The Last King's Amulet pof-1

by Chris Northern

  The aide looked excited and left. It was clearly his first actual order that involved more than messages.

  “What?” Tulian was looking at me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Let it go. He tried to stitch you up, it backfired, he learned.”

  “So do we move against them or let them try and take us here?”

  “No question in my mind.”

  “I was thinking that we better know their numbers; equal, we move against them and badly outnumbered stay put.”

  He sighed. “How many can there possibly be?”

  There is an expression I heard once as a boy and really really liked. 'Famous last words.'

  44

  “We meet them in the open with the fort at our backs.”

  I nodded agreement. The numbers of the enemy had been increasing all day as the interrogations continued, as the refugees slowed to a trickle and stopped and the scouts came in. The engineers had been given orders at my insistence and were working their butts off raising towers and putting small siege engines on them. Nasty little pieces of work that could take down three men at a time. How many barbarians there were wasn't the only thing that changed as the day progressed. Who they were and where they were also fluctuated wildly. Not good signs.

  I worried at it for a while but it had to be said so it could be considered. “We should get out of here.” I had picked a moment when we were definitely not going to be overheard. He gave me a stern look and I kept my face impassive. “Listen. The reports are conflicting. What if they refer to more than one group; one of twelve thousand, the others of roughly six and four respectively.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Not impossible. Twenty two thousand if it's true.”

  He looked angry. “They said you might be a coward, cousin. Tell me you are not, please.”

  I flushed up. “No, at least I think not. What I am is a rational man with a head full of everything ever written on the subject of war. Break enemy plans, avoid the joining of enemy forces…”

  “Then we should pick one direction rumored and strike out against them.”

  “It's too late for that. They are too close, hours away. If we hit one and I'm right we could have an enemy at our back or flanks when still engaged. Our only advantage is that they may not know we are here, yet. In which case,” I continued, thinking as I went along, “they will head for the nearest town…” I stormed away, heading for the tent, Tul a step after me. I knew where the nearest town was, what I wanted to do was look at the terrain and make sure the map was right.

  “Yebratt!” I needed scouts to report on the terrain, to check against the map.

  “You think they will hit Undralt without knowing we are here?”

  “Maybe! It would give us an interesting situation. If we let them take it before acting we can destroy half their army while the other half is trapped inside.”

  “Battle of Yerprathin! The siege after the siege! I read too, you know.”

  I laughed. “Of course you do. We don't send out more scouts, agreed?”

  “We don't want to risk one captured. Break the camp?”

  Bugger. My lovely towers and siege engines. “Let's think about it.”

  When Yebratt arrived we kept him busy.

  45

  “There are still recruiters out there.”

  The thought had just occurred to me and I just spat it out. There was no time to do anything else, decisions were being made. Get the info out there. Facts, think, decide, act.

  “We leave the fort up then, you have a way understrength cohort, we leave them and the engineers and baggage.”

  “And messengers. We won't be that far but if the fort is hit we need to know.”

  “Agreed.”

  We were now in a tent full of commanders who were taking orders and instructions or, like Sheo, passing orders out the door as they came to be acted on. There were already people watching the town of Undralt from cover. They had mirrors to signal with if anything happened. A relay would get the message here pretty fast. A detailed message would follow. There was a battle mage on the walls. There is a dinky spell called far-see that gave them better range of sight. But we didn't send them out of the fort. Too useful to risk. At night we would have to wait for word. As the scouts came in we re-assigned them. No more scouts out lest they be seen or captured. We were trying to stay unknown now, and hoping it worked.

  The day was on the wane. We needed to be ready to move out at any time, but I doubted anything would now make us move until dawn. There would be no practice tonight for me, and none for any of us the next day. Tomorrow it might be the thing we had been practicing for. A battle. The excitement bothered me but I couldn't not feel it. I didn't feel any fear, oddly enough, the excitement and the fact I was busy masked it if it was there.

  “Best let the rest of the world know what's happening.”

  Tul was in fact at his desk writing, it was me who couldn't stop pacing and thinking and talking.

  “I'm on it. Three copies, one for Orthand, one for the King of Wherrel, one for the assembly of patrons.”

  “Should we have warned the magistrate of Undralt?”

  “How can they not know the enemy is near? And do we want to risk giving the enemy any information of us, no matter how slim the chance? I'm trying to write.”

  I let it lie and worried at my lip, trying to think if we had missed anything. It all relied on not being seen, even then nothing was certain. The enemy attack the town, take the walls, flood into the town and then we hit them hard from the rear. Any inside the walls would be useless, and as long as we broke the force that remained outside we could probably take the rest as they flooded back out again, their numbers useless. And they had numbers. The three force theory was holding up, traveling separately in an arc from north to north-west. They might join up before reaching Undralt, or arrive at different times, either way we would wait until the town fell. Something over twenty thousand looked to be true. Ten times our numbers. Six miles from here to the town. There was a danger that outriders would find us and we had small units placed in any cover, ditch or copse, to take down riders. Their instructions strict, keep cover if you can't take them, take them down if you can. If engaged, don't let any enemy ride away alive, no matter what the cost. If a large unit got close enough to see the fort – which would be a mile due to lay of the land and vegetation; orchard, coppice, copse and so forth – we would have some warning and be able to prepare to take them down. There had been no camp fires all day and would be none in the night.

  We worked on, worried, worked over the plans again and again. By nightfall I was exhausted.

  “Sleep,” Tulian instructed me. “You'll soon enough be woken if something happens.”

  “Have we missed anything?”

  “I hope not. I don't think so.”

  “If they see us beforehand we are going to have a serious problem.”

  “The fort's solid, your towers and siege weapons, battle mages, crossbowmen, enough men to man the walls…”

  “A serious problem.”

  He nodded, knowing I was right. “Sleep.”

  It was my turn to nod. I knew he was right.

  46

  “Wake him.”

  The words alone were enough to bring me to full consciousness. I had a whole new definition of the term restless sleep.

  “I'm awake,” I said, up and out of bed in one movement, reaching for my sword and helm. I'd slept in my armor, finding the only way to be even half way comfortable was flat on my back.

  “We have a signal. There's movement around the town.”

  I recognized Sheo's voice and headed for it in the dark, moving slowly.

  “Anything more concrete?”

  I shuffled forward like a blind man, heading for his voice and the cool breeze he let in by holding the tent flap open. I stepped carefully, arms reaching until I touched an outstretched hand. “Here,” he said, unnecessarily. Outside was no better, a faint glow
from my left. Tul had a lamp lit in the command tent. I could hear people moving in the dark; they sounded as slow and careful as me. Once inside the command tent I could see well enough, lots of shadowy figures but the table was crisp and clear in the light of a single lamp, a map of the immediate area spread out on it. Tul met my gaze but didn't say anything. I had nothing to say either. No one did. We were waiting. So we waited.

  Tension oozed around the room, seeping into me in irregular waves. How long would we wait? Knowing there was something going on in the night, that the enemy had been sighted, but not knowing where or how many or what they were doing, sent thrills of uncertainty and fear through us. We waited.

  The noise of someone coming to join us sounded loud against our tense silence and we all looked at the entrance even though we could see nothing; the flaps parted and Kerral stepped in, looked around, held the commander's gaze and shook his head. No, he had no news. We all relaxed back into the silent tension of waiting, the thrill of possible action unfulfilled adding to the pressure of expectation.

  To keep the pressure at bay I started thinking; the plan was set, more or less, but we could still change it. Hell, we could right now move west, away from the enemy and seek out our allies and join forces with them. If we had passed unnoticed we could sneak away. Too late, I told myself, no one would do that now, there was no way I could persuade Tulian that that was the wiser course, not now. We would meet the enemy in this area, one way or the other, and we would fight them and now there was no choice but to win. I hoped the men were ready. The mood had changed as the stories of the violence of the Orduli had been circulated among the men. They had seen the battered and hurt refugees, their despair and fear, seen them from the walls and at the gates, seen those that had passed through the camp, seen the anger of the commanders who had questioned them. Their rage had been raised to a red heat and now they wanted to quench it in the blood of the enemy.

  Again we all looked toward the tent flap as the noise of men moving carefully toward us sounded in the silence of the night. Waiting for the news. The tension raised another notch until Gatren Orans poked his head into the tent and gave a terse report in hushed tones, “The mages are outside and ready.” We all nodded, as though the report were for all of us. Soon we would step outside the tent and the mages would pick one of us as we emerged and lead him to one side; spells would be cast on us and our weapons and armor. Not many, but enough to give us an advantage that the enemy didn't have. Most of the spells would last out the day, a day of bloodshed and violence.

  I listened hard, knowing now that the whole camp was awake, that the mages had done the same for each man; moving from tent to tent pausing briefly at each, casting first a sight enhancement so that they could move in the dark and then hurrying swiftly on. As ranks assembled other mages would pass among them, strengthening swords and armor, giving borrowed stamina, speeding reactions, enhancing strength. The men would be wired, tense, ready to act, just as we were. They were commanded to silence yet I could just hear a distant susurration of involuntary movements. A sigh of sound like leaves in a distant tree rustling gently in a breeze, punctuated by the occasional stamp of a horse's hoof or whicker of unease.

  Gatren stepped aside and another figure took his place, moving into the tent, stopping at each man, Kerral and then me, an amber glow close to my eyes, a brief flash of unseen light and then I could see, not perfectly and not colors but much better. He moved on, unhurried, silent, casting that one spell over and over until he was done with the room and left as silently as he had come.

  Soon, I thought. Soon word would come and we would know where the enemy was and how many and in how many parts and we would move. And I was right. The movements we heard next were purposeful, hurried, quite unlike any of the previous arrivals. We all knew that we would now hear something of what was going on in the night.

  They came into the tent without preamble, the two captains of equestes, and another two men with them. Space was made for them, the tent, large as it was, starting to feel cramped.

  “Report,” Tulian's voice was curt and controlled.

  “What we take to be the main body is five miles away but heading in the right direction,” Yebratt gestured to the man beside him, a scout who was wired with tension.

  “How many?”

  “More than ten thousand by my judgment, sir.” The scout reported. “They appeared in the night, carrying torches and moving without any urgency, then camped in a long vale southeast of the town and made fires, I counted the fires.”

  “We could hit them now.” The words were out of my mouth before I thought. It would hardly be the first time our armies had taken advantage of the night when our enemies could not see.

  Tul held up his hand but didn't raise his voice as he called for quiet to forestall any outbursts. “We could, we are ready and they are not. But the hour, two hours before dawn, we would have less than an hour to break them, if their scouts don't see us coming.”

  “Even if they do, we can see and they can't and a mage can douse fires as easily as make them.”

  He nodded. “We can roll them up in the night. To your units; you now know what we are going to do and you know how; nothing complex, an attack on one side of their camp and cut through them till they break. Mages to kill fires first and men afterwards, nothing bright, no fires to help them see. Let's not waste time or this gift.” He stood up, “You,” he pointed to the scout, “with me.” We let him pass out the tent first, where a mage latched onto him and moved him aside, casting spells as he went. I followed, Sheo and Kerral behind me. “You know what to do,” I glanced at them and received nods of reassurance. “No mistakes.”

  A mage latched onto me, it was Larner. “Stand still, I'll be faster.” I did and his hand moved smoothly from point to point, sword, armor, forehead, I felt the thrill of vitality flow into me. Endurance and strength and energy. “Done,” he said and was gone.

  Meran was close, seated on his own horse, holding the reins of mine; he wore cheap armor and carried a sword. “No time to argue,” he said, holding out the reins to me. I wasn't going to. I pulled myself into the saddle effortlessly and we moved, heading for my cohort.

  “You saw a mage?”

  “I paid Larner.”

  I snorted in disgust, then followed it with a snort of laughter. Greed, our blessing and our curse. Larner would have taken the money; and now Meran would fight and get a cut of the booty. If we won.

  Pakat was my first centurion; he waited with the five others in a group, took my orders and made them happen. We moved out of the south gate and round the fort, joining beside Tul's cohort, Kerral's cohort had emerged from the north gate and moved to his left. The cavalry came behind us, noisier and kept back so the sounds traveled only as far as our marching feet. We marched with a broad front cross country, led by the scouts who knew the lay of the land and the best route to take us swiftly and quietly.

  It took an hour, moving fast and as quietly as possible, footsteps on grass make little sound. We were crossing a meadow and could see the glow of fires reflected off the clouds, when Gatren came with the information and moved on.

  “Over the wall at the far end of the field, cross the road, through the trees and we are there.”

  I didn't like the sound of the road and sent a message to Sheo. “Guard the road. Watch our flank and backs. Make sure we are not taken by surprise.” He would hate being removed from the battle but he would do it.

  Equestes jumped the low wall, us included, and hit the road. It was the loudest sound so far made and I winced even as I doubted anyone would hear. The men of the cohorts followed and the noise made me hiss with trepidation and disapproval but there was nothing to be done. We reorganized briefly on the road, a narrow chalk cart track but sloped and well drained, then across the ditch and into the woodland, each cohort with a one hundred and sixty man frontage, three men deep.

  The woodland was not dense with trees but still there was some bunching and drifting
as men went round thickets and bushes. When we came close to the edge of it we were in good order, a long gentle slope ahead of us and thousands of fires and suddenly it seemed insane that we should attack over ten thousand men with less than two and I shuddered with the madness of it; but it was only five men each, I thought, five men and I can do that in the dark when I can see and they can't. We came out of the woods and onto the slope and moved on without a word and came closer and closer without any hint that they had seen us and the tension was killing me and the thinking was over as the horns blew and we charged, fires suddenly doused in great swathes ahead of us.

  It was a slaughter.

  47

  It was an hour after dawn and the vale was strewn with dead and dying. For as far as I could see, the dead men lay in the dewy grass, thickly in the middle of the vale and scattered as far as the line of trees to the north to which the enemy had fled in complete disorder. They had scattered in the dawn, great clouds of gas choking them; many were still on their hands and knees coughing their lungs out helplessly and trying to crawl to a safety that didn't exist. Our men moved unhurriedly about the field in rough lines, putting them out of their misery.

  Full of boundless energy, I walked my horse about the field, looking around, looking for an enemy, my mood exulted and fierce. I felt like a god of war. My heart beat slow and hard, lungs working deep and slow. Blood pumped hard and strong through me. The spells in me would probably take a year off my life and I didn't care a bit.

  Still looking around the long vale, tense and aware, long gentle slopes to trees to the north and south, long shadows of early morning thrown along the length of the vale, birdsong, the sounds of pain. It all soaked into my awareness in waves. My sword was still in my fist, shield still on my arm. I came to the center of things, our men moving north of us in ragged lines, and here the commanders gathered on horseback to confer. The battle mages were here, calm and distant, the healers tending still the wounds of the injured. I had no idea how many men we had lost but I knew we had won a victory to be proud of, and at little cost.