It had taken three full days to get the Karran army into position in the ridge country up the road toward the Forest of Darkness—longer than Clarian had anticipated. Still, the maneuvers had been executed in good order. The Maggan had marched into the ridge country later than he had expected. Now on the dawn of the fourth day, as the Maggan camped and prepared to rest, Clarian moved his army into final position for the ambush.
Clarian stood behind a screen of foliage atop a ridge, observing the Maggan as they prepared to take cover out of the sun and to sleep, day being their night. Lillan and Martan stood at his shoulder. Rokkman, as liaison to the Flamekeeper, hovered next to them. The wind had come up, blowing hot and dry out of the west.
Each day just before morning light, the Maggan camped, pitched tents, fed their troops and slept until sundown. As the evening darkness fell, they struck out heading southwest toward the Citadel, following the road that leads there. It was curious, Clarian thought, that the Maggan had not sent out far-ranging scouting patrols, nor had they bothered patrolling their flanks along the ridges. Arrogance and overconfidence lead to defeat, and he planned to exploit them.
“Let’s call everyone together,” said Clarian. He turned and began half-skidding down the rocky face of the low ridge to his waiting horse, Ruttu, who was being held by a soldier. Lillan and Martan were not far behind him. They leaped onto their horses and rode away from the road and the Maggan, across rough terrain, disappearing into a maze of tall rock formations. After a short ride, they entered a grassy valley where the Karran army headquarters was encamped.
Clarian sent an aide to call all the commanding officers to a war council. Around a camp table under a clump of trees, leaning over a map, crowded by his officers, Clarian laid out his strategy. “Here is how our attack begins. Martan will send scouts to set fires, dragging behind them bundles of burning grass dipped in pitch. They will ride the length of the Maggan encampment from rear to front on both sides, along where the ridges rise up, setting the grasses on fire. The grasses are waist high and parched. Coming from the Great Grasslands, I know about grass. It is going to explode into flames. The wind is blowing in our favor. The Maggan won’t expect Martan to ride right into their camp as a guest, interrupting their sleep time. Ride fast, Martan.”
Everyone laughed, and Martan smiled, his face tense.
“The wagons carrying archers will dismount and climb up on the ridge tops above the enemy camp and formations. As soon as Martan’s scouts ride through the Maggan camp lighting the grasses on fire, your archers will ignite their pitch-dipped arrows wrapped with dry grass and shoot them into the camp area to set more fires. Target the tents and wagons. Then pick off the Maggan as they emerge from their burning tents.”
Clarian turned and pointed to Lillan. “As soon as the firestorm has started, you are to lead your mounted archers and immediately attack the supply wagons and the horse herds at the rear and drive off all their horses. And burn the wagons. We want to destroy their supplies and food. Attack from south and north of the road.”
Lillan nodded. “How much resistance can we expect?”
“The scouts report there is no rear guard.”
“Where’s Troban?” Clarian asked.
“Here,” called a young blond officer from the end of table. He was wearing breastplate armor and a metal and leather helmet.
“Troban, you are the last line of defense. You are all that stands between the enemy and the Citadel. You will attack the front of the Maggan column with your combined mounted archers and foot troops. You will blunt the enemy’s forward march and stop them. That is where the Maggan mounted soldiers are camped with their horse herd. Drive their horses down the road directly into our waiting hands. We can use the extra horses. Attack the head of the enemy column, keeping steady pressure on the enemy, and force them to fall back. Don’t overrun them. Their camp should be in confusion. Ride in carefully, not at a full gallop. Start picking off vermin. Remember, they can’t eat you with an arrow stuck in them.”
Grim laughter erupted, and grins spread across on the faces of the nervous officers. Clarian looked around the room peering at them, looking for questions or fears. His eyes fell at last on Lillan. He smiled and raised his eyebrows as if asking a question.
“I will wait until the attack by Lillan is successful, and Martan’s scouts have rejoined me and will then lead the attack on the Maggan city in the forest,” said a tense- faced Clarian. “We will destroy the enemy’s city. Let’s break them right here. In the name of the Flame.”
“In the name of the Flame!” they all called out in unison.
Lillan sat her jumpy horse, hidden by a long, low ridge on her left flank and a line of scrub trees in front. Behind her were three hundred mounted archers, waiting for the signal to attack. Directly in front of her were lines of Maggan supply wagons, unhitched from the draft horses that had pulled them all night. A large horse herd was grazing to her right, contained by horse handlers. Tents had been erected a few hours beforehand, and meals were being cooked. The tail end of the Maggan army was settling down to rest after a long night of marching. As the glaring sun rose higher, the last of the Maggan soldiers retired to their tents.
Lillan went over the attack plan in her mind. Her force would split into two groups. The right column would capture the horse herd and drive them away from the battle scene to a collection point where Karran soldiers and horse handlers could take over and redeploy them for use by the Karran army. Her second column would charge in among the supply wagons brandishing blazing torches, setting them on fire and destroying their cargo. She had given her subordinate officers their final instructions, and now all they had to do was wait for the signal to attack.
Late morning, and the day grew hotter. She felt the sweat roll down her torso underneath the metal and leather armor that covered her chest. Her tongue felt thick, and her mouth was as dry as the grass beneath her horse’s hooves. She kept licking her lips. She pushed down the fear that tried to rise in her chest. Her bow was strung and over her shoulder. She’d pull it over her head after she threw her torch. The quiver was full of arrows. Lance under her knee. A short sword hugged her left side, dagger on the right. Her horse kept moving around under her, sensing the building tension.
Clarian’s face crossed her mind, but she erased it quickly. She had to focus. She swiveled in her saddle and surveyed her force. They seemed ready. Many eyes looked back at her. She rubbed her horse’s neck, soothing it. Was it getting late? The attack should have started already.
A wave of noise, at first like a great murmur and then a rising pitch of hundreds of voices swept toward Lillan from far away and then closer and closer and louder and louder. Her eyes on a scout hidden high up on the ridge, she waited, tension mounting. Finally he signaled to her to light the torches. She passed the word, and torches were lit. The horses didn’t like the flames and danced sideways as riders reined them hard amid snorting and neighing.
The scout gave the signal to go, and torch in hand, Lillan kicked her horse into a gallop. Her soldiers charged out from the scrub cover just as Martan’s scouts raced by, dragging flaming bundles, igniting the dry grasses. Lillan’s horse leaped over the flaming path, and in a moment she was in among the wagons. She jammed her torch into a wagon with a canvas covering over a pile of goods in the bed. The pitch from the torch spread, and the wagon began burning. Lillan didn’t wait to watch the fire she had set but pulled her bow free, notched an arrow, and shot the nearest Maggan soldier, who had just ventured out of his tent, his face bewildered as he fell, clutching the arrow in his chest.
The Karran mounted archers wove among the wagons, first setting them ablaze and then methodically cutting down the supply soldiers. There did not appear to be a rear guard, and the supply soldiers were not well armed. Resistance was light. Encircling the horse herd and killing the horse handlers, the Karran soldiers drove the stampeding horses off the field of ba
ttle.
The grass fires raged and spread, consuming the wagons and tents of the Maggan. With her quiver empty, Lillan called her troops out. Smoke from the hot fires blanketed the battlefield, and the sweet smell of burning flesh was sharp in the air. A breeze came up and fueled the flames, pushing the fire down the road toward the main body of the Maggan army.
The sounds of mayhem rose up from the Maggan army. Lillan listened after she reined in her horse some distance from the battle on a hillock where she could observe the action. The cries of the dying and wounded floated out to her.
She sent a messenger to Clarian that the attack on the rear of the Maggan army had been successful. She knew he was waiting for word from her that would enable him to begin his drive into the forest. She was glad she wasn’t going.
Maggan soldiers emerged from the smoke and the smoldering fires, running for cover. With a series of arm signals, Lillan repositioned her archers in a loose line back from the field of battle and out of the smoke but close enough to contain the fleeing Maggan. Quick arrows dropped many of the frenzied soldiers and drove others back into the smoke and flames.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Neevan was dreaming of home as she slept under the hot tent with another female warrior. She saw her mother waving at her from the front door of the apartment they shared, beckoning her to return. She sensed she needed to hurry as she came running from the market with a bag of vegetables clutched in her hand, and then the bag broke open, and all the items spilled out. Someone began yelling at her, and she looked around but couldn’t see anyone. Suddenly she awoke. The woman lying next to her was screaming, an arrow protruding from her abdomen. The wall of the tent was on fire, the curling white smoke caustic and burning.
Neevan grabbed her tunic top and her weapons and, bending low, she ran through the tent opening into the brassy sunlight of day. She had trouble focusing her vision in the bright light and the thick black smoke. Soldiers were running back and forth shouting. The entire camp seemed to be on fire. A wall of swirling fire was roaring just feet away. Tents exploded into flames around her. Soldiers fell next to her, arrows puncturing their bodies. Screams from the wounded, the dying, and the frightened provoked her into action.
She thought of her horse and ran in the direction of the horse herd, dodging burning tents, flaming grass, downed bodies, and running soldiers. A great din of noise swept across the field. She reached the area where she thought the horses were tethered, but there were no horses. She grabbed the arm of a soldier who staggered by her. “Where are the horses?” she asked.
“They were driven off by the Karran! Look out, here they come again.”
She heard the pounding hooves, and through the smoke she saw them, hundreds of riders bearing down, bows bent back, taking aim, shooting arrows into panicked soldiers trying to escape. She drew her sword, but she was in no way a threat to the horsemen. A Karran soldier on a big bay loosed his arrow at her at point-blank range, but she ducked low, and it flew high. He swept by, reaching back into his quiver to draw another arrow. She ran to the left, but another line of Karran horsemen dashed in, bowstrings snapping as they released more arrows, bodies strewn everywhere now.
Maggan officers were shouting and trying to put together a line of spearmen to ward off the Karran, but the Karran bowmen rode parallel to the spearmen and began picking them off. The line of spearmen broke, and they ran back into the flames and smoke. Neevan couldn’t think. More arrows flashed by. More Karran horsemen rushed past her as she knelt down in the tall grass. Where were the Maggan soldiers? She ran back into the smoke and burning grass, trying to find some order.
The dead and wounded carpeted the ground. In the thick smoke, she stumbled and fell over a dead soldier. The fires reached the fallen wounded, their great piercing screams adding to the horror. Soldiers trapped by rings of flaming grasses burning hot and high covered their faces and plunged into the smoke. There has to be someone taking charge here, she thought. But it was the same everywhere—fire and smoke and the drone of arrows cascading. A soldier staggered into her with an arrow in his back. He clung to her, but she shook him off and scampered deeper into the camp.
“Where is our defense?” she shouted to a commanding officer lying wounded with an arrow in his leg.
“They hit us from all sides. There is no defense. We’ve collapsed. We can only hope that the Karran will be satisfied and pull back. Then we can regroup!” he shouted back over the screams and roaring fires.
“Where’s Ferman?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Back there somewhere.”
Ferman was in the middle of the Maggan camp, lying wounded under a wagon. There the fire raged, too, and the arrows fell with deadly accuracy. Several officers cowered under the wagon with him. Ferman was screaming at them to go out and fight, but they didn’t move away from the shelter of the wagon. “Attack those ridges, or I’ll kill you myself!” he raged.
Several officers reluctantly rushed away, shouting at nearby soldiers to follow them. Few did. Most dodged behind wagons, and those who did follow were cut down by Karran archers from the ridges above. An officer riding a wounded horse pulled to a stop at the back of the wagon and slipped off the horse. The horse collapsed in a heap, kicking out its life.
“Ferman? Ferman?” the officer called frantically.
“Yes, I’m here,” croaked Ferman.
The officer crawled under the wagon to where Ferman was lying. “Ferman! The Karran have attacked the supply wagons and are burning them! And our horses have been captured and driven off.”
Ferman was speechless. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His eyes were bloodshot from the smoke and the pain of his wounded arm, and his mind was thick and sluggish.
“You’ve led us into a trap, Ferman!” the officer accused him. “They’re attacking our rear. They’re everywhere. The whole camp is burning. The Karran are above on the ridges shooting down into us. They are cutting us to pieces. You’ve got to do something, Ferman. Now!”
“Pull back! Pull back! Sound the retreat! Pull back out of this fire zone!” Ferman shouted.
Officers slipped away from the wagon, and within moments a horn blared, sounding the retreat. Soldiers sprinted toward the rear. The wounded hobbled and stumbled. The enemy arrows continued to shower from the sky.
Neevan was running as fast as she could through the chaotic ranks of confused and frightened soldiers, trying to find someone who would take charge. The grass fires were burning there as well, tents igniting into flames, white and black smoke concealing the enemy on the ridges, soldiers falling, horses screaming and thrashing on the ground with arrows protruding from their flanks. She heard the horn sound the retreat and watched as panicked soldiers ran over one another to get to the rear.
A lost horse appeared out of the smoke. Neevan lunged at the trailing reins, grasping them as the horse jumped sideways. She spun the horse in a circle and leaped into the saddle. She slammed her heels into its side, and it bolted into the turmoil. She pulled back on the reins to gain control and tried to guide the horse toward where she thought the army command might be. Her horse knocked down several soldiers who were running aimlessly. The horse, nearly mad from the fires raging all around, bucked and jerked his head. Neevan had to keep the horse moving.
She came upon several wagons that were stalled because of wounded horses. Soldiers were trying to cut the wounded horses out of the traces.
“Where’s Ferman?” she shouted at one of the soldiers pulling the harness off a dying horse.
“Under the wagon, there.”
She leaned down and could see a number of officers crouched low or lying under the wagon. “Ferman!” she yelled.
Ferman looked out from under the wagon. She could see that he was wounded but couldn’t tell how badly. “What have you seen, Neevan?” he asked.
“The whole battlefield is on fire. Their archers up on t
he ridges are cutting us down. Our mounted companies at the head of the column have been destroyed. The horses have been run off. We can’t even mount a counterattack!”
Ferman’s mouth twisted in pain as he inched closer to Neevan. “Get to the rear. Gather up all the mounted soldiers you can find. The Karran are also attacking our rear, and they have burned the supply wagons. Fight them off. We have to fight our way back to open ground. We can’t stay here.”
Neevan nodded. She slapped the reins and pushed the horse into a gallop through the chaos, through the stinging smoke, heading for the rear of the stalled Maggan army. Unscathed, she arrived at the burned-out supply wagons. Maggan archers were gathered behind them, shooting back at the Karran. Through the layers of smoke she could see mounted soldiers riding fast up ahead. She kicked her horse into a gallop toward the riders. She was sure the mounted soldiers were Maggan.
Clarian sat astride his horse with several officers on a hill overlooking the chaotic battlefield near what had been the head of the Maggan column. Much was obscured by the smoke and fire. He could see the archers on the ridges launching their rain of arrows down into the melee. He pointed. “Move archers down from these ridges and line them abreast from ridge to ridge in multiple ranks across the road, and begin pushing the enemy back down the road toward the forest. Cut the enemy down. Go slowly and efficiently. Walk. Do not charge wild-eyed into the fray. Don’t rush into the fires. Wait until the fires have burned out sufficiently. Just keep driving them back down the road with constant but not reckless pressure.”
All day the arrows rained down on the Maggan army as they staggered back through the burning terrain, through the gauntlet of archers on the ridge tops. By the end of day, the Maggan soldiers had staggered back to the rear to the burned-out supply wagons into more open land.
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