Karsite swordsmen flooded the area, surrounding the horse troops and attacking from all sides. Their grim intensity and lacquered red-and-black armor made Tregaron think of ants swarming a moth.
Distant horn calls announced the arrival of the second regiment. He craned his head toward the sound and saw it advancing over the hill crest in slightly better order than the first. The newcomers made a token effort to dress ranks, then charged across the caltrop-littered ground. A few fell to the hidden spikes, but the charge went home almost unblunted.
Pikemen fell, lanced through or scattered like ninepins as the horsetroops plowed into the center of the Twenty-First's line. Swords slashed and stabbed. The din drew louder and the center units, beset by the fresh Hardorn regiment, sagged under the pressure. Trumpets blew frantically as under officers fought to hold the line. The battle hung in the balance, a race between whether the pikemen could reknit their formations or the Hardornens could split the regiment and roll it up.
Cogern took half the remaining swordsmen in the command party and went to shore the line where the fighting was thickest. Solaris followed, keeping the Oriflamme aloft. The soldiers, seeing the woman and the banner, both now stained with blood, fought harder. The pressure intensified, the battle growing more desperate as units lost cohesion. The thick, coppery smell of blood, mixed with the stink of loosened bowels and horsedung, threatened to overwhelm Tregaron, as did the clouds of dust as thick as smoke that obscured much of the field.
Twice the pressure on the command party built, and once Tregaron himself had to swing his sword against the enemy. More horncalls sounded from the right, calling for assistance. Tregaron looked around frantically. The entire right half of the line was engulfed and all reserves on that side were already committed. He had to launch a counter, something to take the pressure off the beleaguered center and right before it cracked under the Hardornens' hammerblows.
"This'll have to work," he said to himself as he summoned his remaining trumpeters. Most were dead, killed defending the relics. He pointed to two. "Go to Captain Luhann. Tell her to prepare to attack en echelon. She's to commence when she's ready. Don't wait for a signal. We're counting on her to take 'em in the flank and grind 'em into powder. Repeat."
The runner cleared his throat. "Attack en echelon when ready. Don't wait for signal." Tregaron checked the message with the other runner, then sent them to the left. He repeated the same message with two more and dispatched them to the right, though he doubted that wing of the regiment could comply.
He fretted in the minutes that followed, afraid his order had come too late, or that the Hardornens would break the line. He peered anxiously to where he could see the Oriflamme, still bravely waving. He worried about what was going on there even as a Battle or two of horsetroops made another try for the regiment's banner. More blood and more dead followed in a sharp little fight.
The Hardornens finally broke, driven from the standards by a volley of arrows fired from across his line of sight. The dust cleared and he saw the archers on the extreme left complete the echelon movement that gave them a clear shot along the regiment's long axis. Each pike company stepped off in turn, marching forward a few paces, then wheeling to the right. In the distance, Luhann made it look like a parade ground maneuver. He distantly heard her voice through the din, using a leather megaphone to yell orders to her troops. Her voice didn't have Cogern's carrying power, but she compensated well.
He considered Luhann his best triumph. The army, the fighting arm of a very male god, was as thinly populated by women as the priestly ranks. He remembered the laughter of his counterparts when he'd accepted her as a cadet. The crisp precision of her troops was all the proof he'd ever need that he hadn't been daft in appointing her to command.
A runner panted up to him. "Pikemaster Cogern sends 'is respects, sir, and asks if you're ready to close the wings yet? He says he's hanging on by 'is teeth."
Tregaron gathered his thoughts a moment before answering. "My compliments to the Pikemaster. Tell him the left has already started. He's to lure them deeper, if he can." The runner repeated the message and scampered away.
Tregaron had little to do but fret. Victory and defeat looked a lot alike in those moments, while the center remained vulnerable and the flank attack developed. His smaller force was strung out around three-quarters of the compass while a numerically superior enemy held the center. His regiment could be easily shattered and there was not a damned thing he could do about it.
He sent several squads he couldn't afford to give up to back Cogern, who had began a slow retreat in the center. The Hardornens pressed forward, sensing victory. Just when he thought the battle could get no louder, he heard a crash and clatter on the far right. The sounds of fighting there intensified. A slight breeze stirred, moving the thick dust, but not clearing it. Had the Hardornens broken through? Was all lost?
Distant trumpets sounded. The trumpeter beside Tregaron closed his eyes, listening intently to the distant signal. "First Battle reports: Attacking en echelon, Left Wheel, sir." Tregaron tried not to whoop with glee.
More trumpets blew, this time on the left. Luhann's entire battle, pikes in hand and its blood up, finished pivoting on its right heel, paused, aligned its ranks, and charged.
They crashed into the disordered Hardornens, crushing one side of the mass and working a fearful slaughter as the cavalry tried to flee. The horse archers, briefly visible though the murk, rushed to seal the trap, covering the opening between the two wings like a lid on a pot.
The bulk of two regiments were trapped. Tregaron knew his own forces were spread much too thin to hold the enemy inside, so it was time to kill as many as they could before the Hardornens broke free.
"Sound General Advance," he yelled at the remaining trumpeter. The boy nodded, blatted into his horn a few times, then sent the final command in pure ringing notes. The troops on either side of Tregaron advanced, carrying with them their standards and cheering. They smashed the weakening resistance, killing horses and riders with equal abandon.
A portion of the rear regiment cut through the thin screen of horse archers and burst out of the trap. The Hardornens scattered like wind-blown leaves as each rider fled to preserve life and health. A hot gust of wind swept the dust away, giving Tregaron a glimpse of the carnage. The entire field before him was littered with dead and dying horses and soldiers, piled three deep in some places. Hardornens cried for succor in a dozen languages.
He saw, as he walked forward across the torn and bloody field, that the leading regiment had gotten trapped between Cogern's and Luhann's units. Badly weakened by the javelins, robbed of its momentum and best fighters, it was caught in the jaws of an implacable foe. He looked at the trumpeter. "Play: No Mercy." The boy looked grim, but complied.
Ancar took no prisoners in Karse and showed no mercy. Now the favor was returned. Luhann gave the final command and Reglauf's regiment vanished under a wall of pikes.
Later, Tregaron walked among the troops laid out in groaning, screaming rows where the regiment's hedge-wizards labored to save as many as they could. He adjusted his turban, his one concession to the heat, while his helmet hung from his belt. Many of the soldiers, busy tidying the battlefield or finishing the wounded Hadornens, had also removed their helms. Even Cogern, who normally would have blistered the troops for such a lapse, kept his silence. He also, Tregaron noted wryly, kept his helmet.
He glanced back at the wounded. The regiment had suffered three hundred casualties, a twenty-percent loss. It was a light butcher's bill considering the desperate nature of the fight, but still far too heavy. Tregaron took each dead and wounded soldier as a personal failure, his losing Karse's most precious resource.
The Hardornens had lost much worse than he, at least five times his numbers killed, one regiment destroyed, and another scattered. Still, Hardorn recruited the scum of five countries, and such losses were easily made good.
He bent to help one man who begged for water, taking his own
canteen and holding it to the man's lips. Tregaron held the man's head while he sipped. He caught a whiff of punctured bowel. This soldier would never recover. His end would be agonizing as his own waste poisoned his body cavity.
"Do you wish mercy?" Tregaron asked, his voice gentle.
The soldier, perhaps only then realizing what he faced, sobbed once and nodded. "Hagan," the dying man whispered, "send Hagan. Third Battle, fifth company. He'll do it." Tregaron stood and summoned an orderly who sprinted to fetch the man's friend.
Havern waited at the end of the row. He seemed positively cheerful as he looked around at the long rows of gored and wounded soldiers. "Can I help you?" Tregaron asked, realizing as he looked at the man just how bone tired he felt.
"We'll have the Fires ready within the hour, Colonel," the Black-robe said.
"Must it happen now?" Tregaron replied.
"The Word and Will calls for a victory sacrifice as soon as the battle is won, Colonel. You know that."
"I know that the Battle Tithe plays merry hell with morale, sir," Tregaron said wearily. He held up his hand. "You may have the mercied men for your Fires, but only after their friends have released them from their pain."
Havern's face fell, falling into the mask of disapproval he wore when debating Solaris. "What the priests do in Rethwellan is one thing, Colonel, but here we follow the Word and Will literally. Those men too wounded to travel or otherwise unlikely to survive will go to the flames. Alive. Vkandis takes no pleasure in cold flesh."
"I never understood why Vkandis took pleasure in any flesh," Solaris said pleasantly.
Havern rounded on her. "Your deviance from the Word and Will has been repeatedly noted. After I'm through with you, Solaris, you'll be lucky to preside over an outhouse, much less an abbey."
Tregaron, recalling her rallying the regiment with the Oriflamme, felt his temper heat. "The Sun-priestess held her place and inspired the regiment. What did you do?"
Havern didn't bat an eye. "We got out of the way. We were the wrong tool for the job. You were the right one. We deferred to you on the matter of how best to conduct the fight. Now," he said maliciously, "you will defer to us on how to conduct the Fires. The army was given its dispensation to sacrifice those who would die anyway, rather than the hale. I will accept no compromise on that point."
Solaris quietly slipped away and knelt by the gut-stabbed man, who still begged for water. She uncorked Tregaron's water bottle and gave him several small sips. Tregaron listened to the Sun-priest's tirade about duty and responsibility while trying vainly to hold onto the scraps of his self-possession.
Solaris stood and walked to the next soldier, who bled her life away from a gaping thigh wound. It wasn't until the gutted man sat up and felt his middle that Tregaron realized something bizarre had happened. Something far more important than the Black-robe's prating.
He turned his back and walked away from Havern as Solaris stood and went to the third man. The woman, who moments ago had been unconscious, moaned weakly and sat up. Tregaron caught a glimpse of Solaris' eyes as she knelt and placed her blood-covered hands on the man's exposed skull. Her gaze was far away, locked on a distant horizon, and she whispered to herself as she healed. Each time she knelt, her pupils shone with a golden glow and her hands were suffused in a warmth that looked like fire, but brought health, not hurt. Soon a dozen of the regiment followed her, whispering in hushed tones at the miracles as she healed each of the dying.
The story spread like wildfire through the regiment. By the time she finished, a thousand men and women were crowded around her, eager to see the prodigy. They stood silently, giving her space to work as she knitted flesh, healed bones, and restored health. After what seemed like an eternity she stood from beside the last. The silent regiment gave way, opening before her to let her by. A few, braver or more foolhardy than the rest, reached out tentative hands to touch her cassock as she passed. Tregaron, trailed by the stunned and silent Black-robes, followed her as she took shaky steps toward the more lightly wounded.
She placed her hands on a man's slashed and splinted arm. Nothing happened. "It's gone," she said in a confused voice, "it's gone now."
"It's all right, mum," said the trooper, who looked old enough to be her father, "I saw what you done for the others. I'll heal all right by m'self."
She turned back toward the regiment. Tregaron saw the glow had faded from her eyes. Her self-possession seemed to return and she looked at Havern. "Now you have none for your Fires," she said in a weary voice. "The dispensation protects the rest."
Tregaron, overcome by the miracles and the restoration of those he thought he would see consumed, drew his battered sword and knelt before her. The regiment, following his cue, knelt as well.
"Command us, Lady," he said, "we are yours."
"No, sir," she replied with a soft, sweet smile. Her expression seemed transformed, as though she were in ecstasy. "You are not mine. You are Vkandis'. If He has chosen to work through me, it is through the worthiness of the cause, not of the vessel."
Havern cleared his throat. "Ahmmm..." he began, "I know we all think we saw something...." He trailed off as a thousand hostile faces focused on him. "Um, yes," he concluded and retreated.
"Please rise, sir," Solaris said, her expression still beatific, "I am not the Son of the Sun."
Not yet, anyway, Tregaron thought as he rose. Not yet.
A Herald's Honor
by Mickey Zucker Reichert
Mickey Zucker Reichert is a pediatrician whose twelve science fiction and fantasy novels include The Legend of Nightfall, The Unknown Soldier, and The Renshal Trilogy. Her most recent release from DAW Books is Prince of Demons, the second in The Renshal Chronicles trilogy. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies. Her claims to fame: she has performed brain surgery, and her parents really are rocket scientists.
Rain pattered to the roof of the way station, rhythmic beneath the low-pitched howl of the winds. Herald Judaia stared into the hearth, watching twists of flame flicker through their collage of yellow and red. Though her eyes followed the fire, her mind traced every movement of her mentor, Herald Martin. Already, he had curried his Companion, Tirithran, till the sheen of the stallion's white coat rivaled the moon. His sword and dagger held edges a razor might envy, and he had soaped his tack until Judaia feared he might wear the leather thin as sandal bindings. The image made her smile through a longing that had sharpened to pain. She imagined him struggling to buckle a back cinch the width of a finger and mistaking Tirithran's bridle for a boot lace. Judaia turned. For an instant, her dark eyes met Martin's gray-green ones and she thought she saw the same desire in him that goaded her, as burning and relentless as the hearth fire. He glanced away so quickly, his black hair whipped into a mane and every muscle seemed to tense in sequence. Movement only enhanced his beauty, and the sight held Judaia momentarily spellbound. Her mind emptied of every thought but him. The rigors of her internship faded, insignificant beneath the more solid and cruel pain of Martin's coldness. Unable to resist, Judaia glided toward him, loving and hating the feelings his presence inspired.
Apparently sensing her movement, Martin tensed. Suddenly, he took several quick strides toward the door. "I'm going to check on Tirithran and Brayth." He fumbled with the latch, uncharacteristically clumsy. The door swung open, magnifying the drumlike beat of rain on the way station's roof. Beneath an overhanging umbrella of leaves, Tirithran and Brayth enjoyed the pleasures of stallion and mare, their grunts punctuating the sounds of wind and rain. Caught between Judaia and an even more obvious passion, Martin froze in the doorway.
Judaia brushed back a strand of her shoulder-length hair, wishing it looked less stringy and unruly. Its sandy color seemed out-of-place framing dark eyes nearly black. Still, though not classically beautiful, Judaia did not believe herself homely either. She had kept her body well-honed, even before the rigors of Herald training. Her features, though plain, bore no deformities or scars. Other men had found her
attractive enough. Yet other men had not mattered to Judaia since she had met Martin at the Collegium three years past. They had begun their training together, year-mates, yet Martin had passed into full Herald status and gone out on circuit a year before her. Now, she learned from him. And maybe, if he could turn his eyes and mind from preparations for an instant, she might teach him something as well.
Martin remained still and silent for some time, seemingly oblivious to the rain that slanted through the open door frame and left damp circles on his Herald whites.
Judaia studied Martin in the moonlight trickling between clouds and over the threshold. The first half of their circuit had passed with routine ease, yet the Martin she had seen direct tribunals, chastise embezzlers, and calmly settle disputes seemed to have disappeared, replaced by an awkward child scarcely into his teens. The transformation seemed nonsensical. She had never heard of a chaste Herald. She had lost her virginity even before Brayth had spirited her from Westmark to begin her training. A handsome child of local nobility, Martin surely had had his share of women, and Judaia had heard Lyssa, one of the Seneschal's granddaughters, bragging about Martin's prowess in bed. Why, then, has he spent the past five months finding every excuse in the Sector to avoid me? This night, Judaia decided, she would find her answer, one way or another.
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