Trail of Pyres

by L. James Rice

  “We put a river between us and them horses and we got a shot. How far are we from the Destil?”

  Lelishen glanced south, eyes scrunched. “I judge four or five days.”

  Ivin said, “We need to get the people across that water.”

  Solineus glanced to the carpet of grass beaten to the ground by thousands of passing feet. “The wind’s out of the south, set fire to this ground and let it do our work.”

  Ivin said, “It might slow them down.”

  “And hungry horses won’t wanna ride hard.”

  Danwek said, “It’s a game of Hawk and Snake, but they’ll be on us tomorrow if they want. Sooner if they hurry.”

  Time wasn’t their ally; the decision was theirs. Ivin accepted it was a weight for his shoulders. “We don’t have time to think nor consult with others. Lelishen, you ride ahead and warn the rest. We need to march through the night, whatever it takes to reach the Destil. I want a full seven of ten warriors with a horse riding the back, but let no one get lazy at the front either. The bastards could be flanking us. We’ll set the fires and catch up soon as we’re able.”

  “I will. Ride safe.” Lelishen swung into the saddle with a smile for Solineus.

  Ivin glanced at the man. “She sweet on you?”

  And damned if the block of ice didn’t blush. “I hope so.”

  Ivin dismissed the rosy cheeks, but… “Wait a flicker. You two aren’t?”

  The deeper shade of red and shit-eating grin meant he couldn’t lie. “Purely for pleasure.”

  Ivin laughed but Danwek stared. “Conqueror’s Heaven man! Where do I find me a woman like that?” He paused. “Without payin’.”

  Solineus chortled. “In your dreams Bulubar, in your dreams. Now let’s go start us some fires.”

  Wind swept the flames northwest and scouts reported no sign of the enemy after following the blackened swath north. In a puzzling sort of way Solineus couldn’t rationalize, he would’ve preferred they came back so he knew where they were. The next morning he got his wish.

  A thousand horsemen, one of three mounted epistinol in a Tek Army. The Silone had maybe a thousand horse between them, two dozen from the stables at the Dinsang Bridge, and only a few bore scavenged armor. The only warhorses in the bunch were those claimed from dead Tek.

  To their east a mountainous forest, Trelelunin territory, and to their west ran the Destil river. They marched southeast into the narrowing “V” of mountains and river, and before the river entered forests, a ford awaited them. Marching through the night and taking minimal breaks shortened their time to the ford, but heat and a forced march would bring misery, the only question was the count of dead.

  It was a different world here in the south, to survive the Silone would need to change. We have skill and ferocity, the willingness to die, but we lack the discipline to conquer. And horses.

  In his mind he fantasized of stealing their mounts to leave the bastards afoot, and for a flicker he entertained a cockamamie plan. He chuckled to himself at such a suicidal scheme.

  No, they’d need to kill the bastards to get their horses. And these Malstefne men appeared in no hurry to catch them. Outriders swept near now and again, and Ivin would command riders to meet them, but the enemy wheeled over the horizon and disappeared every time. Two days of this torment, but two days closer to the Destil didn’t hurt his feelings none.

  Solineus watched the backside of one such patrol with Ivin and Tudwan riding beside him. “What the hells you think they’re doin’?”

  Ivin said, “Waiting for the bulk of their army, I imagine.”

  “They don’t have us in numbers, but a thousand armored horse? They’d thunder over our people like rabbits on the run, once past the archers.”

  “Could be they’re setting a routine, a distraction. Hard as the hells to flank us with the terrain to either side.”

  Tudwan said, “Maybe they’re just giving us friendly escort south.”

  Ivin chuckled. “If I had jerky on me, I’d be giving you a bite about now to shut your mouth.”

  “And I’d eat it. I’m hungry.”

  Three riders galloped hard with a trail of dust rising behind; scouts, but in a hurry. Solineus said, “Got a bad feeling.”

  Danwek reined in his puffing horse. “They’re gone!”

  Solineus’ eyes bore on the man. “What the hells you mean, gone?”

  “We gave chase like always, but this time me and the boys figured to give ‘em a little extra run. They peeled south toward the river, that’s when it hit us: The others ain’t there.”

  “How far’d you ride?”

  “Another half horizon. Not a godsdamned thing.”

  Solineus glanced to Ivin and could see the wheels turning in his head. “Those outriders were keeping us in routine, and making us think… They’re going to strike the main caravan, but where?”

  Solineus said, “Our people can’t be far from the ford. Cutting us off?”

  Ivin said, “Danwek, you and your boys hang back in case this is another ploy. Keep your eyes open. Tudwan, sound your horn, I want everybody else back to the caravan.”

  The horn trumpeted three times, and three-hundred horsemen knew to follow the clanblood. Twenty horsemen left in the rear, fodder if the Tek struck in force.

  Danwek said, “Aye. Yer sure you want us back here? No godsdamned good if they’re hitting south.”

  “We need eyes in the back.” Ivin’s final words before putting heels to his horse’s ribs.

  Solineus trotted beside him, Tudwan on his other flank. Tudwan said, “No way they got around us?”

  With mountains and thick forest north, and rocky terrain dangerous to horse’s hooves in the hills surrounding the river, they’d assumed it difficult to get by them.

  Ivin said, “They know something we don’t, or we just took their bait.”

  Solineus said, “They cut us off at the ford and we’ll have to pile our dead on top of ‘em to get by.”

  They caught the caravan a candle later and Ivin sent a rider to the seven clusters of clandblood; in wicks their three hundred doubled, and Lelishen joined them. They swapped horses and rode hard to the southeast, apprehension growing with every flicker passed. They topped a ridge and pulled up; the Destil flowed in a valley below with a clear run to the water.

  A horn blew to the north, then a chorus of horns. Ivin blurted, “Shits! I’ve killed us.”

  Horses spun and Solineus’ gut twisted, but to the east he spotted dust rising and he pointed. “No. They’re damned near on top of the river now.” He spurred his horse into a canter, not waiting for an order.

  Behind him he heard Tudwan blow his horn and the thunder of six hundred horses charging down hill, their riders crying for blood.

  Meliu stood in her stirrups to watch Ivin disappear in a trail of dust to the south as she rode beside Ilpen’s wagon. The big man said, “What the bloody beets you think that’s about?”

  “I dunno, but I’d wager nothin’ good.”

  A quarter candle later she turned to see dust rising in the north. No wider than a dust devil at first, but the devil was given chase by a storm. The echo of horns. She met Ilpen’s gaze: “Drive them mules!”

  She didn’t wait for reply, reining and spurring northwest. What they’d feared for days was on them. She raced toward the sound of bugling and reached the tail of the caravan in time to see Danwek and his men ride into camp, horses throwing sweaty foam, but her eyes locked on the Tek cavalry sweeping up the hill in a broad line.

  A wall of shields with archers formed, and she fell behind them. “Sedut, where the hells are you?” Holy robes stood scattered through the line but she didn’t see the high priestess. Fire swept into the grass, and a wind blew from the southeast with a tinge of holy power. The flames raced toward the enemy and hope flickered in her soul, but the trained animals defied their nature, thundering straight the through the blaze.

  “Loose!” A command from somewhere and the thrum of strings sounded
.

  She searched the crowds, prayed for her vision, and spotted Sedut at the edge of the southern line. Riding away? No way in the hells that woman was fleeing.

  In Inster the enemy clustered… She wheeled her horse and galloped north, praying for Light and Dark, and broke into open ground as horsemen crashed into spears and shields behind her. When she turned, bloody chaos. Men and horses lay dying, others spun in mortal combat, and some cavalry rode straight into the common folk. “Sons of bitches.”

  Meliu leaned into her horse’s mane and swept in from the enemy’s side and rear in a one woman flanking attack. The Silone had numbers, the Malstefne, armor and horses. She unleashed a tendril of Dark, and instead of sending it for the Tek, she directed it straight into an armored horse’s head. The beast flung up and back, toppling to crush its rider. A Silone woman finished the rider with a knife through his eye.

  Light and Dark seared and chilled her, and she called a half-dozen tendrils, lashing at the animals as she galloped by. Horses screamed, some bucking, some running, one fell over dead to trap its rider’s leg. Hooves thundered, and she spun in time to swarm the charging rider in Dark. Man and beast disappeared, then tumbled hoof over man from the Dark, with a horrifying blend of screams from man and beast.

  But no matter what good she did, a glance into the caravan revealed carnage; horsemen riding down women and children with spears and swords and axes. The Silone couldn’t win a fight like this, even if they killed these Teks to a man, so many dead would be a battle lost. In this sense, they’d lost already.

  She turned back down the line; a blur of blood rode along the shield-wall from the east, and the power of Light and Dark within her longed for the moment she and Sedut could repay the Tek for this slaughter together. Maybe they couldn’t win, but neither would these Malstefne. She prayed and sent the power of Light into her horse, and felt the quivering beast puff, powerful and under control. No fear. Her empowered soul reveled in the madness her Dark brought next.

  Her heels dug the horse’s ribs and they plunged back into battle as a creature of Dark. Neither man nor beast could stand before them, Malstefne nor Silone, where she went the line in battle broke. But the tendrils struck Tek and their horses alone, and the Silone recovered from the devils in the Dark as she passed, and they slaughtered the dazed and terrified enemy.

  The Dark promised utter destruction of the enemy and reveled in the insanity of terror. By the time her, Sedut, and the Silone people won the battle, the promise lay bloody and fulfilled on the field of battle, and as the Dark ebbed from her body she feared twitching fingers and numbed toes, or worse. She sat astride her horse staring at her flexing fingers; not a tingle, not a hint of numb.

  Sedut rode to her side, clean of gore despite the mess she left on the field. “Are you all right?”

  Meliu smiled, hoping her eyes weren’t still black. “Me? I’m beautiful.”

  The crash of horses, men, weapons, shields, and armor came with a reverberation that shocked Solineus’ ears and body, but nothing overpowered the blood-curdling cries of the Twins in his hands. He lost sight of Ivin in the immediate wave of the battle, and his horse smashed against a Tek’s steel covered leg. A Twin cut the man damned near in half, clean through his breastplate, but the riderless horse reared and knocked him into a lean.

  With knees locked to the saddle, he spun and plunged a Twin into another Tek, then dropped to the ground, crouching to regain balance. He gutted a rearing Malstefne stallion, then took the legs of the man on the dying beast. The Twins spun death around him, instinct enhanced by the surreal sense of knowing everything around through the eyes of his swords.

  He blocked and shaved a spear coming from behind, the only warning a whisper from a spirit in a blade, and when he spun the brother took the attacker’s head. Brother and sister? A strange calm in the middle of a storm drew over his senses and he went for a stroll of blood and death. But why?

  A plumed helm caught the sun amid a dozen riders on a hill to the east, and he had his answer.

  A Silone man tumbled into him, bleeding, hand dangling from his wrist. The killing blow sliced the air but Solineus elbowed the Silone aside and swept his blades into the attack. Instead of meeting the enemy’s edge with the flats of his blades, he cleaved hard with the Latcu edges; the Tek’s sword sang into three pieces, and a flicker later Solineus took his legs.

  He didn’t look back, he broke through the line with a shove and slash and stalked toward the hill. An arrow struck his mail, then a second, but the hammered rivets held. Three horsemen charged with spears and when they reached thirty strides, he screamed and charged. Dove flat as two spear missed him, the arrows snapping from his mail as he slid.

  Two horses crumpled to the turf, a hoof taken at the hock on each, and he rolled, dodging hooves to take a man’s head. The third horsemen wheeled and Solineus leaped to the side, a Twin with a clean slash to the man’s hip. The Tek leaned hard in his saddle, pulling the horse into a loop, and Solineus plunged the Sister into his chest and let go to grab a rein. The man fell, the horse spun in his grip, and Solineus leaned to reclaim his sword. A foot found a stirrup, and he hopped twice to keep his balance as the beast circled, then he leaped, swinging into the seat.

  He focused on the plumed commander and heeled the horse with a shout. The animal was pure power beneath him, thundering flesh covered in steel. The first Tek met him and the Brother sheered his sword, the next lost his shoulder. Plume drew his sword and couched his shield; then drove his spurs into his animal’s ribs to spin and run east.

  Oh hells no. “Emudar!” The horse’s reins flopped against the saddle and he held his seat with thighs alone at a full run. A Tek swung in beside him and lost his arm at the elbow.

  The commander was a coward, and not much of a rider. He’d looked the part of noble general sitting straight in the saddle, but at a run he sat his horse as well as a sack of spring-loaded potatoes. It’d cost him his life.

  The Sister bit deep through the man’s spine and he tumbled to the turf in a heap. Solineus never bothered to look back, easing his pace alongside the riderless horse. He sheathed the Brother and leaned, grabbing the horse’s reins to slow the Tek’s animal. It wasn’t the horse’s fault his rider was shit in the saddle; a beautiful animal like this deserved a Silone rider.

  He turned to the battle with Sister still in hand, sat at a dead stop with his warhorse puffing beneath him. With their leader down Tek splintered from the line of the fight, and dead from both sides littered the turf. Several ran on foot, cut down as they fled into the river. Silone horns sounded from nearby and footmen charged with archers. In the middle of it all, Ivin still sat atop Nameless. The losses staggered his thoughts, but it could’ve been so much worse.

  The boy saved us again. It was time to quit thinking of Ivin as a boy; the Destil River’s ford was there’s, and so too was hope.

  Ivin stared across the table at Solineus, the only one here with defiant eyes ready for a fight. The remainder bore the expressions of a defeated people despite their victory at the ford; bruised and scratched faces sagged. It wasn’t just their demeanors that’d changed: Remnar Broldun fell with a sister and two brothers, leaving Polus second in the Broldun line to his elder sister, Kistenu. Yosuf Tuvrikt and Zorun Mulharth too walked the stars, replaced by Eumar (who wasn’t even born to the Tuvrikt name) and Locust Mulharth. Younger faces and more frightened, accustomed to taking orders, not giving them.

  Dirty tear-stained cheeks marked Tedeu Ravinrin’s face after losing her husband and most every kin on her side of the family, and the tidy and upright woman didn’t look as as if she’d bathed since they died. But she was fortunate to still have her three sons. Tudwan stood by her side, his spine straighter than most. Together they represented the remnants of the seven clans.

  The morning after the battle at the ford, they sent Lelishen into the Trelelunin woods, asking she travel south to the Helelindin, to see if she could bring the woodkin to the Gediswon. They burned
the bodies they could, but with the threat of an enemy, they moved on by high sun.

  If words were the only proof of life, they all might as well have died crossing the Destil Ford. The group waited on Eredin, returned from the Gediswon River, with word of the ford there. The final crossing. They were eighteen days of slow travel from the Battle of the Destil Ford and a small river called the Bisele was in sight. According to the map, this river was a tributary to the Gediswon, which brought them to a crossroads decision: Swing west and make for the Ferminki Bridge as planned, or to take the rough ground above the Bisele straight to the Gediswon, praying no rains had sent it over its banks.

  But, the news got worse. Ivin cleared his throat. “While we wait on Eredin, I fear we’ve received ill tidings.”

  Polus grumbled and spat. “What other sorta tidings there been?”

  “The holies, High Priestess Sedut, tells us the Fourth Army is behind us.” Grumbles, shouts, and curses, and Ivin raised his hands to end the clamor. “We’ve figured on this since we first saw the horsemen at our rear, it was a question of how far away.”

  Kistenu Broldun said, “So then. How far?”

  Sedut stepped forward. “I guess three days back, the visions are uncertain of distance. But it’s not the worst news. Half of the army split to the southwest—”

  Locust Mulharth pounded the table. “The straight road to the Ferminki Bridge… My father warned you all—”

  Polus’ booming voice shouted him down. “You ain’t yer godsdamned father and if we took that route the Loenfarar would cut us down.”

  “Says you, Broldun!”

  Ivin stepped up. “Both of you shut the hells up. Keep your heads.”

  A brief silence ensued, until footfalls brought all eyes to the tent’s flap as it flipped open; Eredin stopped in his tracks with so many eyes staring at him. The Latcu hilt over his back glinted in the sun. “Greetings.”

  Kistenu Broldun said, “What word from the south?”