Not far to his right, one of the large beasts swung its great, clawed arm and swept three soldiers off their feet. A cluster of fighters rushed forward, torches thrust ahead of them, forcing the monster back. Jonmarc heard a throaty growl and turned just as a huge wolf sprang at him. He swung his sword, catching the large wolf through the ribs, letting its forward motion drive the blade deeper. The wolf snarled and swiped its wide, powerful paws at him, forcing him to duck to avoid the sharp claws. Just for a moment, Jonmarc met the wolf’s eyes. These eyes were the shape and color of a man’s eyes, wild with rage and pain. The light in the wolf’s eyes dimmed, and it went limp, sliding dead from his blade.
To his left, Gethin dug his heels into the ribs of his battle stallion, rearing up to send the iron-shod hooves kicking into the swarm of small beasts that swarmed around him. Jonmarc reached the fray a moment later, slashing with all his might to cut through the magicked beasts’ tough, scaly skin.
The small beasts fell, but in their wake came a dozen wolves. They were larger than normal wolves, and Jonmarc wondered if the mage that forced them into their animal shapes had tinkered with their bodies, making them into weapons of war. Behind the wolves, Jonmarc saw a new wave of the deadly small beasts. All around them, the Principality soldiers fought in desperate bands of two and three, overwhelmed by the enemy advance. Neither the magicked beasts nor the Temnottan shifters seemed deterred by the threat of death, and so they pressed forward heedless as their fellows fell to the blades of the soldiers and the arrows of sharpshooters. Somewhere in the fray, Serg and the other vyrkin battled the alien shifters. The battleground was littered with bodies of men and vyrkin and horses, and the layer of smoke that hung over the land glowed red as blood by torchlight. We could die here tonight, Jonmarc thought grimly.
Just as the Temnottan wolves poised to spring, a wall of what appeared to be smoke rose from the ground between the wolves and where Jonmarc and Gethin readied for the onslaught. Unlike the torch smoke, the heavy mist did not waft with the wind. As Jonmarc watched, this new smoke swirled and began to take shape, forming into a ghostly line of powerful stawars. The smoke-stawars drew back on their powerful haunches and then launched themselves at the wolves with an otherworldly shriek.
The wolves ran, but not fast enough. Ghostly stawars pursued the fleeing wolves, and all-too-solid claws ripped through the wolves’ skin. Jonmarc and Gethin swept behind the stawar-spirits, delivering killing blows to the maimed and dying wolves in their wake. The Hojun priests stayed where they were, hands raised and faces set in concentration. Jonmarc wondered just how many of the ghost cats the Hojun could call, and how far their creations could range afield.
More of the gray-skinned monsters rose from the sea to take the place of those the soldiers slaughtered. The howling of wolves and the fearsome snarls of bears vied with the shrieks of dying horses and the cries of men.
Six of the small beasts surged after Gethin. The beasts had grown bolder, and smarter, and they eluded the prince’s deadly blades. Instead, they struck for the horse’s underbelly and left deep gashes in his mount’s hindquarters. Gethin leaped free of the saddle as the horse crumpled from its injuries, and with a curse, Jonmarc drove his stallion straight into the midst of the fray, sword swinging.
Around them, arrows and quarrels rained down from archers on higher ground, barely missing the soldiers as they struck the beasts and bears. Flaming arrows soared through the night sky like falling stars. Jonmarc sincerely hoped someone had warned the archers that a number of the wolves were vyrkin.
Jonmarc jumped from his wounded horse, surrendering it as a diversion to draw off the beasts. He came after Gethin’s attackers swinging his sword in one hand and a burning torch in the other. One of the beasts turned and came after him, and Jonmarc wheeled into a high Eastmark kick, catching the beast in the ribs and sending it backward with enough force to take two more of its companions off their feet.
Jonmarc heard a cry from one of the Hojun priests. His Markian was rusty but good enough to catch the meaning of a hurried warning. A ring of flames shot up from the ground, circling Jonmarc and Gethin. The beasts shrieked in fury but withdrew a pace or two from the flames. As they drew back, a second outer ring rose out of nowhere, trapping the beasts between sheets of fire.
The flames were close enough that Jonmarc felt the heat ripple against his skin. Though the night was cool, within the protective circle it was as hot as a blacksmith’s forge.
“Wonderful. We’ve got the choice of being eaten or being roasted.”
Gethin was cursing under his breath in Markian. “I hadn’t really planned on either.”
As Jonmarc watched, the inner and outer rings of flame began to move toward each other, sandwiching the screaming beasts between them. Within a few heartbeats, the fire engulfed the beasts, sending noxious dark smoke into the air. When the beasts were dead, the flames vanished.
“My lord, are you hurt?” Tevin the fire mage emerged from the smoke. His face was smudged with soot and his mage robes were stained with blood.
“We’ll live,” Jonmarc replied. “Thank you.” He looked out over the battlefield. A glance told him that the night was going badly for the Principality forces. Valjan’s trebuchets and catapults were lobbing large flaming projectiles where the beasts were massed, but it was an imprecise attack at best, likely to kill as many soldiers as it saved.
“Can you rally the mages? Do what you just did but on a much bigger scale?”
Tevin nodded. “Aye. What timing did you have in mind?”
“When we begin the retreat, lay down a line of fire to cover our backs and then set another at the edge of the beach. Maybe we can trap the majority of those damned beasts so they can’t follow us.”
Tevin nodded grimly. “What of the injured men in the strike zone? And the dead? You won’t be able to save the wounded or bring back bodies.”
Jonmarc looked down over the scarred slope at the battle that raged amid the blood-red smoke. “They’re beyond help. I want to save enough of the army to fight another day.”
How Tevin planned to communicate with the other mages Jonmarc did not know. He only hoped that the fire mage could rally his companions fast enough to avert a total rout. Fighting back to back, Jonmarc and Gethin managed to hold off another wave of beasts, and all around them, the Hojuns’ smoke-stawars snapped and clawed at the wolves and bears that slunk around the edges of the fight.
When Jonmarc was fairly sure Tevin had had the time he needed to get into position, he dropped the still-burning torch to the ground and reached for a horn that hung at his belt. With a deep breath, he blew the four-note clarion that signaled retreat.
For a moment, he feared that the call could not be heard over the din of battle. Then down the line, he heard Valjan answer, and after a long pause, Gregor as well.
Retreat was as bitter as it was necessary. Jonmarc and Gethin stumbled over the fallen dead. Behind them, they heard the first curtain of fire roar into life. It sounded like a huge tide rushing in from sea, or the blast of a storm wind. A wall of fire rose high into the night, blocking their view of the burning hulks in the bay. Around them, men ran for safety. It was easy to spot the less-seasoned soldiers, who scrambled for their lives, compared to the experienced soldiers, who stayed in something resembling formation.
At first, beasts and shifters pursued the fleeing soldiers, taking a heavy toll on the rearmost line. Tevin’s second wall of flame flared from nowhere. Screams rose on the night air from the men and beasts caught in the conflagration. Jonmarc spotted three of Valjan’s killing machines aflame amid a mass of dead enemy bodies. The machines, Jonmarc thought grimly, had served their purpose.
The night air stank of roasting flesh, and Jonmarc’s stomach clenched as old memories threatened to resurface. He resolutely forced down any reaction except the cold logic needed to survive the retreat, and he bent to retrieve a torch that lay guttering on the ground. Seizing one of the abandoned horses, Jonmarc swung up in the
saddle, the better to see his troops and be seen by them. He stopped on the slope midway between the battlefield and the camp, shouting at the soldiers to hurry, hoping that his visibility as a commanding officer might help the panicked fighters remember their training and rise above their terror.
Smoke made visibility difficult, but as Jonmarc squinted to see, he was sure that Tevin and the mages had begun to move the concentric walls of flame toward each other. The death cries of men, shifters, maimed horses, and magicked beasts raised a nightmarish keen in the darkness. Above the howls of the dying, Jonmarc heard the sound of battle close at hand, and he rode toward it. The slope was bathed in firelight, hot as a midsummer noon. Set in the shifting red light and dancing shadows was a small group of soldiers battling about a dozen of the small magicked beasts that had slipped beyond the ring of flames.
Gethin was among them, fighting on foot. Jonmarc did not see either of the Hojun priests, but in the heavy smoke, it was difficult to see more than a few feet. More of Valjan’s killing machines smoldered just this side of the flames, but the horses that drew them were gone. With a loud cry, Jonmarc rose in his stirrups and charged at the knot of beasts from its flank.
One of the beasts launched itself toward Jonmarc with an incoherent, guttural howl. The beast was solid black like a moving shadow, with long, thin arms and wicked claws. Its claws slashed at the flank of Jonmarc’s horse and caught Jonmarc on the thigh, opening a wound that poured blood down his leg. Jonmarc’s horse, terrified by the attack, reared. Jonmarc let himself fall back in the saddle, close enough to thrust his torch down the maw of the beast as it leaped up at him. He barely got his hand out of the way as the wicked teeth snapped, but the torch snapped off, leaving its burning end in the monster’s mouth. It fell away, shrieking, as the flames engulfed it.
Drawn by the downed beast and the smell of blood, the knot of beasts shifted their attention from the soldiers to Jonmarc. His wounded horse could never outrun them; Jonmarc had seen just how fast the small magicked beasts could move. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Gethin and the other soldiers had fallen back a pace or two, regrouping for another attack. He was close enough to the flame wall that Jonmarc felt its heat like a furnace, and he saw the beasts scrabbling to put more distance between themselves and the fire even as they kept their prey in sight.
“Gredic vo!”
A man’s voice roared above the din, and Jonmarc translated the Markian call before he had the chance to realize how out of place it was. A hunting call, a shout to let the others in the hunting party know that the hunt had begun in earnest, a sound completely out of context on a Principality battlefield. Motion caught Jonmarc’s eye, and he managed to wheel his horse barely in time to avoid both the attack of the small beasts and the swift movement of a flaming wagon bristling with scythes and blades.
Amid the smoke, Jonmarc caught sight of one of the Hojuns with his hand outstretched, even as the second of the killing machines rumbled down the slope, narrowly avoiding Gethin and the soldiers, headed straight toward the black-scaled monsters. Jonmarc dug his heels into his horse, wrestling the panicked beast into position where he could close off one route of escape even as Gethin and the soldiers sealed the other flank. Caught between swords and torches and the careening war wagons, the monsters were pushed back into the wall of flame. Their magicked forms caught fire with a hiss and they wailed like the damned, twisting and shriveling in the inferno. In a moment, they were gone, and with them the war wagons that had rolled on into the curtain of fire.
The slope had grown quiet except for the sound of the flames. From what Jonmarc could make out through the dense clouds of smoke, most of the others had made it up the embankment and were out of sight, probably most of the way back to camp. The two Hojun priests rode toward him out of the haze, one from each side. Gethin and the handful of soldiers stayed where they were, swords and torches in hand, watching the flames as if they expected new horrors to burst forth at any second.
“Thank you,” Jonmarc said in Markian to the Hojuns, who nodded.
“What did you think you were doing?” Jonmarc said, turning toward Gethin as the prince left the other soldiers and strode up to him. Gethin’s dark skin was covered with ash, making it plain where sweat streaked down his temples. His arms were marked with gashes and burns, as were Jonmarc’s.
“Fighting a war, as I was trained to do,” Gethin replied in Markian, and Jonmarc guessed that in the heat of battle, the prince did not even realize that he had abandoned Common for his native language.
“Your wound needs tending.” One of the Hojun had drawn up alongside Jonmarc even as the adrenaline of the battle began to fade and Jonmarc became aware of the pain in his thigh and a light-headedness that had nothing to do with the smoke.
“Damned beasts have rot on their claws,” Jonmarc replied. He gripped the pommel of his saddle as a wave of vertigo washed over him. “Can you keep it from festering?”
The Hojun priests exchanged glances, and the second priest rode up next to the first. They began to chant in the harsh, guttural tones of their language, but although Jonmarc spoke Markian well, he could not follow what they said. An orange glow moved from the downturned palm of the Hojun to Jonmarc’s injured leg. His leg tingled from hip to ankle, the familiar residue of strong healing magic, and as the Hojun continued to chant, Jonmarc felt the vertigo recede as the flesh around the gash knit into wholeness. The Hojun moved his hand to do the same for the horse’s injured flank.
The barest of smiles touched the Hojun’s face. “Your leg should be fine now,” he said in heavily accented Common.
“Thank you,” Jonmarc replied. Weariness had replaced the heat of battle, and he knew, with a glance toward the camp, that his night was far from over.
Chapter Sixteen
Gethin trudged alongside Jonmarc as they made their way back to camp.
“Why don’t you have one of the healers tend you?” Jonmarc asked. A quick appraisal of Gethin’s injuries gave Jonmarc the impression that the collection of burns and gashes were painful but probably not life threatening. Mostly, he hoped to deflect the prince before heading into a debriefing with the other generals.
Gethin gave him a withering glare. “The Hojun knew that without their help, you might have lost the leg. If they weren’t worried about me, you shouldn’t be. There are men with much more serious wounds who need their help.”
Jonmarc’s expression did not change, but his estimation of the Eastmark prince rose. “Do your Hojun allow you river rum… for the pain?”
A tired grin spread across Gethin’s face. “Eastmark is hardly Nargi. I’d welcome some rum if you have it.”
Jonmarc took a flask from his belt and handed it to Gethin. Despite the prince’s protestations that his wounds were minor, the way he knocked back a generous swig of the potent rum gave Jonmarc to know the truth. “You don’t have to come with me to the meeting, you know. You’ve made your point.”
“Which would be?”
Jonmarc sighed and rolled his eyes. “This obviously wasn’t your first real fight. I get that. For what it’s worth, it took Tris Drayke quite a while to get sword skills like yours. I’m… satisfied.”
Gethin chuckled and gave Jonmarc a sidelong glance. “Just… satisfied. Certainly not… impressed.”
Jonmarc’s eyebrows rose. “Dispel a forest full of murderous ghosts single-handedly, and I’ll be impressed. Until then, you’ll have to settle for what you get.”
Gethin fell into step beside him despite Jonmarc’s offer to let the prince leave. Jonmarc was bone weary, both parched and hungry, and he knew Gethin had to be equally uncomfortable. To Gethin’s credit, the prince made no complaint.
Jonmarc headed across the camp toward Valjan’s tent, guessing where the generals would congregate.
“Jonmarc! Thank the Whore you made it back!” Valjan came striding out of the haze of smoke that hung over the camp. Soot-streaked, his armor cut and bloodied, Valjan looked like he, too
, had been in the thick of the battle.
“I was just heading to your tent. Figured Exeter and Gregor would do the same. We need to regroup—assuming we have the men.”
Valjan’s expression was sober. “Aye, we have the men. It was bad, but not that bad, thank the Lady. I had my valet run to bring brandy and whatever food is at hand. I dare say we’re all barely standing at this point, and I, for one, would like a drink.”
“How bad?”
Valjan let out a deep breath and looked out over the camp. “Don’t know yet. I’ve sent for a count, but that will take some time. My guess… we lost at least two or three thousand men, out of the ten thousand we deployed.”
“What about the merc ships? After the Temnottans sent their ships afire, we couldn’t see what became of ours.”
Valjan’s jaw tightened. “Nothing, yet. I asked Laisren to scout it out, and to let us know the casualties among the vayash moru and vyrkin as well.” He gave a brisk nod toward his tent. “Go in and make yourselves at home. I need to find Exeter… and Gregor.”
“That will be a treat,” Jonmarc muttered.
Jonmarc and Gethin had just gotten themselves settled in Valjan’s tent when others began to join them. First Exeter, who looked as war-weary as Jonmarc felt, and then Valjan, followed by Gregor. Of the four commanders, Gregor looked as if he had taken the worst of it. One eye was purple, nearly swollen shut. His left shoulder was bound in rags, evidence of a recent healing. Something about the tightness of Gregor’s mouth and the way he held himself as if in pain convinced Jonmarc that, perhaps, Gregor had earned his healing.
The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two Page 27