Wine of the Gods 03: The Black Goats

by Pam Uphoff

  "We will what!" That was Lieutenant Handowski, his right flank man.

  Jin held up a quelling hand. "Corporal, repeat the whole thing."

  "I have an urgent massage for General Inetricovski. There are at least two centuries of mounted troops on the northeast road. We will attempt to hold them at the ridge."

  "Good man. If those damn staffers try to hold you up, just start saying it as loudly as you can, over and over. The important thing is to get reinforcement out here as soon as possible. Now, mount up."

  He boosted the man aboard himself, and was relieved that he gathered up the reins competently and left promptly.

  Jin turned to his officers. "Now, are the men all rested, watered and fed?"

  "Yes, sir, but two centuries of mounted? We'll be slaughtered!"

  "No. We won't. The Auralians only have light cav, they don't have the big heavy horses and plate you see sometimes in Western or Verona. The road is narrow, three or four horses abreast maximum."

  He scanned the area. "All right, just as we practiced, Lieutenant Ornicio, get your men into position and lay out the pikes. Demornia, get your men into position, but pull back your reserves an bit. Handowski, likewise."

  He quickly put the reserves to work levering a couple of large round boulders that could be rolled down the slope into position and wedged, then piling rocks that could be thrown, both for direct damage and to interfere with the footing of charging men or horses.

  The Auralian scouts must have spotted them, because what came around the last bend was a line of horses already at the gallop, lances high. He judged the length of those lances and was very, very glad he'd gotten the long pikes. "Roll the rocks, men." One of the boulders bounced off to the side, uselessly, the other, the trained knights split and let pass.

  He stepped confidently in among the center troops. "Wait for them, no need to wear your arms out." Although I don't think we'll wait too long. "Now. Brace the butt of your pikes. C'mon, look down and check. Good. Now put your hands where you always do, and lift the points. Other hand on your shield, tilt it to push the lances up . . . "

  That was all the time he had for baby sitting.

  Three horses hit eight pikes. Horses and men screamed, and Jin was stabbing up with his sword, under the ribs of a knight who rode over his front line. He jerked his sword free. The second line of chargers were pushing past the downed horse. "Second line pikes, thrust!" It was ragged as all hell, but it was aimed in the right direction, and the second line of horses retreated, taking their wounded men and abandoning the horse flailing on the ground.

  The knight Jin had killed was the only one that had made it through. Three of his front line were injured. Only one dead.

  "Good job men." He took off his helmet and touched his dead man's shoulder, and softened his voice. "Good job Hemo."

  The failure of the first charge to run over them seemed to have heartened the men and slowed the enemy. They have no idea how few of us are out here. He sent lookouts to the highest points of the ridge, and tried to look confident and cool. He sent a man out to slice the throat of the injured horse.

  He had his center inspect their pikes, and in some cases swap to abandoned cavalry lances. They laid them out, and as time dragged on, rotated them out for water and stretch breaks.

  "Dust column from town, sir!"

  He turned and looked. It was a damned thin column.

  "Sir! Archers!"

  "Shields up, lads, get ready to turtle!" Thank the old gods he drilled them on that one.

  The ranks of archers were moving across the road, and getting deep. It was going to rain arrows, but by the way the archers were blocking the road, there wouldn't be an immediate charge behind it. He trotted forward, to be with the center.

  "Front, keep your shield tilted and on the ground, second rank, scoot up and get cosy, cover the front line over head, third rank, cover anything they leave hanging out, you lads don't want to have to grow them again." Not much of a laugh, but a hair of relaxation. He joined Lieutenant Ornisio behind them all, shields raised and the whisper of arrows filled the air.

  They hit the shields hard, rattling and crashing. There were several screams, but the screen held. Jin popped up and took a good long look. "They're forming up infantry." His officers were already moving the injured, arrows to arms, legs and in one case, butt, out of the formations. There were a few more screams as the arrows were removed, but he kept his attention down the slope. Short swords. They'd be wanting to close up with their shields locked and stab at short range. He looked back.

  It was the First Century. Half mounted. Half Foot. All experienced. General Inetricovski was riding at their head. He looked back at the Auralian infantry, forming up and ready to charge. "Poor sods. All right, men. You don't have any practice in getting out of the way of cavalry, so I'm going to position most of you so you're there already. But I need enough of you in the middle to make the Auralians think we're going to fight them the old fashioned way."

  He bit his lip. "That dead horse needs to be dragged to the side." He sent eight men out to muscle it out of a charge's way, and eight more to lever more boulders into place.

  Then he set them up, a double row of men in sight of the advancing infantry, and the rest split to either side. He made sure they understood which side they were each going to. Inetricovski was setting his people up four across, lances ready and starting to trot. It was noisy, obvious. "Roll the boulders!" Keep the soldiers attention on the menace they could see. There was enough slope and time for the boulders to get up speed, but also for the soldiers to predict their path and dodge. They formed back up, starting to get their shields together.

  "Get ready. Split!" Jin snapped, jumping for the side of the road himself. The horses charged over the crest and down on the infantry, gaining speed as they dropped their lances.

  Two horses veered off to the side. Oran and Neet looked down the road, and advanced slowly, waving occasionally, at signs of resistance. The First Infantry followed, and Jin formed his men up and marched out to do the clean up. Taking and controlling captured soldiers, loose horses. The officer's women were co-opted by the wizards.

  The frightened but defiant Solti in charge informed the wizards that the Amma was not interested in negotiation, but would allow them to withdraw back to the Kingdom of the West.

  Orgaphos chuckled and sent him off with his senior officers to deliver a response. On foot.

  The captured soldiers took over the mining work, and the wizards prepared to depart.

  "We'll be moving slowly to the west, picking up supplies as we go. The horses the Solti has generously left us will be used to mount the first two centuries, and pull our supply wagons. We'll be taking all the women with us, and none of these recent prisoners." Inetricovski glanced around at the officers. "We will be departing in three days. Get your people ready."

  "Sir?" Clen Daure, now the captain of the third century leaned forward, frowning. "Where are we going?"

  "Wherever the wizards wants us to go, Captain. They will give us specifics when they think we need them."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Winter 1354

  The New Lands

  Once Dydit thought about it, a winter without a single government or woman to cope with sounded Idyllic.

  The winter weather held off long enough for them to reach the central canyon Lefty had mentioned.

  With a bit of footwork, Lefty found the ideal combination of cliffs to the north to block the winter wind, warm rocks under foot, and a pool low enough in minerals to be drinkable.

  "But be careful when you go for water. There are these big lizards that live in the water. The first one I ran into damn near ate me instead of the other way around." Lefty had cut a long pole and shaved a point on it last night.

  "You need that for a lizard?" Didit snickered. And looked at the ripple in the pool that Lefty's eyes were tracking. Bumps broke the surface. Eyes. And nostrils of a head as big as a horse's. bumps along a flexible spine,
swimming nearer, switching to feet and coming right out of the water at him.

  Lefty met it with the point, and after a considerable tussle, it finally expired.

  Nil shook his head. "Boy, you need some magic lessons."

  Lefty's face jerked his direction. "Don't you mean Dydit?"

  "Him too." Nil looked down at the big lizard. "Is that thing edible?"

  "Well, yes, with some work."

  "Good. You two can fix dinner."

  Nil left them to deal with the carcass, while he made a way down for the horses and wagon.

  Then he got to work teaching Dydit how to cut hay. Dydit was rather proud of himself, as he learned to see the break between plant and root, and slice across just above it. Solid sunshine, the old wizard called the grass, and scooped it up into piles, and then into the wagon for transport down to their rocky little home. Which he built with another showy display of power, slicing a huge slab of rock and controlling its fall well enough to land it in one piece right where he wanted it, leaning against the cliff. He melted spots to hold it, and to keep the snow and rain out, and raised a grid across the horses' side for the hay. The boys could sleep in the wagon, the adults out on the rock, he said. The first storm hit that night and dumped a foot of snow on their new roof.

  And snow or not, every day, an hour before noon, Nil dragged them out for a magic lesson.

  "Witches feel Earth. They feel particles of Earth, both small and large. Mages feel the particles, the bits, of Water and Wind, but they feel the waves that the water and the air particles form. We wizards feel the pure waves. The energy without matter at all.

  "Waves have several important characteristics. Frequency and amplitude are the most important. Everything, at its most basic, is a wave, and has a frequency that you can use to manipulate it."

  Dydit looked at him, looked east toward the shorn acreage.

  "Oh, you can do a few tricks just by visualizing it with your wizard's sight and throwing power at it. But. If you really want to understand what you are doing, and then start doing things no one has ever done before, you have to understand matter all the way down to the vibrations." Nil looked from Dydit to Lefty and sighed. "Think of it as a song. A bunch of stringed instruments playing –vibrating—all combining into one song. That's what matter is, each bit its own song."

  Lefty shifted uneasily. "Well, quite apart from the question of whether or not I'm a wizard, which I highly doubt, I thought wizards only used Fire. Not matter," he stomped. "Earth."

  Nil nodded. "Yes and no. Wizards can only draw power from Fire. Once we have it, we can work with anything. Oh, working with Fire is still the easiest for us, but the rest of the world is rather useful, and well worth the effort of getting to know."

  "Dydit, you've seen how the witches develop. They do stages, making sudden breakthroughs and leaps in ability. Men are smoother, but we also go through stages."

  "Same stages as the witches?" Dydit hesitated. "I've never heard about wizards channeling the way witches do."

  "Yeah. Wizards hold onto power, hoard it. Witches share power. They're trained to work in threes, and Mages work in fours and eights. Sharing power. Wizards are trained like wild animals in a Traveler's circus. Baited and beaten, whipped and chained, fighting for their lives."

  The Tyrant Wizard got up and paced. "I will try to not do that. I don't want to—I won't—repeat the mistakes of the past." He gathered up sticks as he paced, and assembled a heap. "So, let's start with the relationship between the colors our eyes see and the heat of the fire. The deeper reds are the coolest, then oranges, yellows. The hottest part of the fire will be blue. It's the spectrum of the rainbow, all over again. When you can see the purest energy, the vibrations, you will see that the coolest, reddest have the slowest vibrations. The color shifts through orange to yellow, as the temperature gets hotter, and the energies available to a wizard all increase as it vibrates faster. The faster the vibration, the higher the frequency of vibration, the more energy you can scoop up and use."

  "First you will learn to see the energy that way, then you will use that as the foundation of all your spells." The old wizard grinned at Dydit. "Or to undo spells. Wouldn't you like to get rid of the rest of those spells?"

  "Oh, no, I enjoy all these odd surprises, like this spell to induce me to act like a fool in public. I have a hideous suspicion it fits my personality well."

  "Now, since we have such a nice fire, why don't you two go catch dinner?"

  Dydit cast a last dubious look at the orange coals of the fire and followed Lefty out of the shelter.

  "Lets try upstream this time." Lefty said. "We need to see what's up there anyway."

  "Right." Dydit grabbed the stout spear that had proven to be the best way to eat and not be eaten.

  Around the next shoulder of stone there was a two mile long canyon with rapids running—and steaming—between piles of half frozen rubble along both walls. The river was much reduced, with very little runoff from the frozen plains. The footing was treacherous, and they cursed and slid and swore to stick to the downstream direction for hunting.

  But it opened up into a maze of steaming pools and spraying geysers.

  "Oh man, I like this." Dydit closed his eyes and soaked up the heat. "Real low frequency, can you feel it?"

  "No, I'm too busy shitting my britches."

  Dydit opened his eyes. The dragon was probably only ten or twelve feet tall, but up on a four-foot boulder with its wings spread wide it was definitely impressive.

  And familiar.

  "Good morning Mayor Agate." Dydit chirped hopefully. He leaned on his spear as if it was a mere walking stick and tried to look unthreatening.

  Lefty flicked his eyes his way and eased back from his aggressive stance. "Mayor? You know, every time I think I've finally figured out your weird valley something like this happens."

  The dragon pulled her wings in a bit. "I don't remember either of you two." She had a lovely melodious voice.

  "Err, I was one of Nil's goats." Dydit wondered if that was a good confession to have made. "He sent us up here to hunt for dinner. Sorry to have disturbed you. Would you like to dine with us?"

  "No thank you, I have to keep an eye on my children. If you're hunting crocodiles, you'll find none near here. I won't allow them around here, although they do keep sneaking in."

  "May Nil come visit you? Or do you prefer privacy with your family?"

  "Oh yes, I would like to speak to Nil." The blue dragon sprang off her perch and soared overhead, circling around and coming down out of sight.

  Dydit led the way back down the canyon.

  "So," Lefty started, "That was Mayor Agate Accure?"

  "As in Accursed. Yes. Maleth turned her into a human nearly seven hundred years ago. When Nil turned Maleth into a goat, she was a bit put out to have to wait around until such a time as Nil was able to both retransform Maleth and compel him to untransform Agate Wind Lady." Dydit frowned. "I don't actually know what happened, how she reformed."

  Lefty snorted. "Probably the same way Maleth broke out—and you." He sounded a bit censorious. "It's a wonder any virgins survive to their sixteenth birthday, with you lot around."

  ***

  Nil strolled upstream, two goblets and a normal bottle of wine in a pack over his shoulder.

  He stopped where Dydit and Lefty had described their encounter, and hulloed.

  "Worried about surprising an old friend?"

  He turned and looked up at the dragon floating on the wind flowing down the Rip. "Good morning, Wind Lady. Indeed I've heard that a nesting dragon is exceptionally dangerous."

  "Ha! A wise myth, but your advice and perception I would welcome." She soared past him and dropped out of sight beyond a barrier of boulders.

  Nil climbed over, and paused at the sight of the eggs corralled on the edge of a geyser pool.

  "Twelve! Congratulations!"

  "You might have warned me that you'd changed that man's actual essence, King Nihility."
>
  "I wasn't actually sure that I had—it was a bit spur of the moment. I studied dragons once. It was said that they were the most powerful of Mages. That they absorbed so much of the Element of Wind that it became one with their essence. Personally I think they must have transformed themselves deliberately."

  Agate snorted. "What an absurd tale. However, can you tell me if these eggs are viable? Will they hatch? Will they be normal dragons?"

  Nil slid down to the eggs and carefully reached out and touched one with his bare hand. The shell was tough and leathery, not unlike one of the large lizard scales. He narrowed his eyes and felt/saw the faint beating of a living heart, traced the stubby limbs and long neck. "A girl." The next. "Girl. Boy. Girl, girl, girl, girl, boy, boy, girl, girl, girl." He stepped back away from the eggs. "Only three boys? That's going to be a bit awkward when they grow up."

  "They shouldn't mate with their own sibs anyway." Agate rattled her wings. "Perhaps you can changes some human essences again, wizard?"

  Nil frowned. "Yes, but as I'm attempting to be good, may I request that the men be, umm, otherwise deserving of death?"

  "Oh, ho. Starting to feel a bit responsible for your past actions? I'm glad to see you've rescued Maleth's apprentice and are raising him properly. What did you do with the rest of them? I didn't think they were redeemable."

  "They escaped. They really aren't my fault. But if they live long enough, maybe I'll change their essences to dragon, for your daughters."

  "Good. A dragon should have sense enough to not breed with someone nice, there's no telling how the children would turn out."

  "Hmm, perhaps I should study turning cats into dragons, the personality should be close."

  Agate laughed, "Indeed, if there were any cats left. But I don't think the intelligence is there. You relieve my mind, wizard." She looked down at the marbled white and gray orbs. "I have no idea how to raise these children of mine. I have no Great Mother to coach me, no flight to assist me in hunting and guarding and teaching."

  Nil laced his fingers together and pondered. "I, hmm. It would be quite possible to change their exteriors. Should you ever conceive of any need to raise them as if they were human. I could leave their essences draconic, and as they age, teach them the simple cues to switch from human form to dragon."