“What is it, Father?” Ragnar asked.
“Personal message from Badalamen.” Gaze distant, he tucked it inside his shirt.
Another meeting. A reckoning. An end. Softly, gentlemanly, dreadfully, Badalamen promised. Kings on the chessboard, Badalamen said. Played like pawns. Endgame approaching.
“Beyond the fire…” Ragnarson murmured, looking southward. Then he turned and hurried toward the city.
An army had to march.
Even in retreating Badalamen had surprised him. He would get a week’s lead from this…
It would be a bittersweet week, he thought, filled with impassioned good-byes.
His thing with Inger was getting serious.
T
HIRTY-FOUR:
S
PRING, 1013 AFE
T
HE
R
OAD TO
P
ALMISANO
“Goddamnit, lemme alone!” Kildragon snarled. He pulled his blanket over his head.
The cold, thin fingers kept shaking him.
“Prataxis, I’m gonna cut you.”
“Sir?”
Reskird surrendered, sat up. His head spun. His gut tried to empty itself again. It had been a hard night. A lot of wine had gone down. He fumbled with his clothing. “I said don’t bother me for anything but the end of the world.”
“It’s not that.” But it was earthshaking.
“They
are
pulling out,” Reskird whispered, awed. He hadn’t believed Derel. The sun hadn’t yet risen and already the besiegers were moving. Engines and siegeworks burned behind them. A rearguard awaited the inevitable reconnaissance-in-force.
“Got to be a trick,” Kildragon muttered. That Shinsan should give up, and liberate him from the interminable political hassle of this walled Hell, seemed too good to be true.
A dragon glided lazily overhead. It was a reminder that Shinsan wasn’t departing in defeat.
“Something happened up north,” Prataxis reasoned.
“What was your first clue?”
There had been no communication with Itaskia since the fall of Portsmouth. Marco had, occasionally, tried to, and had failed to, penetrate the dragon screen. The Unborn, apparently, wasn’t doing courier duty.
“We better get moving,” Kildragon sighed. “Bragi will need us. Tell the Regents they can join us—if they’ll stop fussing about money long enough to give the orders.”
Kildragon had spent eons listening to complaints about the cost of defending the city.
Ragnarson sent a few companies across the Scarlotti. They met no resistance. Light horse scouts followed.
“I don’t understand him,” he told Haaken. “Why didn’t he try to stop us here?”
Badalamen served the Pracchia. And the Pracchia were divided. Receiving conflicting orders from the old man and Norath, Badalamen could do nothing adequately. Each failure deepened the split between his masters.
The once invincible army of Shinsan now twitched and jerked like a beheaded man.
“Palmisano,” Ragnarson mused, finger on a map. There was a fateful feel to the name. It sent chills down his spine.
The Pracchia closed ranks temporarily. Badalamen turned to fight.
Palmisano, in Cardine, lay close to the Scarlotti. The survivors of thirty legions waited there, an ebony blanket on a rolling countryside. Tens of thousands of steppe riders, Argonese, and Throyens guarded river-girdled flanks.
“We have to go to him this time,” Ragnarson muttered. He had scouted the region. The prospects didn’t look favorable.
He didn’t need Badalamen’s letter to tell him this would be their last meeting. He didn’t need the prophecies of Varthlokkur and his cohorts. He knew it in his bones. The winner-take-all was coming. This would be the
Götterdämmerung
for Bragi Ragnarson or the born general. One war chieftain wouldn’t leave this stage…
He had little hope for himself.
Just when he had found new reason to live.
Each morning the armies stared at one another across the ruins of Palmisano. The captains, generals, and kings with Ragnarson howled at the delay. Badalamen’s incoming occupation forces swelled his army. The snows in the Savernake Gap were melting.
Two quieter voices counseled delay. Varthlokkur and Visigodred had something up their sleeves.
News came that Reskird was approaching. His ragtag army had skirmished its way up from Hellin Daimiel, preventing several thousand foemen from rejoining Badalamen. Ragnarson and Blackfang rode to meet their friend.
When they returned, next day, the sorcerers were abuzz.
Visigodred and Varthlokkur were ready.
Valther, Mist, Trebilcock, and Dantice had reappeared.
The Council was a convention of Kings and Champions. Twenty-seven monarchs attended. Hawkwind, Lauder, and Liakopulos attended. Harteobben and Blittschau, Moor and Berloy, Lo Pinto, Piek, Slaski, Tantamagora, Alacran, Krisco, Selenov… The list of renowned fighters ran to a hundred names. The old companions, wizards’ and Ragnarson’s, were all there, too. And his son, and Derel Prataxis with the inevitable writing box. And near Iwa Skolovda’s King Wieslaw, an esquire, unknown and untried, whose name had puzzled wizards for years.
Varthlokkur announced, “Valther and Mist have returned.” He indicated Dantice and Trebilcock. “Protected by these men, they visited The Place of A Thousand Iron Statues.”
“Nobody ever got out alive,” Zindahjira protested. “I used to send adventurers there. They never came back. The Star Rider himself animated the killer statues.”
“The Star Rider came and went at will,” Varthlokkur replied.
“Armed with a Pole of Power.”
“As were my friends.” Varthlokkur smiled gently. “The Monitor of Escalon wasn’t lying.” He held up the Tear of Mimizan, so bright no one could gaze upon it. His fellows babbled questions.
“It was the supreme test. And now we know. We go into battle perfectly armed.”
Ragnarson held his peace. Point, he thought. Do you know how to use it? No. Point. The old man over there does.
Getting him, too, had become an intense personal goal. The man had shaped his life too long. He wanted to settle up on the one-to-one.
“The Tervola who remain,” Varthlokkur continued, “can be rendered Powerless. My friends accomplished that. They exceeded the Monitor. We control the thaumaturgic game. But let them tell it.”
Michael Trebilcock did the talking. He didn’t embellish. They had crossed Shara, the Black Forest, the Mountains of M’Hand, and had hurried to The Place of A Thousand Iron Statues. They had penetrated it, had learned to manipulate the Tear and living statues, had discovered secrets concerning the Star Rider’s involvement in the past, then had reversed their course, reaching Itaskia soon after Ragnarson had begun pursuing Badalamen. Michael skipped dangers, ambushes, perils that would have become an epic on another’s tongue. His stage fright compelled brevity. He communicated his belief that they now possessed the ultimate weapon.
Ragnarson shook his head. Softly, “Fools.”
The crowd demanded action. They were tired of war. They weren’t accustomed to prolonged, year-round campaigns, dragging ever on. The exiles were eager to return home and resume interrupted lives.
Varthlokkur, too, was eager. He had left Nepanthe in Kavelin.
“Not yet,” he shouted. “Tomorrow, maybe. We have to plan, to check the auguries. Those legions won’t roll over.”
Ragnarson nodded grimly. The Tear
might
disarm the Tervola. But soldiers had to be beaten by soldiers. What Power remained to Varthlokkur and the Unborn, through the Winterstorm, would be devoted to the creatures of Magden Norath.
Badalamen had anchored his flanks on a tributary of the Scarlotti and the great river itself, footing a triangle. He couldn’t withdraw easily, but neither could he be attacked from behind. Refusing to initiate battle himse
lf, he had repeatedly demonstrated his ability to concentrate superior force at any point Bragi attacked.
Ragnarson knew there would be no finesse in it. The terrain didn’t permit that. The armies would slaughter one another till one lost heart.
He and Badalamen were sure which would break. And that, with the pressures received from his masters, was why Badalamen had opted for this battle.
Why he had chosen the imperfect ground of Palmisano remained a mystery, though.
Ragnarson attacked at every point, his probes having revealed no weaknesses. His front ranks were the stolid pikemen of Iwa Skolovda, Dvar, and Prost Kamenets. Behind them were Itaskian bowmen who darkened the sky with their arrows. While the legions crouched beneath shields, suffering few casualties, otherwise unemployed westerners scuttled between pikemen to fill the trench preventing Ragnarson from using his knights. Badalamen’s men countered with javelins. It was an innovation. Shinsan seldom used missiles.
Here, there, Badalamen had integrated Argonese and Throyen arbalesters…
Ragnarson’s men crossed the ditch several times, and were hurled back.
That was the first day. A draw. Casualties about even. Ultimate point to Badalamen. He was a day nearer the moment when the Savernake Gap opened.
The witch-war was Varthlokkur’s. His coven gathered over the Tear and round the Winterstorm, and taught the Tervola new fear.
The bent old man could have countered with his own Pole. He didn’t. His situation wasn’t so desperate that he was willing to reveal, undeniably, his true identity.
The night was Shinsan’s.
Savan dalage
in scores stalked the darkness, trying to reach the Inner Circle and Bragi’s commanders. Captains and a wizard died…
Now Bragi knew why Badalamen had chosen Palmisano.
A half-ruined Empire-era fortress crowned a low hill beside the eastern camp. Within it, after coming west, Magden Norath had established new laboratories. From it, now, poured horrors which ripped at the guts of the western army.
The second day was like the first. Men died. Ragnarson probed across both rivers, had both thrusts annihilated. His men filled more of Badalamen’s ditch.
Again the night belonged to the
savan dalage,
though Varthlokkur and his circle concentrated on Norath’s stronghold instead of the Tervola.
Marco predicted the Gap would be open in eleven days.
The third day Ragnarson sent up mangonels, trebuchets, and ballistae to knock holes in the legion ranks so Itaskian arrows could penetrate the shieldwalls. His sappers and porters finished filling the ditch.
That night the
savan dalage
remained quiet. Ragnarson should have been suspicious.
Next morning he stared across the filled ditch at lines of new chevaux-de-frise. There could be no cavalry charge into those.
The fringe battles picked up. The bent man threw in his surviving dragons. Norath’s creatures, excepting the light-shunning
savan dalage,
swarmed over the chevaux and hurled themselves against the northern pikes.
“The tenor is changing,” Bragi told Haaken. “Tempo’s picking up.”
Haaken’s wild dark hair fluttered in the breeze. “Starting to realize the way the wind’s blowing. Their day is over. Them spook-pushers are finally doing some good.”
It looked that way. Once Norath’s monsters disappeared, Varthlokkur could concentrate on Shinsan’s army…
Ragnarson’s heavy weapons bombarded the chevaux with fire bombs. Behind the western lines, esquires and sergeants prepared the war-horses. Above, Radeachar and Marco swooped and weaved in a deadly dance with dragons.
Bragi waved.
“What?”
“There.” Ragnarson pointed. Badalamen, too, was observing the action. He waved back.
“Arrogant bastard,” Haaken growled.
Bragi chuckled. “Aren’t we all?”
Ragnar galloped up. “We’ll be ready to charge at about four.” He had spent a lot of time, lately, with Hakes Blittschau, enthralled by the life of a knight.
“Too late,” Bragi replied. “Not enough light left. Tell them tomorrow morning. But keep up the show.”
Badalamen didn’t respond. He recognized the possible and impossible.
That night he launched his own attack.
Savan dalage
led. As always, panic surrounded their advance. Radeachar swept to the attack. Above, Marco tried to intimidate the remaining dragons. Following the
savan dalage,
unnoticed in the panic, came a column of Shinsan’s best.
As Haaken had observed, Badalamen had sniffed the wind. This move was calculated to disrupt Ragnarson’s growing advantages.
The attack drove relentlessly toward the hill where the captains and kings maintained their pavilions, and where the war-horses were kept.
Kildragon and Prataxis woke Ragnarson, Reskird shouting, “Night attack! Come on! They’re headed this way.”
The uproar approached swiftly. Norath had committed everything he had left. Panic rolled across the low hill.
Ragnarson surveyed the night. “Get some torches burning. Fires. More light. We’ve got to see.” And light would turn the
savan dalage.
Ragnar, Blittschau, and several knights ran past, half-armored, trying to reach the horses. If the enemy scattered those…
“Haaken?” Bragi called. “Where the hell’s my brother?”
He looked and looked, couldn’t find Haaken anywhere.
Blackfang hadn’t been able to sleep. For a time he had watched Varthlokkur work, marveling both at the Winterstorm and Mist, who manipulated some symbols from within the construct. He shook his head sadly. He had never had a woman of his own, just chance-met ladies for a night or a week, their names quickly forgotten. No doubt his own had slipped their minds as quickly.
He had begun feeling the weight of time upon him, his lack of a past. His life he had devoted to helping Bragi build Bragi’s dreams. Now he realized he had never spun a dream of his own.
The noise from the front was different tonight. Badalamen was up to something. He rushed toward the clamor, torch in one hand, sword in the other. He didn’t fear the
savan dalage.
He had met them before. A torch could hold them at bay till Radeachar arrived. ‘
Badalamen drove through the juncture of Iwa Skolovdan forces with those of Dvar, into the Itaskians behind. Men of all three countries shrieked questions, got no intelligible answers. Some fought one another in their confusion.
A solid, single black column poured through.
Blackfang, through sheer lungpower, assembled company commanders, calmed panic, gave orders, led the counterattack.
Pikemen and arrows. A deadly storm tore at the legions, opening gaps. The Iwa Skolovdans insinuated themselves, broke the unity of the column. Blackfang, howling, brought more men to bear. That part of Shinsan’s advance devolved into melee. Haaken, with a woodcutter’s axe, inspired those near enough to see. Always, when not shouting other orders, he called for torches and fires.
Forty-five minutes later the gap was gone. The line was secure. He turned his attention to the thousands who had broken through.
The headquarters hill was aflame. It looked bad for its defenders.
Though near exhaustion, Blackfang ran to help his brother.
The
savan dalage
caught him halfway. There were three of them. He couldn’t swing his torch fast enough. He went down cursing his killers.
The dwarf kicked the roc into a screaming, sliding dive. Fear and exhilaration contested for his soul. One dragon side-slipped winging over, the air rippling its wings. They fluttered and cracked like loose tent canvas in a high wind. The monster vanished in the darkness.
“One away,” Marco crowed. “Come on, you bastards.”
The other two held the turn and took the dive,
wingtip to wingtip, precisely, their serpentine necks outthrust like the indicting fingers of doom. They were old and cunning, those two.
The fire and fury of the battlefield expanded swiftly, rocking and spinning as the roc maneuvered. To Marco it seemed someone had hurled him at a living painting of the floor of Hell. The roar swelled. His heart hammered. This was his last chance. A do or die game of chicken.
They
had to pull up first…
They were old and wise and knew every molecule of the wind. They stayed with him. Their wings beat like brazen gongs when they broke their fall.
Marco glimpsed startled faces turned suddenly upward. Screams. A dragon shriek when one pursuer’s wingtip dipped too low and snagged a tent top.
“Eee-yah!” Marco screamed over his shoulder. “Let’s go, you scaly whoreson. You and me. We got a horse race now.” One on one he could outfly the granddaddy dragon of them all.
He didn’t see the winged horse quartering in. He didn’t see the spear of light.
He felt pain, and an instant of surprise when he realized there was nothing but air beneath him.
The stars tumbled and went out.
Six columns of two thousand men each followed scattered trails, captained by old killers named Rahman, El Senoussi, Beloul. A seventh’s path defined their base course.
It was tired, deserted country they rode. The few survivors vanished at the sound of hooves.
The young King had led his tired, grumbling old terrorists through night-march after night-march till, now, they saw dragons scorching the northern sky.
“It’s begun,” Megelin sighed. He planted his standard and waited for his commanders.
He fell asleep wondering if his gesture had merit, if his father’s ghost would approve.
The night stalkers pursued the creature calling himself the Silent, who for centuries had been anything but. He hated light almost as much as they, but in his terror spelled anything to keep them at bay. Balls of flame floated overhead. He flailed about with swords of fire.