She pulled back her head, knowing above all that she must not let this creature gain purchase. She looked down at it, snarling, saliva dripping from her.-,mouth. It looked back, cocking its head on one side. It spoke. She could not understand. But then the sky burst with blue and there was noise everywhere.
They hadn't tried to hide their progress and their intent was clear. Hirad watched them fly clear over the elves running hard north, well out of range of any spell. He counted four familiars, ugly shapes against the afternoon sky, and four mages, their masters, grouped behind them. Somewhere, he was sure there would be riders, swordsmen to add defence to the strike that was certain to come in against the forward runners.
'Who's ahead?' asked Hirad of Rebraal who ran easily by the side of his half-cantering horse.
'ClawBound. Three pairs. TaiGethen sweeping behind them.'
'That won't do it. The familiars can only be damaged by spells.' He looked round. 'Sian, get up behind me. Darrick, Thraun, you're staying here. Raven with me!'
Sian'erei swung up behind Hirad, clutching him around the waist. He dug his heels into his horse, The Unknown and Denser behind him, elves scattering from their path.
'Come on!' Hirad felt an exhilaration flow through him as he urged his horse to greater effort.
They were riding through the wreckage of a small wood, trunks broken and bent, dead wood scattered thick and wide. Branches hung low and obstructions were everywhere. His horse picked a clear path, forcing him and Sian to duck and sway in the saddle. The air blew about his head, his braids flying out behind him. It was a wonderful feeling in the midst of such desperation.
They were closing fast on the forward positions of the TaiGethen when the first spells began to strike about a quarter of a mile ahead.
'Concentrate on the familiars!' he shouted to her. 'One at a time. We'll protect you. Take the mages and swords out for you.'
'I understand.' Her voice was unsure.
'You have to trust the magic, Sian. Believe it won't fail you.'
In front of them, TaiGethen sprinted from cover, bows strung and taut, arrows ready or swords and jaqrui in hand.
'Hirad, circle!' yelled The Unknown. 'Let's backdoor them.'
Hirad pressed his thigh in left and dragged the reins around, turning his galloping horse. Above, a familiar dived from treetop level, lost among the odd living bough that studded the wreckage. The damp smell of smouldering vegetation and the first tendrils of smoke reached them. To the right, he saw TaiGethen pause, release arrows and run on again.
'Twenty yards,' he warned Sian. 'Hang on.'
He hauled the reins in, horse protesting at the treatment, snorting and stamping.
'Off, off!' he ordered, swinging his leg over the horse's neck and jumping down, dragging his sword from his scabbard. 'Behind me. Stay behind me.'
He ran back in towards the centre of the woodland, The Unknown joining him on his left, Denser with him, forming the shape for a spell as he ran. Hirad wasn't sure if Sian had that sort of skill.
The way ahead was cluttered. He could see shapes moving in and against the trees and broken trunks and branches, vanishing into shadow or behind drifts of brush. The clash of swords rang across the space, men were shouting. There was a low thud, dirt kicked into the air.
Hirad charged in. Checking left, he thought he could see riderless horses, confirming that Xeteskian swordsmen were in the fight. The scene became clear. Familiars were attacking ClawBound and
TaiGethen at the edge of a small clearing, mages behind them in cover, swordsmen almost certainly with them. He couldn't tell how many.
He hunched as he ran, signalling with The Unknown that they should keep close. Without a shield, they were vulnerable but it was a chance they had to take. Familiars were probably the greater risk.
In the few yards before they were seen, Hirad could see that the fight remained in the balance. He watched a TaiGethen cell split with dizzying speed as a focused Orb flashed their way, two tumbling gracefully to the sides, the third dropping and rolling beneath the spell. All three were up and running before the Orb struck a rotten trunk behind them, exploding in a shower of mana fire and flaming splinters.
The cell closed on the mages but a pair of familiars blocked their path. Jaqrui whispered out, striking harmlessly. The TaiGethen had no answer to the demons, just hoping to hang on until mage support arrived. And though they were wary of the familiars, they displayed no fear. Hirad smiled. It was time to even up the odds a little.
Hirad ducked under a branch and felt something pass just over his head. Looking up, he saw the familiar flit away. It called a warning and swordsmen came running.
'Two your left, Unknown. I've got centre. Sian, target overhead. Denser, you know it all already.'
Hirad heard The Unknown's blade thump the ground ahead of him. The familiar dived, cracking through dead wood.
'No shot,' said Denser. 'Hirad, he's on you.'
The barbarian sized up. The first swordsman was only a few paces away. The familiar cackled. Hirad stepped back smartly, his sword flashing above his head. The wound across his chest pulled painfully. He felt the blade bounce from skin. The familiar yelped and, knocked off balance, tumbled hard into a tree, dropping to the ground dazed.
Hirad didn't have time to look further and faced front. The soldier, wearing thick chain armour, swung a heavy two-handed blade at him. He heard a whistle as his keen axe sliced the air and barely blocked the stroke, his defence battered by the other man's power. He felt his wrist spring at the impact and he stumbled backwards.
Encouraged, the Xeteskian advanced. Hirad had no strength in his right wrist. Quickly, he switched the sword to his left. Behind him, sudden heat and blue light, the familiar screeched and burned. Somewhere ahead, a man screamed. Hirad managed a smile.
'And you've had your chance too,' he said.
The soldier spat and struck, another huge carving swing. Hirad dodged this one with more comfort, catching enough of the blade on his to off-balance his man just a little. He readjusted quickly and thrust straight, his sword grating off the shining chain, gouging up sparks and bruising his enemy's ribs, forcing him backwards. Hirad moved after him, cutting downwards this time, hoping to get inside his enemy's guard. But the man was quick, rebalancing after a single pace and bringing his axe back up in front of his body.
But he used fractionally too much force and caught Hirad's sword only a glancing blow. The momentum of his swing took his axe too high. He began to fall. Hirad had seen it before. He jumped in, shoulder first, and put the man on the ground. He snatched out a dagger with his weaker hand and punched it through the Xeteskian's throat.
No one else direcdy threatened him. The Unknown was advancing again, sword dripping blood. Behind, Denser stood with Sian, watching for familiars. They were all engaged ahead. One Tai-Gethen lay wounded, perhaps dying, anofher wresded with one of the demon creatures briefly until a panther tore the thing from his chest and bowled it away, fizzing with frustration.
A ForceCone knocked two elves flat. It had come from the left. Hirad looked, saw the mage. They locked eyes, the Xeteskian going pale. Hirad roared and charged, the mage losing concentration on his spell, turning and running, calling help to him. The familiars disengaged, other soldiers moved in, a pair of mages appeared from shadow to join them.
'Break off!' came the shout.
The attack folded. With TaiGefhen and ClawBound sprinting past the slower Raven warriors, the enemy mages cast as they ran, ShadowWings powering them skywards, familiars shadowing them into the relative safety of the air. Hirad flung his dagger, watching it just miss the trailing foot of the last mage to take off.
He cursed but it wasn't quite over. From his right, Denser and Sian both cast. Focused Orbs flared away into the afternoon sky. The blue missed their target, the yellow did not, ploughing into a mage and setting clothes and hair on fire.
Helpless and in agony, he plummeted from the sky, his familiar circling him, desperate,
its keening wails soul-piercing. A Claw-Bound pair watched them fall, running to intercept. The mage hit the ground dead, bouncing sickeningly. The familiar trailed after him, strength going quickly, hovering just too close. The panther leapt, snatched it from the air and bore it to the ground, savaging the dying creature, its protection fading, its skin vulnerable to raw power.
Hirad winced when the creature's neck broke and it flopped still.
'What a way to go.'
'Almost as bad as that.'
Denser was pointing away into the trees. A TaiGethen cell had trapped two soldiers. They stood back to back, swords ready. They didn't even see the blows that killed them. Two of the cell drew their attention, the third launched into the air, drop-kicking one flush on the left hand side of his chin. His head cracked round and back, slamming into his comrade's. There was a sickening crunch as bones fractured.
The elves had turned to go before either man had stopped moving, trotting back towards their wounded and dead. Around the woodland, a low growl sounded, taken up by the ClawBound, elf and beast mourning their fallen.
Hirad and The Unknown Warrior walked over to the bodies of the two soldiers attacked by the TaiGethen. One was still breathing. Hirad stared down at them dispassionately. Both men wore similar chain mail and carried two-handed blades.
'What do you make of this, Unknown?'
The Unknown shrugged. 'They're mage defender guards, no doubt about it. But I've not seen them in such heavy armour before. I wonder who it was we were attacking?'
'Circle Seven?'
'Not a chance,' said Denser, joining them. 'But without the
Protectors, the trios are weakened. I'm guessing these are elite college guards.'
'Yeah?' Hirad raised his eyebrows. 'Perhaps we shouldn't be running after all.'
'You turn and face them all, I'll be right behind you,' said Denser. 'Several hours behind you, to be precise and heading in the other direction.'
Hirad chuckled and slapped him on the arm.
'C'mon, Xetesk-man, let's collect these spare horses and get you back to your wife. I need someone to look at my chest again, too.'
'Good idea,' said The Unknown, looking at the advancing shadows of the lengthening afternoon. 'This isn't a mistake they'll repeat. It'll be dusk in a couple of hours and we need a plan. The assassins will be next.'
Chapter 32
Commander Chandyr knew his destiny was upon him. It was inextricably linked with the fate of the college and city of Xetesk but he preferred to consider just himself and his men. Facing the responsibility for the futures of so many mainly innocent people was more than he wanted to cope with right now.
The Xeteskian force were making steady progress through the mage lands, takingjhe quickest route to Julatsa. They would skirt Triverne Lake, leaving the sacred lands unsullied, taking nothing, not even water. He had time to see the irony of that. Despite all the horror that had been visited on Balaia by the colleges, that was still seen as a step too far.
Riding sedately in the middle of his tightly organised twenty-wide column of men, he considered his current tactical challenges. For a student of the military, which he considered himself to be, they were very interesting. As he always did, he tried to put himself in the mind of General Darrick. Or was it ex-General Darrick? Idiots, the Lysternans. Only the pretentiously pious would seek to destroy their greatest asset because of a moral misdemeanour. Had they engaged him rather than trying to kill him, Chandyr suspected the war would have followed a very different path. More pressure on the walls of Xetesk, no panic in the face of the dimensional spell's power. Still, it was no concern of his.
At his disposal, Chandyr had approximately thirteen hundred men, a hundred of whom were horsemen, the rest divided into six equal companies under field captaincy. Most of his men were relatively rested, having been cycled carefully at the fronts. Some were raw but all had undergone at least basic training. He had seventy mages, most with little battle exposure beyond the recent siege, and experience only of basic offensive and defensive castings. And all of them were young, graduates of the last five years. This worried him. Linked shields, cooperative offence and long-distance Communion could be beyond them.
More pleasing was the well-organised supply train. Food would be basic, and they were expected to forage and hunt to supplement themselves, but they would not starve. They had blacksmiths, stable masters, field medics and a talented quartermaster to run their camps. Chandyr was not expecting a long battle but they were well served should it prove to be so.
In front of him was a fragmented, but in places very dangerous, guerrilla force. He had already decided not to attempt to slow up the elves. His testing of the forward scouts had cost him too much and setting a large enough force in front of that enemy wasn't feasible in the time available. They were over two hours ahead of him and moving fast, still catchable by horse but his cavalry were by no means numerous enough to risk. He would take them on in Julatsa instead. In the meantime, his assassins and familiar-backed strike groups were tasked to kill identified leaders, The Raven if they could, and to steal back the elven texts if they got very lucky.
Elsewhere, his scout mages were slowly building him a map of the enemy close to him. Fragmented groups of Lysternan and Dor-dovan soldiers were scattered over a wide area. Many small groups of soldiers, often injured and clearly without direction, were heading back towards their home cities. These he would ignore.
Others, those with mages in their midst, were clearly receiving orders and either heading directly north in front of Chandyr or moving to intercept other groups and swell their numbers. These he wanted to keep fragmented, his outriders attempting to harry them, mage defenders attacking them and the threat of assassins exhausting them through the coming night. He fully intended to stop them, his scouts telling him of any meaningful moves being made. With the enemy already sapped in energy and morale, he didn't expect anything.
Not even from the two groups of horsemen who were his greatest concern. One, the remnants of Blackthorne's men and including the Baron himself, was making a nuisance of itself connecting the split enemy forces. The other, Izack's excellent cavalry, perhaps seventy or eighty, had broken off its initial attack but was patrolling the space ahead of Chandyr, denying his ground scouts and outriders the freedom they needed.
He was sure that Izack wouldn't attack him head-on and neither would Blackthorne or the elves. But he was equally sure that Izack would be able to slow his movements by judicious charge and withdrawal. His mages were experienced rider-casters and would be able to protect themselves against spell and familiar attack.
And everything Chandyr had learned of the elven warriors through his long days of observation on the city walls told him that these were natural-born hunters and frighteningly skilled with bow, sword and those deadly curved throwing blades. More, they were equally at home fighting night or day and he couldn't believe they wouldn't try to disrupt the Xeteskian march.
Interesting. He could send his cavalry out to tackle Izack but he wasn't convinced they would prevail despite their superior numbers. Izack was a star pupil of Darrick's. And succeed or fail, having no horse guard left his own flanks exposed for a greater or lesser time to attack from elves.
He could push on, marching into the night and resting only sporadically but his men would tire and they had a fight ahead of them, whatever his strike groups' successes against the disparate pockets of resistance. And moving at night, without the capacity for a fixed perimeter guard and internal fire ring, the elves would rip them to pieces at will.
Chandyr could detach more of his core fighting force to sweep north and push back Izack but again, the Lysternan commander was too clever to be sucked into a combat that would leave him open to attack from horse, mage or familiar.
What would Darrick do? Actually, it was obvious. He was doing most of it already and that pleased him. He would keep harrying the enemies he found, keep them and their comrades on their toes, with their nerves jan
gling and their bellies empty for want of the hunt. He could destroy much of what was left because he had them running scared. He would let the elves go. He couldn't stop them getting to Julatsa ahead of him and they were better off the field in any case.
But the critical thing Chandyr considered was this. He knew a good deal about what he chased but nothing about what lay in
Julatsa. They had mages, they had soldiers, they had militia. Not many, he knew that, but some nonetheless. It was not going to be an easy fight and he would need every man and mage at his disposal to quell the populace and reach the college with enough strength to tear it down.
Yet even as he nodded to himself and let the finer points of his march strategy coalesce, Chandyr was sure he had missed something. Left out a factor that might turn the tide against him. It nagged at him but he couldn't pin it down. Was it as simple as he thought? Darrick had always lectured that the straightforward tactic should always be the first considered because it was less likely to fail in the face of the enemy.
And he'd picked the straightforward, hadn't he?
He remembered something else that the general had said to him personally after a lecture at Triverne Lake a few years back. It made him laugh suddenly and heads turned towards him. He waved that he was fine and the heads turned away.
What history has told us, Darrick had said that time, is that battle theory is best left on the table in the castle, three hundred miles from the fight. Because what you need most is a nose for that thing you forgot. And when you smell it, you'd better pray to the Gods you can communicate it before whatever it is comes at you from downwind and slits your throat.
Chandyr sniffed the air. Dusk was coming and it was going to rain again.
And now Pheone had lost contact with her deputation to the elven lines outside Xetesk. Just at the time she had thought them on the verge of being saved and feeling joy despite her grief and another mana-flow failure. The elves had recovered what they wanted from Xetesk and were preparing to come north.
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