by JANRAE FRANK
* * * *
Tagalong dismounted to fight when she heard the first winding of Jaqui's horn. Her smaller stature made her less of a target than the mounted troops when the air filled with flying shafts. Nonetheless an arrow sailed past a rider and struck her. Her dwarf-forged mail turned it. An orc charged past her as she moved close to a tree. "Shaantak!" Tagalong gave the dwarves guttural war cry and caved his head in helmet and all with one blow of her hammer. She drew her sword in her left hand, laying about her with both weapons. "Shaantak! Shaantak Baruk!"
She sliced bodies and split heads as the first orcs rushed past her. They came on like a carpet of rats and now she had their attention. They pressed thickly around her; weapons seemed to come at her from all directions. It was to the credit of her father's smiths that not a blade could mark her mail.
Tagalong put her back to a tree, her face grim. There were too many. She knew it was only a matter of time before the sheer press got her. One exceptionally large orc shoved his shield in her face, slamming her hard against the tree and pinning her in such a way that she could neither get sufficient purchase nor leverage to free herself. His sword came up to take her under the chin. Tagalong saw her death in the slender steel. Then abruptly he danced back shrieking and striking frantically at the ground around his feet. Another cried out and began striking likewise. Then another. Soon all the orcs surrounding her were hopping about and striking frantically at an assailant they could not see. Tagalong blinked. Something huge seized her by the collar, swinging her up and dropping her in the branches of a tree. "Bout time ya got here, ya big idiot! Now get me down!"
* * * *
Aejys turned Gwyndar, galloping back as her front line began to give. Jeord followed close behind. She dismounted beside the hostlers and wagons. "Get off!" Aejys shouted at Eliahu. The winter mage sprang off and cut the traces. The beasts bolted.
Pain shot through her side as she set her shoulder to the wagon and throwing all her weight and strength against it slowly began to overturn it. Jeord added his tremendous strength to hers and the wagon crashed on its side, wheels spinning. The other drivers, seeing what she was up to brought their wagons about and began turning them over, forming a makeshift fortress into which Aejys' reeling forces could retreat. Her archers were already taking cover around it and firing deep into the attacking ranks as she remounted.
Eliahu watched her go, murmuring the Snow Bear's words of blessing after her. He stepped to a narrow parting between the wagons, dropping down on all fours. The winter mage dug his fingers into the soil and with a word he cast a spell of ice around the outer perimeter, glazing the ground and leaving only the way Aejys' troops would be retreating through open. The orcs would have a hard time getting to the wagons, much less over them. Then he began adding a tall barrier of ice, building a fortress.
Aejys rode back into the fray, rallying her people, forming them up with shouts and curses. Slowly they pulled together, steadying into an orderly retreat. Even as they reached the relative safety of the overturned wagons, Aejys could spy scattered isolated pockets of her forces that fought cut off from the others and were slowly being pulled down. Aejys, a handful of Guild knights following in her wake, tried to reach the nearest knot. Fight as hard as they might they could not break through. In the dark it was impossible to be certain of her kills. Approaching dawn streaked the black sky with lighter gray. Aejys caught a wolvesmyn's lance on her shield. Gwyndar pivoted and she brought her sword down across it with a resounding crack. Aroanan steel shattered the goblin-forged weapon. The wolvesmyn swarmed around her, their mounts snapping at Gwyndar's legs. One riderless wolf lunged in, snapping at Gwyndar's belly. The great steed reared, striking. Aejys shifted her weight, sensing Gwyndar's moves along their intuitive link even as he decided them, and reacted with her mount. The wynderjyn slammed through the ranks of the wolvesmyn, bringing Aejys within an easy stone's throw of the knot of beset soldiers when a sudden renewed effort by the orcs swept them apart again, isolating Aejys from her guard. She slashed from side to side with her sword, beating them down and back. A shrill scream from Gwyndar told her that the great animal had been hurt, whether bitten or cut she did not know. Aejys could feel him trembling between her thighs, mixing pain and anger as he struck at his attackers.
A booming war cry sounded at the southwestern edge of the battle "Ouhm Rahm Douhm!"
The battle paused an instant while defenders and attackers both turned their eyes to seek the nature of this new arrival. The Vorgeni had heard that warcry before and a shout went up from their ranks "Clemmerick! Clemmerick comes!"
A huge rock came hurtling through the trees and landed in the midst of the goblins, crushing five. Two more rocks came, lobbed as if by some incredible catapult. "Ouhm Rahm Douhm!" A limb stripped tree whooshed through the air, wielded like a staff as Clemmerick waded into the orcs.
Josh followed in Clemmerick's wake and a little to the side of him, singing a drunken sea shantey. He snatched a fallen sword up and in his other hand he juggled little balls of bright fire, tossing them casually at the orcs with deadly accuracy. The orcs struck by the little balls screamed once as flames enveloped them, then dissolved into small conical piles of ash. Josh continued to conjure and juggle and toss. The orcs fled before him and he laughed delightedly as if it were merely a drunken game, before resuming his song. Josh wielded the blade with an economy of motion, brutally elegant in its simplicity and those who tried to flank him on the sword hand went down quickly.
* * * *
"Yes!" Aejys shouted, fighting with renewed fury. She spied the orc captain and charged down on him. He tried to parry, but the Aroanan steel beat down his defense and she separated his head from his body.
Even as the orcs recoiled from the ogre's attack, there came an echoing of silver horns winded from all corners of the mountain vale. Then came the trilling war cry of the Valdren. Arrows picked the orcs off with deadly accuracy. They hesitated in their assault, courage deserting them: where they might have handled Clemmerick's onslaught, adding the Valdren into the mix made the battle seem to boil up in their faces. Their ranks fragmented and broke into fleeing clusters. The Valdren drew their silver swords, blazing red in the dawn light and cut them down as they fled.
Aejys drew a deep breath and relaxed. She slung her shield at her back, pulled a bit of white cloth from her pouch, and wiped her sword before sheathing it. Dismounting, she checked Gwyndar's wounds and found that none of the bites were serious.
The Valdren leader emerged from the woods, his bow slung at his back and his sword in hand. When he saw that no more orcs remained on the field before him he sheathed his blade. Borian Silverwing was tall and slender, his long hair auburn with silver streaks at the temples. His slanted pine-green eyes, the angle of his cheekbones and his ivory skin reminded Aejys of her lost Brendorn for they were maternal cousins.
The leader of the Valdren extended his hand to her. "Well met, Aejys Rowan! And timely, I think."
"Well met indeed, Borian!" Aejys greeted him. "And timely," she repeated his words with a nod. "The orcs nearly had us."
"And my kinsman? Where is he?"
Aejys' brow furrowed and sorrow came into her eyes, "Slain. In Vorgensburg."
"Ill tidings!" Borian's serious mien turned grave. "I will not ask the full tale until your people are safe in Vallimrah."
"I must see to them," Aejys told him.
Borian nodded. "I have brought healers."
* * * *
Aejys walked among the dead and the dying, many tended by the lesser wounded while they waited for the Valdren healers to reach them. She asked everywhere if anyone had seen Tagalong. Finally she found one who described seeing the dwarf surrounded and hard pressed, but had not seen her fall. She walked in the direction Tagalong had last been seen and saw a knot of people gathered around a still form she could not quite see. Her heart skipped a beat and, though it worsened the pain in her side, she walked faster.
But it was not Tagalong:
it was Johannes. Aejys knelt beside him. A heavy blow had split his hauberk and he bled heavily from a torn stomach. "Aejystrys Rowan," he whispered softly, "Take care ... of ... my soldiers. They've..." a fit of coughing shook him, "no leaders left." His body gave a spasmodic jerk and lay still.
Aejys closed his eyes and murmured a prayer for the dead. Then she looked around and shouted, "Tag? Where's Tag?"
A loud string of the ugliest profanities imaginable came from a high tree. "Godforfecking cockwhore shit! Stuck me up here!"
"What are you doing in a tree?" Aejys asked, her hands pressing the trunk as she craned her head to see.
Tag stood in a high crotch, firmly gripping two branches as she began to kick the tree and scream a fresh batch of obscenities. "Tree-shetling lizard-eater! Wait'll I get my hands on ya."
Aejys looked away quickly, fighting off a wave of dizziness.
"I did it," Clemmerick, who had come up behind Aejys, confessed sheepishly. His face glowed the deep scarlet of embarrassment. "I will get her down."
"Why?"
His scarlet face deepened to crimson. He shuffled his feet nervously. "Well, a bunch of orcs had her cornered so I lifted her out of harms way before I splatted them."
"Father of Stone!" Tagalong shrieked. "Do it again and I'll take off yar knee caps! I had everything under control!"
Clemmerick lifted Tagalong free of the tree, holding her at arms length while she swung frantically at him.
"Let him be, Tag," Aejys ordered sharply. "He saved your life!"
"Humph!" Tagalong snorted and started to stomp off. "That's a matter of opinion!"
"Go on, we'll discuss it later. Hanadi is the last unaccounted for. I must find her." Aejys' walk had become a limp as each step triggered a stabbing pain in her side.
* * * *
"Brundarad? Brundarad! Where are you?" Hanadi said, clambering among the dead and wounded. A short bark drew her.
Brundarad sat eating a lightly armored orc. The heavily armored ones he had ignored because it was difficult to get at the best parts. Entrails hung from his mouths like bloody noodles and he sucked them in.
"There is not much meat on that one," Hanadi said thoughtfully. "That one over there has more meat. I will shell him for you." She stripped a large orc of his armor. As she did so, she paused to search his pockets and pouch. She found two of those golden charms, a strange blade that was wrapped in linen and a letter. She tucked them away.
Brundarad came and sat patiently beside her. When the hauberk came off he bit deeply into the dead orc's stomach, sucking up the entrails, and then the organs before settling down to gnaw on a leg.
"I thought you said he did not eat people," Aejys said, observing the grim meal as she approached.
"Humph! Orcs are not people. They are monsters. They eat human children."
"I've heard that. How many orcs has he eaten?" Aejys settled herself heavily on a fallen tree.
"Counting these? Two score, maybe slightly more."
Aejys nodded. "We have a semantic problem. I don't think–" Aejys broke off in mid sentence, the pain in her side doubled her over clutching at it. The forest seemed to tilt and turn gray.
Hanadi was at her side instantly. "Why did you not say you were hurt?" she demanded, easing Aejys to the ground so that she rested with her back against the trunk. "Where is the wound?" She scanned the hauberk for breakage and found that the steel links, although unbroken, had blood oozing between them.
Hanadi stripped off Aejys' armor. Her clothing and the pads around her side were blood-soaked. The impact of the spear thrust, which had knocked Aejys from the saddle, had reopened the upper part of her month old wound. But the extra padding which she and Tamlestari had added probably saved the lapsed paladin's life. Hanadi made a soft clicking sound with her tongue, "It will need a cautery this time."
Hanadi pulled Aejys' arm around her neck and grasped her about the waist as she stood up, bringing the tall Sharani with her. Aejys tried to bear most of her own weight, but weak and dizzy, she staggered, half stumbling beside Hanadi.
Briarmottë and Jaqui of Treth fell into step beside them. "Aejys," Briarmottë breathed sharply. He sprang to the Sharani's other side and grasped her as Hanadi did. "They're gathering the wounded next to the stream where the Valdren healers are tending them."
They moved faster then, weaving through the ranks of the dead and around bushes and rocks.
Jaqui went ahead of them to alert the healers.
Words of distress rippled through the survivors and less injured wounded as they saw Aejys brought in. Tagalong looked up from where she sat beside Tamlestari. The dwarf bolted across the clearing. Tamlestari gave a small anxious cry, darting to Aejys' side.
"A cautery! Quickly! She bleeds heavily," Hanadi shouted.
The healers reacted instantly. A blade was soon heating in the fire while another checked the wound. They turned her onto her good side.
"It looks worse than it is," Aejys muttered as Tagalong knelt beside her.
"Yeah, sure," Tagalong replied with a touch of skepticism. The dwarf took Aejys' hands and drew her arms clear of the wound. When Hanadi saw the hot blade taken from the flames she pulled Aejys' glove from the lapsed paladin's belt, rolled it up and put it between her teeth. Aejys looked away, her hands tightened on Tag's and she bit down hard on the glove with a muffled grunt as the red-hot metal seared her wound closed. Sweat erupted on her face and ran in rivulets that dripped to the ground. Pain glazed her eyes. Cautery was hard medicine to take. A cool hand felt her forehead and Aejys looked up into the gray-green depths of Eliahu's eyes, soft with compassion and concern. He laid his pilgrim's staff beside Aejys and offered her a small smile.
A Valdren healer supported her head and raised a cup to her lips. Aejys drank without asking what it was. It burned like whiskey going down, tasted sweet like almonds and cherries, and thrust her down into sleep before the taste even left her mouth.
Hanadi, seeing how swiftly the drug overcame Aejys, snatched the cup from the healer's hands and sniffed it. She tongued a tiny drop from the edge. Although eldritch drugs and poisons were a specialty of hers, there was nothing familiar about this. "What did you give her?" Hanadi demanded sharply.
Eliahu squatted beside her and took the cup. He tipped his tongue to it. "Fire poppy mostly," the Winter Mage said thoughtfully, "phoenix blood, holadil, and a trace of chamomile."
"You got nearly all of it," the healer answered, smiling excitedly, "you are an apothecary? Or a mage perhaps?"
"I'm a cook," Eliahu told him, "and I never forget a taste."
* * * *
"My grandsire has quarantined Rowanslea," Talons told Blackbird, settling an eye patch into place. "Not even a message can get out by now. We know for certain that at least a few messages went out before he could stop them. We don't know who sent them or whom they went to. None of the Guildsmyn will get in or out. Many have already turned themselves in at the border. The shifters must be among those who haven't."
"It's too bad Wilstryn died," Blackbird muttered darkly. The assassin chieftain had died before they got her as far as the city.
"Only grandsire, you, and the Urchins know she's dead..."
"Still don't think this is a good idea..."
"Just put the word out on the streets she's alive. Then I'll see what I catch."
Blackbird shook her grizzled head. "What if one a those shifters takes you out and comes back here in your skin?"
"Any of the kids a Reader?"
"Lizard and he's gonna be a good'un."
"If I object to being Read, kill me."
Blackbird heaved an exaggerated sigh, giving Talons a long, doubtful look. "Still don't feel right about this..."
"Have your doubts, keeps you cautious. But Wilstryn deserves her vengeance, for her son and herself."
"Be careful, girl. Wilstryn was an old campaigner, you're not. Can't help feeling you're heading for hell on a fast horse."
* * * *
Bodram
et lay on his bed with Margren nestled nude against him. All except a single candle had gone out in the branch on the table beyond the bed. Margren's eyes had not yet turned violet. That would not come until her first rite of mortgiefan. Then she would need to spell them to pass as fully human. Bodramet's eyes glowed in the faint light. He ruffled her hair. "I cannot imagine how Mephistis could put that half-a-mon before you, Margren."
"I want to be rid of him," Margren growled far back in her throat. She licked her lips, catching the last small drops of Bodramet's blood that lingered there. "I want to watch his entrails spill across my hands as I open him up."
"Then call an orgy before the prince returns. We'll make the half-a-mon walk the gauntlet for our entertainment."
"Mephistis..."
"Tell him matters got out of hand. You have, after all, very little knowledge of our ways." He kissed her breasts.
"Yes."
"Gauntlets frequently get called at sa'necari orgies, especially if one of us is deemed less than what they should be. Or for other transgressions. We open a line for them to run in the great hall and kick and hit them, we try for a taste of their blood. If we manage to pull them down, we drain them."
"And should he get across?"
Bodramet laughed. "Then I will rite him. Do not fear for an instant that I will observe the rules and allow him to live. No, whether he makes it across or not, he will die."
"I want to stick him."
Bodramet laughed harder. "As you wish. That happens also. But you are not allowed to use a hellblade of any kind."