iii) Prisoners
Altenkirk had taken no chances. He brought his prisoners in gagged, bound, and blindfolded, unable to twitch, inside the large wicker baskets farmers filled with grain and hung from their rafters to beat the rats and mice. Each was litter-borne by prisoners from Kimberlin’s army and surrounded by Marena Dimura ready to destroy baskets and bearers in an instant. Each litter was piled with oil-soaked faggots. Horsemen with torches rode nearby.
In other circumstances Ragnarson would have been amused. “Think you took enough precautions?” he asked.
“I should’ve killed them,” Altenkirk replied. “It’s got to be a trick…”
“Maybe. Let’s let the witchmen have them.”
The baskets were grounded before the sorcerers. Soldiers who could do so absented themselves. Zindahjira, the Egg of God, and the Thing With Many Eyes failed customary standards of what was human.
“What’s the smell?” Ragnarson asked Visigodred, near whom he had positioned himself for his nerve’s sake.
“The Thing’s project. You’ll see.”
“Uhn.” They had to make everything a mystery. He nodded to Altenkirk. “Turran first.”
Altenkirk cautiously pried the lid off a basket. Sorcerers tensed like foxes waiting at a rabbit hole.
But Turran had been confined so long that he needed help getting out. Ragnarson went to the man, removed his gag. He beckoned Visigodred.
To Turran, “I’m sorry. Altenkirk’s a cautious man.”
“Understand.”
“Water,” Visigodred said, offering a cup. Turran drained it. While Bragi and a soldier supported Turran, Visigodred rubbed his legs. To Altenkirk the wizard said, “Let the others out. They’ll cause no trouble.”
There was a stir just before Mist came forth. Ragnarson turned. His eyes met the Queen’s. So. She had ignored his advice again, had come to join the final battle. With perfect timing, he thought. Her eyes, on Mist, were hard and jealous.
“All I need,” he mumbled, “is for Elana to turn up now.”
A long draught of wine gave Turran a little life. He asked for a physician, to examine his brother, then admonished, “I thought we were on the same side.” And, after a pause, “She’s come over.”
Hum and buzz. Sorcerers’ heads nodded together. Visigodred, who had a relationship with Mist that seemed almost fatherly, fussed round the woman like a hen.
“Did you ever see such a mantrap?” Ragnarson mumbled to Preshka, who, despite continued ill health, had come to investigate the commotion.
“It’s obscene. No woman ought to look like that.”
Turran gained more life. “They’ll be here soon. They started bringing troops through last week.”
“Uhn?” Ragnarson’s suspicions hadn’t died completely. “Let’s hear about it.”
“We couldn’t use the back stairs,” he said, after recounting the confrontation in the Captal’s library, “so we picked up Brad Red Hand and tried the hallways…”
“You joined forces?”
“No choice. O Shing’s people would’ve killed us all. Enemy of my enemy, you know. We picked up Brad and went through the halls to the stairs Derran had used to reach the old man’s floor. But it opened in a hall already occupied by O Shing’s men. We had to fight through. Valther picked up his wound there. Derran was killed. Kerth, the Captal, and the little girl were captured. Brad tore a muscle in his left arm. We got through, but we couldn’t save anybody but ourselves.”
“And Mist? She couldn’t use a spell or two?”
“Colonel, there were six men in that room. Three were Tervola. You know what that means? We tried. We killed the soldiers. She barely handled the sorcerers. But when it settled out, we couldn’t carry the wounded. I was lucky to get Valther out. And the child wouldn’t leave the old man. If there was anything that could’ve been done…”
“I wasn’t criticizing.” He had had to leave people behind, too. He knew the spear thrusts of guilt that drove to the heart of one’s being.
“We hoped to reach the main gate or the Captal’s creatures, but the fight gave O Shing’s men time to cut us off. The only escape was the caverns. It may’ve been my memory or their sorcery, but for a long time we couldn’t find a way out. Every passage we took led back to Maisak. Each time we returned something more grim had happened. They tortured Kerth till he told all he knew about Haroun. They enchanted the Captal and girl into being cooperative. They’ve done the same to the rebel captains. We kept stealing food and trying to find a way out. When they started bringing troops through, I knew I couldn’t put off leaving my body anymore. It’d become imperative that I get Mist to you.”
“And Brad?”
“They detected the sorcery. Came hunting. His bad shoulder betrayed him. They got him before Mist could drive them off.”
“And Mist? Is she a refugee? Does she want help to regain her throne? I won’t help her. There’s no way I’ll do anything to benefit the Dread Empire. I
will
help destroy it. It’s like a poisonous snake. Any good it does is incidental to its deadliness.”
“I think,” Turran said softly, “that she’s run out of ambition. O Shing’s successes have crushed her.” He nodded her way. She was fussing over Valther. “There’s her subliminatory device.”
“Ah?”
“I don’t know how long it’ll last. Long enough for us to benefit, though.”
“I can’t ask much more.” With great reluctance, Ragnarson took his eyes off Mist, studied the assembled sorcerers. Each indicated he believed Turran. Only Varthlokkur expressed reservations, and those weren’t related to Mist’s turn of coat.
“Power won’t affect this battle’s outcome,” he said. “The divinations are shadowy, but they suggest its result will depend on the courage and stamina of soldiers, not on any efforts of my ilk.” He seemed mildly puzzled.
Varthlokkur knew his business. He was probably right. But Ragnarson was puzzled, too. He could not see how, with so much thaumaturgic might moving toward collision, massive destruction could be avoided. “See if you can get this straightened out,” he told Preshka, then went to welcome the Queen to Baxendala.
iv) The enemy arrives
Sir Andvbur’s rebels came down the canyon like leaves driven by an autumn wind, without organization, whipping this way and that, mixing units inseparably. Before and among them fled bands of Ragnarson’s horsemen and Marena Dimura. Signal smokes rose rapidly nearer, climbing toward a cloud of darkness driving down from Maisak like the grasping hand of doom. Sir Andvbur’s people pelted against Ragnarson’s defenses in such disorder that his own men became mildly infected. He had a brisk afternoon’s work keeping order.
Night fell without the true enemy appearing. But his campfires, as they sprang into being, were disturbing in their numbers. Ragnarson got little sleep. He stayed up studying a blizzard of conflicting reports.
By morning it had sorted itself out. The Captal and his Kaveliners had moved to Ragnarson’s extreme right, beyond the marsh, where Blackfang and Kildragon held the narrows. Sir Andvbur’s thousands had taken positions against the flank of Seidentop, facing the mercenary regiments from High Crag. Shinsan held the center, facing Prince Raithel’s Altean veterans.
A quarter-mile behind the front line, which was sixteen thousand strong, Ragnarson had drawn up a more numerous but potentially weaker second line. Volstokin he had anchored against Seidentop, in touch with the fortifications and heavy weapons Colonel Phiambolos had installed there. In the center were the Kaveliners, his handpicked veterans scattered among them as cadre. On the right, their backs against Baxendala, lay Anstokin’s army. They maintained close contact with the ramparts and trenches Tuchol Kiriakos had constructed between level ground and Karak Strabger’s wall. The main engagement Ragnarson meant to be infantry against infantry, the lines holding while heavy engines on the flanks and bowmen behind the lines decimated the enemy. Only two thousand horsemen, the best, did he allow to ret
ain their animals. These he stationed west of Baxendala, out of view behind the slope running to Seidentop.
Dawn was a creeping thing, a dark tortoise dragging in from the east and never quite seeming to arrive. But gradual visibility came to the valley.
Ragnarson, the Queen, Turran, Mist, Varthlokkur, Colonels Phiambolos and Kiriakos, runners and heliograph men crowded the top of Karak Strabger’s lonely tower. When O Shing’s camp became visible, Ragnarson’s heart fell. He beckoned Mist.
Shinsan was in formation already. Mist peered into the morning haze. A small, sharp intake of breath. “Four legions,” she said throatily. “He’s brought four legions. The Eighth. On the right. His left. The Third. The Sixth. Oh. And I thought Chin mine, body and soul.” The remaining legion stood in reserve behind Shinsan’s center. “The First. The Imperial Standard. The best of the best.”
Her knuckles whitened as she squeezed the stone of the battlements.
“The best,” she repeated. “And all four at full strength. He’s made a fool of me.”
Bragi wasn’t disappointed. He hadn’t expected good news. But he had hoped O Shing would make a smaller showing. “He’s here himself?”
She nodded, pointed. “There. Behind the First. You can see the tower. He wants to watch our destruction from a high place.”
Ragnarson turned. “Colonel Phiambolos, relay the word to Altenkirk.” The engineer departed for Seidentop. “Varthlokkur? You’ve seen enough?”
The wizard nodded. “We’ll begin. But I doubt we’ll do any good.” He departed.
“Colonel Kiriakos?”
The Colonel clicked his heels and half bowed. “Gods be with you, sir.” He left to assume command of the castle and sugarloaf.
“Turran?”
The man shrugged. “You’ve done all you could. It’s up to the Fates.”
“Your Majesty, everything’s ready.”
She nodded coolly, regally. There was the slightest strain between them because, after her journey from Vorgreberg, he had spent the night in battle preparations.
“Now we wait.” He glanced at O Shing’s tower, willing it to begin.
Though he concealed it, he didn’t think he had a chance. Not against four legions, nearly twenty-five thousand easterners. With so many O Shing might not commit his auxiliaries…
But he did. At some unseen signal Sir Andvbur threw his full weight against the mercenary regiments, all his people fighting afoot.
“That man,” said Turran, “needs hanging. He learns too fast.”
The mercenaries, though better fighters, were hard-pressed till Phiambolos’s engines found the range.
After an hour, Ragnarson asked Turran, “What’s he doing? It’s obvious that he can’t break through.”
“Maybe trying to weaken them for the legions. Or draw them out of line.”
Ragnarson glanced toward the mountains. The dark cloud from Maisak was fading. “They’ll let us have the sun in our eyes.” He had hoped they would overlook that.
Mist interjected, “He’s buying time to ready a sorcery.”
And Turran, “There goes a wagonload of the Thing’s poison.” In time Visigodred had admitted that the foul stench from the sorcerers’ enclave was caused by their distillation of a drink to be served weary troops on the fighting line. There was little if any magic involved, but the liquor would combine the encouraging effects of alcohol with a drug that staved off exhaustion. Little sorceries like that, Ragnarson thought, might be more important than the ground-shakers.
“Marshal,” said the Queen, “you have smoke across the marsh.”
Bragi turned. It was Haaken’s signal. He allowed himself a small grin. “Good. Runner.” A man presented himself. “Tell Sir Farace to cross the pontoon.”
A key adjunct to his plans, hastily developed during the night, after the enemy’s dispositions had become clear, was developing perfectly. Blackfang and Kildragon had laid a trap. The Captal had been lured in.
“The witchery begins,” said Mist. Arm spear-straight, she indicated a mote of pinkish light at the foot of O Shing’s tower. “The Gosik of Aubochon again.” Awe and horror filled her voice. “In the flesh. The man’s mad! There’s no way to control it…”
“Kimberlin’s breaking off,” said Turran.
Ragnarson had noticed. “This’s the critical point,” he said, looking down at the still untested Alteans. “Will they hold when they realize what’s happening?”
“Back!” Mist snapped. “I need room!”
The pink became scarlet flame; from it rose dense red smoke. In moments, within the smoke, an immense horned head with Stygian eyes formed. This thing was no moonscraping monster such as had loomed over the Kapenrungs, but Bragi guessed it would stand a hundred yards tall. It seemed to grow from the earth itself.
Mist stood with arms outstretched and head thrown back, screaming in a tongue so liquid that Ragnarson wasn’t sure she was using words. A strong chill wind began to blow, whipping her hair and garments.
He checked his tame sorcerers.
As the Gosik took on awesome solidity, the twelve hurled their counter-weapons. Bolts of lightning. Spears of light. Balls of fire in weird and changing colors. Stenches that enveloped the tower. A misty thing the size of several elephants that coalesced between the armies and trailed bloody slaughter through immobile legions before attaching its hundred tentacles and dozen beaked mouths to one of the Gosik’s legs…
Mist brought her hands together sharply. Down the canyon, echoing from wall to wall, ran a deafening, endless peal of thunder. Over the Gosik a diadem of lights appeared, sparks in rainbowed rings racing angrily. The diadem began to fall.
Ragnarson wasn’t sure, but from its enclosing circle, it seemed, a nebulous face as ugly as the Gosik’s glared down, swelled till all the interior was a gap through which a hungry mouth prepared to feed.
A touch of shadow crossed the parapet. A few hundred feet up, a lonely eagle patrolled, above Mist’s unnatural wind, apparently unconcerned with the human follies below. For an instant Bragi envied the bird its freedom and unconcern. Then…
He released a small, sharp gasp. For an instant the eagle flickered and was an eagle no longer. It became a man and winged horse far higher than he had thought, almost above visual discrimination. He turned to ask Turran’s opinion.
Turran had missed it. Everyone had. All attention was on the Gosik.
Every magick in the valley had perished.
The Gosik itself came apart like a crumbling brick building, chunks and dusts falling in a rain that masked O Shing’s tower. It bellowed louder than Mist’s thunder had done.
Turran groaned, clawed at his chest, staggered. Ragnarson stared, thinking it was his heart.
Mist screamed, a cry of pain and deprivation. She fell to her knees, beat her forehead against parapet stone.
“It’s gone,” Turran groaned. “The Power. It’s gone.”
The Queen tried to stop Mist. “Help me!” she snapped at the messengers.
Ragnarson leaned over the parapet. His wizards appeared to have gone insane. Several had collapsed. Most were flopping about like men in the throes of the falling sickness. The Thing sped round and round in a tight circle, chasing its own forked tail. Only Varthlokkur seemed unaffected, though he might have been a statue, so still was he as he stared at the Gosik of Aubochon.
Ragnarson looked up again. The eagle slid toward Maisak, to all appearances a raptor going about its business. He frowned. That old man again. Who was he? What? Not a god, but certainly a Power above any other the world knew.
Ragnarson’s companions remained unaware of anything but the sudden vacuum of sorcery. For Turran and Mist it was a loss beyond description, almost a theft of the soul.
v) Opening round
O Shing wasted no time. The legions moved. High on the Thing’s brew and Bragi’s quickly spread tale that western sorcery had conquered the eastern, the troops waited with renewed confidence.
Shinsan advanced b
ehind a screen of Sir Andvbur’s infantry, the rebels more driven than leading the assault. Theirs was the task of neutralizing the traps. Their casualties were heavy. Ragnarson’s bowmen had a tremendous stock of arrows, and easy targets.
Before the lines met, Ragnarson’s troops sprang one of their surprises. He had had the Alteans armed with javelins, a tactic unseen since Imperial times. Their shower reassured his troops of the foe’s mortality.
“Runner!” Ragnarson snapped. He sent orders to ready the second line.
“So much for being Shinsan’s ally,” Bragi muttered. Several thousand rebels, between his own and Shinsan’s lines, were being cut down by friend and foe.
Bragi’s first line held better than he had expected. He blessed the Thing.
The Alteans held the Third. The flanking legions, under merciless bombardment from Phiambolos and Kiriakos’s engines, had increasing difficulty maintaining formation.
The enemy commander sent Sir Andvbur to clear Seidentop. Karak Strabger he would not be able to reach unless the Alteans broke. Kimberlin’s men got entangled in nasty little battles in brushy ravines and around Phiambolos’s fortifications.
Ragnarson had his heliographers send a message.
Altenkirk and a thousand Marena Dimura were hidden on the slopes east of Seidentop. They were to take the rebels and Sixth Legion in the rear. Ragnarson didn’t expect them to do more than keep the enemy off balance.
What Ragnarson wanted most was to compel O Shing to commit his reserve. The First Legion, waiting patiently before their emperor’s tower, would be the key.
The first line wouldn’t compel its commitment. The Altean left had begun to waver. He ordered his archers withdrawn behind the second line. He didn’t want them lost in a sudden collapse. He then sent messages reminding his second-line commanders that under no circumstances were they to leave their positions to aid the first line.
The Alteans yielded slowly. The enemy wedged open their junction with the mercenaries. Altenkirk attacked. The fighting round Seidentop grew bloody. The Marena Dimura, high on the Thing’s brew, refused to be driven off till they had taken terrible casualties. They, too, did better than Ragnarson had expected. They forced Sir Andvbur to abandon his assault. And they gave better than they got. Kimberlin’s troops were unable to pursue them. But in the meantime the Alteans had gotten split off the mercenaries. The commander of the Third Legion was ready to roll up both halves of the line.