The three grim-faced Phaelle’n swordsmen who chased him were only five paces behind and they, younger and fitter, were rapidly closing the gap.
Eishtren’s grandfather had been a tall, broad-shouldered plainsman from a nameless high plateau region two hundred leagues west of Mhajhkaei. He had followed shambling bison herds for the first twenty-five years of his life. When a passing trader had told him of The Greatest City in All the World, he had, on a whim, turned his horse east and left the bison behind forever. His long journey had come to a premature end when a girl in the frontier province of Ghael had caught his eye. He had never reached the fabled city, though he had spoken till his last day of his desire to do so, but his bow had in the hands of Eishtren’s father.
The hunting bow was a work of art. It was nearly a full manheight in length when strung, from one brass capped tip, cast in the stylistic design of a leaping cat, to the other. The arms were highly polished yew, layered with thirteen coats of shellac that shone like gold in the sun. Between the arms lay a snaking double curve of laminated layers of unknown woods, bones, and mineral infused resins bound together in a fashion that none of the Mhajhkaeirii smiths the quaestor had consulted could duplicate.
Eishtren’s father, a sedate man who traded leather goods, had kept it as a decoration above his mantel. Stories of his grandfather had caused Eishtren to beg for the bow at twelve and he had practiced with it for twenty years, a hobby when he had been young and a method of relaxation as he grew older and the cares of family and service had taken hold of his life. An old fletcher in the exurban neighborhood of Shelmton made the armlength shafts for the bow, both the simple iron-tipped practice shafts that Eishtren fired almost daily and the perfectly balanced, eagle feather-fletched, razor steel-tipped hunting arrows like the one he held motionless now.
The Phaelle’n had gained two paces on Mahryn. Eishtren fired.
The arrow clipped Mahryn’s ear, but the near frantic legionnaire did not notice and did not stop. The shaft did not waver as it penetrated the first monk’s mail gorge, passed through his throat, sliced cleanly through his spine, and then lodged half way through the second’s upper chest, stopped finally by the back side of the Phaelle’n’s cuirass. Both collapsed instantly, scattering blood. The third did not slow.
Eishtren dropped the bow and drew his sword. “With me, men!”
He charged. Fugleman Truhsg, the clerks, C’edl and Kyamhyn, and the four other armsmen, a legionnaire and three militiamen whose names he had not had time to ask, followed. The quaestor reached Mahryn, let the legionnaire dash by him, and planted his feet in a careful stance. Studiously, he brought his short sword up in the guard he had been taught when he joined the Mhajhkaeirii Logistics Legion but had seldom practiced and had never used in battle till today.
The remaining Phaelle’n used his running momentum to leap into a crosswise slash at Eishtren’s shoulder. The quaestor parried but the strength of the blow staggered him off balance, opening up his right side. As the monk landed with agile grace, he whipped his arm back for a thrust.
The legionnaire that had joined Eishtren’s group only within the last twenty minutes arrived steps before the others and chopped down at the monk’s armored neck with the long handled billhook he had acquired somewhere in the retreat. The strike did not penetrate the plated skirt of the monk’s helmet, but the force snapped his neck and he fell without making a sound, head lolling at a hideous angle.
Eishtren took a moment to lean on his knees to catch his breath. As his other armsmen rushed up, he straightened and nodded to the legionnaire. “Good work. What is your name?”
The legionnaire saluted with the precision of the newly inducted. “Trainee D’hem’nh’siahshm, sir!”
The recruit had paler skin than most Mhajhkaeirii, a remarkably solid chin, and a rather generic provincial accent.
“Eh, good, what do they call you for short?”
“Dhem, sir.”
Fugleman Truhsg, the only one of them with the full compliment of his equipment, including shield and helmet, pointed his sword west beyond the bodies of the monks. “More of them coming, sir.”
Eishtren looked. These were not more scouts, but at least a section, well organized and moving rapidly in quickmarch. “Alright, men, one hundred paces just like before. Go!”
The armsmen took off at a steady, if near exhausted, trot to the west. Eishtren did not know the street’s name; he had hardly had the need to travel it, knowing no one in this area and his pay detachment having business only at the Central Administration Post building outside the Eastern Redoubt. Only a narrow side road lined with modest apartments, it wandered eastward without a definitive goal for about a dozen blocks. To avoid the main Phaelle’n spearhead advancing along the Transept, he had led his tiny, ad hoc command to it at Truhsg’s suggestion.
As Eishtren ran by their last position, he stooped to snatch up his grandfather’s bow. The fifty arrows he had fired from it had stymied the scouts that pursued his group of stragglers, injuring or killing more than forty of the Phaelle’n. It might be all but useless now and he might never have the chance to use it again, but he could not bear leaving it.
They quickly caught up with the flagging Mahryn. The man’s face had become even more flushed and his breath hacked from his spittle stained mouth. Eishtren caught one of the fugleman’s arms and yelled at C’edl, the closest, to take the other. As the three of them fell behind, Dhem and Truhsg lagged unbidden to either side as rear guard.
C’edl, detail conscientious pay clerk that he was, counted steps as he blew out his hoarse breath. “… ninety-nine … one hundred!”
This left them standing most of the way through an intersection. Eishtren threw a quick glance about. The dividing medium of the cross street sported the distinctive iron lampposts that lined Berghaern Cross.
“Not here,” Eishtren judged. “This is Berghaern. It goes all the way through to the Transept. We would be easily flanked from either side if we held here. Truhsg, put the men in order farther along next to that tree.”
The brick and timber buildings rose in a solid wall three or four storeys tall on each side of their route. The broad, root clenched ground beneath the ancient oak, no doubt planted long before this area of the Citadel had become a residential neighborhood, pinched the pavement of the street into a narrow corridor.
At that moment, Mahryn’s legs gave way beneath him. Eishtren hooked his arm through his bowstring and grabbed the old fugleman with both hands. With C’edl’s aid, he managed to drag his chief copyist to the new position. There, Kyamhyn and the younger of the militiamen hurried to assist, and they propped the man he had known since before his first posting to the Citadel against the manheight thick bole of the shade tree.
Mahryn moaned, grasped weakly at Eishtren’s hand, gave one final look of pain, and then slumped over to his side into the lush grass.
Eishtren knelt and placed a hand on the old fugleman’s chest. “I think his heart has given out.”
“Yes, sir, he’s done for,” C’edl agreed flatly. “What do we do with him?”
“Leave him.” Eishtren ordered the three others to rejoin Truhsg. Gently, he rolled his close friend of ten years and father-in-law of eight onto his back, shut his empty, staring eyes, then got up and walked briskly back to his men.
As before, Truhsg had established a tight standard formation suitable for two quads: the fugleman, Dhem, and the solider-looking militiaman stood at the front; the stout C’edl and the sandy-haired Kyamhyn behind them on opposite sides of a space left for the quaestor, and the younger and slightly older militiamen, whose chest armor was an archaic segmentata, formed of overlapping steel plates, behind them. Mahryn had held the rear center.
Eishtren, at the center of this formation, had had sufficient protection to fire his bow to excellent effect on four occasions during this last hour of retreat. Now, with all of the arrows expended, the quaestor knew that they had little hope of withstanding the coming Phaelle’n f
orce.
“Stand ready to withdraw,” he ordered. He dare not say run. So far, the legionnaires that had escaped with him from the CAP and the militia that he had collected along the way seemed disciplined enough, but he had witnessed the mass desertion of near a dozen legionnaires from his contingent when the panicked word came that the East Redoubt had been betrayed.
“What’s our objective, quaestor?” Kyamhyn asked.
Of all the men detailed with Eishtren to pack and evacuate his pay lists, the young conscript had seemed the least likely to remain stalwart. Eishtren had overheard him often enough making snide comments about his compulsory term of service.
“We will continue westward until we encounter superior authority.” That seemed safe enough. He had quoted as near as he could recall a response from a field manual. “Truhsg, move the men out.”
“Hold a second, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Civilians, sir.”
“What? Where?”
“Back in that building at the corner on the right. See the bay widow on the second floor?”
Eishtren looked as bid. The building had the three stories, the regulation design, and standard façade of the houses built thirty years previously to house retired legionnaires. Several children’s faces pressed against the glass, watching the armsmen.
“What in Soohlmed’s name are they doing there?” He relished the blasphemy, the name of the God of Idiocy an automatic choice. This was simply, incredibly, and undeniably idiotic.
“Why have they not already gone?” he demanded.
In the chaotic mess after whatever calamity, treason or treachery, had opened the East Redoubt’s gates, it had seemed that everyone, civilians and defenders alike, had realized the need to get away from the invading Phaelle’n. He had seen hundreds bolting ahead of him and his men and had taken it for granted that everyone from this end of the Citadel had taken to their heels.
“Couldn’t say, sir. They might think they’ll be safe there.”
“Doubt that,” C’edl opined. “The filthy Monks don’t mind killing women and children. Everybody knows the slaughter they did to that town on Paraeik.”
“They burned all the children alive in a warehouse, I heard,” the front rank militiaman offered.
“They drowned the women in pickle barrels,” the youngest militiaman added.
“Hold your tongues!” Truhsg commanded.
Eishtren looked down the street toward the Phaelle’n. The monks advanced methodically, halting at intervals to allow their advanced guard to batter in doors in search of potential ambushes. He and his men had maybe five minutes before the Monks overtook them.
“Come on!” he snapped, and ran toward the house. He dashed up the steps and onto the small-railed stoop.
The door was locked. Eishtren pounded on it, cursed again, and then kicked it in.
“Stand or die!”
The shout stopped Eishtren, Truhsg and the others bumping and jostling behind him as they also halted abruptly.
Just inside the door, a wainscoted hallway stretched back into the house. Just a step along it a burley white headed man sat in a chair. The bare stumps of legs sticking out from under his faded legionnaire’s dress tunic, his old wounded flesh shriveled and ugly, explained the chair. His left arm also ended in a stump just above where an elbow once had been, but his thickly muscled right held a long bladed spear that he pointed directly at the quaestor’s chest.
“You’ll not get by me before I skewer five of you,” the man promised.
“Put down your spear, retiree,” Eishtren declared with more confidence than he felt. “We are men of the Princedom and we come to evacuate this house.”
“Eh?” The old man peered at Eishtren. “Aelwyrd!” he shouted over his shoulder, not turning. “Peek around the corner and tell me what manner of men these are.”
A swatch of brown hair, a smidgen of a face, and one wide green eye eased into view at the end of the hall. “They are legionnaires, I think, sir,” a boy’s voice suggested. “The one in front has the insignia of a quaestor. Should I fire the crossbow now?”
“No, I suppose not.” The man lowered the spear, but kept a tight hold on it, and braced to attention in his chair. He grinned at Eishtren.
“Signifier Aael, sir, on duty. Pardon my lack of courtesy, but with just the one limb, I’ve a Permanent Exemption from saluting. Sorry about the challenge. I’m mostly blind as well as lame.”
“Signifier, there is no time!” Eishtren rasped. “Get all the occupants of this building down here now!”
“Aelwyrd, you heard the officer! Snap to!”
Eishtren heard a whistle, presumably the youth, and immediately they all came tumbling and hopping down the stairs and around the corner, crowding into the hallway, twenty or so frightened but quiet girls and boys, the oldest no more than fourteen, the youngest a babe in the arms of an older girl.
“My granddaughter and the other mothers and all the older boys, “Aael supplied, “went toward the East Redoubt this morning looking for supplies when the ration wagons didn’t make rounds. They’re an hour overdue getting back.” His tone indicated he now knew that they would not return.
“Get them all out into the street and get moving, now, Truhsg!”
“What about the retiree, sir?”
“I said all and I mean all, fugleman! Kyamhyn, grab the other side of the chair!”
“No need for that, sir, I--” Aael began to protest.
“Shut up, Signifier!”
At a hundred weight, Aael and his chair were heavier than Eishtren had expected, but he and Kyamhyn hauled him out the door and down the steps all the same. The herd of children followed.
“Make a line!” Truhsg shouted suddenly. He thrust his shield on Recruit Dhem and took stance beside him. The Phaelle’n were less than fifty paces away. They had stopped to dress their battle line: three ranks abreast, shields in front, short boarding style pikes behind and jutting out, and swords to the rear.
Aael nudged him with his shoulder. “Put me down by your fugleman, son. I’d as soon die here as running.”
Eishtren nodded at Kyamhyn. The old man was right. They set him to Truhsg’s right but slightly back, where his spear would do the most good.
“Tell the children to run,” he told Aael.
As the signifier spoke urgently to Aelwyrd and the children began to scatter, Eishtren slipped his sword from its sheath and checked its edge. There were no nicks in the blade; he had never used it before today. He slid it back home and then stepped in front of his own pitiful line of doomed armsmen, turned his back ostentatiously on the monks, and began to march down it as if he were on parade.
Truhsg, of course, snapped to attention, half a grin on his face. The other Mhajhkaeirii followed suit, in an irregular, belated fashion. Eishtren knew little of the fugleman save his name; he had been assigned to the security section of the CAP only the day before the attack. Eishtren made one exact slow march step and pivoted precisely to examine Recruit Dhem.
“Dress your stance, recruit,” Eishtren told the legionnaire. Dhem shifted his feet slightly, his demeanor very calm. Out of the side of his eye, the quaestor noted that the other men had surreptitiously begun to straighten their kit.
“What province is your home, recruit?”
“Bholsdsk, sir.”
“Excellent wine from Bholsdsk.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eishtren pivoted, took a step, pivoted to face C’edl. Both the clerks had cuirasses over their work tunics, but no helmets or shields.
“Make sure you bring all your gear to the next battle, legionnaire.”
C’edl grinned.
Eishtren continued to march down the line. Kyamhyn appeared fatalistic.
“I expect that now that you have experienced the full measure of military life, legionnaire, that you will extend your enlistment?”
No emotion of any kind cracked the solidity of Kyamhyn’s features. “Of course, sir.�
��
The militiamen had formed up in reverse order of age. The youngest, standing adjacent to Kyamhyn, had a finely made sleeveless chainmail vest over his leathers.
“Excellent workmanship.”
“Thank y’, sir. M’father crafted it for me.”
Eishtren started to turn, had a thought, and asked, “Name?”
“Baerdryd, sir.”
The second militiamen had no armor, just sturdy pants, boots, and a heavy woolen coat over a cotton shirt. His mouth pressed into a humorless line, he had the strong shoulders and forearms of a workman.
“Name?”
“Scahll.”
The oldest militiaman had a longsword and it, like his old style armor, had an antique look.
“Name?”
“Taelmhon, sir.”
“The sword and segmentata?”
Taelmhon smiled proudly. “Family heirlooms, sir. Four generations.”
Eishtren took a step back, came to attention, and saluted his men. Then he pivoted, drew his sword, and faced the Phaelle’n. Unaccountably, they had been awaiting him. A command rang out from behind their ranks and the monks marched forward in a steady, highly disciplined formation, pikes bristling.
Eishtren raised his sword. For a moment, he thought of charging, but decided such a futile gesture would be more absurd than heroic. Besides, a charge would leave Aael helpless. Thinking of his wife and daughters and wondering one last time what would become of them, he braced himself as the points of the Phaelle’n spears came within a manheight.
Without warning, a flare of light brighter than the sun blossomed to the south along Berghaern Cross, making Eishtren instinctively shield his eyes with his hand. Almost instantaneously, a terrific sound and wind blasted through the intersection from the same direction, carrying a wave of blinding dust and detritus. The overwhelming force of it knocked Eishtren down and he landed heavily, stunned. The pavement heaved violently beneath him, cracks splintering the stones and dislodging them from their courses. As the horrifying convulsions of the earth continued, he began to crawl on his belly back toward his men. None of them had kept their feet and were likewise being shaken violently about. Aael, oddly, had remained upright in his chair, though he looked as if he were riding a bucking horse.
Key to Magic 02 Magician Page 18