“You could be right. You might die tomorrow. If the rest of us survive, I shall look after your young warriors. I shall try to keep them to your path. I think they will not let you down. But then you will be with your Source, and you must ask him to lend a hand.”
“And what if I was wrong?” asked the abbot, leaning forward and gripping Decado’s arm. “What if I resurrected the Thirty because of my own arrogance?”
“I don’t know, Abaddon. But you acted in faith with no thought of gain. Even if you are wrong, your god should forgive you. If he does not, then he is not worth following. If one of your priests commits an indiscretion, do you not forgive him? Are you then more forgiving than your god?”
“I don’t know. I’m not certain of anything anymore.”
“You once told me that certainty and faith do not belong together. Have faith, Abaddon.”
“It is not easy, Decado, to be confident on the day of your death.”
“Why did you seek me out with this? I cannot help you find faith. Why did you not speak to Katan or Acuas?”
“I felt you would understand.”
“Well, I do not. You were always so sure; you radiated harmony, tranquillity. You had stars in your hair, and your words were wisdom. Was it all a facade? Are these doubts so sudden?”
“I once accused you of hiding in your garden. Well, I also hid. It was easy to suppress doubts when the monastery walls were firm around us. I had my books and I had my pupils; it seemed then a grand project of the light. But now men are dead, and the reality is different. Those fifty men who sought to capture Rayvan: they were frightened and they wanted to live, but we marched them from the city and out onto the plain to be slaughtered. We did not let them say farewell to their wives and children. We just led them like cattle to the slaughterhouse.”
“Now I understand,” said Decado. “You saw us as White Templars marching against evil, cheered by the crowds: a small band of heroes in silver armor and white cloaks. Well, it could never be like that, Abaddon. Evil lives in a pit. If you want to fight it, you must climb down in the slime to do so. White cloaks show the dirt more than black, and silver tarnishes. Now leave me and commune with your God; He has more answers than I.”
“Will you pray for me, Decado?” pleaded the abbot.
“Why should the Source listen to me if he does not want to listen to you? Pray for yourself, man!”
“Please! Do this for me.”
“All right. But go and rest now.”
Decado watched the old man move away into the darkness. Then he lay back and gazed up at the lightening sky.
11
As the dawn sun rose in blood, Tenaka Khan stood on the high ground overlooking the plain. With him were a hundred men armed with bows, swords, and axes. Only about thirty of them had shields, and those warriors Tenaka placed in the open ground facing the dip into the plain. Mountains towered on either side of the small force, while behind them the Demon’s Smile widened on both sides, becoming wood-covered hills.
The men were becoming restless now, and Tenaka had no words for them. They moved warily around the Nadir warrior, casting suspicious glances at him; they would fight alongside him, but only because Rayvan had asked it of them.
Tenaka raised a hand to shield his eyes and saw that the legion was moving. He could make out the sunlight glittering on their spear points and flashing from their polished breastplates.
After the Dragon, the men of the legion were the finest fighting men among the Drenai. Tenaka drew his sword and tested the edge with his thumb. Taking a small whetstone, he honed the blade once more.
Galand moved alongside him. “Good luck, General!” he said.
Tenaka grinned and cast his eyes over his small force. Their faces were set, determined; there was no give in them. For countless centuries men like these had held the Drenai empire together, turning back the greatest armies in the world: the hordes of Ulric, the Immortals of Gorben, and the ferocious raiders from Vagria in the chaos wars.
Now they stood again to face impossible odds.
The rolling thunder of hooves on the dry plain floated into the mountains, echoing like the drums of doom. To the left of the men with shields Rayvan’s son, Lucas, notched an arrow to his bow. Swallowing hard, he wiped a sleeve across his brow; he was sweating heavily; strange how so much moisture could form on his face while his mouth was so dry. He glanced back at the Nadir general to see him standing calmly with sword in hand, his violet eyes fixed on the charging horsemen. There was no trace of sweat on his brow.
Bastard, thought Lucas. Inhuman bastard!
The horsemen had reached the slope before the Smile, and their charge slowed fractionally.
A single arrow soared out to meet them, falling short of the riders by thirty paces.
“Wait until you hear the order,” bellowed Galand, switching his gaze to the impassive Tenaka.
The riders thundered on, lances leveled.
“Now?” asked Galand as the leading horsemen passed the mark made by the first arrow. Tenaka shook his head.
“Face front!” shouted Galand as nervous archers craned their necks to see the command given.
The men of the legion were riding fifty abreast in twenty-five ranks. Tenaka gauged the gap between each rank as around six lengths. It was a well-disciplined charge.
“Now!” he said.
“Give them hell!” screamed Galand, and a hundred arrows flashed into the sunlight. The first line of horsemen disappeared as the shafts hammered home into their mounts. Men were hurled headlong onto the rocks as screaming horses reared and fell. The second line faltered, but the gap between ranks allowed the riders to adjust in time to leap over the fallen. But they leapt into a second volley of arrows that killed, crippled, or maimed their mounts. As the dazed riders rose to their feet, more shafts flashed death to them, slicing into exposed flesh. But still the charge continued, and the horsemen were almost upon them.
With one shaft left, Lucas rose from his knees. A lancer broke the line, and Lucas loosed the shaft without aiming. It bounced from the horse’s skull, causing the beast to rear in pain, but the rider clung on. Lucas dropped his bow and ran forward, dragging his hunting knife into his hand. He leapt to the beast’s back and struck the rider in the chest, but the man threw himself to the right and the combined weight of the two warriors toppled the horse. Lucas landed atop the rider, the fall combining with his weight to bury the blade to the hilt. The man groaned and died; Lucas strained to drag the knife clear, but it was buried too deep. Drawing his sword, he ran at a second lancer.
Tenaka ducked under a stabbing thrust and then leapt at the rider, dragging him from the saddle. A backhand cut to the throat left the man choking on his own blood.
Tenaka clambered into the saddle. The archers had dropped back from the mouth of the pass and were peppering the legion men as they breasted the rise. Men and horses jammed the mouth of the valley. All was chaos. Here and there riders had forced their way through, and Skoda warriors armed with swords and axes hacked and hammered at them from the ground.
“Galand!” shouted Tenaka. The black-bearded warrior, fighting alongside his brother, dispatched his opponent and turned to the call. Tenaka pointed forward at the mass, and Galand waved his sword in acknowledgment.
“To me, Skoda!” he bellowed. “To me!” With his brother and about twenty warriors, he charged the milling men. The riders dropped their lances, scrabbling for swords as the fighting wedge struck them. Tenaka heeled his horse and charged in to fight alongside them.
For several bloody minutes the battle continued, then a bugle sounded from the plain and the legion riders wheeled their mounts and rode from the carnage.
Galand, scalp bleeding from a shallow cut, ran to Tenaka. “They will turn immediately for another charge,” he said. “We’ll not hold them.” Tenaka sheathed his sword. He had lost almost half his force.
Lucas ran alongside. “Let us get the wounded back,” he pleaded.
�
�No time!” said Tenaka. “Take positions, but be ready to run when I give the word.” Kicking his horse forward, he rode to the rise. The legion men had turned at the foot of the slope and were re-forming into lines fifty abreast.
Behind him the Skoda archers were desperately gathering shafts, pulling them clear of bodies. Tenaka lifted his arm, calling them forward, and they obeyed without hesitation.
The bugle sounded once more, and the black-cloaked riders surged forward. No lances this time; bright swords shone in their hands. Once more the thunder of charging hooves echoed in the mountains.
At thirty paces Tenaka lifted his arm. “Now!” he yelled. Hundreds of shafts thudded home. “Away!” he screamed.
The Skoda warriors turned and ran, sprinting for the transient security of the wooded hills.
Tenaka estimated that the legion had lost nearly three hundred men in the battle and more horses. He turned his mount and galloped toward the hills. Galand and Parsal were ahead of him, helping Rayvan’s injured son. Lucas had been dragging an arrow from the body of a rider, but the man had not been dead and had struck out, lashing a cut to Lucas’ left leg.
“Leave him to me!” Tenaka shouted as he rode alongside. Leaning over, he pulled Lucas across his saddle horn and glanced back. The legion had breasted the rise and set off in pursuit of the fleeing warriors. Galand and Parsal sprinted off to the north.
Tenaka angled his run to the northwest, and the legion riders spurred their mounts after him.
Ahead was the first hill, beyond which Ananais waited with the full force. Tenaka urged his horse onward, but with double weight upon him the creature was laboring hard. Atop the hill Tenaka was no more than fifteen lengths clear of his pursuers, but ahead lay Ananais and four hundred men. Tenaka’s tired mount galloped on. Ananais moved forward, waving Tenaka to the left. He dragged on the reins, steering the beast through the hazards he himself had organized throughout the long night.
Behind him a hundred legion riders reined in, waiting for orders. Tenaka helped Lucas from the saddle and then dismounted.
“How did it go?” asked Ananais.
Tenaka lifted three fingers.
“It would have been nice had it been five,” he said.
“It was a disciplined charge, Ani, one rank at a time.”
“You have to give that to them—they were always well disciplined. Still, the day is yet young.”
Rayvan pushed her way forward. “Did we lose many?”
“Around forty men at the charge. But more will be caught in the woods,” answered Tenaka. Decado and Acuas made their way to the front.
“General,” said Acuas, “the legion leader has now been apprised of our position. He is calling in his outriders for a frontal charge.”
“Thank you. It is what we hoped for.”
“I hope he does it swiftly,” said Acuas, scratching his yellow beard. “The Templars have breached our defenses, and soon they will know of your preparations. Then they will convey them to the leader.”
“If that happens, we are dead,” muttered Ananais.
“With all your powers, can you not screen their leader?” asked Tenaka.
“We could,” answered Acuas stiffly, “but it would be a grave risk to the men charged with the task.”
“It so happens,” snarled Ananais, “that we are taking no small risk ourselves.”
“It will be done,” said Decado. “See to it, Acuas.”
Acuas nodded and closed his eyes.
“Well, get to it, lad,” urged Ananais.
“He is doing it now,” said Decado softly. “Leave him alone.”
The harsh shrieking blasts of the legion bugles pierced the air, and within seconds a line of black-garbed riders rimmed the hill opposite.
“Get back to the center,” Ananais told Rayvan.
“Don’t treat me like a milkmaid!”
“I am treating you like a leader, woman! If you fall in the first charge, then the battle is over.” Rayvan moved back, and the men of Skoda readied their bows.
A single bugle blast heralded the charge, and the horsemen swept down the low hill. Fear flickered through the ranks of defenders. Ananais sensed it rather than felt it. “Steady, lads,” he called, his voice even.
Tenaka craned to see the formation: a hundred abreast, single lengths between ranks. He cursed softly. The leading rank reached the bottom of the hill and then continued up toward the defenders, slowing as the gradient increased. That brought the second rank even closer. Tenaka smiled. Thirty paces from the defenders the first line of horsemen hit the hidden trenches, the soft turf laid on thin branches. The line went down as if poleaxed by an invisible giant. The second line, too close in, went down with them in a milling mass of writhing horses.
“Charge!” shouted Ananais, and three hundred Skoda warriors dashed forward, hacking and cleaving. The hundred who remained sent volleys of arrows over the heads of their comrades into the ranks of lancers beyond; these men had pulled up their mounts and presented sitting targets to the archers. From the hill above, the legion general, Karespa, cursed and swore. Swinging in his saddle, he ordered his bugler to sound recall. The shrill notes drifted over the battling men, and the legion pulled back. Karespa waved his arm, signaling left, and the lancers wheeled their mounts for a flank attack. Ananais pulled back his force to the hilltop.
The legion riders charged again, only for their horses to hit the hidden trip wires in the long grass. Karespa ordered recall once more. Bereft of choices, he ordered his men to dismount and advance on foot, archers to the rear. They moved forward slowly, the men in the front rank hesitant and fearful. They carried no shields and were loath to approach the bowmen among the Skoda defense.
Just out of bowshot the front rank stopped, readying themselves for the hectic race. At that moment Lake and his fifty men rose from the ground behind them, discarding their blankets interwoven with long grass and climbing from the well-hidden trenches beside granite boulders. From his vantage point on the hilltop Karespa blinked in disbelief as the men appeared, seemingly from the earth itself.
Lake swiftly strung his bow, his men following suit. Their targets were the enemy archers. Fifty arrows screamed home, then fifty more. All was pandemonium. Ananais led his four hundred men in a sudden attack, and the legion wilted under the storm of slashing blades. Karespa swung in the saddle to order his bugler to sound retreat, then his jaw dropped in amazement. His bugler had been dragged from the saddle by a black-bearded warrior, who now stood grinning beside Karespa’s mount with a dagger in his hand. Other warriors stood close by, smiling mirthlessly.
Galand lifted the bugle to his lips and sent out the doleful call to surrender. Three times the bugle sounded before the last of the legion warriors laid down their weapons.
“It is over, General,” said Galand. “Be so good as to step down.”
“I’ll be damned if I will!” snapped Karespa.
“Dead if you don’t,” promised Galand.
Karespa dismounted.
In the trough below six hundred legion warriors sat on the grass as Skoda men moved among them, relieving them of weapons and breastplates.
Decado sheathed his sword and moved to where Acuas knelt beside the fallen Abaddon. There was no mark on the abbot.
“What happened?” asked Decado.
“His was the strongest mind among us. His talents were greater by far than any other’s. He volunteered to screen Karespa from the Templars.”
“He knew he would die today,” said Decado.
“He will not die today,” snarled Acuas. “Did I not say there were risks involved?”
“So a man died. Many have died today.”
“I am not talking about death, Decado. Yes, his body is slain, but the Templars have taken his soul.”
Scaler sat on the high wall of the tower garden, watching the distant mountains for signs of the victorious legion. He had been relieved when Tenaka had asked him to stay behind, but now he was unsure. Certainly he wa
s no warrior and would have been of little help in a battle. Even so, at least he would have known the result.
Dark clouds bunched above the garden, blocking the sunlight; Scaler pulled his blue cloak around his shoulders and left the wall to wander among the sheltered blooms. Some sixty years before an aging senator had built the garden, his servants carrying more than three tons of topsoil to the tower. Now there were trees, bushes, and flowers of every kind. In one corner laurel and elderflower grew alongside holly and elm, while elsewhere flowering cherry trees bloomed pink and white against the gray stone walls. Throughout the garden an ornate path wound its way among the flower beds. Scaler wandered the path, enjoying the fragrance of the blooms.
Renya mounted the circular stairwell, entering the garden just as the sun cleared the clouds. She saw Scaler standing alone, his dark hair held in place by a black leather circlet on his brow. He was a handsome man, she thought … and lonely. He wore no sword and was studying a yellow flower at the edge of a rockery.
“Good morning,” she said, and he glanced up. Renya was attired in a light-green woolen tunic, and a rust-colored silk scarf covered her hair. Her legs were bare, and she wore no sandals.
“Good morning, lady. Did you sleep well?”
“No. And you?”
“I fear not. When do you think we will know?”
Renya shrugged. “Soon enough.”
He nodded his agreement, and together they strolled through the garden, drawn at last to the wall facing south toward the Demon’s Smile.
“Why did you not go with them?” she asked.
“Tenaka asked me to stay.”
“Why?”
“He has a task for me and does not want me dead before I attempt it!”
“A dangerous task, then?”
“What makes you say so?”
“You said ‘attempt it.’ That sounds as if you doubt your ability to succeed.”
He laughed grimly. “Doubt? I don’t doubt—I know. But it doesn’t matter. No one lives forever. Anyway, it may never come to that. First they must defeat the legion.”
Drenai Saga 02 - The King Beyond the Gate Page 15