by Damien Lake
“Until we move our own pieces in place.” Sloan shunned Celerity’s pessimism.
Kineta cut in. “Unless soldiers keep pouring through the pass, Sloan! And with those hell-beasts they keep, they don’t need to match us man-to-man!”
“Do you think we can’t win against them?” Sloan asked his peer.
Sergeant Kineta wrinkled her nose, replying acidly, “Why don’t you tell me, cabbage? You got the head on you!”
“They can be fought,” Sloan stated easily to both Kineta and Celerity. “Like any specialist force, our tactics must be adapted to their strengths. That is all.”
“Specialist—” Kineta sputtered until Celerity spoke over her.
“Perhaps they can be fought, sergeant, but not by you or your small company. The Arm will lead the Seventh Regiment to join with the two southernmost divisions, Henodd’s among them.”
Marik interjected against his better judgment and his decision not to poke into the affairs between higher officers, “Do you know what in the hells those beasts are?”
Kineta left his head on his shoulders, meaning the sergeant must have intended to ask the same question sooner or later. “No,” Celerity admitted. “They match no description familiar to me. A team is in the royal library researching the matter.”
“Books and records,” Kineta spat. “For all you know these beasts have never been seen before by any Galemaran.”
“The palace’s library is hardly so limited, sergeant. Regardless of what might be unwritten, any research may prove invaluable in our plans to deal with the creatures.”
Sloan, uninterested in such abstracts as mythological histories, returned to the issue at hand. “Escaping tonight provides us the best odds.”
“Breaking back through to ally territory during the assault will grant you the greatest protection,” she countered. “When we break this command head stationed by the forest’s edge, their attention will be centered on the forces assaulting them. You will be able to slip around and rejoin the kingdom fighters without difficulty.”
“And provisions?” Kineta asked. “Each man only has whatever mouthfuls of jerked beef he stowed in his pack!”
“Are you shy of qualified hunters among your archers?”
“Archers?” She snorted in wry amusement. “My unit has three bowmen. Fourth Unit has one archer and a crossbow that’s about the only thing effective against the hell-beasts. We can’t afford to waste the quarrels! And sending our men out into this haunted forest is as ‘inadvisable’,” she quoted Celerity’s words back at her, “as running deeper south to flank the enemy units already in-forest.”
Celerity bore no love for the sergeant’s wit, especially so on top of admitting earlier that no one had ever learned much about the Rovasii’s sentience. The chief mage had simply suggested they refrain from going deeper in than they already were, if they could avoid it. Hardly new advice.
“Maybe I can help with that,” Marik said to forestall a heated argument between the two willful women. “We won’t have to wander at random through the trees if I find the closest deer. I saw a couple earlier. Edwin can come with me and we’ll bring back enough meat.”
Celerity took that as the final nail in the coffin of further protestations. What she and the knight-marshal wanted, she explained, was for this invading general, or field marshal, or whatever he might be, to feel that his fast advance had left his enemies thunderstruck. Hopefully he would believe his position secure and unknown. If so, then a hard strike by two regiments of fighting men far south of where they should have begun their countermeasures might topple the enemy command structure before it could find a stable balance.
“And if you are caught slinking around under his very nose,” she harshly directed at Sloan, “that might shake any overconfidence he might be harboring! You will stay there until the assault, and only then will you attempt to move!”
She sealed it with her own authority and invoked the knight-marshal’s for good measure. Celerity extracted their acknowledgement as officers before vanishing from the glass.
Kineta spit venomously to clear a foul taste from her mouth. Sloan gazed blankly at the mirror for six or seven heartbeats before addressing Marik. “See to the hunting, and be quick about it. The night and the hollow will hide the smoke of a cook fire.”
Marik slipped away with the mirror, glad to leave them both behind. He collected Dietrik to go hunting as well, figuring that an extra blade would be welcome should his magesight be unable to steer them around all the black soldiers in the night. Dietrik nodded, and though Marik half-expected his friend to gloat over being correct that the mirror had proven useful after all, he only remained solemn. Probably he dwelled on the fight ahead and calculated what role they would play in it.
Edwin perked up for the first time Marik had seen since the battle in the pass. He collected his gear in short order, ready to hunt. Several First Unit men joined them to act as donkeys for carrying the fresh meat back to the camp. They passed Kineta still lurking near the narrow crevice.
So, Marik silently thought, it looks like we’ll be going home after all, provided we kill a deer large enough to feed us for two or three days. But he remembered clearly how battle plans never outlasted the first engagement, and wondered how the coming clash would play out in truth.
* * * * *
“Sub-Major Fective, Sub-Major Ceede, take your regiments to the town at the pass’s base. Over-Captain Owden will direct you to reinforce the soldiers in-kingdom according to unit distribution.”
The two officers saluted General Adrian crisply before spinning on their heels to lead the thousand men assigned to each. Adrian addressed Major Sereno. “You stay and hold this pass. Keep our route through the mountains secure.”
Major Sereno also saluted, though without the whip-crack movement of arm as his two subordinates. As a full major, he could risk questioning his general, albeit carefully. “Sir. Are you certain? We have left most of our men too far behind to arrive quickly. The natives still persist in their refusal to give over. I would wager my pension that our forces will spend three months securing their hold on the newly taken Tullainian lands before they will be free to begin subjugating this side of the range.”
Adrian stared at him before responding, as if he had needed a moment to craft a suitable answer. “Speed will be the essence in this stage, major. We dallied too long before and allowed the foreign land the opportunity to plague us with its own attacks.”
Sereno looked dubious. He cast his gaze over the view from the high pass. “This kingdom looks far greener that the dry waste behind us. These people will be adept at using their terrain to their advantage. Haste may cost us, sir.”
Again Adrian paused before answering. “This kingdom’s army is still bleeding from its war with their neighbor, by all reports. They will be less of a hassle than the brown-skinned amateurs who have already fallen before us. I will keep Colonel Harbon nearby, if that eases your worries, and my own personal guards in addition to his men.”
Major Sereno saluted. His concern still hovered around him in a cloud, no appreciably thinner than before. Adrian spurred his mount down the slope.
The two-hundred soldiers forming the general’s personal guard wrapped around them while he rode, Harbon at his side. They thundered toward the flatland in a rumble of cavalry, eight-hundred hooves pounding their beat on the shuddering earth. Two divisions, both under the colonel’s command, waited to great them. Once they swallowed the lesser company, over a thousand men set out south at a sedate pace.
Adrian stared ahead, apparently deep in thought while his men watched for danger despite this area having been cleared by the initial strike force. Harbon rode at his stirrup, the few low exchanges presumed by the men to be quiet discussions concerning the campaign.
“We will arrive by tomorrow afternoon, barring unforeseen circumstances,” Harbon whispered. “But to be on the safe side, perhaps you should collect the Taur forces along the way.”
&nbs
p; “Should I collect the Taur forces along the way?” Adrian asked in a dreamy whisper.
“Yes, you should, Adrian. Any uninitiated soldiers we take into the forest will need to die once we reach the heart. While that would serve a noble purpose, better, I think, to take only the Taurs to deal with any…surprises, that might have been left behind.”
“I should collect the Taur forces along the way.”
“Yes. You are wise, my general.”
“I should collect the Taur forces along the way.” Adrian’s voice rose in a strong command. “You! Send out messengers to find all the Taur packs between here and the southern command! Order them to proceed directly to Mendell’s camp with all speed!”
“Sir! Yes, sir!” The guardsman wove his horse through the unmounted soldiers to exit the throng.
“An astute command, general, sir,” Harbon nodded. In a lower voice he added, “Very smart indeed. Are you excited, Adrian? Can you feel the winches and gears of the world spinning faster as the Day of Glory approaches?”
Adrian had taken to staring ahead. That was well, too. The general would understand soon enough, when the obsidian knife freed his sweet life energy to serve a higher cause. And he was not alone. Many faithful Taur controllers had managed to join the first ranks through the pass with Mendell. Harbon would take them into the forest. Any heathen controllers among them could be left beyond the trees with Mendell, or dealt with easily enough once away from the soldiers.
Harbon felt the delectable pull grow with every step closer to the trees his mount brought him. Soon. Soon. Soon. Once Adrian’s hot blood coated his hands and his energy was used to shatter the last shields around their prize…oh, the magnificence! The glory!
To the men around, he seemed calm as he sat his horse, but inside he danced in exultant ecstasy.
Chapter 34
Right there. Right there, and there is nothing I can do about it!
:Impossible! Will you allow an outlander to claim his life? Will his blood stain an outlander’s steel rather than our own because you are too much of a coward to claim our rights?:
I am no coward! I will go there alone if I must!
Yes, he would claim the Dead Man’s life, the commander of these murderers. What did it matter if the price demanded would be his own in return? How would he reach that imposing tent, though?
A war raged below the tree he perched in. The day was two candlemarks past the dawn. As the damnable mage had promised, kingdom forces had descended half a mark earlier to attack the invaders’ base camp. They would have robbed Colbey of his long-sought prize were it not for the Taurs that had begun arriving late in the night. Forty already milled in a loose pack outside the tents near the forest. Their numbers doubled when more continued trickling in after sunrise. Until the surprise assault.
The powerful monsters not only prevented the Galemarans from destroying the five-hundred man camp, they were effective enough to nullify the kingdom forces’ advantage. Eighty massive, terrifying Taurs fought alongside the black soldiers to hold back a full regiment and two divisions. Two-thousand Galemaran soldiers should have run roughshod over these foreigners in their lands.
But these pitiful outland fighters were astonishingly naïve, allowing their shock at seeing the Taurs to freeze their hand and immobilize their legs. Easy prey for the savage beasts, who slaughtered dozens without receiving a single counterattack.
Stupid fools! Their own deaths contribute nothing except to demoralize their shieldmates. Astounding how half-witted these dullards are, throwing away their lives to no purpose. If they had any skill at all, they should distract the Dead Man’s men enough to allow me to slip through.
As of yet, the Taurs surrounded most of the eastern camp, fighting the Galemarans. Black soldiers fought to the sides, none daring to come between the snarling monsters. The idiot leading the surprise assault, a fool riding along the frontline’s rear, holding his sword high and encouraging the men to a quicker death, still failed to order flankers to move around the black soldiers and attack where the defense was weaker.
Most of the enemy soldiers were either fighting or positioned in the western camp. The leader, the Dead Man, kept enough guards around his tent to void any chance that Colbey could close enough to make the kill.
So damned close, yet still beyond his grasp! He felt pain in his stomach, watching the battle unfold. A fiery knife stabbed at his midriff, churning his guts. The whole long hunt, and here, now, his quarry stood less than a mile distant. All his skill as a Guardian would be for naught.
:We need an opening,: Liam whispered. :With so much activity on their eastern flanks, their men and attention is centered there. A strike against their rear would shatter them.:
Yes. But the fool rider hasn’t re-deployed his men. And if he does, they will move to counter.
:The Dead Man has kept his own guards in the rear with him. All we need to do is draw them off. Or less than that! Disrupt their formation enough, and that will suffice. You have the skill to pass through then, a shadow slipping through the cracks.:
Colbey’s eyes narrowed. The encampment lay slightly less than a mile east of the Stoneseams. They had kept from pitching their camp on the Rovasii’s immediate border, leaving a half-mile buffer between their tents and the trees.
With such opposition washing against their defenses, they could not afford to pull fighters off the front. Colbey smiled, teeth glinting in the morning light.
He swung down from the tall tree. Timing would be critical.
Quick minutes later he dodged through the trees abutting the crevice hiding his ‘shieldmates’. A sudden urge to laugh welled from within, which he choked down. It would not do to seem anything other than professional.
The two sergeants waited inside the entrance. Across from them sat the mage, no doubt itching to find a new way to interfere. He had proven most troublesome by upsetting Colbey’s plans in numerable ways. Both sergeants sought his second opinion every time he wanted them to move according to his greater purpose. It proved the wisdom in the village’s philosophy; mages were never to be trusted, the worst breed of outlander miscreant.
Let him attempt to do so this time. Whatever he saw with his queer perceptiveness would be nothing except the unvarnished truth, or as much as Colbey wanted him to see.
“It is time to move. The battle has started. They are too close to the trees to pass between, so we will move north, along the mountains. All the enemies nearby have moved south to join the battle. The field will be clear.”
“We heard,” Kineta responded with a quick glance at the mage. So the mage had already been out to look, had he? Did he want only to monitor the enemies, or had he been spying on him?
Probably the later. This disgusting mage has crossed me at every available opportunity. Now he follows me with his witchcraft, prying into business of no concern to him! How dare he!
Colbey kept his face neutral while his fingernails dug into his palms in knife points. “Once we travel two miles, we will cut back east, then south to rejoin the divisions attacking.”
“Why make such a large loop?” Sloan demanded. Colbey’s glare nearly slipped past his control before he stopped it. “If we dash through the trees, we can meet with the army in less than a quarter of the time.”
“I saw black soldiers swarming their southern tents. It might only be a rally to redouble their defensive efforts, but it might be a prelude to fleeing into the trees. Do you wish two or three-hundred black soldiers coming upon you?”
“Let’s go, Sloan,” Kineta said with traces of weariness. “We haven’t run afoul of this ‘haunted forest’,” she mocked in the mage’s direction, “but the sooner we’re on the move, the better.”
Sloan arched a silent question at the mage, who stood with his friend and stepped closer. “I haven’t sensed anything about the forest yet,” he awkwardly informed his sergeant, “but we haven’t gone in very far. Still, with all this…this noise, I guess, or presence from the battle, the Rov
asii might wake up, or take notice, or do whatever it does.”
The Fourth’s sergeant spoke to Kineta. “Fine. We will leave the trees to the ghosts. Let’s move.” She frowned, not caring for Sloan’s apparent blessing, or what it implied about who had the final say between them.
Colbey spoke before they could penetrate deeper into the hollow to gather their men. “I will return and continue scouting in case of sudden changes.” Yes, sudden changes. And while you are all being slaughtered by the Dead Man’s guard force, he will be vulnerable! His death will be remembered a hundred generations hence, and I will make him feel pain equal to what every last one of my people suffered!
He whirled to leave when the odd voice echoed through him a second time. :Against…:
Colbey froze. He listened hard, searching his entire inner being. At his side he felt Liam and Sylvia waiting, watching over his shoulders with bloody eyes and broken bodies. Nowhere did he feel this third, this flickering specter who had found enough strength to speak, yet lacked enough to retain a presence.
Who are you? I must have known you for you to find your way to me! Have you come to lend me what strength you can as well? No reply came. He waited ten heartbeats, then a further ten beyond.
His people were restless, urging him to claim their vengeance. They felt their murderer’s presence so close to the Rovasii and their tormented souls called out for Colbey to bring his Guardian skills against their killer. It would grant them the peaceful rest they craved. That was why the third had spoken again.
Go back to the others, then. Today will finally bring the end to it. After the years of waiting, I will finally avenge you all!
His village. His people, all of them closer than family. They had made him into a warrior befitting the Guardians. Best of the best. Elite. He would use their teachings to destroy this vile commander who had dared think he could treat the village as he liked.