The Warrior's Tale

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  'They'd better,' Polillo gritted. 'Or I'll learn magic and cast some sort of spell that'll make what little remains of their cocks shrivel and fall off.'

  She looked at Corais, expecting some rejoinder, but all she got was a wan smile and silence. Polillo looked concerned, then shrugged and went forward to her station at the catapults.

  Our sails filled, and Duban hissed orders to set a reef - the wind was intended to help other, slower craft. It did - the large mainsails on the hulks ahead filled, and the ships groaned as they were forced to speed. Tiny white wavelets appeared beside their bluff bows as they went forward. Captain Yezo's ships also wallowed past at their full speed, their duties to begin before ours.

  Thus far my strategy was working perfectly, and I began to worry, remembering the old adage that if your battle plan goes off without a hitch, you're walking into an ambush. A signal light flashed from an enemy picket boat, and a challenge shouted. Seconds later the first of Yezo's ships smashed into the tiny craft, and sent its splintered fragments to the bottom. Men's screams drowned as the sea took them. Torches flamed on the Konyan hulks as my plan continued. These crippled ships were sacrifices, fireships, and as we'd sailed back towards Ticino they'd been loaded with flammables - oil barrels lashed to masts, other barrels below decks with old wax-drenched sails and tarred rigging to feed the flames. When the Konyan sorcerers had fed the wind, Nor's Broken Men and other volunteers aboard the hulks, had smashed in the tops of the casks and lit fires.

  Flame roared into the night, and I heard screams and shouts as watches on The Sarzana's ships came out of their stupor. In the red and yellow flames men were outlined on the fireships as they flung their torches into the flammable deck cargo, and then the maindecks engulfed, ran for escape to the longboats towed behind each hulk. On one ship, they didn't run fast enough, and the fire reached out and took them, screaming, into its embrace. The fireships were glowing like paper lanterns as they bore down on the anchored enemy.

  The roadstead was chaos as The Sarzana's sailors tumbled on deck, fuddled by sleep or drink. I imagined the poor bastards trying to decide what to do, which of the many screamed orders to obey. Here and there alert seamen axed mooring lines as the fireships closed, and the wind caught those ships and sent them drifting out of control down on their sisters. One of The Sarzana's galleys wasn't able to float free in time, and a fireship rammed it. Flames roared across to the other ship, and the great torch screamed up at the heavens. Another and then a third of The Sarzana's galleys burst into firestorms.

  Behind us I heard thuds and crashes, as the few war machines on the Konyan ships began launching missiles. They were still at too great a range, and waterspouts rose from the dark waters like deadly plants. Then one boulder after another smashed home against the decks of The Sarzana's ships. Firearrows arced out over the night sky, and here and there more flames flickered on enemy decks.

  The lead Konyan ship smashed into an enemy, and grapnels went across and the storming parties, shouting for blood, swarmed over the bulwarks. Another ship laid alongside it, and a third at its stern. Even these cumbersome Konyan galleys could learn the tactics we'd devised, and worry their prey like packs of hunting beasts.

  Our own mast-slashing catapults were firing, on our galley and the other Orissan ships. The masts of The Sarzana's ships were easy targets, outlined black against the flames. But it didn't matter whether or not my bolts struck true or went on to crash into the city itself -they, like everything else, were intended only to wreak havoc and bring confusion. But from the happy yips and shouts from the foredeck, Polillo was thoroughly enjoying herself, after that long day earlier of inaction and defeat.

  We had the greatest weapon of all on our side, surprise, and I intended to keep it. All this was diversion for my attack against the Archon. But I had one task before I could go for the kill. Closer to shore lay the turtleships. They were crewed by more elite or sober seamen, because almost half of them had their oars out, had slipped their moorings, and were underway.

  I took from its box the small model of the turtleship Santh had carved so carefully, that I'd treated with a spell and touched with the broadhead of an enemy arrow, to ensure it 'knew' its larger brothers and would seek them out. I set the model in a water-filled pan, not so much to further the emulation, but to prevent firing our own ship. I unstopped a vial and dripped lantern oil onto the little ship.

  Oil take life

  Oil must grow

  Oil take wing

  Oil take fire.

  I touched a splinter of wood to the illuminating fire in the binnacle until it flickered into life, then held it against the oil-soaked model.

  Now you are fire

  Now you have power

  You are strong against the night .

  You end the night

  None can stand

  All must fall

  Reach out and take

  All like all

  And all is meat

  Fire reach out.

  The turtleships exploded. I thought grimly that the Archon's weapon I'd first glimpsed in the sea of volcanoes had now flowered, and turned back on him. All the turtleships were caught by my spell, and seared into ruin. The armour-plating that had made them arrow-proof now was a trap. I saw very few sailors scramble out of the ships' hatches before they charred to the waterline, rolled and went under, the magical fire burning them faster than any earthly flame could have.

  The harbour was as light as full day. City lights were blazing on, as Ticino stumbled back to alertness, but I didn't have time to worry about that, as I began yet another spell. I didn't think this was necessary, but the Konyans had broken once before at an illusion, and I had no intention of losing this battle if that conjuration was used again.

  Gamelan had a brazier ready, and onto it I sprinkled, among other dried herbs, wort and rue against sorcery and rosemary as a guardian against death.

  Eyes, see!

  Eyes unblinded

  See what is

  See what is

  See the truth

  See through the veil

  See beyond the mist

  Eyes unfooled.

  The tiny cloud of smoke grew and grew, and spread behind us, across the Konyan ships, and then vanished. I'd warned Admiral Bhzana of my incantation to keep the living-dead illusion from taking effect, and instructed him to tell his sailors not to take alarm, but even so I heard shouts of fear, and a couple of ships veered from their course. I swore, but had no time for that, either, because Captain Yezo's five ships were closing on their targets. Those were the five seagates from the ocean into Ticino's canals, normally kept closed to lessen the tide's effect. I saw soldiers running onto the waterfront in fighting order and showering the ships with arrows and spears. But it was far too late.

  Now it was time to shed my Evocator's cloak, such as it was, and gladly return to what I knew best. Sword in hand, I pelted off the quarterdeck and forward, along the storming bridge to where my assault party waited. Xia grinned, a hard, humourless smile she probably wasn't even aware of, and now we were closing on the Ticino docks.

  Five of Yezo's ships ... five seagates ... I'd ordered him to strike direcdy in from the sea at the gates, where the water would be deepest. One veered to the side either by accident or perhaps the helmsman had been hit, and ran aground, hard against the embankment. But Evidently the soldiers didn't recognize the intent of the attack, because some of them broke off firing at the other four, and ran to concentrate fire on the stricken ship which had failed in its mission. Yezo's ships were seconds from crashing, and I saw Yezo's men were as disciplined as he boasted. Sailors, ignoring the arrowstorm, were cutting the ropes that bound anchors to improvised derricks hung over the ships' sterns, as they'd hastily trained to do, and the anchors splashed into the dark harbour waters.

  Yezo's four ships struck. I heard the rending crashes loud above the roar of the battle in the roadstead as all four struck fair into the centre of the entry-ports, sending the sail
ors aboard sprawling. Then the men came back to their feet as the ships they'd deliberately wrecked lurched and rolled on their beam ends, then back, and were at the crude windlasses we'd had mounted on the quarterdecks, kedging the ships out of our way.

  I heard Stryker shouting for full sail, and Duban crying to our oarsmen for speed and more speed, but was intent on Yezo's craft. Slowly, laboriously, one, two, then three were moving back, freeing the canal mouths. On the fourth I saw a flicker as both anchor cables snapped and whipped back across the decks, cutting men down as they lashed. But three gates were open to the canals, our passage into the heart of the city. Three openings, and on his flagship Cholla Yi was bellowing and I was shouting, and our oars were coming up, feathered, as our galleys, driven by that now high magical wind from the Evocators shot into the gullys. I heard wood scream and rend as one ship ground along the stone canal banks, but it mattered not how close the fit was as long as we were still moving.

  The waterway widened, and we could row, and our ships drove onward. Ticino's planners had laid out their city logically - the canals ran straight from the waterfront, and ended around the city's main square. That efficiency would doom the city. Ahead was the empty square overhung by The Sarzana's huge round tower. I had a moment to glance behind, as I heard the din of battle building, and knew what was happening. Yezo's men were coming off their ships as they'd been ordered - swimming, jumping, or, hopefully, using the long planks we'd put aboard as gangways. Their orders now were simple -to spread panic in the city by fire and sword. They'd been told to spare the citizens and take no loot, but I knew better than to expect that of most of them. Not far behind them, if the battle in the roadstead went as hoped for, the other Konyan ships would be landing troops with the same orders.

  I wanted chaos, because if Ticino was drowned in rack and ruin our real enemies might not notice my women and the mercenaries striking for their throats.

  I heard Duban shriek pain as 'his ship', our galley, slammed into the stone wharf at the edge of the square, but what of that? If we lived the Konyans would rebuild our galleys a thousand times over before we sailed for home. Gangplanks slammed down and we poured ashore, onto the hard stone square of Ticino. Other galleys came sliding out of the canals. But there was no time to pause, nor even look around, and I was running hard for the stairs that curled up to the causeways to the tower. There were five, no six sentries, but they were dead, stumbling down with shafts in their chests that had punched through their armour like it wasn't there.

  The causeways were open, and I could see into the heart of The Sarzana's stronghold, and we were running harder than before, desperate to get inside before the gates that must exist could crash closed. There were archers on the top of the ringwall ahead of us, and an arrow scraped brick next to me and pinwheeled away. Our bows thrummed, and arrows sang away and those walls were bare.

  I heard the battie-cries of my women, Corais's yip-yipping like the savage fox she was, and felt a flash of brief joy. This was what I'd built the Guard for, what I'd led them towards. Now they were my shining battle-blade, and now I'd strike a deathblow with them. We were united in that moment, in that blood-drenched run down the causeway, past the slumped bodies of soldiers. This was what my life was meant to be, not an endless array of hobbling up and down at sentry-go, nor crouched around a fire muttering incantations like some dried-body crone, but even as the red thought came through my blood joy I knew it false.

  We were a few yards from the short tunnel that led through the tower's ringwall into an inner keep when rusting metal, long-unused, grated, and I saw the iron spikes of a portcullis grind down from an overhead slot. Then Locris and Polillo slammed into it, keeping it from closing. Four other women - I don't remember three of them, but one was Legate Neustria - leaped past me, and one of them jammed a spear into the groove the second, inner portcullis was supposed to travel down, and jammed it. I stood in the centre of that tunnel, and saw Polillo impossibly holding the iron grating by herself, and then Locris reappeared, half-carrying, half-dragging a balk of lumber that she forced up into position, bracing the portcullis open, and the way was clear.

  Up the causeway ran the rest of my women from the other galleys and behind them Cholla Yi and his men. Far below, in the square, I saw three figures, and knew they were Gamelan, indomitable even in his blindness, and his two escorts. There were bodies down on the causeway, bodies of my Guardswomen, too many for me to keep my eyes on, and I turned back towards the keep on the other side of this tunnel that led to the tower. From above me, through a murder-hole in the centre of the tunnel's roof a crossbow string snapped and a bolt slashed into Locris's side, burying itself nearly to the vanes. She screamed, clawed at the bolt, took two steps and died. A bow-woman sped a shaft back through the slot, but there was no one there, or at least we heard no sound of a hit.

  We were running again, out of the tunnel into the lighter darkness of the keep, and now the great round tower rose above us. Its monstrous gates were barred and, in line in front of them was a company of crossbowmen.

  I shouted 'Down,' and we were flat, just as we'd trained so long in our mock-charges, and Xia thudded down beside me as the crossbow strings twanged as loudly as slashed ship-cables and the bolts whined overhead, catching only one or two of Cholla Yi's men who'd never learned to duck.

  Five yards from me, Dica leapt to her feet. 'Come on! Before they've time to reload,' and was running, sword high, no one else on her feet, and before I had a chance to shout warning the front row of crossbowmen knelt and the second rank fired, and Dica contorted, hurling her blade high into the night sky, and then she fell.

  The night was sudden red, not the red of fire but of blood as the Guard came up and charged, screaming rage, and poured across the courtyard like quicksilver, like lightning. Ismet was beside me, snarling like a jungle cat for her once-lover as she ran, and we were among the crossbowmen with sword and axe before any of them had time to cock their pieces, and so they died to a man where they stood. Guardswomen went down with them - in that fierce moment of slaughter Neustria and Jacara went to the Seeker along with others.

  I had a mere second to mourn Dica. Of course she'd erred in rushing the bowmen before she realized they hadn't shot their course, but she died bravely and she died at the head of her troops. I wondered how many Guardswomen might've hesitated before charging, given that front rank time to reload and died if it hadn't been for Dica's unknowing sacrifice. That's the way all too many of my best have met the Seeker, and why the Maranon Guard has buried as many officers as privates.

  The huge gates into the keep were barred, but our sudden bloody rush had left the soldiers without time to close their small sally-port, and before anyone within could move, we were inside.

  Polillo somehow had got in front of me, and there were three soldiers coming at her. I suppose to them, she was a blur, a killing engine, but to me her movements were very precise, very slow, and exact as she used the head of her axe to shove one man back into another, then while they stumbled, recovering, to change her thrust and lunge, as if the axe were a halberd and bury its curved head in the third man's throat. Without changing stance, she recovered, her enormous strength pulling the axehead free as the other two came at her. She batted the first man's sword out of line like a kitten with a stick, and with the backswing used the bill to hook and snap the neck of the second man. The first man shrieked and tried to flee, but Polillo, still moving as carefully as if she were demonstrating the Art of the Axe to awe-stricken recruits, sent it crashing into the back of his spine and the man flopped away like a gaffed fish.

  A man lunged with a long bill, and Xia slashed through the weapon's wooden shaft and the man's arm as well. Spouting gore, he shrieked and fell.

  In that instant I 'felt' the spell Gamelan had cast vanish, and knew I stood naked to the gaze of the Archon. I 'heard' a scream of surprised rage, and we all felt the stone flags under our feet grind and rumble, as if we were in an earthquake, but I knew it was just a
nother sign of the Archon's shock at having been fooled, as he realized I yet lived.

  I shouted the charge again, and we dashed down a long, twisting corridor. Squads of soldiers came out of doorways, and arrows flashed past or found a target, spears clattered against stone walls as The Sarzana's guard tried to stop us, tried to rally, but couldn't, and the men died, were driven back into their cuddies or they died. Then the corridor ended, and the roof rose high, and we were in The Sarzana's throne room. The domed ceiling was a hundred feet above, the chamber was two hundred feet or more in diameter. The walls were hung with tapestries or battle standards, and there were flaring torches on the walls and a huge fire guttering down at one wall.

  The room was empty save for my soldiers and, on a high-raised dais in the centre of the room, The Sarzana. That is all any of my women, or Cholla Yi and the handful of men who'd followed us down the corridor saw.

  I saw more.

  Standing above The Sarzana, looming like a puppeteer bestrides his marionettes, was the Archon! He was huge, maybe thirty feet, and I could see the stories of the far wall through his only partially-material body. His arms were coming up, to strike at me.

  Corais was beside me, and her bow came up and was full drawn, broadhead against wood, her fingers holding steady beside her ear. She was as firm and calm as if she were at the butts, and then she loosed and the arrow sped true, straight for The Sarzana. His hand came out, and I swear it was moving as slowly as a fly in honey, but he plucked her shaft from midair, and snapped it between two fingers. As he did, I heard a crack and Corais's bow, the one that had been made so lovingly so long ago cracked like a twig or like the arrow The Sarzana now tossed aside.

  We broke into a run, a desperate charge towards the dais as The Sarzana's right hand lifted, fingers curled like a snakehead, and green fire like I'd seen on the ship's masts during a storm flickered, and then gathered into a ball and flashed towards us. It sent Corais spinning. I thought she was dead, but then she rolled to her feet, her face bloodied as if she'd been beaten. Green fire flickered again on The Sarzana's hand, just as Corais drew her dagger, brushed its blade over the bit of robe she'd tied to her arm and threw. Corais was no magician, nor claimed any powers of the Evocator, but perhaps that talisman had gathered some of the hate she felt for being nearly shamed by The Sarzana.