The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2)

by Joseph Schembrie

  Before Landar could comment, a soldier of the Imperial Guard rushed from the bottom of the hill, up the sloping road past the cavern. His haste caused them all to stop and watch. He skidded to a halt in front of Maldus, and breathlessly reported, “Troops – a cohort's worth!”

  Maldus glared in the direction the man had come. “They've blocked our return to Rome!”

  Faintly from below came the beat of battle drums, the tempo quickening. Distant signal flutes whistled the command to prepare for a full charge. The sounds gave a sense of the size of the force that was yet unseen.

  “My Lord!” Maldus said. “If Irkut's brought a whole cohort, then we are fifty against hundreds. We should retreat while we can.”

  “It's too late,” Valarion replied. From years of experience, he knew how traps were lain. “There will be entrenchments prepared to the north, to block an attempt at retreat in that direction.”

  And seeing that they were in a valley between cliffs, there were only two ways to go. Or – was there a third?

  To Landar, Valarion asked, “Is there an escape tunnel in the cavern?”

  “What?” Landar asked. “No, why would there be?”

  Archimedes would have dug one.

  “My Lord – “ Maldus said.

  “Emperor Valarion,” the Box intervened, her voice as calm as if commenting on the coolness of the weather. “May I suggest an unconventional tactic? These rockets may prove useful against a concentrated charge.”

  And there it is, Valarion thought.

  The reason she had been so insistent that they visit the construction site at this time, the reason she had been so insistent that there be a demonstration of the rockets: to force Valarion into a battle with Irkut, a gambit of superior military force against superior technology. Valarion never would have agreed to the risk, and so she had deceived him with the pretense that she had merely desired an inspection of the airship.

  Valarion wondered how far her scheming went. Likely her agents had secretly communicated with Irkut, to inform him that Valarion would be on the move that morning, leaving the legal protection of the city limits, so that Irkut could shadow their movements into these mountains for what the general doubtless believed would be a surprise attack.

  Just as much as had Valarion, Irkut had been maneuvered into this engagement by the cold calculation of the unliving goddess who dwelt within the Box.

  Whatever the truth, there was nothing to do now but implement her plan.

  “Landar,” Valarion said. “You heard the lady. Prepare the rockets.”

  Landar shouted orders. The workers repositioned the launch cradles, aiming southward toward the center of the gap between cliffs. At Landar's command, a pair of workers waited by each launcher, one holding a lighted torch while the other shepherded the rockets to replace those that were fired. Valarion counted that they would be able to fire volleys of ten rockets at a time, five times.

  It might do some damage after all, he thought.

  The rockets had certainly blackened the cliff side about the painted cross. But men were not inanimate targets. Men were always the most incalculable variable in the equation of battle.

  “Maldus,” Valarion said. “Ready your men for counter-charge.”

  “Sir?” Maldus said. “You mean defense, don't you?”

  “You heard me.”

  Maldus shouted, though his force was so small that they were all in range of his normal speaking voice. The fifty spread in a line, one that was pathetically thin compared to what Valarion was used to commanding. The temple guard stayed by the litter, protecting the Mother. Valarion decided they would be of no value anyway against regular troops, and ignored them.

  The ranks of Irkut's cohort, hundreds of tromping boots, rounded the bend. Beneath the wagging red banners fluttered a sea of red – shields with red stripes, spears with red ribbons – all in synchronized formation whose discipline would spur envy in any legion commander.

  Valarion sequestered a spyglass, surveyed the rows of grim expressions, contemplated the red skulls on the standards and noted how the battle line stretched from cliff wall to cliff wall. Irkut had not skimped. He had brought the Fourth Cohort of the Fourth Legion, his notorious 'Red of the Red.' Where the Imperial Guard of Maldus drew their standard-issue short swords intended for fending against ambushes upon streets and within buildings, the cohort was fully equipped for field combat with longspear and longshield.

  The shields, seemingly only a defensive armament to the casual observer, spoke to an experienced Roman commander such as Valarion of lethality from a distance, for legion-issue longshields had compartments for six throwing darts, and the Red of the Red was champion in every inter-legion throwing competition. Valarion wondered if the Box Mother had calculated that the range of Landar's rockets would be sufficiently greater than that of Irkut's throwing darts. He wondered if she even knew about throwing darts.

  Only a few steps behind the approaching front of bobbing shields, circled by bodyguards and messengers, marched the bald lean figure with the black eye patch and broom-like whiskers. Reading the determined expression on the general's face, Valarion had no doubt that Irkut harbored the ambition of becoming Emperor himself.

  The flutes of the Fourth Legion trilled. Spears leveled, shields locked into a continuous wall across the breadth of the canyon road. The drums rolled, the flutes keened a final shrill note. With the flash of the battle flag, the lungs of the cohort bellowed in one horrific scream. The soldiers tilted into charge and the ground shook under their pounding boots. Dust whirled above their heads, sunlight glinted from their shields, death laughed from their eyes.

  Valarion estimated the range. Less than a thousand meters already.

  “Wait until they are close,” the Box said. “The rockets will not be effective unless they are in range.”

  Five hundred meters . . . .

  Valarion muttered, “If they approach close enough to inundate us with their darts first, we won't be alive to launch the rockets.”

  The Box apparently didn't see fit to grace him with a reply.

  Three hundred meters. Two hundred. The red-ribboned lances universally pointed toward Valarion's purple robe like compass needles to iron. So Irkut had made this personal. Well, he never did like me.

  One hundred fifty. One hundred –

  Without breaking step, without diverting gaze, the soldiers of the Red yanked darts from the shield pockets and poised them for throw. Their roars and yells became high-pitched shrieking that visibly stirred the sparse line of Imperial Guard. Valarion's instincts compared force strengths and informed him that he might be the first emperor to die by stampede.

  “Mother!” Valarion blurted.

  Barely audible above the clamor, the Box said, “Emperor Valarion, you may give the order to –”

  “Fire!” Valarion shouted.

  “FIRE!” Landar shouted.

  The ten workers touched torches to the fuses of the ten rockets on the launchers. The tubes sparked, shook, and streaked, billowing a wall of smoke that interposed between the adversaries. From Valarion's position to one side, he saw that Irkut's men were marching straight, unimpressed by the trails of smoke, as they would if they were facing a mere barrage of flaming arrows The men of the Fourth held to their reputation as the best disciplined legion in the army of Rome.

  The rockets struck the shields, raked through the ranks, exploded in fire and smoke and flung debris. Men fell, but their compatriots, like wind-up automatons, marched over their bodies.

  The line was unbroken, as if the rockets had done no damage at all.

  “RELOAD!” Landar shouted.

  The workers moved to replenish the launchers with rockets. Realizing how close the lines were getting, Valarion barely held his patience.

  “Fire!” Valarion shouted.

  “FIRE!” Landar shouted.

  A second volley of ten rockets sparked and billowed and streaked and slammed into the cohort. Soldiers marched through
the clearing smoke as if again they had noticed nothing. Valarion almost despaired, until he noticed the gaps in their line. Irkut must have filled the gaps after the first volley by bringing forward his reserves. But he had run out of reserves . . . .

  Valarion commanded another volley, and another. There was no need for a fifth.

  Their battle trances shattered by the flare and noise of the rockets and their numbers heavily cut, the soldiers broke ranks into flailing chaos, losing discipline and perhaps even awareness of where they were. Some were even fleeing! Irkut had long boasted that he'd never had a straggler, but at the moment scores of his best men stampeded past his coterie in retreat, leaving a field strewn with corpses of their comrades and – even more sacrilegiously – their abandoned standards.

  “CHARGE!” Valarion shouted, holding sword high.

  He realized that in his excitement he had taken the lead. He fell back, allowing the battle line of the Imperial Guard to swarm ahead. Though yet outnumbered, they rolled over the staggering enemy line. In close combat, Irkut's longspears and throwing darts were encumbrances and the Guard's short swords were the weapon of choice.

  The Imperial Guard was trained for riot control, and for that they had one objective – to hack a mob to pieces as rapidly as possible. The Guard moved among the Cohort in choreographed pairings, one man to hold the victim's attention while the second stabbed from behind, and then they switched to another victim without a pause. It was a treacherous way of fighting, and Irkut's troops, battle-seasoned as they were, had never before engaged a foe who had broken through their shield line, and being trained only for 'civilized' duels of one-on-one, they were being systematically slaughtered.

  If hand to hand combat on a field of battle could ever be labeled cowardly, Valarion thought, this would be it. The battle was bloodier than any he'd ever seen before and soon he had to look away, half in nausea and half in shame, for he knew that the tactics would not have worked had the soldiers of the Fourth not had their wits addled by rocket barrage. Their sergeants might have rallied them – but they were targeted by Maldus's men as the first to die in the melee.

  And then what Valarion would have once regarded as impossible happened. Still at a numerical strength that Valarion estimated at many times his own, survivors of the Fourth threw down their swords and raised their hands. Maldus shouted for his men to pause the attack. One by one, every surviving soldier of the Fourth surrendered.

  The battlefield had quieted, but Valarion still involuntarily trembled from the thunder of the rocket attack. Was this the face of future war – so terrifying that merely to witness could drive a man mad?

  The smoke cleared. There was a pile of mangled corpses in the center of what had been the cohort's formation, wearing the polished armor and bright pips of a general's bodyguard. Too curious to mind his safety, Valarion strode among the enemy soldiers to survey the heap. He recognized Irkut's headless body from the purple fringed cape.

  He stood staring for a long time and was not aware of the approach of the temple guard and the litter until the Infernal Thing spoke.

  “Emperor Valarion,” the Box said cheerfully. “I compliment you on your brilliant victory.”

  “Yes,” Valarion murmured, wondering if he was being mocked. He didn't turn. He had his sword drawn and the temptation was great, but he recalled that the Box had once fallen from Heaven and he doubted whether ordinary steel would be sufficient to cut it. “Mother. Just out of curiosity, would you happen to know where the General's head is at the moment?”

  “I instructed the Lady Inoldia to obtain it while his forces were distracted by the rocket barrages. She is presently on her way to Rome with it. My intent is to display the head of General Irkut above the main entrance of the Senate Building, for all to see what happens to those who oppose the Emperor.”

  And oppose what rules behind the throne.

  “So he was dead before our men even clashed.”

  “Would it have made a difference otherwise?”

  Valarion spun and glared at the curtains. “You planned this battle! You brought us here on pretext, you had the rockets demonstrated on pretext, you lured him here on pretext!”

  “It seems to have worked out well. A major threat to your rule has been eliminated with negligible loss to your own resources.”

  Valarion regained his breath. “Is there anything you do or say that doesn't involve layers of despicable subterfuge?”

  The Box replied calmly, “My Emperor, what do you mean?”

  11.

  The Britanian airship that the Pandora of Britan had declared was Rome's greatest threat had been little more than a derelict for most of the night. Floating free of the hangar at Ravencall, it had drifted east with the prevailing breeze over the Dark Forest. Its altitude of a hundred meters was so low that treetops threatened to graze the bottom of the gondola. Contrary to the Pandora's assertions, the ship's inability to rise was due to a heavy load of fuel rather than armaments.

  With one engine disassembled, the ship wasn't going anywhere, except in tight circles, until Matt and Savora completed the repair and replacement of the required parts.

  In keeping with the Pandora of Britan's scenario, Carrot would have delighted in plotting the destruction of the Island of the Sisters, but during the night her activity was limited to pacing the fore and aft cabins of the gondola, allowing her imagination to run loose with every glance toward the pair of figures in oil-stained coveralls outside the gondola, who dangled from ropes alongside the starboard engine housing.

  Matt's head was turned away, while Savora's face was full of animation as they conversed. Carrot supposed it was merely about some technical matter. What bothered her, though, was that unlike all the other girls in Britan who had an infatuation with the Wizard, Savora was Matt's type.

  What do you like in me? Carrot had once asked.

  Well, you're smart and different, Matt had said.

  And that also described the only woman in Britan who had qualified to train for airship crew.

  Carrot reviewed what she knew about Savora. It wasn't much. Andra had mentioned she had a new star student, and then there were a couple glimpses of the girl in the gray shirt and pants standing in line at the meal hut. Otherwise, Savora was an unknown quantity. Carrot knew every villager at Fish Lake and every member of every catapult crew who'd fought in the Dark Forest, but the woman who would be in close quarters with Matt on an extended journey was a mystery.

  I'm sure there will be nothing, Carrot told herself, and wanted to believe it.

  Outside on the engine strut, Savora laughed at something Matt said and touched him on the shoulder. They climbed inside and the engines were started in tandem, purring smoothly The two congratulated each other and talked shop and Carrot went to the aft cabin because . . . because.

  Aft, however, was no relief from romance. She encountered Norian and Mirian, arms wrapped around each others' waists in the darkened cabin as they sight-seed through the tailward windows.

  “See to the north, Mirian? That's the silhouette of Mount Skawful. Wondrous how it steams! We're almost high enough to glimpse into the bowl!”

  “Norian, on the horizon due east is a glow. It can't be the sun at this hour. Is it from the lights of Londa?”

  “I believe it is. Cities do not sleep as villages do. Their lanterns may burn all night.”

  “We almost drifted over it.”

  “Oh no, it's still half the island away. It is quite large compared to a village, and so there is the illusion of nearness.”

  “You've been to Londa, haven't you? After all you've been everywhere.”

  “Only in Britan.” He smiled at the figure by the door. “Now Carrot here – she went all the way to Rome, which is far grander than Londa. You should ask her about that.”

  Mirian wriggled quietly against her husband. Carrot drew her shawl tightly and gazed toward Mount Skawful. Somewhere rightward of the forever-simmering volcano was her home as a child, so remote
to the average West Britanian that she'd fallen into the habit of dropping the 'North' and simply referring to it as 'Umbrick.' There were few pleasant memories there and she no longer thought of the region as home.

  Is Fish Lake home? she asked herself. No, as much as she was accepted there, that didn't feel right either. For her, home was a place she hadn't yet been to. A place she wasn't certain existed at all.

  With the ship under power, they quickly recovered the distance they had drifted east and proceeded westward. With each hour of flight covering ten hours of walking, they recapitulated their journey across the Oksiden Road, then veered north along the Kaden Road. Dawn arose, revealing a sky sparse of clouds that promised a springlike day.

  The airship hovered low and kilometers to the east of the path they have previously walked, so that treetops on intervening hills might conceal the vessel's presence from the people living in the valley, lest panic spread at their sight. That was Matt's idea, and Carrot was pleased at his sensitivity.

  Mirian and Norian came into the forward cabin and Mirian scanned the terrain with a frown.

  “I recognize the mountains and know we're near my village,” Mirian said. “But where is it? I've no scent to guide me and I've never seen the land from this high.”

  Carrot traced the curvings of the path and compared to memory. “There.”

  On the west side of the trail was a circular cut among the trees, signifying a clearing. Their viewing angle was too steep to see the homes within, only the single tendril of a cooking fire.

  “If you say so,” Mirian mumbled.

  You didn't seem eager to see it before, Carrot thought.

  But she understood why Mirian might long to see her home this time. Their journey on foot had been a lark to a place they only half-believed was real. This time their mind's eyes had visions of Monstrous Hedges and heavily fortified bridges with overlarge doors. The Land of Trolls was no longer just a tavern tale. At the prospect of entering into it, even North Umbrick seemed homey.