We need to take the offensive instead of defensive. If we keep falling back, they will have us cornered in another day or two.” Her left hand ached, the joint missing a finger gnawed at her. She rubbed her gauntlet without thinking. “We have to stop them, even if only for a day or two.” The sky darkened overhead, rumbling ominously as she spoke and they both looked upward. The clouds, whenever they drew close and dark, rained more enemy down.
“What do you suggest?”
“Clear the field. Put the fear of Dhuriel in them.” Dhuriel, their God of Fire, meant more than mere sparks and a warm hearth. She talked conflagration on a massive scale. She waited.
Gandathar looked, his gaze examining the field closely, littered with piles of bodies here and there. Some of them the Raymy worried at, feeding. Others had not yet been molested. One eyebrow lifted.
“Do you see a pattern?” she asked of him.
“I do, and I commend you. Clever. You need a torch, not a sword.”
“I need both, and I need a skin of that excellent oil that burns with very little persuasion.”
He went and fetched both, handing them to her. “It’s good to know that stinkdogs have some worth in the world.” He wore a second skin over his shoulder.
“I’ll take the left flank.”
“Then I the right. Use your shield, my lady! They’re getting the hang of spears and, I daresay, a few archers among them.”
“The same for you.” He lit her torch before soaking and lighting one himself, Lara waiting until he was ready.
Then they left the relative safety of the grove and went to set fire to pyres of the dead that she and her armsmen had been compiling through the day. She leaned from her saddle, squirting the noxious smelling liquid over the tumbled forms of the Raymy dead and what looked like one Vaelinar under them. She murmured, “Nevinaya aliora,” in farewell to her own as she waved the torch over the bodies and the oil flumed upward in a violent explosion of flame as her horse leaped aside from the heat and roar. Nevinaya aliora, Remember the soul, indeed.
Lara wheeled her horse away from the pyre and raced for the second, others across the field going up in the same blaze of glory, smoke guttering up with a stink that brought tears to her eyes. The next three piles held only Raymy bodies and she said nothing over them, not even breathing if she could help it as she layered the accelerant over the stack. That last stack brought her within range of the fighters, and their croaking and hissing threatened her. A well-thrown spear arched over her shield and shoulder as she ducked her head to wheel her horse about. It clattered to the ground impotently and her horse did a little bucking leap over it as they ran off.
She shook the reins and leaned low over his neck, signaling a jump. They cleared the barrier as her men yelled a welcome.
They quieted as she raised her hand. “Smoke covers the field. It gives us eight major points of concealment to advance. Muster and find your leader and do so. It’s time we showed them what Vaelinar steel can do!”
And so they did.
But when her horse finally staggered to a weary halt, head down and sobbing for breath, and she sat with legs so numb she did not know if she could sit her mount any longer, she knew that the only thing saving her at that moment was the rapidly falling dusk. The pyres now guttered low, with a fog of smoke overlying the meadow, maiden’s nod long trampled into nothingness and the smell of burning flesh overrunning her senses. She should seek a healer but knew the only one they had would be overwhelmed, and he was more of an archer than a healer anyway . . . she’d sent all her resources to Ashenbrook.
“Queen Lariel.”
She lifted her gaze.
Chastain stood at the withers of her horse, his hand out to help her down. She studied him, torn by her emotions. If he had died during the day, then her vision of her death might not yet await her. She would have lost a good armsman but perhaps a destiny as well. Guilt flooded her at the thought, and she looked away, smoothing her expression and hoping he had not read it.
She took his hand and swung down. She would have to kill him if he remembered in his future that she had possessed his mind. Why not now? What could she change if she did?
His hand pressed upon hers firmly, assuring that she stayed on her feet, tired as she was.
Why not indeed? Sinok would have done it. Her grandfather had done a good many things that appalled her and yet saved the kingdoms for both the natives of Kerith and the Vaelinar.
“My lady?” He watched her face quizzically.
Lara shook her head briskly. “Nothing, Chastain. Nothing at all. A momentary ghost.”
“There are many tonight,” he returned grimly.
“How many fallen?”
“Near half.”
That news, despite his hold on her, did stagger her. “That many?”
“I fear so.”
“Captain Gandathar?”
“Injured although still able to sit a horse, hold a sword, and bark orders.”
She firmly but gently removed Chastain’s hold on her arm. “I’ll see him, then, when I’ve gotten my own hurts cleaned. Is there anyone who can tend my horse?”
Chastain whistled sharply and a young Vaelinar limped over, his ankle firmly splinted. “Take my lady’s mount for her?”
“Gladly.” He took the reins before ducking his face, but she could not see a glimmer of resentment for being called up while injured, and she thanked him.
Then she went to get the bad news, and the worse news, of the day.
Gandathar sat on the ground, his back to a tree, his left arm resting across his knee. He watched as she settled herself, no less gingerly than it looked like he shifted to make room for her.
“Chastain told me it was bad.”
“It is. More than half fallen. We have most of our dead behind the lines so that we do not have to listen to the Raymy savage them, but that’s little consolation.”
“Can we hold another day?”
He did not answer.
She leaned forward. “I’m not asking if it will be enough. Only if we can hold one more day.”
The rough nature of his face hid his feelings. “I can’t promise you that, Lara. We’re doing our best, all of us, but we are outnumbered.”
She nodded and cupped her hand over his knee for a moment. “Understandably.” She leaned her head back against the tree bark. She looked up at her leafy support, a Larandaril evergreen, nourished by one of the tiny brooks that fed into the sacred Andredia. Raymy blocked the Andredia from her. She resented them for that almost as much as for the deaths of her men and women.
An agonized nicker broke the muted silence of the camp. The sound of it sent shivers over her skin. “The horses?”
“We can’t do much for the wounded. We haven’t enough skilled vets here, but we are doing what we can. The few are working on the men.”
She pressed her eyelids shut a moment. When Lara opened them, she said, “Send the horses out at dawn. The wounded we absolutely cannot save and yet can be driven in a herd.”
Gandathar tilted his head questioningly.
“My lady.”
“I know.” She struggled to her feet. “It will give us an advantage which we seem desperately to need, to pull back yet again. The forest grows thicker here. Some of us can disappear into it to survive. Someone must survive, to tell the others what has happened.”
He gave a grudging nod. “So ordered.”
She left him gnawing at her words as if he could chew them and spit them out, but they both knew that their choices consisted of difficult and none.
She went to the horse lines and gave what comfort she could, knowing it would not be enough for either them or her. In the morning she would have to muster whatever courage she held, knowing that her vision had failed her and that not just her, but all of them, were fated to die in this trampled valley.
ABAYAN DIORT RODE down a narrow canyon, a harrowing neck of an entrance that spoke of ambush to a military man, one he would prefer not to have taken but to which Ceyla had guided him resolutely. The little slip of a Vaelinarran woman refused to bow before his authority and experience. They had argued but briefly, his stubbornness equaled only by her own. If it had not been part of her prophetic seeing, he would have disdained her directions and taken his army the way he wished. Anywhere but this choking stone canyon. The noise of their movement brought crumbles of rock and pebbles trickling down, even avalanches of sand which coalesced into a smoky fog rising from horse hooves and footfalls to tickle the back of the throat and dry the eyes. He turned in his saddle to look at Ceyla riding at his flank. She didn’t notice his glance, all her attention seemingly focused on keeping on top of her mount, with a mixed expression on her face that revealed fear and effort, her hands knotted into both the reins and mane. His mount’s hooves clicked on the stones and sent them skittering away. Ceyla’s eyelids bolted open and her face pinked as she saw Abayan watching her.