Vedientir

by Ivan Hladni

"LYUD!" shouted the dragon angrily as he dug his claws into the grass to slow down.

  "Rechao nai sam!" roared Zmai and stopped so close to Dion's horse that the horse moved away and snorted when the dragon blew those hot words straight into the horse's nostrils. "Human, I said not to go alone!"

  "I am sorry. I did not wish to involve you in this."

  "I was already involved. Ask Roga," answered Zmai.

  "Plamensin!" the men from the walls cried once more. It seemed to be both a rallying cry and a cry of fear, depending on the throat from which the word came out.

  "Son of fire," they called him, and something about that name made him instantly mad.

  "PLAMENSIN!" roared the dragon angrily back at them while the fire from his nostrils licked the air. He spread his wings and waited, and really looked as if the god of fire himself had made him.

  Eya commanded her horse next to Kerkio's as trouble began brewing everywhere around them. She tracked the movements of shriekers who assembled in the east, and Kerkio kept his eye on the men climbing off the walls in front of them.

  "Dion! We have gone too far ahead! We must move closer to the river or go back towards the legion! There are hunters on the road..." shouted Kerkio but the besiegers' new cries drowned out his voice.

  "Les!" cried the men on the ladders and forgot all about Plamensin.

  "LES!"

  "The forest!" they shouted in the old language, again and again.

  "The forest!" shouted Dion with great relief and looked behind.

  The legion was home.

  Aris was leading his first segment and the king's two horse segments on the east side of the road. Behind them, on the paved stone road, walked Meden Tai, carrying the legion's standard. He led the Pharesian archers and Mara's veterans straight towards the Village and the gates of Echa.

  The legionary segments followed him. Some marched straight after him as their duty was to protect the flanks of the Pharesians and the Marans, and some already began turning west and marched at a quicker pace to join the legionary segments that were emerging from the Wissa in the west. Their battle place was far from the road, and there was little time left to reach it.

  The horses of the first segment were already at the burned remains of the northernmost houses of the Village when Aris raised his right fist in the air. He pointed his thumb and his little finger in the opposite directions and kept all the other fingers clenched.

  "Spread out!" was the command and it was meant for all the horse segments except his first one. The king's two segments turned sharply east toward the Naumona, and the rest of the horse segments that rode slowly on the right side of the road next to the legionary segments commanded their horses into a run and turned westward. They were to reach as far west as they could and then turn south to assault the enemy's right flank.

  "With haste now!" shouted Aris to the white segment. "To the battle standard!"

  Aris turned east then and led his white segment into the Village's apple orchards that the siege had left untouched. For a moment they vanished out of sight of the enemy for the trees were still covered with white blossoms without number, but that moment was short-lived. That day was the last day of blossom and the petals still held onto the flowers only by the grace of wind that had not blown for days, but now the whirlwind of war was among the trees in the orchard, and it ripped the blossoms away and cast them heedlessly into the air.

  The riders, dressed in silver and blue, wearing helmets adorned with the white manes of their own horses raced south. They looked like a wave of crystal blue water of the Inner Sea foaming on its way toward the sharp white rocks of Phares.

  Aris took his horn and he and every legionary from his segment blew on their horns together and their roar overpowered all other sounds on the battlefield. They continued announcing themselves to the city until they were sure that their sound had reached the ears of every defender. Then Aris let go of his horn and they all did the same, as one - no exception, no delay, and the drums made of earth and the hooves of their horses continued playing the thunderstorm hymn.

  Aris unsheathed his sword as they approached the end of the orchard and a hundred swords followed his into the morning air, and thus they burst out of the cloud of apple blossoms onto the battlefield, headed for Dion's battle standard.

  The city then answered the horns of the charging legion. Bells rang and called everyone to the streets. The time of fear and hiding was over. The defenders were answering the call of the city's legion that had already spread from one edge of the battlefield to the other - from the river in the east to the forest in the west, and though outnumbered, they now encircled the enemy that was north of the Calapis.

  The horse segments reached the forest in the west and charged at the enemy, Meden Tai carried the standard on the road unopposed, the legionary segments had already spread from the road westward and marched in an unbroken line to meet the main force of the Old world's army, and then Aris's segment along with the king's segments crashed into the besiegers in the east, and Plamensin joined them to silence the enemy's taunts.

  Instead of flower petals, drops of blood now flew in the air around the legionaries.

  New cries somehow reached Dion's ears in all that chaos. They were coming from the Naumona.

  "Row boys! Row!"

  Wooden boats appeared in the north-east, sliding down the smooth surface of the Naumona on their way to the occupied Eastern bridge. There were dozens of them, and in each of them sat two boys and four veterans from River Mara. Each veteran was armed with a shield in one hand and a long spear whose tip pointed at the blue morning sky in the other. The rear seat on each boat was occupied by a boy who rowed as hard as his muscles allowed, pushing the paddles deep into the water.

  The boats reared their heads like wild colts when the boys pulled the paddles back to send the boats downstream and the boats listened and cut through the surface of the water like knives would through candle smoke.

  Every River Mara boy knew the dance: rotate the paddle sideways and bring it close to the boat to straighten its path. Take the paddle out and reach forward with the paddle.

  Splash, and the boats went even faster.

  "Ashore!" shouted men from the front-most boats when they reached the wide watering clearing near the Eastern bridge.

  "Jump!"

  The command was meant for the boys who were on the bows of the boats. They sprang from them into the shallow muddy water and helped the rowers by pulling the boats up the bank to more stable dry ground. Their fathers, uncles and grandfathers came jumping out of the boats behind them, shouting "Now home, boys! Right now!"

  As soon as the boats were emptied, the boys pushed the boats back into the water and grabbed their own paddles to help the main rower get way back upstream.

  Forty veterans soon stood on the bank after the boys had left, waiting for more to come ashore from their boats.

  "Mara for Aelan!" cheered the boys from the empty boats as they rowed north to get out of danger.

  "Mara for Aelan!" the veterans repeated the old battle cry and formed a line two rows deep. Their spears were so long that the ones from the second row protruded far ahead of the men in the first row. Not wasting another moment, the veterans moved toward the Eastern bridge as quickly as their formation allowed.

  "To the Marans!" commanded the primary of one of the king's segments after seeing the shrieker riders heading towards the veterans across the Eastern bridge.

  The shrieker riders soon found themselves between an anvil and a hammer - between the shields and spears of the Maran veterans and the king's horsemen who charged into them like the hand of a smith forging a sword out of revenge. The red cloaks of the king's legion swept away the shrieker riders and the red flag of the Old world before they even reached the tips of Maran spears.

  "The east is clear!" shouted Aris for all to hear when the Maran veterans formed their line at the exit of the Eastern bridge, and those of the besiegers that could throw themselves as
ide and run away from Aris's segment did so and ran towards the main force that gathered in front of the gates. No one was left east of the road except the Eaters still clinging to the walls, but without anyone to climb over them.

  "Be ready to push them away from the gates!" commanded Aris then to his segment and the remaining king's men.

  "Nowy prek mostah et prek riekah," cried the ravens as they descended from the walls over the backs of the nearest Eaters.

  "Nowy an zidye! Rechy Dionu et Arisu!" croaked the ravens nervously.

  "New forces are coming over the Western Bridge and across the river. They are attacking the walls. They were meant for you," translated Dion to Aris, as the last part of the message the ravens brought demanded.

  The enemy's numbers swelled and the panic in their line looked to be subdued. One by one the besiegers in the west climbed over the ladders, in such numbers that both the Eaters and the ladders could barely hold them, forcing the Eaters to growl and squeeze the stone of the walls even tighter.

  "Gdo si?" the black raven spoke out the last message Arnos sent to Dion. "Where are you?"

  At that moment the Grey stepped forth, ahead of the boar riders at the gate.

  "The Grey," said Dion to Aris. "He is leading the attack. He took both Loi Rei and Echa Rei."

  Aris looked at his opponent and then glanced briefly north.

  "Dion, you have done enough. You are not allowed to go on," said Aris and then turned his attention completely toward the Grey who was busy forming two lines in front of the gates. One line, made predominantly out of boar riders, faced the horse segments, and the other, made out of men but much more numerous, faced the rest of the legion.

  "Let's disrupt his plans," said Aris. The first segment knew at once that was an order and they began forming around Aris who took his horn once more and signaled Meden Tai and the Pharesians.

  Meden Tai heard the horn and he thrust the battle standard into the ground and the pain in his broken ribs felled him to his knees. He knelt there, amidst the ruins of the Village, clutching the standard, breathless, almost unconscious, but he did his duty, and the others knew it was time to deploy.

  The veterans rushed forward in front of the battle standard and formed their spear and shield line. Meden's segment took their east flank and the Pharesian archers took their positions behind the Marans.

  The arrow rain from Phares came flying from behind the safety of the spear wall and decimated both boars and their riders while the sound of Aris's horn still rang in the air.

  The boars from the Old world charged at Aris and the king's segment but were hindered at every step by the mercilessly precise Pharesian arrows. With every step they took towards Aris their numbers dwindled, and only half of their initial number met the two horse segments. Moment later, the other king's segment returned from the bridge and struck at the boars from the flank.

  #

  "Get into the city!" shouted Eya to Dion above the clash of metal and the frightened neighing of horses. "Remember Vedientir's task!"

  She jumped off her horse and started climbing onto one of the empty ladders hanging from an Eater that the defenders had made into a lifeless lump of meat as soon as Aris had cut off its deadly supply of attackers.

  "Come on!" she hurried him.

  Dion looked at Kerkio and understood that Kerkio had already decided to listen to what Aris had said.

  "Ravens, listen!" he called them and ran towards the nearest ladders.

  "I am coming with a dragon. A real dragon. Up the wall. East of the gates. Do not attack us!" he said in the old language. That was the message given to both ravens and they took it up and over the ladders that Dion was using to climb into the city.

  "ELEVEN!" they heard a loud cry from the battlefield that rang through their bones and they stopped climbing to see the legion prepare for battle.

  From one hundred chests of the eleventh segment came out their battle cry and it told the others that they were them with them on the battlefield. They stood next to Meden Tai's segment and the veterans.

  "TWELVE!"

  The shouts of the twelfth segment gave still more strength to the wall of blue shields and that strength spread west quickly across the battlefield.

  "THIRTEEN! FOURTEEN! TWENTY!" and finally in the distance "SEVENTY!" as the shields formed their line.

  "Attack them!" came back the loud shouts and howls from the enemy army and the legionaries fell silent. Emboldened, the enemy army moved to attack and thousands of men rushed forth towards the legion.

  "ECHA!" thundered then from every throat of the seventy segments of the South legion. They lifted the spears that they held defensively next to their shields and threw them at the enemy. As soon as the spears took flight, the legionaries in the first row unsheathed their swords and ran after their flying spears, hiding their bodies behind the blue shields.

  The first two rows of the Old world army perished under the spears, and a few more rows behind them were pierced in too many places. Panic once more gripped the men who still charged toward the legion with other men's blood on their faces.

  Then they were met by the shield wall of the legion when it crashed into them. It threw them off balance, sapped their breath, and broke their line and spirit. It was a wall of metal, wood and muscles of men who fought in front of their homes, and those muscles yielded to no one that day. Swords appeared between shields and pierced the enemy line with such force that the shields and arms of the enemy could not block them, but the legionaries' arms quickly tired.

  "ECHA!" then came a second cry from the body of the legion behind them. The first row of the legionaries took a step back and turned sideways, making room for the legionaries from the second row to step forth, and so they did. With rested muscles behind unscathed shields, the second legionary row charged at the enemy, breaking the tired and wounded men who tried to stand in their path.

  "ECHA!" the legion cried a third time. The cadence of the battle cry was as precise as if measured by a sand-clock, and then the third row of legionaries replaced the fighting row and charged forth against the enemy, but this time they locked them in place with their shields, robbing them of space to maneuver.

  "WALL!" they cried and thus notified both Aris and the horse segments in the west that it was time for the final phase of Dion's plan.

  #

  "Grak!" was what waited for Dion and the others at the top of the walls, and behind that greeting they saw many arms grab at them to help them climb off the dead Eaters to safety of the walls.

  "Unbelievably stupid!" yelled Arnos at both Dion and Kerkio, but he wasn't angry. A content smile appeared briefly on his face, but Dion's words wiped it off quickly.

  "Father! Aris is alone in front of the gates!"

  Arnos clenched his jaw and sighed.

  "We need to finish clearing away the rubble. Come help! Any who can!" he cried.

  "Zmai! Eya! Help!" Dion repeated his father's call for help, and was about to finally rid himself of his duty as the standard bearer when he heard his father's voice.

  "Do not leave that there!" commanded Arnos when he saw Dion's intention of placing the standard in a holder in the walls.

  "The men out there do not need that! They know where the legion is. It is the people of the city who need to see it. They need to know that the legion is back. They need to feel it!"

  "But, I don't feel right."

  "I know, but it's not about you!" replied his father as he ran down the steps towards the gates.

  "Do it, then get down and help us!" added Kerkio before rushing down the stairs after Arnos, and not missing a moment, the ravens, the dragon and Eya all went after Kerkio.

  "Help them, Zmai," shouted Dion down the steps after the dragon in the old language, and then did as his father demanded and raised the standard so that people from the streets could see it.

  "The legion is home!" he shouted from the walls, and then he heard his father's voice from the streets below seizing the moment.


  "Come all! Help clear our way out! Help the legion!" and people came in great numbers, and began moving stones large and small - all but the largest ones, but those were quickly pushed aside by Zmai and the air elementals.

  There was light once more in the gates, and not wasting a moment, Taren and Arnos were there surrounded by the city guard.

  "Together!" shouted Taren and the defenders as they charged out of the city towards Aris who still held the enemy away from the gates.

  Their cries were met by the sound of horns coming from the horse segments who returned from the west flank to the center and began dismounting behind Aris.

  "Get the people onto the horses!" cried Aris.

  "Get them out of the city!" he commanded, and the dismounted legionaries joined Taren and the defenders in the assault.

  "The bridge! Take the bridge!" yelled Taren and commanded the defenders west toward the bridge whose loss he could never forget.

  "Cut them off," he yelled, and the archers from Phares heard his command. They turned their arrows towards the bridge and fired above and behind the enemy line so that none could cross the bridge in any direction without acquiring an arrow. Those who were already on the north side of the bridge found themselves squeezed together so much that they could barely move to avoid the legion's swords, let alone swing their own.

  There was only one way out of that madness for them, and they took it. One after the other and one over the other the besiegers jumped into the river, fleeing from Taren's rage who reached his bridge.

  He stood at its highest point so that the forces on the other side of the Calapis could see the fury seep out of him. He was ready for their counter attack but it did not happen. The water of the Calapis had washed not only many of their bodies, but their spirit as well.

  "It is over!" he shouted for all to hear when among the bodies floating downstream he saw the grey commander of the siege.

  "It is over!" he shouted once again and raised his sword high.

  Chapter 24 - Daedar

  "It was a good plan," commented Kerkio to Dion as they stood in front of the city and watched the several hundred legionary horses return from Wissa, led by only a handful of legionaries.