by Robert Brady
“This may be the last time,” the Aschire growled at him. Haldan had it now—this was the infamous Nina, guardian of the Emperor’s children. She possessed some of Shela’s magic, or at least her teachings of it.
These little tricks popping up certainly kept one on one’s toes.
“I’ll kill squirrel as readily as anything else,” Xinto replied, and quite slanderously. King Glennen had referred to the Aschire as ‘squirrels,’ while Emperor Mordetur had befriended them.
Haldan gathered his energy, first repairing his bleeding hand, and then readying himself to try a wall of force against this Aschire. As much as he’d love to just end her young life, she’d be of use in dealing with the Emperor when all of this had ended.
Faster even than his Uman-Chi eye could follow, Xinto and Nina drew and fired, the Scitai from one of the cross-pistols his people were notorious for, the Aschire from her bow. The two shafts passed each other in mid air above him, as he readied the wall for the girl, should she survive.
Nina spun on her heel and caught the arrow in her right hand—a neat trick he hadn’t seen before. Apparently neither had Xinto, because it gave him just a moment’s pause, and that moment found an Aschire shaft embedded in the front of his robe, his tiny body cast to the ground.
From behind Xinto, more than one hundred armed Confluni charged to his rescue. Haldan Evoprosee raised his hand to cast his wall of force.
Before him, a giant of a man, on a giant of a black stallion, pointed a lance at his midriff.
“Think that’s what you want to do?” the Man asked him, in rough Uman.
It was a moment before he recognized the outworlder summoned by Glynn Escaroth, the one who’d called himself ‘Bill.’
“Sirrah?” he was incredulous. He’d been swarmed with Theran Lancers now, his rescuers destroyed. He stood tenuously, the lance point at his bosom.
“I think you don’t want to cast spells now,” this Bill said. “I think you want to stand and be quiet.”
Well, the last thing he wanted was that! However, the advice seemed sage, for what he saw about him.
To the north, ruin. Glynn had failed them, and the archers she’d tried to protect were overrun. To the West, with no magical support, the Lancers battered their Confluni allies, who could do little more than wave spears at them as they passed, in hopes of hooking an exposed leg, wither or fetlock.
To the south they’d fared better, and opened up a channel in the terrain torn up by young Aniquen. It was no wonder the Uman-Chi advised the King—he acted a marvel! Confluni poured south in retreat even now, through that opening, with no resistance.
They’d get away with more than half their army, if only Avek Noir held the east. He couldn’t see to that side, although the sulfur smell in the air informed him that Lava Rain had fallen.
This Bill prodded his chest with the lance point. Clearly the Man meant to use the thing, and poor hospitality to those who’d brought him here! Watching the Man carefully, he began the spell that would take him back home to Trenbon, to report to his King.
“Stop him!” he heard. An arrow embedded itself in his shoulder, another in his upper arm. He spoke the last words through gritted teeth as he removed himself from this place, for the other.
As he transitioned, he heard the words, “Bill! What are you doing?” in the language of Men, then he was passing out at the steps of the palace of Outpost IX.
* * *
Avek Noir had sworn a solemn oath never to raise a hand to the Emperor, Rancor Mordetur and, for twelve years, had lived by it.
When Angron Aurelias had sat him down in his private chambers in Outpost IX, he’d been updated as to the relative importance of such things.
“As far as we can tell,” Angron had informed him, personally, “the Emperor has massed an army of over one hundred thousand, in order to march on the rest of Fovea.”
Avek had straightened his back in the ‘alert supplicant,’ position, and turned his chin up in shock. “So many?”
Angron nodded. “Clearly, we are to blame for this. We—and this song of Glynn’s.”
Angron seemed close to weeping. He’d wrung his thin-fingered hands. “If we allow this,” he said, “then Fovea is lost, us with it, as the Wolf’s hunger surpasses even what we can imagine.”
“What, then?” Avek had asked, but he already knew. As soon as the Emperor of Eldador had left, Angron had treated with the Emperor of Conflu. Those two met for one reason only.
Never successfully.
“We cannot defeat this army,” Angron said, “so instead we shall starve it out. The Confluni will send an army of fifty thousand onto the Andurin Peninsula, and push south, into the fertile center of Eldador, just as soon as we are sure the Emperor is massed.”
“Better not after?” Avek had argued, but no. After, there was no telling where this army would go. Were Conflu attacked, then it would be unlikely they would send a force so large.
“I have assured the Confluni that the Emperor will strike Sental,” Angron said. “This army will be a ruse, however. The Emperor will not leave his nation while under attack.”
“He’ll destroy it easily with twice their number,” Avek said. “He’s done as much with far less.”
Angron nodded. “And when he does, our Volkhydran allies will sweep into his port at Thera.”
“He’s staging at Thera?” Avek found that difficult to believe. He’d want someplace more quiet—all the world went to Thera now.
Angron shook his head. “He’s staging at Uman City,” the wise king said. “He’ll see the trap, and he’ll pull his troops away from Uman City, waiting for us to descend upon it. Meanwhile, as his Theran garrisons are emptied, the Volkhydrans will descend on that city, loot and burn it.”
“Guaranteeing the Emperor will then crush the invaders from Conflu, then bring his monstrous army to Volkhydro,” Avek asserted.
Angron nodded. “Where we shall be in wait for him, good Avek,” he said. “Now, with limited supplies, fewer troops and his favorite city destroyed, he will seek a retaliatory strike and be met with the combined Fovean armies.”
“Surely he’ll know,” Avek began, but stopped himself.
“He’ll know,” Angron said, “and he will come anyway, to prove he can beat us.”
Angron had played the coward king to Lupus, because he knew Avek would report everything he heard to the Emperor to whom he owed fealty. Lupus, now, would be caught unawares, thinking the vassal of twelve years would certainly not turn now.
Twelve years was slightly more than the taking of a breath to an Uman-Chi. With more than three hundred years behind him, Avek remembered that day at Uman City, Outpost V, as if it were yesterday.
And so, for his king, he betrayed his oath. He reconciled himself to have no children, as they would be cursed anyway. He reconciled himself to lose all he had, be that the will of Adriam.
Little enough to do to stop this menace.
Now Avek faced the charging Angadorian Knights, some of whom he’d already killed, sealing his fate. He called the fire, the Lava Rain, to do so again.
This time they’d angled to the north, to skirt his defenses. He cast and, as he did so, to a single warrior, they stopped.
The Lava Rain fell harmless to the ground, out of the way of their charge, as the army backtracked to pick a new way west.
He tried to call the rain again, but it was too soon. He’d let his mind wander, been distracted, been fooled, and left depleted. His enemy had already found the path, and all that would stand up to them would be the courage of the Confluni warriors.
For however long that would last.
* * *
Seated on Little Storm, Jack looked down the length of his lance to see a flash and then nothing. A ‘snap’ registered in his head, like a metal rod breaking, almost as an after affect. He saw spots and realized that, whatever the magic, this Uman-Chi had escaped him.
“Goddammit,” he swore, in English.
“Bill!�
�� he heard to his left. He turned to see Melissa—Raven—on an Eldadorian warhorse, their dog at her feet.
The dog had a few scratches on her shoulders and her tongue lolled. She shook her head and flung slobber in gobbets all around her. She’d been busy. He’d heard warriors cursing the dog that had been knocking them from their saddles.
That made sense to him, in retrospect.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. The brown eyes looked tired and hurt. He’d been dreading this.
“The boy needed me,” he said, simply.
Around them, the Theran Lancers under Vulpe were disengaging. He needed to break away with them.
“The boy?” she pressed him. Her long, dark hair hung in heavy wet strands. “Vulpe—you mean him? The one who called you ‘grandfather?’”
Jack nodded. “He’d be dead,” Jack said. “You don’t know—they captured his mother.”
“Bill, he’s our enemy,” she insisted. “After everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve done—”
Bill shook his head. “Have you talked to Vedeen?” he asked.
She knit her eyebrows. “What?”
He had to go. He turned his head to look over his left shoulder and made eye contact with Two Spears, then turned back to Melissa.
“She said something about how it isn’t that we don’t understand the song, but that we aren’t asking the right questions.
“Talk to her, hunny,” he said. Then he kicked Little Storm and the big stallion turned.
“Bill, no,” he heard her telling him. “You’re not going.”
The ground around him began to smolder. Raven had been learning magic. Apparently she’d been getting good at it. Little Storm tried to lift a foot, then replaced it.
Any other horse would probably have gone nuts.
Jack didn’t turn around. “Let me go,” he told her.
“Bill,” she said again.
He turned at that. “The name is Jack,” he said, looking right into her soft brown eyes. This killed him. He should love this girl. She should be right beside him.
But he’d been told to protect her, that without him, she would fail, and once he’d thought about it, he’d realized what that meant.
“Don’t go…” she whimpered.
“Stop it, Raven,” he told her. “Stop it right now.”
Little Storm lurched forward. He turned his back to her without a good-bye. Ahead he could see the Prince looking over his shoulder at him. Little Storm started to trot and he heard the dog follow him for a few paces, then Melissa—Raven—called her back.
Good enough, he thought. She’d need the dog more than he.
* * *
Arath of the Daff Kanaar stood atop a hill overlooking a shallow bowl where Angadorian Knights had camped just hours before. The remains of their jess doonar showed disrespect for Earth.
Arath was not a religious Man, but he respected Earth deeply, for the secrets he had learned from the god, and for the many favors he’d enjoyed in his life, which Arath attributed to Him.
Lupus, for his many flaws, had always shown a love of Earth. He destructed his jess doonar, healed the land behind him, covered wastes and washed out cook fires.
Arath smiled to himself, sitting his Angadorian gelding, Socks, named by Vulpe, the Emperor’s son. He and Lupus shared a rivalry famous across Fovea, competition as the best general alive.
Lupus the more-famous. Lupus the more-celebrated. Lupus his liege-lord, truth be told.
But Lupus’ plans had gone too far, and when that happened, Lupus knew who to call.
Now Confluni by the tens of thousands were marching double-time away from a crushing defeat at the hands of Theran Lancers and Angadorian Knights. Not good enough, Arath knew. From here they’d fortify, establish themselves, and be nearly impossible to dislodge. The bowl’s natural defenses made a mounted attack suicide and an attack on foot costly. The remains of this jess doonar would only make them stronger.
Which, of course, was why Arath had come out of the north to meet them with 10,000 Daff Kanaar out of Uman City, under the command of Scarlet Nantar, who’d come on foot and stood in his armor at Arath’s stirrup.
“You’re ready for a fight then?” the Warrior in Red asked him, a huge grin on his face.
“Have to be in this line of work,” he said. “What have we?”
“Ten thousand foot, forced march from Uman City after forced march from Metz. Made it here in spectacular time—just five days.”
Arath frowned. “Should have taken ten,” he said, “What good are they to me if they’re exhausted?”
“Well, your Confluni are exhausted,” Nantar said, “and we only did a few miles today. I marched the hell out of ‘em the first three days then cooled ‘em down the fourth. Yesterday all they did was sleep. Surprised you didn’t hear ‘em snoring.”
Arath grinned. “So you claim my men are ready to go.”
Nantar nodded. “In so many words,” he said. “You’re starting to sound like Thorn.”
Arath snorted. “Where is your other wife?” he asked. “Can’t remember the last time one of you wasn’t in the other’s shadow.”
“He’s taking care of Black Lupus, of course,” Nantar said. “We know better than to leave him alone.”
Arath nodded. They did know better. Lupus would do something ridiculous, just to prove he could, and then they’d all have hell to pay.
Below them, the Confluni were filling the bowl and building up the defenses of the abandoned jess doonar. “How long did you want to let them keep doing that?” Nantar asked him.
“Not much longer,” Arath said. “I want more shovels in hand than swords, and more Confluni in the bowl than just these. We’re going to be down in it, no point in having someone come up behind us, do to us what we just did to them.”
Nantar nodded. “And the boy?” he asked. “Lupus’ son?”
“The man, you mean,” Arath said. He’d been contacted by Dilvesh, who’d been contacted by Lupus’ oldest daughter, Lee, who’d been contacted by one of Lupus’ wizards in Uman City. “Not only is he a blooded warrior now, but he—”
“I know, I know,” Nantar said, motioning him quiet with one hand. He squinted up at the woodsman, and added, “Wouldn’t you know the son would turn out like the father?”
“Usually it’s the mother,” Arath said. “Aren’t your daughters more like you?”
Nantar’s twin daughters, born at the same time as Vulpe, Nanette and Thorna, were notorious tomboys whom, as soon as they’d stood on their own feet, pulled off their dresses for breeches and the nearest sharp object.
“Living on the Andaran plains with Thorn’s people,” Nantar said. “Shela’s advice, thinks they’ll be more like me, not less.”
“Mother Water should awake,” Arath said. He noted the exodus into the bowl had become a trickle, and someone had finally gotten the idea to send scouts up the hills.
“It’s time,” he said. “Don’t suppose we’ll get any help from those brave Theran Lancers?”
Nantar smiled. “Return the favor?” he asked, incredulous. “Not likely. Now that they’ve warmed ‘em up for us, they’ll be getting contacted by a few fast-footed fellows I brought with me.”
Nantar pulled the huge broadsword from over his shoulder. Behind him, his warriors were already assembled in the patchwork of squads that had come to be know as Wolf Soldier formation.
“Vulpe Mordetur,” he said, “has other orders.”
Chapter Thirteen
Wolf Soldiers
Admiral Geledar Taboorin of the Trenboni Imperial Fleet had taken it as a point of honor to come himself upon the Tech Ship flag ship, My Lady’s Lovely Way, in escort of four hundred Volkhydran warships and twenty thousand warriors of the same nation.
Packed to the gills with their armor and their courage, the smaller, more maneuverable vessels skipped along the swells on Tren Bay, some of them recommissioned after years in dry dock, some of them converted back from fishing vess
els, some of them barely painted and with green planks.
Thirty Tech Ships, the remains of a once-proud Trenboni fleet, fanned out before them, en route to Thera, the jewel of Eldador.
“Land, ho!” the Uman sailor from the crow’s nest called.
“Where away?” the ship’s captain returned.
“One point to starboard, beaches and shoals,” the watch returned.
Taboorin turned to his Uman-Chi captain. “Isn’t that awfully soon?” he asked. They shouldn’t have made landfall until tomorrow.
“We may have caught a following current,” the captain said. The expression on his face was clear, however. Unless Tren Bay had somehow become smaller, they’d come too fast.
Taboorin was old by Uman-Chi standards, in his seventh century. He counted himself one of the few survivors of the Battle of the Deceptions on the Trenboni side, and not for want of fighting. Out-gunned and out-maneuvered, he’d escaped through Eldadorian Fire and a sky full of lightening to tell his tale to his King.
He didn’t do that by taking anything for granted.
“Send out the Red, Red Mist of Dawn, and the Warm Kiss of Life, to investigate,” he commanded. “To the rest of the fleet, ninety degrees to starboard and hold positions. If this is a trick—”
“Alarm, alarm!” the crow’s watch cried. From directly before them, the scene wavered and what had looked like land became instead the square-rigged masts of the Eldadorian Fleet.
“Sea Wolves!” he heard the cry. His own blood ran cold. He saw the glistening brass funnels on the port side of three of them, meaning they were equipped with Eldadorian Fire.
“We’re undone!” the Captain cried. “Crow’s Watch, how many?”
“I’ve counted fifty masts,” the Uman returned, his voice wavering. “And I’ve more to count.”
“So many?” the Captain asked of the Admiral. The older Uman-Chi said nothing, taking stock of their situation.
That their plan had failed went without saying—no one had given them a promise of success, merely an opportunity at trying. In this case, they were to break for Chatoos if they could and Trenbon otherwise. It was foolishness to assume they’d reach either. They’d be no match for even half this number, and they’d never outrun the Sea Wolves.