Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  Honored by such trust, Bemnida ducked her helmed head in acknowledgment and turned away. Akratil selected warriors.

  “They’re moving.” Arcole crouched beside a hornbeam. “It looks as if they divide their force.”

  Davyd stared down into the valley. “They’ll look to destroy us,” he said. He seemed possessed of an awful certainty. “The bulk will go to the river, and some will remain to attack us. We must hold them here, Arcole.”

  Arcole said, “We must do our best,” thinking that sheer weight of numbers must surely overwhelm them. Was Davyd right, then save the impossible happened and all the folk of this new world came together in common purpose, the ridge must soon be only the Breakers’ killing ground. But he could not imagine the People and the branded folk and the masters and the redcoats of the God’s Militia joining in such intent—surely not in time. He wished he entertained no such doubts, but when he looked at Davyd’s haggard face, he saw his own pessimism reflected there.

  “I know,” Davyd said, as if he read his comrade’s mind. “But what else shall we do? We must hold them as long as we can, else all is lost.”

  Arcole nodded, smiling grimly, and studied the disposition of the enemy. The Horde moved now, the larger bulk flooding like some ghastly rainbow title toward the eastern end of the valley, hundreds more massing at the foot of the ridge, preparatory to attack.

  Kerik said, “I’d best move men to the pass.” He no longer seemed so sanguine.

  Arcole watched the captain stride away. “What think you?” he asked Davyd. “Can we survive?”

  “That’s of no account,” Davyd replied. “Only that we hold them here long enough. Do the others come …” He shook his head fretfully. “It all depends on that, Arcole—that the others come.”

  “We could surely use their numbers,” Arcole said.

  “Not only that.” Davyd stared down the slope at the shifting Horde. “More than that. It’s not only numbers shall win this battle, but …” He shook his head again, as if he pursued some half forgotten thought, or the memory of a dream. “Does not all Salvation and Ket-Ta-Thanne come together here—all the folk who live in this land, on both sides of the mountains—then we shall lose. Save the People join with the branded folk, and the masters with their servants, then we are lost.”

  “Masters fighting alongside their indentured exiles?” Arcole shook his head in turn. “Is that likely?”

  “It must be,” Davyd said. “Save all the people join together, we shall lose this new land to the Breakers. Do you not understand?”

  Arcole said, “No. I’d thought we might look for Abram’s army of branded folk, and the aid of the Matawaye. But to think that the masters fight alongside their servants …” He rubbed the scar decorating his cheek.

  Davyd said, “It has to be so. There must be a joining. Otherwise …”

  In the valley below, a horn sounded and the Breakers formed into ranks. Arcole calculated there were perhaps a thousand remaining. Sunlight glittered on their armor, and as the wind veered round, he could smell the charnel reek of their mounts, the headily sweet scent of dung. He spat and crossed his fingers and said, “At least we’ve the horse guns.”

  Davyd said, “Yes; and hope.”

  The horn sounded again and the Breakers charged.

  “By God, put your backs into it!” Abram Jaymes stalked the deck of the barge like some ancient galley-master. “Row, damn you! We’ve got a fight ahead we don’t want to miss, so row!”

  The oarsmen cursed him roundly and soundly, and bent the harder to their labors, propelling the lead craft swifter up the Restitution, the boats behind picking up their speed so that the flotilla ran like some pack of heavy dogs to its quarry.

  “Shall we be in time?” asked Var.

  “God knows.” Jaymes shrugged. “We best be, is Davyd right.”

  The first wave was thrown back in confusion as the guns barked their terrible thunder and spread the slope with smoke. But then the second wave came, the monstrous beasts emerging from the gray fog of the cannons’ discharge like fleshed nightmares, and before the gunners had chance to reload, the Breakers topped the ridge and came amongst them. Swords and axes swung against bayoneted muskets, and men and animals died in bloody fury.

  Arcole saw a Breaker top the ridge and fired his rifle into the armored chest. He saw the rider toppled backward from the weirdling beast he rode and the beast charge snarling on. He lurched aside, reversing his rifle to smash the stock against the scaly snout that swung toward him with snapping fangs long as the bayonets of the marines. Foul breath gusted in his face and he flung himself away, scrabbling for the safety of a tree. He ducked behind its cover and the lizard-thing came after him, clawing at the trunk like some vast and maddened bear. Then Sergeant Ordan stepped forward and fired his musket directly into the creature’s gaping mouth. The thing jerked back, blood erupting from its neck as its eyes dulled. It swung its head and spat blood, and clawed the sergeant down even as he drove his bayonet into its chest. Arcole drew a pistol and fired into a dulling eye and the thing collapsed over Ordan’s body. Arcole reloaded and looked for another target.

  Davyd fired as Arcole had taught him: aim steady and squeeze gently, center the shot on the chest. He fired and reloaded with automatic precision, saw Breakers fall, and beasts, and all the while prayed to the Maker that the People come in time, and Abram Jaymes’s army. And that Kerik’s marines hold the Horde long enough in the valley that all come together. Else …

  He pushed the thought away. No time for that; only to fire and reload and fire again. He could not, he thought incongruously, be a wakanisha now. A wakanisha did not kill, and he could not remember how many he had slain. He saw a screaming Tachyn run toward him, hatchet raised to cleave his skull, and triggered his musket to drive a ball into the man’s belly, sending him spilling over the momentum of his own run so that he somersaulted and landed at Davyd’s feet. Unthinking, Davyd slammed his musket’s stock down against the Tachyn’s face, and drew a pistol as a second charged him, and shot the man cleanly through the right eye.

  A dreadful calm owned him now. He felt given up to destiny, and accepted that what he did was all he could do. And was it wrong then the Maker had set him here in this place, and he could do no more save hope.

  He crouched, reloading musket and pistol, and heard the cannon roar again.

  “Back! Fall back!”

  Akratil turned his dread horse, its horns all sticky and red, and waved his bloodied sword. This ridge was harder to take than he’d anticipated. He’d not faced such weapons as these folk used before, and they had wreaked carnage on his warriors. He took his mount at a gallop down the slope, thinking that the enemy was sore hurt. There could not be more than a few hundred of them—far less than the numbers he’d faced in that other valley in Ket-Ta-Witko—but they owned thunder and lightning, and he should have listened harder to Chakthi. The thought irritated him and he looked to find the Tachyn.

  Chakthi sat blood-boltered on his borrowed horse and without thinking about it, Akratil swung a gauntleted hand to strike him from the saddle. Chakthi fell down and spat out blood, a broken tooth. He reached for his hatchet and Akratil kicked him in the face.

  “I should take your head.” He walked his dread horned animal toward the Tachyn. “I should slay you and set your skull on my saddle with these others for what you’ve done.” He looked back at the slope. It was littered with the bodies of Breakers and their beasts. “I should kill you now.”

  Chakthi darted away from the probing horns. “No! Listen!” He felt afraid. “Do we only go around them …”

  “No!” Akratil roared. “I do not go around things. I go over them and through them; not around them.”

  “Please.” Chakthi cringed. “Let me take my warriors north and come against them from their flank. Then you charge upslope …”

  The crash of cannon diverted them both.

  Bemnida rode hard for the egress. She had far sooner fought with the others,
but Akratil had commanded and she obeyed, and so she led the bulk of the Horde toward the pass and the river beyond.

  Then the thunder came again and the ground around her exploded. Her mount began to prance. She was reminded of that other valley where rock had fallen, hills erupted, and knew this was different. This came not from the shifting of stone, which was magic and understandable, but from weapons she did not comprehend, that appeared to be set on the ridge above. She looked up, wondering at such strange creations, and saw the flash of flame and heard the roar, then a great whistling sound, and in the sunlight saw lines traced across the sky.

  Then nothing.

  The first burst of grapeshot pierced Bemnida’s armor, her helm. It shot her through so that she fell from her saddle as the beast reared in its own pain and fell down across her as she screamed, and crushed her as she died.

  The guns fired again, and muskets, angled down into the pass, and the Horde halted and swirled and fell back.

  “By God!” Kerik shouted. “Keep firing, boys, and we’ll hold them.”

  The gunners, thankful to be free of the carnage on the ridge—and angered by the destruction of their comrades—bent with a will to their work. They loaded and primed and fired as the supporting infantry volleyed musket balls into the riders massed below. It was a slaughter—did these rainbow-armored folk own magic it was not such as knew the power of musketry and cannon, of lead shot. The Breakers were thinned and slowed by the valley’s bottleneck pass, and all the marines need do was fire down until the track was filled and blocked with bodies.

  Bemnida slain, the Breakers fell back in confusion. But even so there remained sufficient of them none on the ridgetop might hope to survive unless help arrived swiftly.

  Kerik looked at the carnage and then at the sun. It was not yet far over the horizon. He wondered if he would survive this day, and pasted a smile across his face.

  “Hold the pass, boys. Help’s on its way.”

  “Bemnida!” Akratil roared. “Where’s Bemnida? I’ll take her head for this!”

  A warrior whose name was Beltyn told him, “She’s dead,” and in his rage, Akratil swung his sword and took off the man’s head. “We attack again,” he screamed. “Follow me!”

  And again the guns flung them back in bloody carnage, and the Breakers chafed and cursed and knew the frustration of defeat.

  The day aged: the sun traveled the sky and came toward its zenith, and in the valley and down the slope and on the ridge, the smell of blood was strong, the stench of death filling the air.

  Akratil rallied his depleted Horde.

  “They’ve power,” he acknowledged, “but still not so great as mine, nor so great as our god’s. We must bespell ourselves against these new weapons, and then we shall ride over them.”

  He ordered a fire built and the body of a man set on the blaze, alive and screaming. Chakthi objected that it be one his Tachyn, but not for long, and chose a warrior. Akratil called on the dark god he served, who was the antithesis of the Maker, dark to light, and bought strength. He raised his hands and sent that darkly summoned power out over his warriors, arming them against the hitherto unknown power of cannon and musketry, against black powder and lead shot.

  “Now,” he roared, “we are invincible. Destroy them!”

  The Horde charged, and even did the cannon on the slope roar out and slaughter Tachyn, and even some of the Breakers, still the dread warriors came amongst the beleaguered defenders to deliver terrible slaughter.

  Davyd fired his musket and saw the ball deflect off the armor of the blue-clad rider. He braced the gun against the down-swinging sword and flung himself clear of the gnashing fangs of the lizard-mount even as Arcole fired into the woman’s back—the lead slug made no more impression than Davyd’s earlier shot, and the rider went by, laughing as her blade carved a path through Kerik’s marines.

  “They use magic,” Davyd shouted. “By the Maker, Arcole, they’ve armored themselves against bullets.”

  Arcole grimaced, reloading his musket. “Then what do we do?”

  “Hold!” Davyd spilled powder down the barrel of his own gun, wondering if it be any use. “Hold them as long as we can. Do the others come …”

  “Dear God, we can’t hold them much longer,” Kerik gasped. “We’re running short of powder, and we’re almost out of shot.”

  “We must,” Davyd said. “Even if we must fight them hand-to-hand.”

  “Them?” Kerik barked a sour laugh. “Fight them with bayonets? Bullets bounce off them, no? What can we do, save die?”

  Davyd said, “If we must. It’s the world’s only chance.”

  39

  The Last Battle

  Davyd wiped a face blackened by powder and listened to the moaning of wounded and dying men. A breeze had gotten up soft and malodorous with the stench of death—and it seemed to him that its song was mournful, counterpointed by the wailing of the hurt and the frightened snorting of the marines’ surviving horses, the low-voiced conversation of men who believed they should die on this ridge. He wondered how many had already died—surely Kerik’s men were sorely depleted—and if sufficient remained to hold the Breakers and the Tachyn penned in the valley. He wondered at the Breakers’ magic, which allowed them to charge headlong into the volleys of musket fire and ride through unscathed. The cannon made some difference—as if the Horde’s dark magicks were not quite enough to overcome that greater firepower—but still insufficient to halt the mass of beast-riders. Another charge, he thought, and likely the Breakers should ride over Kerik’s men and leave them all dead behind as they went on to conquer all Salvation. And after that, deliver untold worlds to destruction.

  He looked at the sun, high and hot now, and wondered where the People were—if they’d come timely. Then he made the ritual gestures Morrhyn had taught him and asked the Maker that it be so, asked that the Breakers be halted here, even must he give his life to that end. He realized that he no longer cared whether he lived or died, only that the Horde be halted and their threat forever ended. He wondered if Morrhyn had felt the same when the Dreamer climbed the Maker’s Mountain. But there, so Morrhyn had told him, the Maker had vouchsafed him dreams, and therefore purpose. Davyd had no dreams to sustain him; it was as if the presence of the Breakers filled up the world and clouded the nocturnal images. He wondered why he did not feel afraid, and then if Taza was with the Tachyn, and then thought on the betrayals that had led to this last battle.

  Had Taza not envied him so, he wondered, might these events have been denied? If Chakthi had not taken his clan away, or Vachyr not kidnapped Arrhyna, or Rannach not slain the Tachyn … The thoughts whirled around his restless mind and he decided there was no answer, only the determination that it end here.

  He glanced up from his musing as Arcole joined him. “Here, best eat.”

  Arcole passed him a tin plate on which rested cold meat, a biscuit. Davyd nodded and took the food. He felt no appetite, but knew he should need all his strength.

  “How are Kerik’s men?”

  “Angry. Angry and afraid.” Arcole shrugged. “God knows, but they’ve reason. And you?”

  “It’s strange,” Davyd smiled grimly, “but I don’t feel any fear.”

  “It can sometimes be that way.” Arcole settled beside him. “When you’ve a true purpose.” He sighed. “I wish I could see Flysse again.”

  “Perhaps you shall.” Davyd could not taste the meat. “Perhaps Rannach found the People; I think that Morrhyn knows we’re here.”

  “And can find this place?”

  Davyd shrugged. “At least Abram knows of it. But alone, his folk shall not be enough.”

  Arcole nodded and was about to speak, but shouts rang from the north, and the rattle of musketry, the blast of the two cannon placed there. “God, they look to flank us!” He sprang to his feet.

  Davyd followed him and they ran to the north, where shadows moved amongst the trees and the cannon’s flame outlined the Tachyn who sought to come up stea
lthy.

  Arcole fired and a warrior screamed and fell. Davyd took aim, then flinched as an arrow thudded into the tree beside him; perhaps he was not so resigned to dying. He fired instinctively, and the archer coughed and toppled back into the bush that hid him.

  The cannon roared again, the effect of their shot augmented by the trees ahead, so that terrible splinters and spinning chunks of jagged bark joined the discharge. Few Tachyn made it through that dreadful storm, and those who did were spitted on the bayonets of the marines.

  The flanking attack failed, but even as it did, the Breakers came again up the slope, and toward the southern pass. Empowered by Akratil’s magic, they rode oblivious of Talle’s fading hexes, and the fire of Kerik’s men sprang off their armor like raindrops from waxed cloth. They seemed impervious, and only at close quarters—as if honest steel prevailed over dark magic—could the defenders halt them. And even were the attackers finally thrown back, still more shot was used, more powder, and more marines left dead. They were down to only a few men now, surely not enough to halt another charge.

  “We should consider withdrawal.” Kerik winced as a bandage was wrapped about his wounded arm. “Perhaps we could slip away and get to the river.”

  Davyd said “No!” in such a tone as prompted the officer to stare at him.

  Arcole said, “They’d find us, anyway. And were we on open ground …”

  Kerik nodded and with his good hand, reached for his flask. His left was by now strapped to his chest and he fumbled with the flask before handing it to Arcole.

  “Would you?”

  Arcole grinned and unscrewed the stopper, passed the vessel back to Kerik.

  “Well, it appears we stay and fight. So here’s to …” He hesitated. “A clean death?”

  “Victory,” Arcole said.

  “At some cost,” Kerik returned. “I’ve but a handful of men left.” He looked at Davyd. “But we’ll hold them long as we can. So—to victory, or death!”