Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

  “We go with what works,” she said. “How did they manage it? Casting fire at either end of the canyon to spook the horses and then riding through?”

  “Something along those lines,” Vaste said, and she caught the unease in the way he replied. “They managed to turn it into a perfect ambush, save for the fact that Cyrus got inside the perimeter of their fire and played merry hell with the goblins until they retreated. I must suggest we do not allow something similar.”

  “As I saw it,” Vara said, trying to remain patient, “he was only able to do that because of that wondrous horse of his. Any other horse would have been frightened away from jumping over a wall of fire. Soldiers would similarly know better than to try it in most instances. Besides, my intent is to merely contain the convoy while we eliminate their escort.” She stood and dusted off the plains dirt that clung to her armored greaves. “As always, the drivers are free to go.”

  “As you say,” Vaste agreed, but the unease was still there; she knew him well enough to hear it.

  She whistled to the others and took up position on her horse. The Sanctuary raiding party was already disguised on either side of the road before the gulch; half a hundred rangers hiding in the brush with bows and arrows, and helping to conceal three wizards and four druids. Vara watched from the ridge above, some fifty warriors behind her ready to ride on her command. A neat pincer maneuver if ever there was one. With their escort wearing little in the way of armor, the arrows will do their bit while the wagons are contained by the fire. We sweep down and mop up their resistance, and leave them mourning the disappearance of their ill-gotten gains. She let her hand drift to her sword hilt then stopped herself. I am not Cyrus Davidon, and I need not adopt his more obvious mannerisms. She pondered for a moment, then wondered idly: Does he touch the hilt of his sword not only out of nervous habit but to enjoy the faster reflex it offers? If so, that might explain a choice riposte or two he managed to get out when verbally cornered …

  “Shall we go?” Vaste asked, now back on his horse.

  “Too soon and we risk being seen, thus spoiling the ambush,” Vara said, holding up her hand to keep the raiding party halted. There were another fifty or more horses with them, those belonging to the rangers and spellcasters below, and the smell of horse was strong here. “Too late and we’re of little use-though I suspect we’ll be of little enough use anyhow, given how well set-up this ambush is.”

  “Well set-up is not well executed,” Vaste said, and there was a rumble of disquiet from the troll.

  “What is your difficulty?” Vara asked under her breath, moving her horse close enough to him that only he could hear her whisper.

  “Hard to explain,” Vaste said, quieter still. “I recognize that we’re in a bit of box here, and that what we’re doing is necessary to draw pressure away from the siege, but there is something about using strategies that were first employed by Goliath while trying to sully our honor that I find damned disquieting in general.”

  “So it’s a silly moral issue, is it?” she asked, and found she had drawn a frown from him.

  “I have no moral objection to what we’re doing here,” he said. “We’re attacking convoys of dark elves who are blockading us and stealing the goods that they’ve plundered from the farmers of the plains. If I have any objection, it’s that I wish we had thought of the idea ourselves instead of having to steal it from the most loathsome sacks of treacherous flesh that are still strolling the land of Arkaria.” He blinked, and looked pensive. “Speaking of which, where is Goliath strolling nowadays? You can’t tell me there’s a war consuming the land without them trying to get a piece of it.”

  “I bloody well wish they were strolling into the Realm of Death, enjoying the lovely taste of those fiends that our army is facing on the other side of the world,” Vara said, no longer bothering to constrain her loathing. “I suspect they’re still where they were when last we heard about them-hiding under the Sovereign’s considerable skirt, doing whatever bidding he has for them.”

  “Does it not disturb you to think about what he might be bidding them do?” Vaste’s angular face was filled with curiosity. “They’re amoral, desperate, and quite powerful. Hardly one of the big three, but still strong enough to cause enormous problems for whoever crosses their path. And if they’re in the service of the Sovereign, and his eye is fixed upon us-”

  “No time to discuss that now,” Vara said, and started her horse along the ridge. “The ambush is about to begin.”

  “I understand,” Vaste said, “of course you’re incapable of discussing something like this when you’re riding a horse toward battle. You probably have to mentally prepare to eviscerate a dark elf or something. Don’t let me interrupt that level of deep thought with something as frighteningly trifling as one of the largest and most powerful guilds in the land being deployed by our enemies to aid in our destruction. It’s really not worth giving much consideration to, come to think of it.”

  She rolled her eyes, though he could not see it. “I don’t see much that we’re able to do about it at present,” she said, allowing her steed to take her at a gallop toward the gulch far ahead as the first wagon in the convoy disappeared into it. “Perhaps if you’d care to raise it in Council later …”

  “I’d really rather annoy you with the thought,” Vaste said. “I suspect the others will find it just as disquieting, but it’s much more fun to watch you squirm and pretend you want to think about killing people rather than consider it.”

  “You’re an arse,” she said simply. But after a moment, she conceded, “And quite correct.”

  “Thank you.”

  The last wagon of the caravan rolled into the gulch and a wall of flame leapt up under the belly of the officers of the escort force, causing their horses to throw them. Vara could hear the sound of the armored lieutenants hitting the ground even from a few hundred feet away and over the first exclamations of the soldiers lined up in ranks. The sound of their cries took a turn for the more desperate and pained only minutes later, however, as the first arrows found their targets. She estimated something approaching a third of the soldiers fell with the first volley; half again as many fell with the second, leaving the escort in disarray, the back ranks breaking and even causing a few of them to run back down the road.

  As if that would save you, she thought as she swept into the first of the runners. Her sword came down on him, hard; he had been looking back, not even seeing her until she was upon him. Blood spattered her horse’s hair and was joined by more as she rained down death upon the second runner. She did not stop, riding her horse into the dark elven soldiers who still maintained their lines, after the third volley of arrows had landed. She cut a bloody swath through them as the rangers emerged from hiding at either side of the road and joined the melee.

  Is this how you would have done it, General? She cut loose on another unsuspecting dark elf from horseback. He had been distracted by the rangers coming out of hiding, uncertain of where to turn. He lost his head for his transgression-not that he would have kept it had he been paying full attention, but still. Is this how you would do it, Cyrus, were you here? Would you run our enemies to ground, ambush them, and drag them in different directions the way I am? Or would you have a different strategy, something so brilliant that it would take my breath away at the knowledge you came up with it yourself?

  She let out an audible curse, an elvish one that came from no particular setback in the battle but from a very deep place of dissatisfaction within her. Her blade came down on another dark elf, this one prepared with his sword waiting to block it. Her blade broke his weapon, went through his skull, and well into his torso before she pulled it back. Damn you, Cyrus. Damn you for leaving me to do these things, to become what you were supposed to be. Damn you for-

  She stopped before she brought down her sword again, this time almost striking another dark elf, but this one not wearing the leather and seal of the Sovereign, but a hood and cloak that denoted a ranger, one dr
essed like a member of Sanctuary. “Sorry,” she muttered in apology upon seeing his face. “I didn’t mean to … sorry.” She looked around from the Sanctuary rangers on foot, their knives and short blades glistening with the dark blood of their enemies, then back to the warriors who had ridden into their enemies ranks on horseback; there was no sign of injury, though plenty enough of them had blood on their horses and selves. There was no crying left, no sobbing of the wounded or wailing of the dying. She looked to Vaste, but he merely shrugged, as if to say, We’re done.

  “Secure the convoy,” she said loudly to one of the warriors nearest her, a capable human named Jet Tindar. “Don’t kill them unless you have to.” With a nod, Jet rode on, the warriors on horseback following him as the flames that blocked the gulch diminished at their approach. “The rest of you-let us try to clear the signs of our attack as best we can, and take the bodies with us so as to not give away our tactics.” She felt the dull clack of her jaw. “Perhaps we can do this very same maneuver again in a week or two, to the same effect.”

  She pulled the reins and guided her horse away as the rangers moved into action, pulling the bodies together for transport. She didn’t watch, unworried that the job would be done correctly, the blood would be covered over by a second group after the first had teleported out with the wagons, the corpses and the majority of their force. Would you have done it this way, Cyrus? How would it have been different if you were here, instead of fighting over there? She felt an involuntary twinge in her cheek; as small as even it was, it was more emotion than she would have preferred to be displayed on her face. … and how would it be different for me … if you were here …?

  Chapter 64

  Cyrus

  Nightfall came upon the steppes-as Cyrus had heard the locals call the plains they fought upon-and still, the enemy came. The scourge filled the horizon as far as Cyrus could see, but as the light drained out of the day and the crescent moon cast its luminescence, there was no end in sight to the enemies that came upon them, filling the battlefield with their dead. His line of sight diminished to only thirty feet or so in front of him, Cyrus watched for the flashes of spells to give him guidance. The sounds of battle still rang around him, and the height of war was taking place on three sides. The smells that filled the air were all of the scourge, the decaying scent of dead flesh and nothing else.

  They were overwhelming, so much so that Cyrus knew the army had been falling back all day, not out of a genuine pressure put upon them by the enemy but from a general weight of numbers pressing against the armies. The bodies piled up, too, and while it didn’t seem to bother their enemy, as the creatures merely crawled over and avoided their own dead, for Cyrus they became a hazard after a short time, stacking three and four deep and providing an excellent ambush point for a live enemy to jump from behind their own dead and attack. He had seen a few of his guildmates attacked that way.

  “It’s nice to know we’re at least running free of casualties,” Odellan said between the clashes of weapons cutting into flesh.

  A bellow sounded to Cyrus’s right and another shockwave burst forth from Partus, blasting aside a line of the scourge, sending bodies into the air once more. “We’re taking them out in great numbers, no doubt,” Cyrus said. “But we’ve been swapping out people along the line all day as though this was some sort of sporting event where you can bow out any time you please. Our people are exhausted and there’s still no sign that the enemy is coming close to running low on more bodies to throw at us. It makes me wonder just how many souls Mortus kept in his lands, if it’s all of them, all the way back to the beginning of time, or if somewhere we’ll eventually reach the end.

  A cry and hue came from farther down the line, to the right. “Not a good sound,” Cyrus said under his breath. “Do you think that means …?”

  There was no need for him to finish, as Martaina appeared out of the darkness to his right, firing two arrows in rapid succession, both hitting one of their foes in the face and causing them to cease all motion. She slid to a stop in front of Cyrus, slung her bow over her shoulder and drew blades, slipping into the formation next to him. “Bad news from the Sylorean lines, sir.”

  “Let me guess,” Cyrus said, cleaving another head as one of their enemy slid past him in a foiled attack, “the Syloreans broke in the middle.”

  “Solid guess.” She buried a dagger in a grey face and another in a stout, four-legged body. “Our healers did their best, but they ran short of magical energy about ten minutes ago. Mendicant is about to try something to drive them back, but we’re running low on things we can throw into the breach.”

  “What about the cavalry reserve?” Cyrus asked. “Longwell was waiting for the right moment to turn them loose, and this sounds like it.”

  “He moved into action to shore up the left flank and give some relief to the army of Actaluere about two hours ago,” she said, and her smooth motions with the blade prompted him to wonder how long she had been using them, she did it with such fluid grace. “They’re still committed over there; I guess the enemy moved fast and doggedly, because from what I can see from here, it looks like they’re barely holding, even with the cavalry reinforcement.”

  “Okay,” Cyrus said, and motioned for two warriors in the line behind him to move up. “Let’s you and I head over there, see if we can help. What’s Mendicant planning to-”

  There was a blast of fire that lit the night sky, a circle of flame that turned the whole field of battle orange with fury then red with its intensity as it burned brighter still. Cyrus watched as it slid around a widening hole in the line that he hadn’t even been able to see without the fire. It pushed back, back toward the scourge, and Cyrus watched the four-legged creatures run from it in a way they hadn’t run from anything he’d seen thus far.

  “It would appear they’re afraid of fire,” Cyrus said, pushing through the line and making for the place where the flame glowed. “Nice to know; kinda wonder why we haven’t figured that out before.”

  “You’re the one who wanted the spellcasters kept in reserve in case we had to fall back,” she said, leading him. Her bow was unslung now, and she fired it three times as she ran, picking off targets as she brushed by Sanctuary members locked in combat along the front. “Not such a bad strategy, actually, because we’d been doing well enough before now that they didn’t need to intervene.”

  “We may yet need them to cover our retreat,” Cyrus said as they reached the end of the Sanctuary line; he passed a few men of Syloreas who were in battle with the scourge, and Cyrus aided them with a few well-placed slashes as he did so. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve easily killed ten thousand of these things and they’ve yet to blink at throwing another ten thousand at us.”

  “Being not quite as blind as you in the dark, I have noticed,” she said. “I have also noticed that their number continues to extend beyond the horizon, which is a mite worrisome seeing as we’re supposed to kill them all and then continue north to destroy the portal. I believe we may have the order wrong on that; we may need to destroy the portal before we can go north.”

  “A fine contradiction, isn’t it?” Cyrus brought his sword around and slashed a foe that charged hard at him, killing it with one well-placed stroke. “I, for one, wish there were another way to do it, but as I don’t possess a single flying mount with which to carry myself over these enemies, let alone a bevy of them to carry an entire army to the portal without fighting them, I’m afraid we may just have to do it the hard way.”

  “I don’t know that you could define this as the hard way, sir,” Martaina said, and her short blade was out again, working in a flash of metal against two of the scourge at once, “I believe this may in fact be the impossible way.”

  “I don’t believe in the impossible,” Cyrus said, greeting a jumping enemy with a kick that knocked it back to its fellows.

  “Then I’d like to see you try and give birth to a child yourself, sir.”

  Cyrus shot her a
sideways look and got one in return, only a hint of a smile as Martaina stabbed into another one of the beasts as it jumped at her. The fire of Mendicant’s spell had died out, finally, and Cyrus wondered idly if the goblin had sacrificed any life energy to make it last as long as it did. The two of them were now firmly in the middle of the sagging Sylorean line, and they had, as predicted, failed squarely in the middle of the amateurs who were carrying hand-me-down weapons and wore no armor. It’s not from lack of courage that they’re breaking, because none of them are running; they’re literally being killed here in the center at too high of a rate to keep the line solid. He looked back and saw holes that stretched clear through the middle, no reinforcement to seal them; the Syloreans had run out of men to throw at the problem.

  “I believe that if you were looking in a dictionary,” Martaina said through gritted teeth as she dropped to her back and let two of the enemy run headlong into each other while she executed a backward to roll to get to her feet again, “this might fall under the word ‘untenable.’” Cyrus gave her a blank look for only a moment before he was forced back to attention on the battle as a foe went for his knee with glistening teeth. “It means-”

  “I know what it means,” he snapped, driving the tip of his blade through a skull and then whipping it out sideways to intercept another running foe’s forehead. A slap of black blood hit his armor, where it blended with the metal and the night and a thousand other splotches that had already landed there in the day-long battle. “I don’t like to retreat.”

  “Perhaps you should think of it as an opportunity to find some reinforcements and re-commence the battle on more favorable ground, then,” she said. “Because we’re only about five more minutes from ending up in the middle of that village, Filsharron, if we keep having to fall back like we are.”

  Cyrus cast a backwards glance and realized she was right, that the village was just behind them now, only a few hundred feet away. There were torches burning, and he could see motion in the streets; the back rank of the Sanctuary reserve of spellcasters were already standing in the outskirts. “Dammit.” He turned to say something to her and watched as she landed two blades in a rampaging enemy’s shoulder and neck, keeping it from attacking him, and he shook off his surprise. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get distracted.”