by Robert Brady
Vedeen watched them, then walked softly to her own skittish mount. She laid a comforting hand on his noble neck and he quieted.
The day promised to be long.
* * *
Marauder reared up as the dawn light exploded overhead. Vulpe, without even thinking, stood up in the saddle, his reins in one hand and his sword in the other, to balance himself and to take the shock of the beast’s landing.
Many other Men and Uman were thrown, even some Andarans. Uncle Two Spears almost lost his seat and had to right himself and collect his dignity as his stallion kicked the air around them.
Little Storm stood unmoving, grandfather just like him, two yards away.
His mother raised a hand aflame with power and threw fire at the enemy. However it had happened, they’d been discovered. They had to move fast or lose the advantage of a surprise attack.
“To me!” Vulpe shouted as Marauder’s hooves found the ground. “First through Sixth Millennia, to the center with me, Seventh and Eight to the south, Ninth and Tenth to the north!”
“Your Highness!” Two Spears shouted to him, as his own warriors followed Vulpe’s orders. “They’ve seen us. We can’t just attack—”
“One of their casters sensed us,” Shela countered him. “If the army were ready they’d have stayed quiet. That was a warning call to wake up and get ready.”
“She’s right,” grandfather added. “Two Spears let the buh—let him do this. No matter what happens, better to get directions from one source than two.”
Two Spears wanted to argue, but he’d been supporting father for almost a decade now. Vulpe knew he’d rather kill every man on the field and lose Thera than lose that.
His father had drilled into both of them, “Better boldly down the wrong path than indecisively to nowhere.”
The warriors had formed up into their squads in under a minute. The Ninth and Tenth were already moving, the Seventh and Eighth barely behind to their other side. Vulpe knew he wouldn’t lead the charge, as his father had, but he’d send a full Millennia ahead and command from the middle.
“Forward!” he commanded, his heart racing, his eyes seeing red in the dawn. Another white-hot ball over their heads, and another, and another, this time exploding over their horses’ heads but much closer, burning riders and bringing screams.
“Mother!” he commanded.
“On it!” she replied, and directed her acolytes. In these first stages, the very experienced casters would hang back, trying to get a sense of whom they were up against. The Confluni had no great wizards, but kept some crafty ones.
The First began the trot forward, lances raised, blowing trumpets now to tell of their coming. Behind them, dozens of women were beating kettle drums with huge mallets. The trumpets and the drums had been another of father’s creations, and only his mounted warriors sounded the trumpets. Both were designed to spread terror before the charge.
Vulpe had to hope they’d work now.
* * *
Shela Mordetur watched the first Millennia trot off to engage, the Second one with her son preparing to follow.
She’d argued for the Fifth and lost. Then the Third. To her surprise, this ‘Jack’ had argued alongside of her, and it had been her brother, Two Spears, who’d defied her. “Bad enough not in the forefront,” he’d said. “They’ll forgive him that. Any less than the Second and they’ll question his first kill.”
He’d be getting another today, no doubt of that. The Second would see combat, not clean up like the Fourth. Shela watched Nina sprinting after Marauder. She leapt up onto his butt, to wrap her arms around Vulpe’s waist as she had done so many times to his father.
Nina would bring him home safe, she knew. Shela had taught Nina more secrets than any other. Nina would, if necessary, spirit him away from the battle to her side, and suffer the indignity rather than the loss.
She’d not lose her son today.
Two of her acolytes raised their hands and called the lightening down upon the Confluni. More energy crackled over their heads. The same spell, over and over, an unworthy acolyte, if any. They knew where this one was now, tracing back the path of her attacks through the sky. She ordered the third of her acolytes, an Uman named Therbrand, to destroy this careless neophyte.
Therbrand raised an imperious hand, as over dramatic as any of his kind, and spoke the words to release balled energy. From the dimension of pain he called the Stinging Death, billions of tiny flecks, each too small to see; a swirling, whirling ball, to cast at the enemy.
He flung the ball over the ridge to find the other Wizard.
The Third Millennia trotted out behind the Second. The First must have, by now, engaged. She’d have to enhance their sight, to give them the ability to see the unseen enemy, and not endanger their own troops.
Swift as an arrow shot, along the path of the Stinging Death, an arc of pure energy caught Therbrand in the chest. He flew full thirty feet to land in a clump on the ground.
Shela and the other two ran to his side. Expecting a charred corpse, they found instead the old Uman, on his back, his chest gently rising and falling.
Slumbering. Shela read his aura, weak as a newborn babe’s.
She had come!
* * *
Karl had tried to get his Volkhydrans to build a jess doonar once. They’d overpowered him and buried him up to his neck in the dirt. When they’d finally released him, a day later, he’d had to kill four to get their respect back, but he’d never asked them again.
The Confluni had simply told him, “No.” They didn’t do things that way, even though they’d been beaten because of them so many times.
He’d tried to show a few of them how to fight Wolf Soldier style, but they’d been heavily trained in their long, steady lines, and been so successful that, again, they just didn’t see the point.
When a thousand horse thundered over the ridge to the east, they got the idea. Scrambling for their weapons and their shields, they would have loved to have walls to run to, stakes to hide behind, and ramparts to defend. Instead they drew a rope across the ground, and tried to stand at it.
Their archers might have saved them, except their arrows had been packed away for the night, close to the main cook fires to stay warm and dry and not warp in the humid spring.
In a wave behind the first thousand, another thousand topped the rise. This one had the Wolf’s head banner near the center—a member of the Imperial family, announcing him or her self.
Karl pulled his own crossbow from over his shoulder. He’d likely get a shot in, maybe two. Killing Duke Two Spears wouldn’t make the army crumble. Lupus’ infrastructure allowed another to step immediately into a fallen general’s place. Lupus himself had been separated from his troops and they’d fought on without him.
The first Confluni line planted their spears in the ground as the third Millennia of horse topped the far rise. This was too orderly, he thought. He looked to the north and the south, for the troops who’d come in behind them when these engaged.
Fire arced into their camp, destroying tents and killing warriors. Their shaggy ponies picketed close to the front were bolting and disrupting the warriors on the way to defend them.
“Sirrah, are you prepared?” Glynn demanded, gliding toward him. Raven had commented she was moving differently now, and he saw what she meant.
“Prepared to do what?” he demanded. “Witness the slaughter? Shouldn’t you be, you know?” and he wiggled his fingers.
Glynn smirked a self-satisfied smirk. “If I announce my presence too early, then I surrender the tactical advantage of my being,” she said. “I wish to see all of these troops before I am committed. Our Ravens holds the fore.”
“Raven?” Karl asked her, but immediately knew that made good sense. They couldn’t hurt Raven with their magic. In fact, they just made her stronger if they hit her. Raven should be trying to get them to attack her.
The thought of it, however, made his skin prickle.
“Sh
e has her protectors,” Glynn answered without being asked. “Slurn, of course, who is ever at her side, and the dog, who will protect her from any rogue lancer.”
“And you two have me, I suppose,” Zarshar grumbled, appearing out of the mass of warriors. He reached out a long arm and spread his gigantic hand at the enemy. Lightening flickered at his talons and formed a single stream of pure energy, which slammed out past the Confluni and into the center of the advancing Theran lancers.
Warriors and horses screamed and fell. The line wavered just as it engaged the Confluni line. In many places they broke through, all of them wheeling their mounts to the left, driving their lances into the breasts of spearmen before enemy spears could touch them. Horses screamed, warriors on both sides swore and cried out. Fireballs arced out from behind the ridge, away from their previous targets and more toward the center of the army.
“Well done, Sirrah,” Glynn said. “You have upset their charge.”
Karl spat. “I didn’t know he could do that,” he said. Most Devils rend and tear, but he remembered now Zarshar, the Black Adept, cast spells as well.
“You see—we withhold our advantage unto our need,” Glynn was smiling that little self-satisfied smile now. Behind her, he saw Raven running toward the enemy mages’ new target. They must have detected her somehow, because they immediately redirected their fire.
“Don’t be too sure of yourself,” Karl said, and ran toward the combat with his crossbow out. The second Millennia would be close, and he wanted a shot at that person in the Imperial family.
He saw for himself, a boy in heavy armor, riding a huge, gray stallion, an Aschire seated behind him. He’d have thought he was mistaken except the boy was clearly shouting orders and distinguishing himself as being in command.
Lupus had a young son. Kill the boy and Lupus himself would wreak unholy vengeance on his head, if he had to give up or spend every resource that he had to do it.
Karl didn’t kid himself that Lupus wouldn’t take this personally. He’d been the second to receive the Mark of the Conqueror, Lupus himself being the first. Karl’s glory, unwanted as it was, was a reflection on the Emperor. This would be, too.
Kill his child, and it went past personal. Lupus the Conqueror had a terrible focus when he wanted to.
Karl leveled the crossbow and lined up the crosshairs. He’d get one shot, then they’d all be on him. When Lupus’ son fell, they’d go berserk for vengeance. The boy’s armor looked almost impervious, but his face was left exposed.
He felt the tension on the trigger, he took a breath. Another horse, a huge stallion, kept getting in his way, the rider having a hard time keeping the beast in line. The horse was so large he could actually obscure the Prince’s horse entirely.
No horse was so huge. This one was a black—suddenly, Karl recognized the animal, the mighty stallion, its wild-tossed mane.
Little Storm!
* * *
“Your Grace, they’ve engaged!”
The woman leapt into their pavilion through what should have been a guarded tent flap. For a moment, Tartan thought Nina of the Aschire might be back.
He recognized Jean, however. Outside, the camp had already begun to buzz, the sun not even up yet.
“The Therans have engaged the enemy,” she repeated, her face flushed, sweat in her hair. She’d run a long way to get here.
Tartan sat straight up, casting the furs aside, revealing his breechclout and bare chest.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded enthusiastically. Yeral was pushing herself up naked from her furs at his feet. “A surprise attack at dawn, and the wizards the first to engage. Never seen that before.”
Tartan nodded. His guards were entering the pavilion now, embarrassed at the naked Duchess and the woman who’d gotten past them. Yeral pulled the furs back up to her chin.
“Tartan—must we?” she began to complain.
“Quiet,” he ordered her. He’d been brusque with her lately, a product of his focus on this enemy and the things he’d learned. She subsided with an evil glare, drawing a smirk from Jean.
“Two of you,” he ordered, singling two Uman out. “Help me with my armor. You others, find J’lek and let him know I want forty lines of one hundred. Two Spears will come right into their center; we’ll sweep in at their sides and from behind.”
The sergeant nodded and left with six other men. Two remained to help him on with his heavy plate and leggings. He wasn’t as huge as the Emperor; he’d need help getting onto his horse when he was dressed out like this. He’d commissioned a broadsword just for a battle like this, and in his mind he was already swinging it.
“Do you want me to get you something to put on?” Jean was asking a blushing Yeral. His wife nodded and glared at him.
Leave it to a woman to pick now to want all female amenities.
She’d squirmed into a dressing robe and he’d gotten on his breastplate, cuirass and greaves when J’lek entered in his usual, knee-length chainmail and a steel cap, a sword over his shoulder.
“The men will be prepared in under ten minutes,” he notified Tartan, making a fist over his heart. “I’m letting boys and girls from the refugee camp feed them mush in the saddle. The cooks, praise War, have been up for an hour.”
Tartan nodded. The horses, as well, were fed an hour before dawn, on the off chance of a dawn attack. A lethargic or cramping mount could lose the fight for his rider. Andarans always fed their mounts before the dawn and then a half-day later, for just the reason those were times where no one ever fought.
He had his sleeves and gloves on and was out the tent flap before he realized he’d left without a good-bye to his wife. A look over his shoulder didn’t show her chasing after him, just Jean with an evil look on her face, as if it were about time they got to killing.
His favorite horse, a big bay stallion with a full barrel and veined flank, stood by the lever for him. Hostlers attached cables to his breastplate, and he folded his arms across his middle as they lifted him to the the stomping animal’s saddle. It snorted, impatient and quivering with energy for the regimen of high protein it had been on.
They’d sweep like a hurricane over the ridge despite their numbers, and surprise Two Spears with a victory this day.
Someone pushed a bowl of mush into his hands. He gave the horse his heels to move it forward as he led his troops out at a trot, this woman Jean loping along at his stirrup.
Behind him, his wife watched him go, in her bare feet and her dressing robe, having been denied two kisses that morning, with her dignity. Her lady in waiting laid a tenuous hand on her should as reconciliation, but she brushed it off.
If Tartan lived, he’d answer for these slights in her good time.
* * *
The dog whose name consisted simply now of the dog bound after the female on the horse, the one who stroked her head by the fire at night and who usually fed her.
Once again another rider approached her. Once again the dog turned on her back legs and launched herself at the offending rider. Once again she bound three times and leapt for the mounted warrior with the lance, knocking him from the horse he rode and following him to the ground.
She was away before the warrior could react. She’d been trained to do this almost from when she’d been a puppy, pushing targets from the tops of barrels, then maturing to young men and women on ponies, then to full mounted men. She’d lived with other dogs, males and females of her kind. They’d lain together as a pack on a hay-strewn floor, they’d eaten together and they’d played.
It had been a good time in her life. They’d called her ‘Daisy’ then. Once in a while a male of the race of Men had taken her to his personal quarters at night, and played with her and fed her and roughed her ears. She’d lain at his feet as he read by candle light, her chin on his instep, warding him as she did these.
The dog turned from the man on the ground as Confluni warriors stabbed him with their spears. She ran after the girl on the horse agai
n, warding her. She liked this, this made sense to her. She warded the girl, she unhorsed the warriors. Later she might herd them—that was more her instinct than her training. The horses were irritating if they just roamed, they were more fun if they stood together in a circle.
She smelled blood, heard screaming and challenges—the angry sounds the two-legs made. She leapt over the body of a dying woman and her fur bristled as the girl on the horse used her magic.
The horse turned back. The dog sat on her haunches and she let it pass, catching her breath. This was the most men she’d ever unhorsed at one time—she could almost take her pick. She avoided their sharp lances as she’d been trained, she protected the girl.
When the girl on the horse took enough of a lead the dog chased off after her. She saw another warrior on another horse approaching her, and gathered herself again.
The noise, the smells, the horses—this was a really good day.
* * *
Xinto stood alongside Ymir Effecate Hagadashi Boohoori, her litter borne by twelve strong Confluni, sweating at the effort.
She’d been pulled from her pavilion to manage a battle already begun badly.
The Theran Lancers had battered their front lines in the first sweep of attack. Now commanders were trying to build up a shield and spear wall to face them, and to porter arrows to the north, where they’d be of some use in their defense.
“This boy has the nerve?” Effecate complained. She summoned a waiting commander with a wave of a plump hand. “You there, reinforce to the west and the north. When they’ve seen our archers, they’ll come after them. I want five ranks deep to defend.”
“Immediately, my lady,” the man said, and bowed, sending a runner with orders. She sent instructions to reinforce the west, and to start a strategy of giving ground to the middle.
“Is that wise, Ymir Boohoori?” a commander asked with cast down eyes.
She sneered at him, the ugly face more twisted but the eyes more shrewd. “We’ll draw them into the center, then once they’ve strayed deep, we’ll close them off and riddle them with arrows.”