Moontide 04 - Ascendant's Rite

by David Hair

  No! That makes no sense! Endus conjured in the air to bring the sight closer, but that was far worse: it showed him so-called Gorgio ripping off their white outer tabards to reveal violet beneath. He shouted in denial, ‘No! They can’t be Nesti—! They can’t! They were all killed – Gyle ordered it!’

  We’re betrayed by the Kore-bedamned Gorgio . . .

  He kept scrying, realising the newcomers were both Nesti and Gorgio, fighting together, decades of rivalry and hate buried beneath something greater: Rimoni against Rondian, an older hatred by far. And beyond them he could see more Jhafi – men from the northern part of the country, who had always known who their enemy was – were swarming onto the battlefield. His own men, facing east, were now looking over their shoulders at the commotion to the north.

  Suddenly the battlefield felt utterly different. Endus whirled on his aides and runners, all casualness shed as he looked to save what he could from this. ‘Wheel left! Cancel the advance and pull back to the ridge! Defensive formations! Secure the baggage and put the horses to the wagons! We need to be able to move—!’

  The runners scattered and five minutes lasted for ever while the Harkun fled and between them, the Nesti and Gorgio at the rear and the Aranio from the front destroyed the Dorobon legion. Endus would have screamed his rage to the heavens, had he not been aware of the frightened eyes of his men fixed on him. Don’t panic the lads. Keep your head. A mercenary crew always knew when to run, and this was turning into one of those times.

  ‘Sir, they’re advancing in the centre now!’ an aide called, sounding worried.

  It was true: the Nesti in the centre were countering now, and unbelievably, the Kirkegarde – the Kirkegarde! – were fleeing south. As his centre sensed the attack break down and the new threat behind them they began wavering, while the Nesti forces half a mile across the plain were rolling forward . . .

  Can we still win this . . .? he wondered, then decided, No.

  He turned to order a retreat when one of his men rashly plucked at his sleeve. ‘Sir, look!’ He followed the man’s arm up into the sky to see a solitary windskiff was streaking away into the west.

  It’s fucking Gurvon, bailing on us!

  ‘Damn this – retreat! Pull back! But keep it orderly! Hold together!’

  He might as well have been shouting at the wind. At the first mention of the word retreat, the lines dissolved. His men didn’t do defeats – they’d never had to before. Their money and plunder were in the baggage trains, together with their women and children. They didn’t give a shit about Gurvon Gyle and his Mercenary Kingdom; they never had. They just wanted their stuff, and somewhere to hole up.

  The Rondian centre disintegrated.

  *

  Cera rode forward, surrounded by her guards, to meet the newcomers. The men had been ‘mopping up’, which Elena had been taking pains to shield her from, but she’d still seen enough to haunt her for ever. If this is victory, preserve me from defeat. Over the last few hours she’d seen far too many bodies of men she’d liked or valued or both, and thousands more dead whom she’d not known at all, but who’d come here to fight for Javon, and for her. And there were thousands more injured, many maimed for life – and the greatest prize still eluded them: Gurvon Gyle was last seen flying west at high speed.

  But she had to maintain the grave smile of the conqueror because her people expected it. They needed it. If she stopped to think how close they’d come to disaster, she started to shake again. It was hard to maintain her dignity when she so badly wanted to escape all this rack and ruin.

  But there was also joy, enough to move her to tears, and chief in that was seeing thousands of Nesti men, taken prisoner by the Gorgio at Fishil Wadi almost two years ago, standing before her, armed and free. They were gaunt and sunburned, all showing signs of terrible privation, but they were here! And there at the fore was Paolo Castellini, his huge frame unbowed, but his eyes were wet and his bones shaking as she embraced him.

  There was also a new ally to greet, one unlooked for: Emilio Gorgio, Alfredo’s brother’s bastard, a name barely known until now. He was dark, and had a feverish energy to him that made her glad he was on their side – and also made her wonder how he could be contained.

  He greeted her with great reverence, however, prostrating himself in the most extravagant of supplications, which startled her. ‘Sal’Ahm, Great Queen!’

  ‘I’m not a queen,’ she replied hurriedly, ‘merely Autarch—’ then his words and actions struck her. ‘Lord Emilio – you’re an Amteh worshipper?’

  ‘My mother was a Jhafi servant. My father acknowledged me, to Lord Alfredo’s great displeasure,’ Emilio replied. ‘It left me uniquely positioned when Lord Alfredo died to make alliance across lines previously uncrossed.’

  ‘But Lord Alfredo’s sons . . . the Sintro line . . . ?’

  ‘. . . have met with unfortunate accidents. It was a time for swift blades. It was regrettable,’ he added, without any hint of actual regret. ‘I have powerful friends among the Northern Jhafi; I used them to gain control of my House and free your prisoners. I am betrothed to Portia Tolidi and have custody of the Dorobon child.’ He met her eyes. ‘Though of course they have no claim on the legitimate rule of our nation.’

  Cera’s first thoughts were for Portia as a pang of jealousy and loss speared through her, though of course she’d realised their fleeting relationship was over some time before. She looked at Emilio and saw him as a formidable man – adversary or ally, though? That would be the question. The Gorgio’s mining interests had made them wealthy, but they had always been politically hamstrung by their refusal to embrace the Jhafi population. That was obviously not the case any more.

  ‘I trust Lady Portia is satisfied with this new alliance?’ she enquired.

  He didn’t look like he’d ever given that a thought. ‘She knows her duty.’

  ‘You must treat her well,’ she said firmly. ‘She has been through much.’

  Emilio looked puzzled. ‘Portia will be my wife, and the centre of my House.’

  I suppose she’ll be treated as well as any wife can hope to be. Like a caged bird.

  ‘I must return to my men,’ Emilio said, kissing her hand again. ‘You are victorious, Lady. Javon belongs to you.’ He looked at her frankly. ‘For now . . . I understand soon you will be leaving us, and a new ruler will be elected.’ He sounded like he thought himself a fair chance in that ballot.

  ‘You understand correctly,’ she told him. ‘An Autarch may rule for ninety days only, and this crisis is over, Ahm willing. Soon the sultan will send for me.’

  ‘I was sad to hear of the loss of your brother,’ Emilio said. ‘I am sure that he would have made a fine king.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord. I believe so too.’ She looked away. ‘No victory can ever bring him back.’

  36

  The Bassaz Crossroads

  Curses

  The earliest Lantric Myths are usually about some person suffering from a ‘curse’, a common motif of ‘magic’. Yet ‘curses’ are not a feature of the gnosis; there is no spell which can subject another to ongoing, unspecified misfortune.

  Though you can be sure that someone in the Pallas Arcanum is working on it.

  RENE CARDIEN, ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, HEBUSALIM, 883

  Kesh, on the continent of Antiopia

  Thani, (Aprafor) 930

  22nd month of the Moontide

  ‘We’ve got out of worse situations,’ Bowe remarked.

  Serjant Vidran cuffed him around the ear. ‘Shut up, Bowe. There en’t no worse situations than this.’

  Ramon glanced down the line, measuring the men’s reaction. He thought he saw a tired fatalism in their eyes and got the sense that they thought this would be the end of the road for them. That was understandable; it really was difficult to see a path through the forces arrayed against them.

  The cohort made up part of the front line of the Lost Legions, in their usual loose formation that could become atta
cking or defensive in a few seconds. They were all gazing up at the mounted men on the slopes opposite. A small dip in the land was all that lay between the two armies. The banners opposite matched Seth’s personal blazon: House Korion. Seth himself was nearby, looking pale and agitated. Jelaska stood beside him, along with Evan Hale and Chaplain Gerdhart. Hale’s left arm now ended at the elbow, but he’d already had a wooden arm fitted, with his bow nailed to a false hand. When Kip rode up, picking his nose, they just about had their full complement of magi.

  ‘We should form up along the road, where the ditches and the embankments give us a little cover, and something to hold,’ Hale was saying. He glanced at his ruined arm with haunted eyes. ‘We can take a few of them down.’

  ‘That’s sound against ground forces,’ Jelaska commented, her eyes on the distant swirl of venators and drakken. ‘But how do we stop those damned beasts slaughtering us from above?’

  No one had an answer to that, but some cover, something to anchor the lines, was a matter of urgency when faced by cavalry, so the orders were rapidly given and the army boiled into motion, flooding into the crossroads and planting their spears in the earthworks raised to stop the road from flooding during the rainy season. While the men marched and the wagons rolled by, the few cavalry of their own created a screen in the fields to deter enemy archers, but Kaltus Korion’s forces left them alone, apparently content to let them form up however they willed.

  Is that arrogance? Ramon wondered, or are we doing just as they want us to?

  Runners began to come in, reporting when units were in place, requesting permission to adjust this or that, asking for orders concerning baggage and disposition of the women and children and a hundred other details. Seth fielded them with considerable composure, far more at ease in command than he’d been when they’d started this. He was growing into the role impressively.

  Breeding? Ramon wondered. No, I don’t believe in that. Just a young man learning to do a job he’s expected to perform since birth, despite being desperately unsuited to it. It takes practise, but we get there.

  What impressed Ramon most was the spirit shown. Though the smallest child could see that they were ridiculously overmatched, there was no panic. It looked as though they were all watching him out of the corner of their eyes, waiting for some miracle to be pulled from his sleeve.

  Sorry, people; there’s just arms inside those sleeves today . . .

  Seth sent his magi to direct their maniples into position, leaving only Jelaska and Ramon, with Delta waiting in the distance. ‘Well?’ Seth asked.

  ‘If it’s a straight fight, we’ll be annihilated,’ Jelaska said quietly. She and Seth turned to Ramon, as if waiting for him to say that he had it all in hand.

  ‘Who the rukking Hel do you think I am?’ Ramon complained. ‘I’ve got no idea what to do either.’ That Seth and Jelaska actually looked disappointed in him for not producing an instant miracle struck him as grossly unfair.

  ‘Then what? Do we parley? Surrender?’ Seth peered towards the Rondian forces lining the uplands. ‘That’s my father’s personal banner. He’s come all the way from the Zhassi Valley to stop us.’

  ‘If we surrender they’ll execute or enslave all the wives and children, then their husbands, then decimate the rest,’ Jelaska said with a heavy voice. ‘That’s what Jongebeau said and I doubt Kaltus Korion will soften that sentence. But perhaps that’s better than having them destroy us in battle, then letting his legionaries run amok. I’ve seen what even the most disciplined soldiers do when they’re off the leash. They forget that they’re human. Anyone who’s been in northeast Argundy knows that.’

  Ramon swallowed. ‘The people of Silacia know this also.’

  Seth’s face was sickly. ‘Perhaps I can beg some kind of concession?’

  ‘Is your father famous for mercy?’ Ramon asked. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Dubrayle and Milius must know that if Korion gets that gold, they won’t – that must worry them. Perhaps there’s some angle there? Some way of playing them off against each other?’

  ‘It’s good to hear you’re thinking like that, Seth. Being around me is clearly rubbing off. But I really can’t see a way out,’ Ramon admitted. ‘Honestly, the Treasury have no reach out here. We’re so exposed: Kaltus thinks the gold is here, and he’s not going to back off, not with a prize like that dangling in reach.’

  ‘Then we have no choice. I’ll just have to try and get the best terms of surrender I can. I’ll send a herald.’ Seth hung his head, close to tears. ‘Thank you both. You’ve done your best, you and all the others – more than your best; you’ve performed bloody miracles. But this is the end.’ He clicked his tongue, dug heels into his horse’s flanks and kicked it into motion.

  Ramon looked at Jelaska, who was staring away into space. She turned back to him, her long sorrowful face drawn with fear and resignation. ‘So, the harlequin is out of tricks, then?’

  ‘I’m sorry, amica mia. We’re completely rukked.’

  ‘Thought so.’ The Argundian sorceress smiled sadly. ‘All good things end, yar.’

  ‘Si. They do indeed.’

  Jelaska smiled sadly and rode towards her Argundians; she’d share the last moments with her own kind. Ramon watched her go, wondering why he was still here. For days he’d been thinking of running, to try and draw the pursuit away from the Lost Legions and onto him, but he’d rejected every plan – not because that mightn’t have worked, but because increasingly he knew he belonged here. Tomasi Fuldo and Silvio Anturo were screaming at him via relay-staves every chance they got, but still he refused to go.

  That hadn’t stopped him accepting one of the phials of poison Lanna Jureigh and Carmina Phyl had brewed, in case they fell into Inquisition hands. The little glass bottle was clicking around his belt-pouch, a tiny reminder that not all escapes involved running.

  With a sigh, he rejoined Delta. The Dokken was staring at the Rondian lines, a pained but wistful expression on his face. ‘I can feel their presence,’ he said softly.

  ‘Do you mean your kin? Are they over there?’

  ‘Yes, my kin are there; I can sense them, still enslaved to the Inquisitors. And all those construct-creatures, too. They’re like a swarm of bees inside my skull, crying out in horror at what they’d become. I cannot shut them out of my head!’

  Something germinated inside Ramon’s skull, the flower of an idea. He dragged his eyes from Korion’s majestic army to the Dokken slave. ‘You can sense them,’ he said breathlessly, ‘can you reach them?’

  *

  ‘It’s a white flag, sir!’ one of Kaltus Korion’s aides called eagerly.

  Kaltus acknowledged impatiently. The whole army could see the parley flag, but there was always someone who felt the need to state the obvious. He looked for intelligent life; with Rhynus Bergium dead in the north, that wasn’t easy to find among the cluster of sycophants and political appointees in his current entourage. Eventually he sighed and waved forward young Tonville. ‘What would you do here?’ he asked, pretending he was grooming the young man for higher things, when in fact he wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed now they were here.

  Tonville looked flattered. He bit his lip, considering. ‘I think this is a situation that requires delicate handling, General,’ he said carefully. ‘It’s not good for men of Yuros to fight each other on foreign soil. And . . .’ Tonville hesitated, then to his credit ploughed on, ‘well, that’s your son down there.’

  ‘My former son.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But Seth Kor— Fetallink has been your acknowledged heir for a long time. That’s not something a proclamation can erase overnight. It wounds your family name, I believe, for you to be in open conflict.’

  ‘You think I should have stayed in the north, Tonville?’

  Tonville swallowed. The news from the north, that some unknown group of magi had trapped and destroyed Rhynus Bergium’s entire high command, had shocked them all. Barring the junior battle-magi, the First Army had bee
n stripped of leadership. Although they were holding position on Ebensar Ridge, there were more desertions every day, a positive flood of them – and they were all living in dread of renewed assault by the sultan’s army.

  I should be there, not here, Kaltus thought. But this situation must be resolved and the gold secured if I am to secure my future . . . and wrest the throne from Constant.

  ‘No sir, you were right to come south,’ Tonville replied. ‘But if you can resolve this peacefully, it would enhance the honour of your House.’

  Kaltus mused on that. ‘My thoughts exactly,’ he replied eventually. ‘The dirty laundry of a great House must be washed below-stairs, as my mother used to say. Make arrangements for the parley.’

  Tonville saluted and hurried away, while all the courtiers gazed enviously at his back for having shared an intimate conversation with their noble commander. Kaltus gritted his teeth and looked up at the circling flock of drakken and venators, imagining how it would feel to unleash them.

  *

  Seth Korion trotted towards the enemy lines, flanked by Evan Hale and Jelaska Lyndrethuse. He’d asked for Ramon, but he’d been told that the Silacian was ‘too busy’ by a scruffy ranker from Ramon’s personal cohort. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, especially when the ranker had added in a low voice, ‘He said on no account is you to surrender, gen’ral.’

  Perhaps Ramon has a plan after all? Seth didn’t enquire: best not to know when he was about to stand before his father like a recalcitrant child.

  Three khurnes detached from the cluster of glittering mage-nobles in the centre of the Rondian lines and trotted down to meet them, stepping in unison and tossing their horns. He recognised the riders: his father had obviously decided to bring two young aides, both magi from renowned families.

  His father saluted with casual condescension, as to a junior officer. ‘General Fetallink,’ Kaltus Korion drawled ironically. He made his introductions with a perfunctory air, then waited expectantly.

  ‘This is Jelaska Lyndrethuse of Argundy, and Evan Hale of Andressea.’