A Cruel Wind

by Glen Cook

  Ragnarson expected the reserve legion to drive through the gap, against his second line. But no. O Shing held it.

  “They’re burning the bridge,” Turran said from behind him. The man had recovered, though now he seemed a little insubstantial.

  Bragi turned. Yes. Smoke rose from the pontoon. Haaken had either lost or won his part of the battle. There would be no knowing which for a long time yet. He wished he had arranged some signal. But he hadn’t wanted any false hopes raised or despair set loose.

  The mercenary regiments began to crumble. Crowding Seidentop for its supporting fire, they withdrew. Prince Raithel tried to do the same, but had more difficulty. The fighting washed up the foot of the sugarloaf. Kiriakos couldn’t give him much support.

  Ragnarson glanced at the sun. Only four hours of light left. If Shinsan took too long, the battle would stretch into a second day. For that he wasn’t prepared.

  Clearly victorious, the legions disengaged, puzzling Ragnarson. Then he understood. O Shing would send the fresh legion against the center of the second line while the Third backed off to the reserve position.

  For a time the battlefield was clear. Bragi was awed by the carnage. It would be long remembered. There must have been twenty thousand bodies on the field, about evenly distributed. The majority of the enemy fallen were rebels.

  Sickening. Ragnarson loathed the toe-to-toe slugfest. But there was no choice. A war of maneuver meant enemy victory.

  O Shing allowed the legions an hour’s rest. Ragnarson didn’t interfere.

  Before, the numbers had been slightly in the enemy’s favor. This time they would be strongly in his. But his men would be greener, more likely to break.

  Two and a half hours till sunset. If they held, but Haaken couldn’t carry out his mission, could he put anything together for the morrow?

  It began anew. The First Legion drove its silent fury against Kaveliners who outnumbered it three to one. The flanking legions held Anstokin and Volstokin while strong elements of each turned on Seidentop and Karak Strabger.

  The Thing’s false courage continued to work. The Kaveliners stood and continued believing their commander was invincible.

  Ragnarson turned away after an hour. Even with the support of the most intense arrow storm Ahring could generate, Shinsan was getting the best of it.

  And, redoubt by redoubt, Kiriakos and Phiambolos were being forced to yield their fortifications. By nightfall Karak Strabger would be cut off. Seidentop would be lost. Captured engines would be turned on the castle come morning.

  Then he caught moving glitter at the eastern end of the marsh. It was Sir Farace and the horse, come round the marsh through the narrow strip where Haaken and Reskird had pulled a near repeat of Lake Berberich.

  At first O Shing was unconcerned, perhaps thinking the column was the Captal’s returning. How long would it last?

  A while. Long enough for Sir Farace and Blackfang to ford the Ebeler. O Shing and his Tervola were intent on the slaughter before them. Anstokin was being driven into the streets of Baxendala. The Kaveliners were being decimated, though the arrow storm was wreaking its havoc, too. Volstokin was desperately trying to retain contact with Phiambolos, who had begun evacuating Seidentop. A hundred pillars of smoke rose from pyres marking abandoned engines. The main battle was lost.

  “Turran.” Bragi glanced at the sun. “Can we hold till dark? Would they keep on afterward? Or wait till dawn to finish it?”

  “We can hold. But you may have to send the mercenaries and Alteans back in.”

  “Right.” He sent orders to Prince Raithel to stand by.

  Peering toward Sir Farace, he saw that Haaken and Reskird had brought their infantry. Blackfang had had good reason for burning the pontoon. If Sir Farace failed, there would be no one to hold the right bank. Trolledyngjans. Proud men. Fools eager, even facing incredible odds, to balance their earlier defeat at Maisak.

  The knights formed hurriedly, in two long ranks. O Shing’s generals finally awakened, began to form the reserve legion facing them.

  Shrieking trumpets carried over the uproar around Karak Strabger; the best knights of four kingdoms trotted toward the best infantry in the world. Haaken, Reskird, and their infantry ran at the stirrups of the second wave.

  Had he known there would be no magic, Ragnarson reflected, he would have chosen a knights’ battle. It wasn’t a form of warfare with which the easterners could easily cope.

  The first wave went to a canter, then a full charge, hit before the Third Legion had finished reforming.

  What followed was a classic demonstration of why heavy cavalry had become the preferred shock weapon of western armies. The horsemen plowed through the enemy like heavy ships through waves, their lances shattering the front ranks, then their swords and maces smashing down from the height advantage.

  Had the Shinsaners been anyone else they would have been routed. But these men stood and silently died. Like automatons they killed horses to bring knights down where their heavier armor would be a disadvantage.

  The second wave hit, then the infantry. Without that second wave, Ragnarson reflected, the first might have been lost simply because the enemy didn’t have the sense to run. They would have stood, been slaughtered, and have slowly turned the thing around…

  If the legionnaires would not panic, O Shing would. With trumpets and flags he began screaming for help.

  Altenkirk and his Marena Dimura, now completely cut off, launched a suicide attack on Kimberlin, made sure the rebels did nothing to save the eastern emperor.

  “We’ll survive the day,” Ragnarson said, spirits soaring. He drew his sword, gathered his shield. “Time to counter-attack.” The Tervola were trying to disengage forces to aid their emperor, who was in grave danger.

  As he and his staff howled out the castle gate to join Kiriakos, Ragnarson saw that Sir Farace had shifted his attack. While the stricken Third Legion ordered itself around O Shing, Volstokin’s seneschal had wheeled his lines and charged the First from behind.

  Ragnarson’s immediate reaction was anger. The man should have gone for checkmate… But he calmed himself. The knight had seen more clearly than he. O Shing was only a man. This battle was no individual’s whim, it was a playout of a nation’s aspirations. The Tervola could and would replace O Shing if necessary, and could win without him. With few exceptions their loyalties were to ideas, not men.

  The sun had reached the peaks of the Kapenrungs. The slaughter continued shifting in favor of the west. The Sixth and Eighth tried to close a trap but were too weary and heavily engaged to act quickly enough. Sir Farace withdrew before the jaws closed and formed for yet another charge. Before dark all four legions had suffered the fury of the western knighthood, the sort of attack Breitbarth had meant to hurl against Ragnarson at Lieneke. The assault on Baxendala had been broken.

  Shinsan disengaged in good order. Ragnarson sent riders to Haaken and Reskird, ordering them to recross the Ebeler before they were trapped. Altenkirk he ordered off Kimberlin. Sir Farace he had stand off from the withdrawal. The mercenaries and Alteans, who had had a respite, he kept in contact. With the remnants of one mercenary regiment he launched a night assault on the rebels.

  He had judged their temper correctly. Most of the common soldiers yielded without fighting. Sir Andvbur accepted the inevitable.

  Though it meant straining men already near collapse, Ragnarson kept the pressure on Shinsan throughout the night, allowing only his horsemen to rest. All of them, even those who had fought afoot. With the rebel knights out he could afford to launch cavalry attacks.

  O Shing resumed operations at dawn, withdrawing toward Maisak with the First Legion in rearguard, masking his main force with trenches dug during the night. The situation left Ragnarson in a quandary. As soon as he sent his horse in pursuit, the First, evidently rested, came out to challenge his exhausted infantry. He didn’t want to settle for the single legion the enemy seemed willing to sacrifice. There was no predicting when the Powe
r would return. If it did do so soon, Shinsan could still turn it around.

  Both sides had been drained. Nearly ten thousand Shinsaners had fallen. Virtually all the rebels were dead or captured. Haaken had sent word that the Captal and his pretender were in hand. And Ragnarson feared his own losses, not yet determined, would include more than half his force.

  His allies from Altea, Anstokin, and Volstokin refused to join the pursuit. The Kaveliners and mercenaries grumbled when he made the suggestion, but had less choice. He compromised. They would advance slowly, maintaining light contact, till O Shing had evacuated Kavelin. His allies undertook the destruction of the Imperial Legion.

  vi) Campaign’s end

  Approaching stealthily, cautiously, unexpectedly, the Royalist forces of Haroun bin Yousif came to a Maisak virtually undefended. In a swift, surprise night attack they carried the gate and swept the defenders into eternity. In the deep dungeons they found the portals through which Shinsan’s soldiers had come. Bin Yousif led a force through, surprised and destroyed a small fortress near Liaontung, in the Dread Empire.

  Returning, he destroyed the portals, then prepared surprises for O Shing’s return. If he returned.

  He did, skirmishing with Ragnarson’s troops all the way. The would-be emperor, trying to salvage control of the Gap, threw his beaten legions at Maisak’s walls.

  Soldiers of Shinsan did not question, did not retreat. For three bloody days they attacked and died. Without their masters’ magicks they were only men. As many died there as had at Baxendala.

  When O Shing broke off, Ragnarson, with Haroun, harried him to the ruins of Gog-Ahlan.

  There Turran told Bragi, “There’s no percentage in pushing him any more. The Power’s returning.”

  Reluctantly, Ragnarson turned back toward Kavelin.

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  i) New directions and vanishing allies

  When Bragi went looking for Haroun, his old friend was gone. Side by side they had harried O Shing, moving too swiftly to visit, then the Royalists had evaporated.

  When Bragi returned, autumn was settling on Vorgreberg. For the first time in years there was no foreboding lying over the capital. The rebellion was dead. All but a few of its leaders had been caught. But recognition of Gaia-Lange and/or Carolan remained unsettled.

  In Ragnarson’s absence the Queen had restructured the Thing along lines proposed by the scholars of Hellin Daimiel, adding commons drawn from among Wessons, Marena Dimura, and Siluro. Final judgmental authority had been vested in three consuls, one elected by the commons, another by the nobility. The third was the Queen herself. Before he reached Baxendala returning, Bragi learned that he had a painful decision to make.

  Representatives of the commons met him in the Gap and begged him to become publican consul.

  He was still worrying it when he reached Vorgreberg.

  The crowds had turned out. He accepted the accolades glumly. Haaken and Reskird grinned, shouted back, clowned. His soldiers wasted no time getting themselves lost in taverns and willing arms.

  Sourly, he entered Castle Krief.

  And there she was again, in the same place, wearing the same clothing…

  And Elana was with her. Elana, Nepanthe, and Mocker.

  Haaken leaned close. “Remember the tale of Soren Olag Bjornson’s wife.” It was a Trolledyngjan folk story about the vicissitudes of an unfaithful husband.

  Bragi started. If Haaken knew, the liaison might be common knowledge.

  Maybe a consulship would keep him too busy to get in trouble with either woman.

  ii) The new life

  Ragnarson accepted the consulship, retained the title Marshal, and received a vote of generalship from High Crag. His most difficult task was integrating his arrogant, overbearing Trolledyngjan refugees into Kaveliner society, and, with the Queen, making compensation to the mercenary regiments. Kavelin’s finances were a shambles.

  There came a time when final action

  had

  to be taken in the matters of Sir Andvbur and the Captal of Savernake. To Ragnarson’s regret, Kimberlin had to be hanged. The Captal was more cooperative. After a long conversation with the Queen, concerning Carolan, he was allowed pen, parchment, and poison.

  The best physician in Hellin Daimiel was brought in to attend Rolf Preshka. But the man neither improved nor worsened. The physician believed it was a matter of mind, not disease.

  Time eased Bragi’s longing for the Itaskian grant. The War Minister wrote that it would be a long time before he could come back. The Greyfells party had grown no weaker. Meantime, Bevold Lif continued his improvements. Ragnarson began looking forward to playing big fish in his new small pool.

  There would be a respite before bin Yousif again maneuvered him into the role of stalking horse.

  iii) One pretender

  Crown Prince Gaia-Lange was playing in his grandfather’s garden when the hawkfaced man appeared. The boy was puzzled, but felt no fear. He wondered how the dark man had gotten past the guards. “Who’re you?”

  “Like you, my prince, a king without a throne.” The lean man knelt, kissed the boy on both cheeks. “I’m sorry. There’re things more important than princes.” He rose, vanished as silently as he had come. The boy’s hands touched where lips had touched. His expression remained puzzled.

  Hands and expression were still there when his heart beat its last.

  It was another Allernmas evening.

  iv) Party kill

  Shadow from shadow, a lean dark man momentarily appeared in the room where the wine for the leaders of the Greyfells party, meeting before seizing Itaskia’s throne, had been decanted. He dribbled golden droplets into each decanter.

  Itaskia’s morticians were busy for a week.

  v) Autumn’s child

  Like a black ghost that had come on the wings of the blizzard moaning about Castle Krief, the dark man passed the chambers of the Marshal and his wife, the chambers of the Queen, and entered the door of the Princess’s room. Drowsy guards never knew he had passed. The child slept in candlelight, golden hair sprayed over cerulean pillows. One small hand protruded from beneath the covers. Into it he emptied a tiny box. The spider was no larger than a pea.

  The dark man pricked her palm with a pin. She made a fist.

  Death came gently, silently. She never wakened.

  He murmured, “October’s baby, autumn’s child, child of the Dread Empire. Fare you better in the Shadowland.” For an instant, before he snuffed the candle and departed, a deep sadness ghosted across his face. One tear rolled down a dark, leathery cheek, betraying the man inside.

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  The woman screamed with every contraction. The demon outside howled and clawed at the walls. It roared like a wounded elephant, smashed against the door. The timbers groaned.

  The physician, soaked with perspiration, shook like a trapped rabbit. His skin was the hue of death.

  “Get on with it!” snarled the baby’s father.

  “Lord!…”

  “Do it!” Nu Li Hsi appeared undisturbed by the siege. He refused even to acknowledge the

  possibility

  of fear, in himself or those who served him. Would-be Lord of All Shinsan, he dared reveal nothing the Tervola could call weakness.

  Still the physician delayed
. He was hopelessly trapped. He couldn’t win. A demon was trying to shatter the sorceries shielding his surgery. Inside, his master was in a rage because the mother couldn’t deliver normally. The child was just too huge. The woman was a friend, and the surgeon doubted she could survive the operation. The only assistant permitted him was his daughter. No fourteen-year-old was ready to face this.

  Worse, there were witnesses. Two Tervola leaned against one wall. These sorcerer-generals, who managed Shinsan’s armies and made up her nobility, were waiting to see the product of the Dragon Prince’s experiments.

  The goal was a child who could develop into a superstrong, supercompetent soldier, thinking, yet with little ability to become a personality in his own right, and immune to the magicks by which foes seized control of enemy soldiers.

  “Start cutting,” Nu Li Hsi said softly, with the “or else” transmitted by intonation, “before my brother’s attacks become more imaginative.”

  For a millennium Nu Li Hsi and his twin, Yo Hsi, had battled for mastery of Shinsan, virtually from the moment they had murdered Tuan Hoa, their father, who had been Shinsan’s founder.

  “Scalpel,” said the surgeon. He could scarcely be heard. He glanced around the cramped surgery. The Tervola, with their masks and robes, could have been statues. Nu Li Hsi himself moved nothing but his eyes. His face, though, was naked. The Princes Thaumaturge felt no need to hide behind masks. The surgeon could read the continuing anger there.

  The Dragon Prince, he realized, expected failure.

  This was the Prince’s eleventh try using his own seed. Ten failures had preceded it. They had become reflections on his virility….