Chapter 14 The Weight of Responsibility
Brynn reviewed the assembled To-gai-ru riders arrayed behind Tanalk Grenk: several hundred in number. He had brought them out of Dharyan- Dharielle and along the road to support their beloved leader, the Dragon of To-gai.
The woman gave a doubtful look over at Pagonel and Agradeleous, the dragon in his bipedal lizardman form. They were back in the west now, closer to Dharyan-Dharielle than to Jacintha, after a swift flight that had added the emissary Paroud to the group of riders.
"They number not nearly as many as I would have hoped," Paroud said curtly. "But they are Ru. . . To-gai-ru warriors, after all, and renowned for their ferocity. "
"Many more are moving toward Dharyan-Dharielle as we speak," Tanalk Grenk answered him. "Doubt you the might of To-gai after the defeat of your own kingdom?"
Paroud started to answer, but Brynn cut him off with a simple, "Enough!"
She looked again to Pagonel, silently pleading for his help. What was she to do? Send this army charging to the aid of Jacintha and reinforce the Behrenese secured there with more and more To-gai-ru as they rode out of To-gai to her call? The exchange she had just witnessed between Grenk and Paroud was a telling reminder of the enmity between the peoples, a basic distrust that went back many hundreds of years. Given that, was it right for Brynn to ask her fellow To-gai-ru to die for the cause of Behren, for the security of a Yatol priest who had gladly served the previous, imperialistic Chezru Chieftain? Had Yatol Mado Wadon even questioned the decision by Chezru Douan to invade To-gai and conquer Brynn's people? And yet, she could not deny that the other player in the drama that was now Behren was a man she hated even more profoundly. Yatol Bardoh had been the executor of the invasion, a brutal and unmerciful man who had murdered To-gai-ru without the slightest hesitation.
Including Brynn's own parents.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. Personally, she wanted revenge on Bardoh, but would that justify throwing To-gai into the middle of the Behrenese civil war? She opened her eyes when she felt a light touch on her arm. Pagonel motioned her to follow him to the side, where they could privately discuss the matter.
"To engage Yatol Bardoh's forces within the city of Jacintha, should they breach the wall, would be foolhardy," the mystic cautioned. "Your warriors are better suited to the open desert and roads. Use them to nibble at the perimeters of Yatol Bardoh's force. " He paused there and spent a long moment studying Brynn's doubting - scowling, even - look. "If you choose to use them at all," he added.
"Can I?"
"They look to you as their leader," Pagonel replied. "If you instruct them to go to war, they will go to war. "
"And can I, in good conscience and with the benefit of To-gai in mind, ask that of them?" Brynn clarified.
"Would To-gai see a benefit if Yatol Bardoh assumes the leadership of Behren?" Pagonel answered. "He has made no secret of his continuing designs on your homeland. "
It was true enough, and there lay Brynn's dilemma. If she let this civil war continue and Tohen Bardoh proved victorious, then To-gai would likely know war soon enough. And certainly, Bardoh's first move would be to try to reclaim Dharyan-Dharielle for Behren.
Of course, Brynn understood her limitations quite clearly. She looked back at the small force of riders. Would throwing her warriors and herself into the middle of the conflict even make a difference in the outcome? There was the rub, and the weight that tipped the scales within Brynn's thoughts. She looked at Pagonel and nodded appreciatively, then moved back to the others on the road. For the last two weeks, she had tried to avoid this moment of decision. All along the way to Agradeleous' cave and back again, Brynn had hoped that Mado Wadon would crush Tohen Bardoh and be done with it before she ever had to declare openly whether or not she would engage To-gai in the fight.
Now she had run out of time.
"Go back to Dharyan-Dharielle and organize all of those coming in," she instructed Tanalk Grenk.
"You must be quick, then!" Paroud advised. "If you are to assemble a larger force, then do so at once, or it may prove too late for Yatol Wadon!"
Brynn shot him a brief look, but turned back to her trusted commander.
"Organize the defense of Dharyan-Dharielle, and of all the paths leading into To-gai," she ordered. "If Yatol Bardoh proves victorious, he will turn against us, I do not doubt. And we will be ready for him. "
"We will," Tanalk Grenk promised.
"What foolishness is this?" Paroud demanded, the weight of it all sinking in. "You will forsake us in our hour of need?"
"Forsake you?" Brynn asked incredulously.
"You feign friendship with Yatol Wadon to get that which you desire, but when that friendship is tested - "
"Friendship?" Brynn interrupted. "I have never feigned friendship, nor claimed friendship, with Yatol Wadon. "
Paroud stammered and nearly fell over himself, gesturing protests wildly.
"When Yatol Bardoh was at your gates. . . when you were in need. . . was it not Yatol Mado Wadon. . . "
"Who recalled the Jacintha garrison and stood down the army because he dared not risk another costly fight?" Brynn finished for him. "Understand me in this. I am no enemy of your Yatol Wadon. But I understand, as do you, that his decision to forgo the battle at Dharyan-Dharielle was for his benefit and the benefit of Behren. "
"He let you keep the city!" Paroud screamed at her. "A Behrenese city!"
"Because his choice was either me or Yatol Bardoh, who he knew would soon enough attack him," Brynn replied. "No, my decision is made, and it is for the good of To-gai. " She looked to Tanalk Grenk and nodded for him to go, and he gave a deferential nod of his chin and swung his pinto pony about, organizing the warriors for the ride home.
Paroud started to protest again, but Brynn walked right up to him, eyeing him coldly.
"I will not ask the To-gai-ru to shed blood for the sake of the Behrenese," she said with complete calm. "Not when the memories of Behrenese cruelty remain so keen in their minds. If Yatol Wadon desires a true alliance between our peoples, even a friendship, perhaps, then it is his responsibility to foster that friendship. "
Paroud stood very still for a long while, digesting her blunt retort. "It will be a difficult course for Yatol Wadon to take if he is dead. "
"That would be most unfortunate," Brynn replied. "And I will try to help prevent that where I might. "
Paroud's look went to one of confusion. "You just said. . . "
"That I would not ask my kinfolk to bleed for Behren," the woman explained. "For me, this feud with Yatol Bardoh runs much deeper. "
"One woman?" Pechter Dan Turk dared to say with obvious skepticism. "A warrior, to be sure, but hardly an army. "
"One woman and one Jhesta Tu," Brynn replied, looking to Pagonel, who nodded grimly.
Off to the side, Agradeleous gave a roar.
"And let us not forget," Pagonel added.
It started as a trickle of fleeing refugees, desperate and desolate, wandering up the road from the south. Soon it built to a flood, filtering about the ramshackle buildings of the slum outside of Jacintha proper and marching to the wall. These were the people of Avrou Das and Paerith, the main cities of Yatol De Hamman's domain. Before the questioning of those on the leading edge of the refugee line had even begun, Yatol Mado Wadon understood the implications.
De Hamman's province had been overrun by the combined forces of Bardoh and Peridan. Now there remained nothing between that joined army and the walls of Jacintha.
The refugees poured in all through the day and night, in a line that showed no signs of ending. Finally, Yatol Wadon ordered the gates closed.
But still they came, wandering to Jacintha because they had nowhere else in all the world to go. Thousands milled about the brown fields beyond the city and the shanties beyond Jacintha's strong walls. They were desperate people with little to eat and drink, and with no hope left in their dull e
yes.
On the second night after the grim procession began, scouts returned to the city with word that there was a distinctive and bright glow in the sky to the south, and Mado Wadon understood that Avrou Das was burning.
Soon after, one of the refugees was brought to see the Yatol of Jacintha, and so battered and dirty was the man that Yatol Mado Wadon at first did not recognize him - not until he spoke.
"I expected the loyalty of Jacintha," he said, his voice heavy with grief and pain and simple weariness.
"Yatol De Hamman," Mado Wadon said, and he moved near to the man and reached up and placed his hand on De Hamman's dirty cheek. "We did not know. "
"You knew that Tohen Bardoh had assembled a great force, and knew that he had turned south," De Hamman argued.
"But to what purpose?"
"Is that not obvious?" De Hamman countered. "My land is in ruin, my cities burning. So many of my warriors were already weary from their long struggle with Peridan, and so many more were siphoned off from Avrou Das to aid in Chezru Douan's foolish war in the west. "
"But I had no way of knowing Tohen Bardoh's plans," Yatol Wadon protested. "He could have just as easily thrown in with De Hamman as with Peridan. " If not an outright lie, the Yatol's reasoning was certainly porous and suspect - and obviously so to everyone in the room. Yatol Bardoh had made his designs on Jacintha quite public from the beginning of the insurrection, and given that, turning his forces southward would have obviously prompted an alliance with Peridan, who was fighting Jacintha- backed De Hamman.
Still, for whatever reason, the desperate Yatol De Hamman did not press the point any further.
"We could not resist them," the defeated man remarked. "They arrived unexpectedly on the field south of Paerith, and with the reinforcements of Yatol Bardoh, Yatol Peridan's line was five times that of my warriors.
Many broke ranks and fled, and those who remained were slaughtered to a man. Paerith was in flames that same day. I tried to organize some defense of Avrou Das, but. . . " He just shook his head helplessly, then closed his eyes and cried, his shoulders bobbing.
"We will stop them," Yatol Wadon promised. "We will turn them back and pay them back for this atrocity committed against you and your flock. And I will help you to rebuild your cities, my old friend. On my word!"
That seemed to comfort Yatol De Hamman somewhat. He sniffled away the tears, looked at Mado Wadon, and offered a hopeful nod.
The Yatol of Jacintha motioned to his attendants then, to take Yatol De Hamman to a private room where he might clean up and find some rest. Then Wadon himself went to his bedroom, followed by images of battle and Jacintha burning.
He slept not at all.
And the next morning, when the scouts returned with a better assessment of the disaster just south of the city, Yatol Wadon realized that he might not be sleeping well for a long, long time.
"Avrou Eesa, Pruda, Alzuth, Teramen," Rabia Awou recited, the list of towns - nearly all of the major cities of western Behren - that had thrown in with Yatol Bardoh in his march against Jacintha.
Yatol Wadon closed his eyes as the recital continued, including the southeastern stretches of the kingdom, Yatol Peridan's domain of Cosinnida. Given the source of this information, Rabia Awou, Wadon couldn't dismiss it at all. Rabia Awou was the best scout of Jacintha, a man of disguise and intelligence, who could transform not only his appearance, but his demeanor, as well, and infiltrate the most secretive of societies. Once long ago, Chezru Douan had used him to infiltrate a ring of thieves working the docks of Jacintha, and the small, slender, brown-skinned man's work had been nothing short of brilliant, and his information nothing short of perfect.
"Pruda?" he did ask doubtfully, for Pruda, the former center of learning in Behren, had always remained neutral in the ways of war.
"The folk of Pruda resent the fact that you allowed Brynn Dharielle to keep the contents of the library she stole from their beloved city,"
Rabia explained.
Yatol Wadon looked at him incredulously. "How was I to get them back?" he asked. "Would the good people of Pruda like to lead the march into Dharyan-Dharielle against the Dragon of To-gai?"
Rabia Awou just shrugged, as if it did not matter to him. And of course, it did not. "They seek one to blame for their great loss," he explained.
"They blame you. "
"Yatol De Hamman said that the combined army that took the field against him was five times his number - "
"Then that was less than half of Bardoh's army," Rabia Awou said grimly, and the weight of that statement nearly knocked Yatol Wadon over.
He knew at once that Jacintha was surely doomed. Hardly thinking, the man turned to the side, to the room's eastern window, and gazed out across the bay at the tiny specks on the horizon.
In the early-evening twilight, Brynn and her companions could see clearly where the line of refugees ended and the wave of pursuing warriors began.
Agradeleous put the woman and her three companions down on a high dune overlooking the north-south coastal road. The flames of Avrou Das were clearly visible in the south, and even more poignant than that tragedy were the screams of terror rolling over the flat sands.
"Take your beast and go to them!" Paroud insisted to Brynn. "Are you to stand here and watch while people die? Have you no conscience or concern?"
From behind the man, Agradeleous gave a low, rumbling growl, and Paroud slowly turned about to regard the dragon.
"If you call me a beast again, I will eat you," the dragon promised, and the ambassador from Jacintha seemed as if he would faint dead away.
"Tohen Bardoh knows how to fight Agradeleous," Brynn replied, and she was speaking as much to clarify her own thoughts as to explain her actions to the others. "I dare not reveal the dragon before his forces are fully engaged. "
"I will eat them all," Agradeleous declared, and when Paroud pointed to the dragon and looked back at Brynn, as if to acknowledge the dragon's agreement with his logic, the dragon added, "Starting with Paroud. "
Again, the man seemed as if he might just fall over.
"We will go to the south," Brynn decided. "If I know Tohen Bardoh, that is where he will be found, hiding behind his lines until victory is assured. " She looked to Pagonel as she finished, and the mystic nodded his approval.
When darkness fell the dragon was off again, swinging back to the west, then banking south, only gradually making his way back to the east to complete the circuit behind the rear position of Bardoh's lines.
From on high, Brynn marked the campfires well.
"You would make me come out here personally?" Yatol Wadon said, trembling with anger. For not only had he been forced to climb into a small boat and travel all the way out to Rontlemore's Dream to meet the abbot of St.
Bondabruce, the man would not give him a private audience. Duke Bretherford and Master Mackaront were on hand, sitting at either side of Abbot Olin, while Wadon had only been allowed to enter the cabin alone.
"Consider yourself fortunate that there is a 'here' to come out to,"
replied Abbot Olin, wearing a superior grin as he glanced left and right at his two underlings.
A frustrated and frightened Wadon turned his eye on Mackaront. "You told me that the provisions were already being made! You told me that Abbot Olin was already aiding Jacintha. Where are the soldiers, Master Mackaront? Where is the help we need when Yatol Bardoh's army is within a day's march of Jacintha's southern gate?"
Mackaront, wearing a grin to match Olin's, turned deferentially to his abbot.
"Our reach is greater than you understand, my friend," Olin explained.
"But why would I place Honce-the-Bear soldiers into battle on behalf of Jacintha, without even knowing if Jacintha truly desired our help? I do not so willingly send my countrymen to die, nor am I thrilled at the prospect of telling good King Aydrian of his losses after the war - the war to which we have not yet be
en invited. "
All energy seemed to flow out of Yatol Mado Wadon at that moment, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "Would you have me beg?" he asked somberly.
Abbot Olin scoffed at him. "Your begging is of no practical use to me. "
"Then what, Abbot Olin?" Yatol Wadon asked. "What am I to offer in exchange for your aid. Surely you understand that your position will be stronger if I rule in Jacintha than if Yatol Bardoh conquers the place. "
"Truthfully, Yatol, I know of no such thing," Olin replied. "I have known Yatol Bardoh for years, and ever have we held a fondness for each other.
He was much more tolerant of Chezru Douan's arrangement with Entel than many in Douan's own palace of Chom Deiru. "
Yatol Wadon couldn't help but wince at that last remark, for the reference was true enough concerning him specifically.
"But still you are here, and I have Master Mackaront's words as a guide,"
the desperate Yatol reasoned. "You are prepared to step in against Yatol Bardoh - you have said as much. So please spare me the cryptic games, Abbot, and speak that which you desire. "
Abbot Olin came forward suddenly. "I will fend Bardoh's forces and save Jacintha for you," he said bluntly. "And as a reward, I will be seated in Chom Deiru beside you. "
"There is always a spare room. . . "
"Not as your guest, Yatol," Abbot Olin clarified. "But as your equal!"
Yatol Mado Wadon blanched and blinked repeatedly.
"Together we will forge a relationship between Abellican and Chezru,"
Abbot Olin explained. "You and I will seek the common ground of our respective religions and we will use that ground to build a new religion. "
"You wish to bring the Abellican Church to Behren!" Yatol Wadon accused, seeing the coy words for what they were.
Abbot Olin slipped back in his seat into a comfortable position and looked again to his two commanders. "I offer you a place beside me," he said. "One of luxury and comfort. "
"A place for a stooge to give you credibility, you mean!"
"And if I do mean exactly that?" Abbot Olin retorted. "Your religion is in shambles, and you know it. All the pretense of Chezru died with the revelations of Yakim Douan's deceptions. You scorn the sacred gemstones of the Abellican Church openly, and yet your leader, your God-Voice, used those very stones to seek immortality. Do you really believe that the religion of Chezru will survive this? "And so I offer you an alternative," Abbot Olin went on. "Together we might rebuild the trust of the Behrenese people. Consider your options before you so readily dismiss my offer, Yatol. If I defeat Bardoh for you, Jacintha will survive. If I remain out here. . . well, I wonder how high the flames will leap over Jacintha. "
Yatol Wadon glanced all around, seeming like a cornered animal. But again, he suddenly seemed to deflate, as if all the fight had been taken from him. "Stop him," he begged Olin, his voice no more than a whisper.
Abbot Olin's smile widened nearly to take in his ears. "I am fighting for a seat in Chom Deiru," he explained to the Yatol. "I fight well when the rewards are so great. "
Abbot Olin turned to Bretherford and nodded, and the duke rose and left the room. He paused at the door and glanced back at the abbot, his expression ambiguous, as it had been since the rise of Aydrian, and all along this wild and unexpected journey.
"Go back to your. . . to our, city, Yatol Wadon, and instruct your archers to hold their shots as the warriors of Honce-the-Bear cross along your western wall," Abbot Olin explained. "Muster your own forces along the city's south wall alone. "
"The south wall and the docks," Yatol Wadon replied. "We have information that Yatol Peridan has assembled a great fleet. "
Abbot Olin and Master Mackaront both began to laugh. "Along the south wall alone, Yatol," he reiterated. "Your docks will not see battle. "
Yatol Wadon stared at the man hard, not understanding.
But Abbot Olin merely laughed again, not explaining.
Screams erupted among the ramshackle buildings just outside Jacintha's southern wall, and flames quickly followed.
Yatol Mado Wadon and his assistants watched the beginning slaughter from the bell tower of Chom Deiru. The legions of Bardoh and Peridan - many of them wearing the colors of the Jacintha garrison! - marched among the buildings, wantonly slaughtering the dirty peasants as they tried to scramble out of the way.
A huge host of frightened commoners, peasant and refugee alike, swarmed the city proper's southern wall, beating their hands against the soft stone and pressing hard against the gate, so hard that several fell dead, crushed by the weight of the terrified, frenzied crowd.
"Tell them to fight back!" Yatol Mado Wadon yelled at those around him.
"Prod them on! Pour burning oil on them from the walls if you must to turn them back into the fight against Bardoh's dogs!"
"Yatol, they have no weapons to use against the soldiers," one of the attendants tried to explain, but old and angry Wadon slapped him across the face to silence him, then said through gritted teeth, "Tell them to fight back. "
The screams grew louder, as did the press on the wall, which was exactly what the enemies of Jacintha desired, Yatol Wadon knew. Bardoh the merciless was using the peasants as fodder, forcing the Jacintha soldiers to waste arrows on their worthless hides, or to pour oil on them. Using their fear, Bardoh had turned the hundreds into a human battering ram.
Yatol Wadon turned to gaze out to sea, where a fleet of warships was gliding into clear view. These were not the low-running sleek pirate boats that Peridan had reportedly used, but the greater warships of Honce-the-Bear. From his high vantage point, Wadon could see signalmen on the prows of those approaching craft, waving large red flags.
The Yatol glanced back to the north, to the mountains. "Hurry up, Abbot Olin," he muttered under his breath.
South of the city proper, the screams began to diminish, and Yatol Wadon heard the call of his parapet battle commanders. In seconds, the fight was on in full, with the city defenders firing their bows over the wall and artillerymen launching their catapults, sending huge balls of burning pitch soaring out to the south. But Bardoh and Peridan had not come unprepared, and the returning fire, including a barrage from a high dune far away that almost took down large sections of the wall in a single volley, was no less devastating.
Yatol Wadon cupped his hand across his brow to shield the glare and peered out to the southwest, to that high dune, to a line of catapults that had been dragged into position.
The second volley was soon airborne, a combination of boulders and flaming brands, and in seconds, several structures about Jacintha's southern wall went up in flames.
"The advance begins in full!" proclaimed Abu Das Abu, the under-commander for Yatol Peridan's waterborne legions. The obese man sat on a huge padded chair specially constructed to hold his girth. Once a great warrior, considered a match for even a Chezhou-lei, Abu Das Abu had been sorely wounded in a tragic wagon accident many years before and had lost all strength and feeling in his lower torso. Normally in the harsh Behrenese society, such a debilitating injury would have meant a death sentence, but so valuable was Abu Das Abu's battle cunning that Yatol Peridan had kept him on all these years. It was Abu Das Abu who had led Peridan to the pirate leader Maisha Darou in the early days of his conflict with Yatol De Hamman, and that alliance had given Peridan a decided edge over the Yatol to the north.
And now, with the greater promise of Jacintha itself, and indeed, all of Behren, that alliance had seemingly paid dividends once again, for Maisha Darou had responded to Peridan's plea with a tremendous fleet of ships.
Abu Das Abu had more than five thousand warriors on those ships, sailing fast to the north, paralleling the charge of the infantry as it neared Jacintha's southern district and wall.
"We will let the fighting begin in earnest, then sweep into the docks,"
Abu Das Abu directed Maisha Darou. "Yatols Peridan and Bardoh will pre
ssure the city's defenses. Jacintha will need every warrior to hold the wall, and so the docks will be ours!"
Maisha Darou reflected the obese man's wicked smile. "We will find a favorable tide coming in from the north," he explained. "We must tack deeper out to sea so that we are not seen by the watchers on the docks.
They will expect an attack from the sea, but from the south and not the north. "
Abu Das Abu looked at the man suspiciously for some time, weighing every word. Darou's course change was not in the original plan, and while Abu Das Abu wanted the infantry to reach the city first, the fleet could not lag too far behind.
"I know these waters," the pirate said, clapping the big man on the shoulder. "Once we get out past the southern coastal current, our speed will amaze you. And there is a swirl out there and a back tide that will rush us in to Jacintha's docks faster than a To-gai pony. "
"Back tide?" Abu Das Abu asked doubtfully. "I have never heard of such a thing. "
But all that Maisha Darou would reply was, "You will see," and the pirate walked away, motioning to his pilot to tack hard right, turning the ships out to the deeper waters of the great Mirianic.
Just as Duke Bretherford had instructed.
"You see, Yatol Peridan, it is all in the execution," Yatol Bardoh said smugly, watching the pounding at the southern wall of Jacintha from a position on the high ridge, beside his formidable battery of catapults and great, spear-throwing ballistae. "Now, as soon as your Abu Das Abu takes his force onto the docks, all pretense of Jacintha's defense will shatter, and we will have the city. "
Peridan started to respond, but reflexively ducked as another great volley went out from the artillery beside them. He shook his head in absolute amazement at the effectiveness of those batteries. These were Yatol Bardoh's trump card, as Abu Das Abu's force was Peridan's. Bardoh had spent weeks with his forces doing nothing but building these great war engines. Their power would bring down Jacintha in short order, he had promised Peridan, and - and this was the real prize in Bardoh's eyes, Peridan knew - would evict the troublesome Dragon of To-gai from the Behrenese city of Dharyan.
And it all seemed to be going extremely well. Even from this great distance, Peridan could see that the city's defenders were sorely pressed. Sections of wall were down, and large fires had begun to rage.
And all the ground before the wall was strewn with the dead peasants and the pitiful refugees who had swarmed north from De Hamman's towns before the charge of Peridan and Bardoh. Now, if only Abu Das Abu would reach the docks. . . And he should be there, Peridan knew, but there were no indications of any action along the city's eastern side, though in truth, he couldn't see it well enough from his vantage point to gauge properly.
His relief was palpable when an aide came riding hard toward the ridge- line, crying out that there were ships in the harbor.
"Abu Das Abu," Peridan announced to Bardoh, and the Yatol of Avrou Eesa grinned wickedly and nodded his approval.
"Ships in the harbor!" the messenger cried again, his horse struggling up the ridge. "Great warships! Flying the pennant of the bear and tiger!"
In the blink of an eye, the smiles disappeared from the faces of the two Yatols.
"Honce-the-Bear?" Yatol Bardoh said to the man, who dismounted and began scrambling toward the great leader.
"Yes, Yatol," the messenger replied. "They are Bearmen, no doubt. There are whispers that Abbot Olin is among them!"
"Where is our fleet?" Yatol Bardoh demanded of the messenger, and he turned as he spoke, throwing the question at Yatol Peridan, as well.
"I do not know!" the messenger shrieked.
In his rage, Yatol Bardoh turned and motioned to Ung Lik Dy, his personal Chezhou-Lei bodyguard, and the muscular man stepped forward immediately and with a sudden movement, whipped the delicately curving sword from its sheath across his back and in a single fluid motion, took the head from the messenger's body - so quickly that the man didn't even have the time to cry out.
The head rolled across the dirt and wound up staring back at the headless body, which was only then beginning to sway and topple, and the messenger's eyes and mouth widened in unison, as if in that moment of his death, he had suddenly realized what had just happened.
"You told me that Abu Das Abu was reliable, Yatol," Bardoh growled at Peridan.
"He is likely circling the Honce-the-Bear warships even now, preparing to sink them in the harbor," Peridan stammered, and all the while he was speaking, his gaze alternated between Ung Lik Dy and the head of the messenger.
"What are they doing here?" Yatol Bardoh demanded, and before Yatol Peridan could answer or Bardoh could press on, there came the winding of horns, so many horns! The two men spun about, as did everyone else on the ridge, and even from this distance, the charge of the Bearmen was purely stunning.
They swept along the western wall of Jacintha in tight formations, squares of infantry leading the way, their shields interlocked and spear tips gleaming in the morning sunlight. Flanking them came a line of cavalry, a thousand at least, all armored, rider and horse.
"How is this possible?" Yatol Peridan said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
"He has allied with Honce-the-Bear!" Tohen Bardoh screamed. "The fool is just like his predecessor, a friend to the Abellican gemstone wizards more than to his own people, and more than to his own religion. But he will not survive this, despite his alliance!"
He glared at Peridan. "Order a full retreat to this ridge. We cannot stand in open combat against the Bearmen with their heavy-plated armor, but they cannot hope to pursue us for long. Let the hot sun steal their strength! By the time they arrive at this ridge, they will be falling from exhaustion, and then we will come back at them!" Bardoh turned to his artillerymen. "Fill the area about the Bearmen with burning pitch, and be prepared to wheel the catapults away at a moment's notice. We have no idea what other sundry alliances the dog Wadon has made!"
As he finished, all of the artillerymen who were looking his way suddenly blanched, their eyes widening, their jaws drooping open. Following that lead, Tohen Bardoh saw indeed what other alliance Yatol Wadon had forged, in the form of a great dragon swooping in at their ranks! The Behrenese cried out and broke ranks, fleeing every which way as the dragon dove for the line of catapults. Peridan fled down the ridge, and Bardoh moved to follow, but his Chezhou-Lei warrior grabbed him by the arm and tugged him back toward the rushing dragon, correctly guessing that the wurm would not be able to compensate for their move and would swoop right above them.
"Bardoh!" Brynn cried recognizing the hated man. She knew at once that Agradeleous could not possibly react in time, though, and so she flipped her leg over the dragon's neck and dropped into a roll in the sand.
Agradeleous kept his path true and the first two catapults went up in flames beneath the power of his fiery breath. The third war engine fell, too, toppled by the dragon's mighty claws.
Brynn rolled over and over and over, absorbing the shock of the impact.
She came up in perfect balance and swung about, glancing back over her shoulder in time to see the dragon's destructive run, and to see a second form, Pagonel, similarly drop to the sand.
Brynn charged on after Bardoh. All about her, Behrenese soldiers scrambled and shrieked, and not one would turn to face the formidable woman.
Not one, except for Ung Lik Dy.
Bardoh continued to flee behind him, but the Chezhou-Lei warrior stood resolute, parting his feet about shoulders' width and rocking back and forth a bit to get complete balance in the soft sand.
"We are not enemies," Brynn said to him, coming up before him with Flamedancer, her slender and strong elven sword, held out to the side.
"Or we need not be. How many Chezhou-Lei must die in these times? Was not the disaster in the Mountains of Fire enough for you?"
She knew, despite her claim that they were not enemies, that her reference to the Mountains of
Fire would spur the man to action, for in that place, not so long ago, she, the Jhesta Tu mystics, a pair of elves, and Agradeleous had decimated the Chezhou-Lei order.
Ung Lik Dy leaped forward, his magnificent sword cutting a circle at Brynn's eye level, once and then again. Before the ducking Brynn could even think about stabbing forward under that slashing blade, Ung Lik Dy altered the momentum so that his sword was cutting diagonal slashes between the two combatants, forcing Brynn to retreat instead.
And she did, and with perfect balance, for she was schooled in bi'nette dasada, the elven sword dance.
Once out of range, she set herself, feet perpendicular, right foot in front with her toes pointing the way to Ung Lik Dy and the bulk of her weight centered over that back, balancing foot. She brought her left hand up in the air behind her further to solidify her balance, and let Flamedancer weave delicately before her, like the teasing sway of a serpent.
The Chezhou-Lei came forward in a sudden rush, sword spinning in those diagonals. He changed hands repeatedly, altering the cut, and when Brynn tried to parry, he turned the blade into the diagonal, nearly getting past her outstretched sword.
Brynn made a mental note to dodge, not parry! The tireless Ung Lik Dy pressed on, his shining sword humming as it cut through the air. He only seemed to be gaining momentum and speed, and Brynn was retreating as fast as she could, while still maintaining the balance needed to fend off the dynamic warrior.
She thought of calling to Flamedancer then, to ignite the blade and thus startle the warrior. She held back, though, wanting to get a better measure of her opponent before playing so desperate a deception. Under different conditions, Brynn might have held the fires of the sword altogether, for the sake of honor, but at that time, her goal was not to win a test with a Chezhou-Lei warrior, but to get to the dog, Bardoh! She continued to dodge and to back away, allowing Ung Lik Dy to play out his momentum. Soon enough, she planned to turn back on him.
Or so she thought.
For out of the corner of her eye, she noted two of the other Behrenese warriors, apparently gaining heart with the sight of the deadly Chezhou- Lei warrior, coming in hard at her. She had to turn to fend, she knew, but she could not without getting decapitated by the warrior! In the pair came, spears lowered, and Brynn had no practical defense. She reversed her movement and went ahead instead, and suddenly, stabbing her sword up high to ring against the Chezhou-Lei blade to tap it just enough to break the man's rhythm.
And then she tucked in her hip and spun, knowing that she had no chance to avoid getting skewered.
But then a form came rushing between Brynn and the two spearmen, turning as it went, and turning their spears aside.
Pagonel lifted his elbows in that turn, expertly slamming the first and then the second warrior in the face, in rapid succession. One went down, while the other staggered a few steps to the side, stumbling some ten feet from the Jhesta Tu mystic.
Pagonel stopped his rush, planted his feet immediately, and leaped back the other way, up high and turning to the horizontal.
The stunned warrior tried to lift his spear, but he was too late, and the mystic came in over it, double-kicking the man in the face and laying him low on the sand.
Too engaged with the Chezhou-Lei, Brynn didn't watch the spectacle, but despite their desperate dance, she realized that her opponent couldn't help but be distracted by the sight of a hated Jhesta Tu.
At that moment Brynn did call to her sword, and the blade flamed to life.
She snapped it up high, and bade the sword to extinguish, then snapped it back down low.
But the Chezhou-Lei, his eyes tricked by the burst of fire up high, didn't follow that sudden downward movement, and so his defenses went up high, as well.
And Brynn's thrust came in hard below his sword, catching him in the throat.
Sputtering and gasping, the warrior fell away.
Brynn didn't hesitate, sprinting past him as he fell, in full pursuit of the running Bardoh, though in the up-and-down terrain of the immediate area, she was not sure where he had gone.
But then Agradeleous was there, flying beside her, and she called out to him to guide her to Bardoh.
"He is right there," the dragon answered, looking ahead and to the left, just over another windblown dune. "A tasty morsel!"
"No!" Brynn screamed at him, and the wurm pulled up.
Brynn didn't bother to offer an explanation, just sprinted ahead and leaped over the ridge, nearly landing on the terrified Bardoh. He threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but the pose didn't even register to the outraged woman.
Yes, Brynn remembered this man, oh so well. He was the invader of To-gai, who had enslaved and tortured her people. He was the man who had ordered mass executions of To-gai-ru, simply to teach the hated Ru some discipline. He was the man who had murdered her parents when she was but a child.
That last thought was sweeping through Brynn's mind even as her elven sword was sweeping through Tohen Bardoh's neck, lopping his head from his shoulders.
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