Three squarish formations of Crasac pikes and swords advanced up the slopes toward the juncture of Feril and Idala’s repositioned troops and a pair of outcroppings that anchored one of Igwa’s left flank. From sheer numerical superiority it seemed they might smash straight through the lines, but an accurate rain of arrows combined with the thunder of four Urep’o weapons decimated their front ranks and they peeled back to reassemble their formation and make way for a second wave forming up behind them.
Meanwhile, several companies of light assault troops had formed up in the vale and swarmed towards the gullies, heading for the bulwarks that Feril’s troops had largely abandoned in support of Igwa. To Canu, they looked like a human avalanche sluicing uphill, until an explosion went off atop the headwall and a real landslide came tumbling down into them, revealing the power of stone over flesh.
A second wave of Crasacs came at the militia, again in three tightly coordinated blocks. The arrows seemed sparser this time, the fire from the Urep’o weapons lighter. Perhaps ammunition was low, or Feril had ordered them to conserve what they had, but the result was contact between the Crasacs and militia lines and hand-to-hand combat. Nalkies from Idala and Teo’s group came rushing forward in support from a secondary line and again the Crasacs were forced back.
Igwa’s force held its own across the meadows, but unlike the plodding collisions of Crasac blocks against lines of militia, their battle played out in swirls and eddies across the grassland, riders converging to beat back breakthroughs by Cuerti and Cuasar horsemen.
Attrition was now taking its toll. As a third wave of Crasacs formed up in the lower meadows, it seemed inevitable that the sheer bulk of the Crasac force would prevail. The Crasacs showed no sign of letting off their pressure, continuing to send fighters up the ladders on the cliff face. Eventually, their sheer numbers would prevail.
Indeed, a concerted attack on all fronts would easily overwhelm his comrades. But something kept the Venep’o timid, fear perhaps of what other weapons or devilment the militia and Nalkies were holding in reserve. Sooner or later they would figure out that they had seen all of the Urep’o tricks they were going to see.
Canu wondered how much time such a plummet would give him to bid goodbye to the world. A ten count, maybe?
And what images would fill his mind’s eye on the way down? The old thatched house where his grandmother raised him? The friends he lost in battle? Ara’s face aglow in the street lamps of Greymore?
It would certainly be an exhilarating way to go. He had always envied birds their ability to fly. Crossing portals gave him a taste of that sensation, but all that squeezing deprived it of the freedom a leap would provide. He knew the end would be brutal, but quick. In a blink it would all be over.
Canu heard the crunch and tinkle of loose stone. He crawled forward on elbows and knees and poked his head over the edge. Wind blasted his hair into his eyes but he could see a dozen or more Crasacs winding their way up the talus slope alongside the pinnacle, crossbows out and ready, swords at their hips.
Canu scrambled back across the summit a bit too hastily. He slipped on the bevel, and landed hard, digging his fingernails into the rough stone to arrest his slide.
“I see Crasacs rounding the shoulder!”
Vul looked up. “How many?”
“Lots more than last time, and these blokes don’t look like they’ve come to pray.”
Vul and Pari shared words with each other out of Canu’s earshot. Pari looked upset about something.
“Quit squabbling and go hide!” said Canu. “They’ll be up here in a wink.”
“Pari’s staying,” he said. “But I’m making a run for the lines. If they go after me, maybe they’ll ignore the both of you.”
And so it began.
Canu saw how they would all meet their ends. Vul would be the first to fall, riddled with crossbow shafts or run down and impaled by lancers. Canu would go next, even though Pari was more vulnerable and accessible to the approaching Crasacs. Problem was, he didn’t have the stomach or the heart to watch Pari’s demise. The Venep’o took offense to the Sesep’o practice of granting equal footing to women warriors. They tended to express their distastes via rape and torture, not necessarily in that order. Canu would be taking that leap sooner than he wanted.
The veins in his temples throbbed. Suddenly, he found it hard to breathe. Morbid musings seemed much more glamorous when they were only musings. He had hoped to have more hours or days to live than the way things were shaping up.
A powerful horn sounded, deep and low, from somewhere by the river, repeating in bursts of three sonorous groans.
“What’s happening?” said Vul.
“It’s a steam horn,” said Canu. He knew them from the plains of Ubabaor from the time of the siege. The Venep’o generals used them to coordinate major advances and retreats.
“We know that,” said Vul. “Why does it blow?”
He crawled back across the summit.
The approaching band of Crasacs had stopped and turned and were staring at the source of the sound. Their leader seemed to waffle, before skidding down the scree on his heels, beckoning his fighters to follow him back towards the cliff and the ladders.
Behind him, the same dynamic played out on a larger scale across the meadows. The Crasac formations broke off their attack and disengaged with lines of defenders that seemed about to break. They too, made for the ladders, while their comrades to the rear covered their retreat.
“Canu! Tell us what’s happening!” bellowed Vul.
Canu crept back to the other edge. “They’re going away,” he said. “They’re climbing back down the ladders.”
“But why?”
He rose up, spreading his arms for balance and leaning into the wind. He looked towards the river. Like before, he saw troops in formation moving downstream, even more troops than before.
“There’s something going on by the river,” said Canu. “Columns. Coming from Xama … or Maora.”
“Reinforcements?” said Vul. “Crasacs from Maora garrison?”
But Canu could see a column moving towards Maora as well, barricading the road and securing the flank.
“These aren’t Crasacs or Cuerti,” said Canu. “It’s an entire army … of friendlies.”
“Whose Army?” said Pari.
“Ara’s,” said Canu, rising to his feet.
A ripping wind made his shirt flap and flutter like a sail. He stood erect atop the pinnacle with his arms outstretched, overcome with a powerful urge to hover with the hawks that had come to circle the battlefield. His legs stayed rooted to stone, but his heart, unbound, took the leap and soared.
Chapter 59: Concord
Miles splashed down hard in a forested fen creeping with sphagnum and skunk cabbage. The impact knocked the wind out of him. He lay stunned, until the chill seeping into the small of his back jolted him to his feet. He staggered out from under a refractive dome into crisp and crystalline air. The tug of the portal eased.
He staggered, spitting out water and bits of decayed leaf tasting of mud and mushroom.
“Misty?”
A black-fletched crossbow bolt floated in water like over-brewed tea. His eyes wandered through a canopy of pines, pink-rimmed clouds and the setting sun.
Misty waddled from behind a tree, calf deep in muck. Blood seeped from scratches down the front of her cheek. Twigs poked from her hair.
“Think it worked?” she said.
“’Course it did,” said Miles. “Did you not feel it?”
“But this place … it looks just like Gi.”
“Not even close,” said Miles. “I mean look around you, look at these … plants.” A succulent shrub of the sort that grew in the gullies above Lizbet’s farm contradicted his premise and stalled him momentarily. His gaze fixed on the tiered branches and fine needles of a familiar tree. He waded over and rapped his knuckles on its trunk. “See that? It’s a white pine. Only grows in East Coast America.”
br /> “What’s that thing behind you?” said Misty, pointing to a grassy and unnaturally steep embankment rising behind them.
“Dunno,” said Miles. “A dam, maybe?”
The pocket of distorted air subsided, but water continued to bubble and churn
around the submerged stone. “We should mark this place,” said Misty.
“What the hell for?” said Miles.
“In case we need to find it again … to go back.”
“Why the fuck would we want to do that?”
“You might not care Miles, but I’ve got friends back there. F-f-family.” She touched the veil that had slipped down her neck like a bandanna.
“Oh, that’s right. You’re married, I forgot,” said Miles.
Misty shook her head and sighed. “You’re being an ass.”
“What? What did I say?”
Misty snapped off a silvery, dead bough from the underside of a pine and jabbed it into the muck beside the source of the bubbling. She took off her veil and tied it to the tip so it flapped like a flag.
Miles grabbed her by the hand. “C’mon. Let’s get out of this damn swamp before it gets dark and figure out where the hell we are. Next phone I get is gonna have GPS and 3G. I’m done with old school.” They slogged over to the embankment. Misty kept glancing back at the stick, her face knotted with concern.
“We should leave a note,” she said. “Tell them where to find us.”
“Find us? But we don’t even know where the fuck we are.”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Misty. “How about we put down your address?”
“Why not yours?”
“Because I don’t have one.” Misty glared and stared him down. He sighed and took off his pack, fishing around for his notebook and a waterproof Sharpie. He wrote down his cell number, handed it to Misty and sat on the embankment, laying back in the grass. “I’d prefer we not give out my address, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay,” said Misty. “I just hope Liz knows how to use a phone.”
The slope faced southwest and caught the last of the evening sun. The red maples were starting to turn red about their veins. It sure felt to him like late September in New England.
The ground began to rumble.
“What’s that shaking?” said Misty, alarmed.
“Dunno, earthqu—?” A passenger train roared over the top of the embankment. Silver carriages, with a wide stripe of purple with yellow trim hemming the windows. Miles gaze went straight to the stout, black ‘T’ surrounded by a black circle.
“Heh! Fucking MBTA,” he said.
“What does that mean?” said Misty.
“Means we’re in Boston,” said Miles, beaming. “Somewhere way out in the ‘burbs, I imagine.” He did a celebratory jig and pecked her on the cheek. “Welcome home, Mist!”
Misty looked back at the last vestiges of the portal: a gentle boil, above which spun a tiny vortex of mist. The longing lingering in her eyes longing deflated Miles’ ebullience.
“Come on, Mist. Let’s go find some pizza.”
Chapter 60: The March
Seor never expected that Daraken’s little army would encounter Venep’o forces so soon after leaving the marshes, but they did not back away, pouncing on the Venep’o formations with a vigor and discipline instilled through months of close order drill in the marshes.
She also never anticipated that their enemy would put up so little resistance. The mere arrival of the militias into the valley had been enough to prompt the Alar or his emissaries to sound their stream horns and retreat.
As they over-ran the trailing companies of Crasacs, Daraken’s army learned that these were not top echelon troops that they were facing. The Alar’s best fighters had been engaged in the heights when the militias poured out of the forest. The units milling about the beet fields were manned by reserves newly arrived from Venen, inexperienced in battle, hardly more than children. But Daraken had been more than happy to exploit the gift of an unprepared enemy presenting an unprotected flank.
For now, the Venep’o had retreated back behind their barricades on the outskirts of Raacevo. More fighting would come, undoubtedly. Defeat was never tolerated or ignored in the vengeful dominion of Cra. But word had come that the Nalkies were rising in the West, and that the Second Cadre was more than a myth. The Alar, perhaps, had two fronts to worry about. For the time being, however, all was finished but the mending.
Fighters darted across the fields to recover fallen comrades and foes alike, sorting out the dead and shuttling the wounded forward to an aid station operating from a burned out village. That’s where the healers had gone so that’s where they were heading with Ara.
Her litter bearers took care not to jar her on the potholed road, not that Ara would have noticed. A healer had given her a strong potion to ease her pain that kept her drifting in and out of consciousness.
At times, Seor felt like climbing into a litter herself and having some of that potion, but she persevered, resting when she needed on the odd foot bridge or fence rail.
Esayos had assigned an honor guard to accompany Seor and Ara into the valley, but Seor, feeling stronger than she had in some time, chose to walk ahead of them, unescorted. She mingled with the fighters protecting a supply train that had left the marshes with half a dozen sparsely provisioned carts and had since been augmented by a score of Venep’o carriages brimming with foodstuffs.
A young woman spied on her from behind a tree, part of the honor guard felt it was their duty to shadow and pester her.
“Go away!” she said. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Just wanted a glimpse of you,” said the girl. “They say you led the counterforce. Is that true?”
“Counterforce?” said Seor, flabbergasted. “What counterforce? I am nobody special, not at all. Just a scout in the Suul militia.”
The girl smirked. “They told me you would say that.”
“Listen,” said Seor. “If anyone here is the counterforce, it is you all on this road here. You are the real counterforce.”
Based on the gleam of her smile, the girl seemed to like that idea.
“Heaven help us if we don’t have any allies in Sesei,” said Seor. “If the Nalkies of Gi are our only friends.”
“Once Sesei learns what has been done in our name, we will have their full support,” said the girl.
“I wish I had your faith,” said Seor.
She paused to let the litter bearers catch up. Ara lay unconscious, but the color in her complexion encouraged Seor. It was a favorable sign, though she knew Ara’s battle for life had just begun. Seor knew from sad experience that many battlefield injuries claimed their victims weeks after the initial damage had been wrought, as they succumbed to gangrene and fever.
She walked beside them into Sinta, passing Venep’o corpses marred by holes and craters that only an Urep’o weapon could cause. Some bodies were smeared with bright blotches of paint, in primary colors, a source of great puzzlement and speculation to all who passed.
Esayos saw her pass and jogged to catch up.
“You made it!” he said.
“Where’s Daraken?” said Seor.
“He’s meeting up with the other forces up in the hills. He’s left me to set up the defense line.”
“Other forces?” said Seor, surprised.
“Nalkies mostly,” said Esayos. “Plus the remnants of our missing company. We’re planning to send a raid against the Maora garrison to extinguish any threat to our rear. We’re building fortifications along a rib of bedrock and forest just downstream. Rather precarious, so close to Raacevo but I don’t think the Alar dares challenge us with the western Nalkies nipping at his heels … not to mention … Verden under siege. Things look quite promising.”
It all left Seor feeling rather breathless. She had to lean against a carriage for support. “Never thought I’d see the day,” she said.
Esayos excused himself to return to supervising the restoration
of Sinta. Fighters bustled all around them, repairing half-collapsed farmhouses, raising new barns. Some bathed in a gushing stream, finally ridding themselves of the stink of the marshes.
Seor knew this place well from better times when she and her crew had solicited food from farmers during their quest for the first cadre. It had been one of the friendlier places they had visited, risky due to its location along the main road between Raacevo and Maora, but practically devoid of Polus and other Sinkor converts. Sinta’s residents seemed delightfully hostile to every aspect of the Venep’o occupation, which might explain why it now lay in ruins.
Ara groaned from her litter, as her bearers negotiated a rough patch pocked with dried hoof prints. Seor glanced over to see Ara’s lids quivering open into puffy slits, her lashes crusted. Seor removed her head cloth and dampened it in a trickle that ran beside the road, and wiped her face.
“Where are we?” Ara rasped.
“Sinta,” said Seor.
“Where?”
“It’s a village, or what remains of one. Half a day’s walk from Raacevo.”
Ara gripped the sides of her litter. “What about Ingar?”
“Back in the marshes with a few loyalists. He’s badly hurt. Even worse off than you, I suspect. Daraken’s leading the force now.”
“Oh my,” said Ara. “I thought it was all a dream. This potion makes one dream, you know?”
“I know,” said Seor, rinsing her cloth in the runnel.
Ara took a deep breath and winced. “I dreamt I was back in Ur,” she said. “In Vermont, skipping stones on a vast lake. One stone kept hopping on and on, all the way to the other side.” She turned onto her side and grimaced.
“You’re hurting,” said Seor. “I’ll see if we can scrounge you some more of that pain potion.”
“Not yet,” said Ara. “I want to be alert. I want to see … all the green things growing. Everything looks so bright. So pretty. Is it the potion doing this to me?”
Seor shrugged. “Closeness to death opens places in our mind long shut. It’s like returning to childhood.”
“Am … I going to die?” said Ara.
“They tell me there are healers just ahead,” said Seor. “We’ll get you some help soon.”
As they rounded a curve, Seor paused, dumbstruck by a patch of red just off the road ahead. “Oh my! Will you look at that?”