by Alison Baird
“It’s said they are all of them sorcerers—every one.”
“We’ve wizards of our own, though.” The soldiers looked at the figures grouped next to General Gemala’s elephant. Their faces were lost in shadowy hoods, mercifully so: their grossly distorted features were enough to terrify their own side. Goblin-men these were, begotten (it was said) by fearsome genii in a far-off sphere. Khalazar had summoned them here, from their spirit-realm beyond the mortal world.
“This is folly. How long shall we suffer these interlopers to occupy our domain? We must attack!” Gemala called impatiently from his howdah. His huge mount stirred restlessly. It was a war elephant, much larger than the more docile kind used in the cities, with a craggy brow and huge fanlike ears. Its great tusks had been sharpened, not blunted, and as it tossed its head the soldiers at either side drew back. The armored mahout held his goad at the ready in one hand and his bow in the other.
“No,” returned one of the goblins. “We wait. Only if they move do we attack, and then only by the prince’s order.”
Gemala was incensed. “The prince!” he shouted, standing up. “Who is Morlyn to command the God-king’s men? Is he the king’s servant or his master?”
The goblins did not deign to reply to this. Gemala’s eyes narrowed, and he seated himself again, but he gripped the battle-worn hilt of his sword as he gazed on the enemy’s camp.
DAMION SAW A THIRD FLARE, off to the right. The fire-dragons were signaling their defiance to their kin. Draconic war cries rang out in answer: Loänan would not attack other Loänan, but they hated the firedrakes, mutant travesties of their race. He saw wings silhouetted against the moon and stars as they wheeled to attack. Horns brayed in the camp, echoing the dragons’ cries, and there was a sudden flurry of activity. Campfires went up in sparks as they were stamped out, booted feet thudded on the sand. There was no panic, Damion was glad to see as he raced for his own armor. His heart was pounding—half in fear, and half in wild excitement.
He found Jomar, his officers, and the Nemerei in the main tent. Sir Lothar was there, looking pale by the lamplight.”
“It’s happening, Sir Damion—isn’t it?” he asked. “They are going to attack us after all.”
“Firedrakes,” said another knight. “I’ve heard of them—”
“Get moving,” barked Jomar curtly. He was clearly in his element, striding to and fro, snapping out orders. “Get as many water-holding objects as you can find—foot-basins, bathing tubs, cooking pots, your own helmets: anything that can hold water. Get to the water-ditches and douse everything in sight!” He glanced at Damion. “We always used that trick to foil attacks with burning arrows. Keeps the fire from spreading. It may not be much help though—this whole region’s tinder-dry. We could have a firestorm on our hands if those shriveled crops burn.”
Damion followed Jomar out of the tent. Here and there in the sky a swath of cloud was illuminated as if by a bolt of lightning, but the glow was red: a firedrake’s burning exhalation. If they came down here to the camp . . . Now answering bolts of real lighting arced from cloud to cloud. The Loänan were fighting with their weather-weapons, drawing out the energies of the atmosphere to fight their foes.
Jomar sprang up on a tall outcrop of rock. In the darkness, lit only by intermittent red or blue-white flashes from above, he saw the men gathered around him.
“It’s a distraction!” Jomar bellowed at them. “I know it! Keep watching the hills—there’ll be an attack by land! They’re keeping our Loänan busy and our eyes on the sky so we won’t notice them advancing—”
Damion raced up a crumbling slope to a point of vantage. What he saw made his stomach lurch. Far out on the wasteland tiny red lights flickered, drawing nearer by the minute. “It’s their army!” he yelled, running back down to Jomar. “They’re coming!”
Jomar swung to face his men. “Listen, all of you—there’s a force on the way, I don’t know how big yet. Remember the instructions from Arainia: don’t charge unless and until they do. But at the first arrow, the first cannon shot from their side, we attack—understood?” Heads nodded. “Get ready,” grunted Jomar, jumping down from his rock. “All you mounted knights—you’ll ride at the front, behind me. We’ll form a wedge, just as we practiced on the Barrens. The Zimbourans always put their generals at the back, their seasoned soldiers farther up, and the conscripts at the front because they’re least important and can be spared. It’s always a mistake. Conscripts will never meet a charge: they panic and run, so you can drive right on through them.”
Damion felt a pang at the thought: conscripted fighters, reluctant and fearful, poor men most likely—and husbands, and fathers. But it was too late to suffer such qualms. He lowered his visor and adjusted his armor. What good would it be against cannon fire? The balls were made of iron, too, so sorcery was useless against them. He swung himself up into his horse’s saddle and took the spear handed to him by a soldier. He no longer felt either excited or afraid: in the breathless haste he was conscious only of a deepening sorrow.
“MADNESS!” SNAPPED GEMALA, glaring at the goblins. “It is I who am general. What can creatures from the spheres know of war?”
“We have fought many wars in our worlds,” one goblin answered. “The heavens are not a place of peace, as you imagine.”
Mounted men and foot soldiers were gathering in long ranks across the dry fields. But they did not advance. They merely stood there, as though waiting for some command or signal.
“Why do they not charge? Are they afraid?” asked one of Gemala’s guards.
Afraid! Yes, it could be so, the general thought. The forces of the God-king had a reputation both formidable and well deserved. He himself had never lost a battle. And if Morlyn’s reports were to be believed, the host of the Daughter of Night was but newly formed, its soldiery drawn from the indolent people of a world that had never needed to defend itself. The impassable void had kept Arainia secure—until now. Ways had been found to bridge that void, and before long the God-king’s domain would stretch to encompass even that far-off star. But the alien forces had come first to Mera, and they must be taught that Zimboura brooked no rivals. “Yes—they are afraid of us! See, they dare not make the first move. They had hoped that we would all cower in terror before them—that they would conquer our realm without even drawing a blade!”
And before any of the goblins could reply to this the general leaned forward in his howdah and whipped his sword from its sheath, raising it high above his head. “Attack! Attack, in the name of the God-king Khalazar!” he howled into the fear-fraught silence.
At that cry the soldiers stirred as if out of a waking trance and surged forward with a roar.
“NOW!” SHOUTED JOMAR. “They’re coming! Defend yourselves—and Arainia!”
The first wave of cavalry leaped forward, in the form of a spearhead with Jomar at its point. The unskilled fighters in the foe’s front rank promptly broke and fled, as he had predicted, abandoning the spears with which they were meant to halt the charge. The Paladins galloped into the widening gap, followed by the foot soldiers and a detachment of Nemerei mounted on bellowing ypotrylls. The Zimbouran cavalry horses, unused to the sight of these creatures, screamed and reared in terror, throwing their riders. The ypotrylls lunged and snapped irritably, their terrible tusks flashing in the firelight.
“Onward!” Jomar yelled, raising his sword as he charged.
The knights rode on, while the wave of men behind swept the bewildered Zimbourans before it like flotsam. There was a thunderous crash and a billow of rank smoke ahead of them, and cannon shot went keening over their heads. But still they galloped on, pressing their advantage, on through the chaos that had been the front ranks of the enemy’s army. The Zimbouran host was cloven in two, as if by a great knife, and in the sundered parts confusion reigned.
Suddenly a yell went up from the Zimbourans. Jomar glanced skyward as a huge shadow passed low overhead, blotting out the stars. He swore.
It was the Arainians’ turn to be filled with confusion as a dragon swept right over their heads, wings stirring up dust from the dunes. It was not a firedrake but a Loänan: yet it was not one of theirs, for it was diving on their ranks. In the torchlight Jomar saw the streaming tawny mane and red-gold scales, the yellow eyes slitted like a cat’s. There could be no mistaking the creature.
“It’s Mandrake!” he howled. “Archers—that’s no Loänan! It’s Mandrake. Shoot him!”
Horses neighed shrilly as the red dragon swooped again. By the time the archers thought to loose their arrows the Loänan was out of range, circling in the sky. A cloud of dust boiled up from the sands beneath him. He was using his powers to stir up a sandstorm!
“Shoot him,” Jomar yelled again, but choked on a mouthful of airborne sand.
Damion meanwhile was struggling to hold his own in the fray. It was horrible, and yet at the same time also unreal. Chaos, noise, and movement surrounded him. Through a curtain of dust and smoke shadows leaped and yelled: which were the enemy and which his side? A huge black shape loomed up out of the reddish pall. It trumpeted wildly, giant ears flapping, raising more clouds of dust with its great pounding feet. Shrieks arose as it blundered into the midst of the fighting, ignoring the commands of its mahout. Oh, no—the elephant, the general’s elephant! It’s panicked, it’s trampling people . . .
He turned his horse’s head and nudged its flank, making it leap sideways out of the elephant’s path, and then waved his adamantine blade frantically at the shadows that sought to bar his way. The horse stumbled, tried to leap again, and toppled sideways, hurling him to the ground. He could see little, only vague shapes in the darkness. He crawled away from his own mount’s thrashing hooves and found himself face down in a shallow puddle. But it was not water: when he raised his head he saw his hands and arms smeared with dark stains. Dark red . . .
Horror filled him then and he lurched to his feet, flailing wildly about him with his sword at the leaping, howling shadows, not knowing and hardly caring, now, which were enemies and which were not, only wanting to make a space between them and himself.
Jomar realized now what had happened. The terrified conscripts had been in retreat from the driving wedge of riders, but now, blinded by the flying sand, had lost all sense of direction, and many of them in their bewilderment had turned back again. These had swarmed all about the knights, and by sheer numbers had succeeded quite unintentionally in cutting off the wedge from the force behind it, leaving Jomar and his cavalry completely surrounded by panicked milling hordes. Nor could Jomar now tell in what direction the rest of his own army lay. Wherever he turned, he saw only whirling sand, armored bodies jostling and struggling, and the horses of his companions rearing as their riders strove to stay in the saddle. Then his eyes fastened on one shape that loomed above the rest. Jomar turned his horse’s head and began to cut his way toward the general.
Mandrake’s sandstorm had done its work. Not knowing where his own army was now positioned, he could not order either a charge or a retreat. But he could do one thing. I’ll take the general. Kill him or capture him—it doesn’t matter which, as long as he’s taken out of the fight. It was with the enemy’s leaders that his quarrel lay. And in any case the army of the foe might fall into further confusion without their commander to shout orders to them. Jomar pressed his heels to his horse’s sides and it leaped forward, kicking out with its back legs as it did so, clearing a space in the midst of the turmoil. Then he spurred it with all his might straight at the elephant.
The general had seen him, of that Jomar was sure. The elephant swung its head around to face him, placing the great rampart of its wrinkled gray brow and its snaking trunk between him and its passenger. The mahout drew his bow. Jomar rode on, undaunted. An arrow flew at him out of the brown murk and clanged on his helmet before falling harmlessly aside. The elephant raised its head, tossing it from side to side, and he saw that the great curved lances of its tasks were too great a barrier, even were it not for the armed mahout. He turned his horse and rode around to the huge beast’s side, plunging through the mounted bodyguards, meeting the blows of their scimitars with his own blade. He was too strong for them, and as he pressed on they began to give way, falling from their horses or retreating weaponless. The flank of the general’s mighty mount rose before him, and he turned his horse to pace at its side. With all his might he slashed at the beast’s foreleg. It bellowed and stumbled to its knees as Jomar sprang from his saddle.
The mahout fell off its neck, dropping his bow, and then leaped to his feet again. Turning, he saw Jomar and he drew his sword. But Jomar’s blade bit deep beneath the other man’s arm even as he raised it for the blow, and he crumpled to the ground. Jomar turned and clambered up onto the elephant’s back, slashed through the howdah’s curtains with his sword, and jumped onto the cushioned seat within. Then he gave a cry of rage and disappointment. The howdah was empty. His quarry was gone—where, he did not know and could not guess, but there was no use in wasting more time. The war elephant was struggling to its feet again. He ran to the front of the lurching curtained box and stared ahead of him. From his raised vantage point he could see his men, a little knot of them a bowshot away to the right, hemmed in by a bristling mass of swords and spears like a thicket of steel thorns. Already two horses were riderless—were their knights captured, dead? He must take some action before all were slain. The armed guards of the general were galloping toward them.
Bending forward over the neck of the elephant he used his sword-point as a goad, pricking the beast to make it turn. With an angry protest it obeyed. He forced it to within a few feet of his embattled friends, then made it charge the mounted assailants. Horses and men alike screamed as his vast mount plowed into them from behind, thrusting them aside with ease. Jomar continued to prod the elephant forward, sending the foot soldiers fleeing in panic, forging a path for his men through the thicket of steel. The knights followed in his wake. Arrows hissed through the air at him and the elephant, and it flung up its head and bellowed as several shafts pierced its hide. But the pain only made it quicken its pace, and ahead of him he saw men streaming back to either side, clearing his way to the open desert beyond.
They were out of the crush of battle—they were free. And peering through the flying dust, which had thinned to a light haze, Jomar could see retreating troops in the middle distance, some in Paladin armor. Loänan were diving and swooping, shepherding the Arainian army away from the heat of battle. He sheathed his sword and abandoned the elephant, jumping down off its back as the riders came up behind him. At least three were missing: he did not see Raimon or Martan. And where was Damion?
“Back there,” panted Lothar when he asked, pointing at the main battle. “I cannot say what became of the other two—they may be retreating with the rest—but I saw Sir Damion. I could not get to him, though: he was surrounded. General Jomar, sir, where are you going?”
Jomar made no reply. He was running with all his might toward the press of swords and bodies, drawing his own blade as he ran.
High above both storm and battle the red dragon circled under a sky of clear stars, looking down on what he had wrought. The cloud of sand was fading and dwindling, and beyond he could see the Arainian army drawing back to the stone portal through which it had come.
Satisfied, he soared still higher and winged toward the city behind the hills.
THE SUN WAS RISING OVER THE DESERT when General Gemala strode into the throne room of Yanuvan, still attired in his dusty and bloodstained battle armor, his helmet under one arm. With his equally weary and disheveled captains in his wake, he walked unannounced into Khalazar’s presence, dropped to one knee, and declared, “It is over, Majesty. A glorious victory for our side. The forces of the Tryna Lia are utterly defeated. Those not slain or taken are vanished from our land, retreating by sorcery to their own sphere.”
“I must congratulate you, General,” drawled Mandrake, who was leaning indolently against the back of Kha
lazar’s throne. “You have routed an army of unskilled and unpracticed youths with uncommon panache.”
“They were worthy foes—men of arms.”
“Babes in arms, you mean!” retorted Mandrake. “The Arainians know nothing of war.”
The general glowered at him. “They were true warriors: those of us who fought with them learned that soon enough. They also had many sorcerers with them, and winged monsters like those that serve our king. Still, we would have inflicted even greater harm upon the foe, had not that curious desert storm blown up and hindered us: more of their foul magic, perhaps. And perhaps not,” he added, looking straight into Mandrake’s eyes, “though why would any of our own sorcerers have hindered us in battle?”
“Why indeed?” replied Mandrake unhelpfully. Inwardly he was seething. The old fool! How dare he strike at Ailia’s forces first, and make his own side the aggressor? That was the last thing I wanted!
At times his supposed allies seemed as troublesome as his foes. As he had feared, Syndra had betrayed herself: the sorceress had reached out with her power, touching the cold dark mind of a firedrake and sending it across the Ether in an attempt to kill the Tryna Lia. The attempt had failed, and the traitorous Arainian had since arrived in Nemorah alone, stumbling through an ethereal portal. She was no longer of any use to him, and he suspected that she would not relish her exile. Syndra had chosen to live among the Loänei, rather than among the common humans of Nemorah —an error for which she would suffer. The latter might have respected her, but not the dragon-folk: they would treat her with nothing but condescension, and he doubted her nature would sweeten during her stay. But that was of no consequence to him. Worse damage had been done. The Tryna Lia had not only failed to come to Mera with her army, she was now under strict guard in Temendri Alfaran where the greatest draconic sorcerers would watch her night and day. Mandrake hissed softly to himself in irritation. She might be there for many years, growing in knowledge and power under their protection and tutelage. However, she had at least left Arainia behind. He would have to see what he could do about getting past the Loänan’s guard.