“To face them we have some ninety thousand. That’s more than I believed could possibly get here, but many of them are weary from the march.”
“We’ve fought at worse odds,” Bran said.
“But never with so much riding on the outcome. I’ll let Mayra speak to you now, but not a word of what she says must be repeated outside this tent. She’s put wards around it to prevent eavesdropping. She can’t do it for the entire camp, so don’t tell your most trusted men.”
Mayra stood, but for a moment she smoothed the front of her robes and looked at the rugs, silently. When she looked up her face was bleak. “Normally, I wouldn’t be speaking to you. These aren’t normal times. Both armies have been screened against being found by magic. I’ve clouded things so that ours can’t be found by the spell-tracks of the screening, and the enemy’s Sisters of Wisdom have done the same for them. So much is normal.”
“And what is not normal, Sister?” asked Otogai.
“In this battle, magic will play a part. In the actual battle.”
Silence greeted her words. Stunned silence. It was unheard of. Wards and protections were set to stop the use of magic and spells to hinder. The presence of so much iron and steel was enough to stop any direct magic against an army. It couldn’t be.
“How?” I asked at last.
“I told you that Sayene had tapped powers greater than are normal. What I didn’t say was that she intends to use those powers against you in the battle. She’s so confident now she doesn’t take enough precautions. Her actions and intentions are detectable.”
From Bohemund’s face I could see he’d heard this before, and hadn’t liked it then any better than now. Dunstan and the others looked like men watching their own funeral fires being built.
“What can she do? Or more importantly, what can we do?”
“You can win, Wulfgar. In fact, you have to. Moidra and I will try to block Sayene, but with this new power of hers, we have to draw on something. We intend to draw on you, on the lances. While you fight with steel, we will fight Sayene and Ya’shen with magic. So long as you’re winning we’ll be able to hold them. If you begin to lose, our block will fail. Their Sisters of Wisdom will be able to reach you with the new power.”
“And if they do?”
“I don’t know,” she said wearily. “It’s hard for me to read anything concerning this power. All I can say is that it will be horrible.”
Bohemund spoke again. “Now you know. We face more than we’ve ever faced before, and if we lose, we may cease to exist. Our entire people may cease to exist.”
“Death is death,” Karlan said. “Some ways are worse, some are better, but in the end they’re all the same. When do we march?”
“You brought the prisoners?” Bohemund asked, and I nodded. “Then tonight they’ll manage to escape and steal horses. With fear to speed them they should make it to their army in two days, judging by what our scouts tell me. You all know how the rumors of Wulfgar’s victory outran him coming south. In the close confines of an army on the march, there’ll be no way for Brecon or Elana to get to these men before they’ve spread it that the northern army is no more. Whatever magic Sayene has, the individual horsemen and infantry will know themselves alone. And once they’re questioned by Brecon and the queen, they’ll tell how fast and how hard the forced march was that Wulfgar made. The logical assumption is that we’ll remain in camp, or if we move, move slowly away from them in order to rest the lances who’ve come from the north.” He grinned wolfishly. “Therefore, tomorrow we will cross the River Xandra, and in another day we’ll bring them to battle before the Great Ravine.”
XXX
DRUMBEATS
The Great Ravine is a gouge, such as might be made by a rock thrown down the side of a sand hill. But it’s not on the side of a hill. It stretches across the southern Plain, through dirt and clay and rock. All the way to the sea it stretches, wider and deeper, until it runs into a great bay. It’s not a dry riverbed, or any other thing I know. But it made a good place to hide an army.
All of us were there, mounted and waiting. All except Dunstan. With ten thousand lances he’d continued on down the Ravine. Never split your forces, so say the maxims. But we’d done it and won two great victories. Perhaps we could do it again and win another.
Mayra walked up to my horse. She was already sky-clad. Her acolytes were laying out the five-pointed star on the bottom of the Ravine with Moidra guiding them. They, also, were sky-clad.
She pressed a bag into my hand. “Take this. Keep it with you. I just cast the rune-bones for you. The signs are just as strange as before, but one thing is clear. You’re going to need this.”
It was heavy, and I was certain I’d seen it before.
“What is it?”
“The sky-stone from Lanta, the one with the Terg carved into it. Keep it close by you at all times.”
I couldn’t see how I’d need the oath-stone in the middle of a battle, but if she said it was needed, I’d carry it. I hung the bag around my neck.
The sky was darkening, strange, oily black clouds boiling from out of nowhere. The wind was growing sharper, too, but it seemed unpleasantly warm, and it had a foul smell. My horse shifted nervously. He wanted to leave this place.
Mayra looked at the odd clouds, too. “Sayene’s new powers don’t like the sunlight.” She shivered slightly, despite the warm wind. “Come back from this, Wulfgar.”
I touched her shoulder. “I’ll try, Mayra.”
She moved back toward her spell-star, and I toward the Ravine’s edge. We each had our own place in the battle to come.
* * *
At the bottom of the slope lay nearly half a hundred Lantans and Morassa, tightly bound, most nursing wounds. They were luckier than their fellow scouts. The rest of the enemy’s advance screen hadn’t survived. These didn’t seem grateful for their sparing.
Near the rim Bohemund sat waiting patiently. While the rest of us waited nervously for we knew not what, he merely waited. What came, came. I think he’d decided for certain now that he’d never see Harald again. He waited for the chance to get in among those who’d taken his son.
Slight sounds drifted to us over the edge, slight at first, that is, but growing louder. Jingling of armor. Clatter of hooves. Creak of harness. Tramp of feet. Louder they grew, sharper, closer. They came thinking the way was clear to the Xandra. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t their scouts have reported it?
“Now,” said Bohemund.
Down the ranks ran a sharp cry, and we spurred up and over the rim, forty thousand strong. As we came onto level ground our enemy was spread out before us, no more than a thousand paces away.
They were in marching order, strung out and disorganized. The sight of us sent them into utter confusion. Some units tried to form to face us. Some merely spurred toward us, trusting to their numbers to drive us under.
The numbers didn’t save them. Those who came to meet us we rode down. The rest had little time to re-form their ranks, tangled and broken from the march, before we were on them, and then in among them, carving deeper and deeper into the body of the enemy.
The Lantans abandoned the attempt to form. The Morassa never tried. The battle became a thousand individual fights, ten thousand, forty thousand. Soon their numbers would begin to overwhelm us.
My lance took a Morassa in the chest, and a Lantan, trying to close with me on foot, went down under steel-shod hooves. A small knot of infantry attempted to form in front of me. Before their shields could form the wall, I broke through, the sheer weight of my horse sending some flying, scattering the rest. For now we ranged free, but soon the numbers would begin to tell. Soon.
A sound came to me above the clash of steel, above the cries of dying men and the screams of horses. The sound rose, growing louder, coming closer. The sound of Altaii drums. The last thought of the man who faced me at that moment must have been that I was mad, for I laughed. Beating his sword from my throat, I laughed. If the war gods of La
nta smiled, they smiled on the Altaii.
Dunstan, who’d gone south, was coming. Dunstan and his ten thousand lances, who’d circled far to the south and east to come up behind the enemy, was coming. As we fought deeper into our foe’s ranks from the front, they struck from the rear.
Every Altaii who heard those drums redoubled his efforts. Before we’d no idea how long we must stay in the cauldron until Dunstan arrived. Now we knew the linking was only moments away, and every heartbeat seemed to take an hour. For that short, endless space of time we fought and bled and killed and died, clinging to our tenuous hold in the midst of our enemies. And then he was there.
Bursting out of the middle of a knot of Morassa he came, lancing one, knocking another flying with his shield. He pulled up with a flourish. “Is this private sport, Wulfgar, or can I take a hand?”
“The sport is now a race,” I called back. “Ride, if you’ve a thought of seeing tomorrow.”
We’d hacked our way into the Lantans and Morassa. Now we had to hack our way back out again. The drummers signaled the fallback. Men broke away from fighting in mid-sword-stroke to start on the way. Enemy warriors, pressing to keep contact, jammed in on their own ranks. Confusion ran higher than at any time in the battle. The enemy didn’t seem to understand what was happening. They flowed like a mindless mass, thickening and swelling while we pulled away.
Those of us who still lived smashed our way out of the tangle and sped back toward the Ravine. None followed us from the Lantans or Morassa. Their officers and leaders frantically tried to bring some order out of the chaos we’d created. They raced along the column, harrying men into ranks, hurrying before we could attack again.
From the lip of the Ravine I looked to where Mayra was. She stood facing Moidra, within the spell-star. Their lips moved as if they shouted the spell-words and charm-sounds, but I could hear not so much as a whisper. Their acolytes knelt in a circle around the star to keep unprotected men or any iron a safe distance from it. The wind was whipping dust down the Ravine, but inside their circle all was calm.
Bohemund had a trickle of blood running down his face. His eyes looked at something beyond the seeing of others, but he was still outwardly as calm as if he was sitting in his own tent. “They didn’t expect steel for their next meal, Wulfgar. They’re finding it hard to digest.”
I nodded. “And it appears to be time to feed them again.”
In the short time they’d had, the Lantan officers had managed to set their ranks to face us. The ease with which they’d been penetrated had left its mark on them. The ranks were deep and narrow, so narrow we could cover their entire front. It was a formation for defense, not for attack. They were too concerned with caution, with what they had riding on the outcome, and not enough with winning. But overhead the evil-looking clouds still roiled and eddied ominously, and the wind smelled of things long dead. If the soldiers thought too much of their own lives, there were others who still thought mainly of ending ours.
Bohemund raised his lance, and the drums and war flutes began to sound the wild song of battle once more. We attacked. The ground pounded under our hooves like a drum beneath the palm of the drummer. A steady, wordless roar poured out to sound our coming.
Their banners lifted high, a hundred colors fluttering in the foul wind. Suddenly the shield wall opened. The banners dropped, and as they dropped their horsemen poured through the gaps to meet us.
We came together with the grinding clash of steel on steel, the slashing sounds of swords cleaving flesh, the rattling death cries of falling warriors. Like two walls of sand carried by the winds we clashed, and swelled, and merged into a maelstrom.
A blade seeking my heart skittered across my shield, striking sparks. My lance caught in the armor of a Lantan, and he pulled it out of my grasp as he fell. I drew the curved saddle sword barely in time to block a slash aimed at taking my head. The fever of battle was on me, but in one corner of my mind I watched the sky grow ever darker and wondered how that other battle went.
Our drums changed their rhythm, once more signaling the fallback. Once more we must disengage before their sheer number could grind us under.
Two Morassa pressed their attack on me hard. There was no way to break free without taking their blades in my back. They closed in, hacking at me together. I caught a slashing cut on my shield and in the same motion thrust the shield out to slam its iron-bound rim into the man’s neck. He fell with his head twisted at an impossible angle. The other found to his horror that the death of his companion bared his side to my blade. I turned and was riding away before he finished falling.
Many of us were already streaming back across the Plain to the Ravine. The Lantans and Morassa, flushed with the heat of conflict, believed us broken, fleeing the battle. As soon as they realized we were breaking off they sped after us, seeking to complete the rout they thought had begun. We ran our horses hard to keep ahead of them. They spurred wildly, striving to catch us. And then death began to fall among them.
The forty thousand warriors who had not ridden with us stood on the rim of the Great Ravine, and each held in his hands a longbow. They erected a corridor of steel behind us for our enemies to ride through, a constant rain of death. Mayra had predicted Elspeth’s advice would be key. Elspeth had shown how our salvation would rest on the bow.
It was as though a giant hand swept through the enemy ranks, taking men in huge fistfuls. By the thousands they died. Some, too close to us in their pursuit, were spared the arrows. Instead we fell on them with sword and lance. Those on the far side of the hail of death, the great mass of them, chose not to follow their companions into the shadows. Turning, they fled back to their army, pursued now themselves by the hunting shafts.
The fighting had moved them back from the Ravine, and that added distance gave them safety. Failure when victory appeared firmly gripped had brought change to their thinking. As the horsemen rode back into the mass of their army it began to shift and alter. Units marched to the beat of the cadence call. Morassa began moving to the flanks, and the Lantan cavalry with them.
Though the light of day was still with us, the sky was black with the malevolent clouds, and the noxious wind left a feeling of vileness where it touched skin. Mayra and Moidra still stood, chanting, fighting their fight as we fought ours, but the air inside the star shimmered like the air over a fire, and several of the acolytes, still holding their circle, wavered and cringed as if too near a great heat.
We formed again, but our ranks were severely depleted. More of our foemen died than we did, but our numbers dwindled while theirs seemed unchanged. In the end, it appeared, we’d die there on the rim of the Ravine, and there’d still be an army left to retake Lanta from those we’d left to hold it.
They’d swung their lines into a huge crescent, now, stretched out before us. The center was anchored with the infantry, and the curving wings were horsemen. Wherever along that curving line we struck, the rest of it would curl around us, surrounding us. Even if the bowmen came with us it would only change the time of the end. There’d be no stakes, this time, to slow a charge, no ridgeline to give height.
Orne leaned over to clasp my hand. “Fare you well, my lord. We will drink together in the Land of the Dead. We will eat lamb in the Tents of Death.”
He started to say something else, then stopped and leaned forward intently. “My lord,” he said sharply, “their lines.”
At that distance it was impossible to see clearly, but a large man was riding out in front of the lines. He was followed by a palanquin borne by eight men, and by a body of riders. I didn’t need to see the woman who stepped out to know who she was. Elana.
Out of the lines came another group of men on foot. From the glitter of their armor they had to be from the Palace Guard. Not all, it seemed, had remained in Lanta. They carried something, and when I saw what it was, the marrow in my bones froze. It was a bound and struggling man.
A stir passed through the enemy, and a ripple of sound ran down their ran
ks. Roughly the guards forced the captive to his knees. The big man motioned, and a rider went to him. The rider received the big man’s sword and dismounted to stride to the kneeling prisoner. The sword flashed in the air. A sigh of despair ran through us.
The executioner handed a cloth-wrapped bundle to a Morassa, and the rider galloped toward us. On a staff he had green branches tied, a sign of parley and truce. No sound but the creak of harness leather could be heard among us. He stopped short of us, flinging the bundle and whirling to ride away in one motion. It twisted in the air and fell, rolling and unwrapping before us. A head spilled out almost at our feet. It was Harald’s.
The Morassa’s horse hadn’t taken five paces before horse and rider alike were pierced by a thousand arrows. Neither was recognizable for what it was as they lay like giant spine-crawlers.
Bohemund shut his eyes rather than look at what lay in front of him, but tears ran down his cheeks. I gritted my teeth until they ached, but a low, moaning cry still escaped.
One by one the bowmen slipped away, running to get their horses.
Pain built in my chest, an unbearable pressure. Through a red mist I saw the riders and the palanquin disappear back into the safety of their lines. My sword slid back of its own accord, slicing away the saddle scabbard. An oath. Only in the flesh of my enemies. It would be sheathed again only in the flesh of my enemies.
Already some men had started toward their lines alone, men who’d sworn blood-oath to Harald, men who’d sworn to guard his life with theirs and not leave alive the field where he died.
Images flashed in my head. Two boys wrestling on the rugs of a tent. Two youths in the shallows of the Xora, thinking there was no more water in the world than that. Two young men, riding on their first raid together, taking their brands together. The band of pressure inside me exploded, and I kneed my horse forward.
With the silence of one already dead I rode, not caring if I rode alone, not noticing that the warriors of the Altaii rode with me. No sound was uttered, for the rage was on us. We rode to die, and to kill as we died. As a silent wave of death we rolled forward.
Warrior of the Altaii Page 24