Brightly Burning

by Mercedes Lackey

  Lan’s fires produced very little smoke, burning as hot as they did, but through Satiran’s eyes, Pol saw there was a haze of smoke around the north side of the peak.

  :He’s holding a barrier across the narrowest part of the pass.:

  Pol nodded; that was what he would have done. Depending on how long Lan could hold that barrier, and how much he had to move it when the fuel was gone, he could keep the Karsites back for more than the couple of candlemarks it would take for the army to reach him.

  Candlemarks! That was too long—too long! He had to force himself to ride easily and not strain toward that far-off goal. What wouldn’t I give for a way to get us all there now!

  :I can’t reach Kalira.: It was Satiran’s turn to fret, and Pol felt his muscles straining for a couple of strides, until he realized it would be foolhardy to try and outrun the rest of the army.

  :You already knew you wouldn’t be able to,: Pol reminded him. :If he’s holding something that large, she’ll have all she can do to keep him under control. I wish they’d put Tuck up there with him, though.:

  Satiran’s sides heaved beneath his legs as his Companion groaned. :But when the Karsites start breaking through—and they will—Tuck is more use down with the scouts.:

  Every horseman in the cavalry had a bowman up behind him, and these troops, with the Heralds (also carrying double, with the exception of Pol), were the vanguard of the army. They were already making the best pace they could. Horses would break down under the pace a Companion could set.

  “Pol. I want you to relay an order to the Heralds,” the Lord Marshal said, cutting across his thoughts and fretting.

  Pol turned his bandaged eyes obediently towards the Lord Marshal riding on his right. “Sir?”

  “Send the Heralds and their archers on ahead. I know that the Companions can make better time than this—and it may be that a few men in place early can do more than many men arriving too late.” The Lord Marshal paused, and then continued, “You may go yourself, if you wish.”

  Oh, he wished, oh—how he wished! But blind as he was, he would be useless as a fighter, for not even Satiran could help him aim a bow—while here at the Lord Marshal’s side, he would be able to relay messages directly to the leader of their forces. “No, my Lord. My place is with you. But allow me a moment—”

  :Heralds!: he called, his mind-voice given strength by Satiran. :The Lord Marshal commands that you and your Companions ride ahead, carrying your archers, to hold the line until the rest of us arrive.:

  A ragged cheer greeted his order, and all across the front of the great mass of riders, silver-white Companions, and blue-clad archers leaped ahead like arrows speeding from bows. There were a hundred or so Heralds racing on ahead, with as many additional archers riding pillion behind. It was a thrilling and beautiful sight, the Companions flying smoothly over the white snow with shimmering manes and tails streaming behind them. They hardly seemed to touch the snow as they ran, with their Heralds and archers bent closely down over their backs. Those archers were the finest master marksmen in Valdemar, and instead of baggage, they all carried extra quivers. As they vanished into the trees, Pol and Satiran yearned after them, sending all the strength they could spare to speed them on their way.

  LAN gnawed his lip in anger and frustration, tasting blood but feeling nothing but rage. “Leave!” he shouted at the tiny milling specks below. “Why won’t you leave?” He sneezed as a wisp of smoke tickled his nose. He’d already shed his cloak and gloves; he wasn’t cold anymore. Far from it; he didn’t need the fire at his side to stay warm anymore.

  He’d held them in this narrow passage for as long as the fuel for his fires was there. He couldn’t burn air—well, he could, but not for long—and they still weren’t giving up! He knew now to the thumb’s length the size of the barrier he could hold, and if he moved it either farther back or farther forward where there was more fuel, some of them would be able to get around it.

  Damn! He sensed the fires below beginning to flicker, and prepared to move them—

  Then—a plan flashed across his mind, whole and entire, and he grinned savagely and hugged Kalira’s neck, letting her see and rejoice in it a heartbeat before he put it into motion.

  He dropped the barrier altogether; gave them a flicker of time to gape in astonishment, another for their officers to order them forward. Then—with a whoosh like a windstorm—he flung up a new barrier just at the Valdemar side of the blackened, burned strip where there still fuel left to catch fire. It nearly caught the foremost ones, and he laughed savagely to see them spill backward to escape being toasted.

  Kalira trembled beneath his arm in reaction to his anger, but the anger was what fed the fires, and he couldn’t do this without it.

  Now he made a virtue of necessity, as the fire crept back toward Valdemar, allowing a stretch of climbable slope to remain unprotected on the farther side of the mountain. Would they see it? Would they take the bait?

  Only fanatics would have scrambled up those tumbled, ice-covered rocks with a fire raging in their faces, but twenty or thirty of the Karsites did just that. And Lan allowed them to slip across. There were, after all, twenty or so Valdemaran scouts on this side, just waiting for a target that they could shoot full of arrows!

  But before anyone else took courage from that move, he slid the barrier over, so that the gap was now on the opposite side. But this time, it was a gap bordered by cliff on one side, and fire on the other; anyone who dared it would not be able to escape by climbing higher if the fires moved again.

  No one tried it. Not all the exhortations of the officers could force Karsite fighters into the jaws of that trap. Lan chuckled with angry pleasure, as shouts came to him faintly from below. Good! Fight among each other! The more you fight, the better for us!

  Perhaps it was the presence of the Dark Servants that kept the rank and file from revolting entirely against their leaders. Despite the loss of their shrine and their execution fires, the sinister priests remained at the forefront of the army, given wide berth by the common soldiers, but an ever-present threat against desertion. Perhaps there were more of them at the rear of the army; that would explain why Lan hadn’t been able to get the Karsites to retreat.

  :There are,: Kalira said shortly. :The Karsites fear their priests more than our fires. So far they have been too busy preventing desertion to call up any of their demons, but if we give them a moment of rest, they will. They don’t need a ritual fire—a knife to a victim’s neck will do just as well.:

  More activity down below hinted that the leaders had gotten enough volunteers to agree to attempt the gap—so before they could try, Lan shifted the fire-line backward and to the side again, closing the gap, but leaving the slope open once more.

  “Try it again, you bastards!” he shouted down at them, keeping his anger as hot as the fires, though his knees quaked with exertion and his hands shook. He balled his trembling hands into fists and brandished them at the men below. “Go ahead and see what you get!”

  :POL, we’re here in good time! Lavan holds the pass—he’s letting small groups through, but we can take them!:

  Pol clenched both hands in Satiran’s mane with relief. “The Heralds have gotten to the battlefield. Lavan is holding the pass, my Lord,” he said to the Lord Marshal. “Evidently he can’t keep it completely blocked, but he’s managing it so that only small groups are getting through at the moment, small enough that our Heralds and archers can deal with them.”

  He sensed the Lord Marshal’s relief, but it was only momentary. “The boy can’t hold forever,” came the gruff reply. Pol heard nothing more, but knew that the Lord Marshal had retreated within himself weighing alternate plans.

  “Pass the word,” Weldon said at last. “I want the light cavalry to drop their archers and proceed ahead at their best speed. Have the heavy cavalry take the archers left behind at their stirrups.” A man hanging onto a stirrup could make better time than one without that aid; it would slow this group a bit,
but the light cavalry, skirmishers all, were of more use sent ahead. They couldn’t be more than a candlemark from the battlefield now.

  Satiran tossed his head with excitement, as he and Pol watched the nimble, lightly-built horses, black and sorrel, chestnut and gray, leaping forward into the snow, blue-clad riders bent over their necks, blue-and-silver lance pennons lashing in the wind. Hooves thundered away into the trees ahead, leaving behind only the echoes of their departure rumbling between the mountains above, and the churned-up snow below.

  The departure of the light cavalry seemed to somehow give more energy to the rest of the army. Or perhaps it was that the battle was so near at hand—but drooping heads came up, weary eyes sparked with excitement, and plodding feet found the strength to pick up the pace.

  More mind-voices gave Pol information. :He’s moving the barrier again—about a hundred got through this time. No casualties so far, but we haven’t had to close hand-to-hand yet, we’re picking them off from a distance. Damn! Archers through this time! One scout, three archers down—:

  He relayed all this faithfully to the Lord Marshal, his voice tense with anxiety, although they both knew that these were the merest of skirmishes.

  :The cavalry’s here! And they’re making mince of the Karsites!:

  That announcement sent a shiver of excitement through the entire army as it spread from man to man. Another surge of new energy—this time born of the rivalry between light and heavy cavalry, cavalry and foot soldiers.

  “C’mon, men!” Pol heard someone shout, back behind him. “Ye want them prancin’ pony riders t’steal all the glory?”

  A roar answered the taunt, and the pace picked up yet again, to something near what fresh men could manage. Pol and Satiran needed no urging to take a harder pace.

  :They’re coming through in larger groups now—:

  When Pol reported that, the Lord Marshal said nothing, except, “listen; your ears are younger than mine. We’ve got to be getting near them! Can you hear the sounds of fighting yet?”

  “No,” Pol replied, as Satiran strained his neck forward, as if by doing so he could urge the army on faster than it was going already. “Not yet—” But every step brought them nearer, and as he strained his ears, trying to shut out the closer sounds of hoofbeats, jangle of harness, and grunting of men, he thought he heard something—

  They breasted their way through tall, thick-grown pines that towered over their heads and muffled sound, following on the track of the mounted fighters that had gone on ahead. Pol looked up at the sky and the mountain ahead. The smoke was certainly closer.

  :The barrier’s too short. They’re coming through!:

  “I hear them!” Pol exclaimed, the faint echoes of shouts and shrieks, the clang of metal-on-metal finally penetrating the screen of trees. “They must be on the other side of this forest!”

  That was enough; the Lord Marshal gave the signal to charge, and his trumpeter blared out the call, which was picked up by trumpeters all down the line and to the rear. With a roar as of one man, the army of Valdemar charged, beating their way past hanging boughs and lunging through the snow. Pol and the Lord Marshal were carried forward on the rush.

  Their momentum carried them through the trees and into a huge mountain meadow, a vast space of snow clotted with fighters. There was no mistaking the curtain of flame rising to their right, nor the horde of tiny figures pouring through on either side of it. In the midst of the meadow, the light cavalry charged, reformed, and charged again, keeping the Karsites already there from forming a defensive square and from launching a volley of arrows at the Valdemarans. Their own archers nearer the pass kept up a steady rain of deadly arrows on those who were pouring through on either side of the flames.

  The Lord Marshal’s escort and guard shoved at the Lord Marshal and Pol, and by main force kept the little group from being carried along in the charge; they managed to get off to one side of the torrent of fighters, and a squire galloped off on his pony, searching for an elevation with a good view of the battlefield. He came back sooner than Pol expected and led them to a knee of the mountain where they arranged themselves, Pol and the Lord Marshal, surrounded by the bodyguard.

  Out in the meadow, the foot soldiers mopped up the nearest Karsites, then formed up in ranks, while the heavy cavalry flattened the Karsites in mid-meadow, allowing the light cavalry time to regroup and face off the next wave coming in.

  :Lan—where’s Lan?:

  Satiran looked up.

  There, above the pass and just visible where they stood, was a glint of fire, and a miniscule, doll-like Companion and Herald. Pol’s first thought was that they were horribly conspicuous.

  :So are we,: Satiran reminded him grimly. :So are all Heralds. Especially to Karsites.:

  LAN kept the barrier shifting, back and forth, trying to keep the Karsites from getting more than twenty or thirty men across at a time. He kept glancing at the Valdemar side of the barrier as well, hoping against hope that the scouts were not on the verge of being overwhelmed.

  The scouts were perched in a defensive group on high ground above the pass, where they were very difficult to come at, but commanded the field of fire. They’d taken that overlook right after Lan had let the first lot of Karsites through, and they’d seen what he was up to.

  The snow was littered with quiet, black-clad figures.

  The Karsites were still afraid to dare the gap at the cliff, though it was now twice as wide as it had been when Lan first opened it. They couldn’t know, thank the gods, that going over the rocks was far more deadly.

  The Dark Servants—I can’t leave them free to act—

  Now, if ever, was the time to find out if he could manage two fires at once.

  He slid the barrier over so that at least he didn’t have to keep an eye on the Karsite fighters, and turned his attention to the nearest priest.

  :You could always set fire to their robes,: he heard Kalira say in memory.

  But it was the priests who were responsible for all of this in the first place. Why should he let them escape harm while his own people as well as the fighters the priests led died?

  That thought lent him just the extra bit of anger he needed.

  A finger of flame lashed out from the barrier, and caught the nearest priest. And for the first time, he met resistance.

  The flames splayed out in all directions, as if they had struck a barrier just short of the priest—who raised his arms in a gesture of unmistakable triumph.

  With a roar that was audible above, the Karsites greeted this demonstration of their priests’ power with hysterical relief.

  No, you don’t! Lan’s response was a lash of rage that drove the dragon to even greater efforts. The wall of flame bulged, then erupted toward the priest, as the air itself ignited in a tentacle as thick as a house, completely engulfing the priest in his moment of triumph, even the air inside the priest’s lungs afire. It was over in a flash, for Lan could not burn air for long, leaving behind a black and twisted shape on the ground, still burning with blue-and-gold flames dancing above it.

  Yes! Lan laughed aloud, watching the Karsites pull away from the remains of the priest.

  He glanced away to check on the scouts, and his heart leaped with joy to see the flood of reinforcements pouring out of the trees. A hundred or more strong, they paused long enough to drop more archers on Lan’s side of the pass, then formed up as a barrier along the edge of the trees.

  Hah! Lan moved his fire wall again; this time it took the stunned Karsites a little longer to make the run for the opening, but the opening was much larger now, and more of them got through. As they ran, Lan caught sight of another priest near enough to the wall to make a try for.

  This one was quicker than the first—younger, perhaps—and as the tongue of flame licked toward him, he managed to sprint to safety. Lan growled deep in his throat, frustrated.

  :Lan, he ran from you. That alone will undermine him.:

  Perhaps; but he felt the same as a h
awk whose rightful prey has somehow left him with nothing but a talonful of fur.

  Time to shift the barrier again; fuel was running out.

  This time, the gap between the cliff and the fire was too big and too tempting; for the first time, fifty or more Karsites flooded through, this time with the priest that had escaped Lan’s fire chasing them from behind.

  Straight into the arrows of the new archers, and the priest was the first to fall.

  Lan jigged in place with savage joy.

  But there was no denying the fact that he was losing his effectiveness. Every time he shifted the barrier, more Karsites got through; fighting below was no longer one-sided as more of the Karsites managed to survive the gauntlet of fire and arrows. It was no longer groups of fifty getting through, it was a hundred or more, and the press of those on the other side of the barrier grew as it became clear that Lan wasn’t creating the impassible defense it first seemed. Nor could he catch another priest unaware, though he tried—even tried to get them two and three at a time. They were aware of his reach now, and dashed out of the way at the first sign of activity in the barrier. By now they were over the burned area on their side of the barrier, and there was nothing to ignite beneath them.

  New motion on his side caught his attention—the light cavalry! He felt a surge of new energy as they charged through the trees and into the massed Karsite forces. He didn’t dare watch for too long—but surely, surely, the rest of the army couldn’t be too far behind!

  Please, please come quickly—

  It wouldn’t be long now before his barrier reached a point where the mountainsides on both ends fell away, and it would be totally ineffective. Already the scouts and the Valdemaran archers had been forced to move to keep from being overrun by the flames.

  Damn you! Leave us alone!

  Oh, how he hated them! With every glimpse of a blue-clad body lying still in the snow, he hated them more!