“Shit, there goes our twenty thousand sa’ceurai advantage,” Vi said.
“One sa’ceurai is not offset by one krul,” Hideo Mitsurugi said, offended.
“Do you even know what a krul is?” Vi asked.
“The point is,” Sister Ariel broke in, “when they have a chance to fight the spawn of darkness, the world will see that the Lae’knaught are hypocrites who prefer to turn tail.”
Julus Rotans was actually shaking with rage. “Go to hell, wytch. Go to hell, all of you. Tomorrow you will see how the Laetunariverissiknaught fight. We will take the center of any charge. I will lead it myself.”
“A generous offer. We accept,” Logan Gyre said immediately, “with the caveat that I ask that you not lead any charge yourself. I’m afraid, Overlord Rotans, that there are simply too many who would wish to see you fall in this battle.”
The obvious target of the comment was the magae, but Sister Ariel saw that what Logan feared was the Lae’knaught’s own men, who were doubtless chafing at having to fight beside wytches. If Julus Rotans fell, the Lae’knaught would retreat. In offering an honorable exit from rash words—or had the Overlord actually hoped to die and thereby allow his men to retreat and the Cenarians and everyone else to be betrayed and slaughtered?—Logan Gyre not only kept the Overlord alive and his army at Logan’s disposal, he also might have gained some goodwill from the man, who if nothing else had shown that he was willing to talk. Sometimes the devil you knew was better than the one you didn’t.
Sister Ariel looked at Logan Gyre with newfound respect. In this meeting of kings and magi, praetors and overlords, he had taken command without the least effort. He must have had some intelligence of a Lae’knaught betrayal or he wouldn’t have brought the matter up. Now he had effectively defanged the threat, and managed to look magnanimous doing it.
“Now, before we discuss specifics of our disposition on the battlefield, does anyone else have anything to add? Sister Viridiana?” Logan asked. He looked at Vi, who looked like she’d been on the verge of offering something for a while.
Vi bit her lip. “There was an explosion of magic earlier this afternoon on the other side of Black Barrow. Our source said there was a fight between the Godking’s meisters and a bunch following one of his rivals, a man named Moburu Ursuul.”
“May the God see fit to send that traitor’s soul to hell on the edge of my sword,” the praetor whispered.
“Moburu is claiming to be some prophesied High King,” Vi said. “Apparently, he seems to fulfill the conditions. I didn’t think anything of it until the Regent said that making Lantano a king would clear the way for a High King.”
Sister Ariel wondered if her own face was as pale as everyone else’s around the table. She probably knew more about the High King than any of them, but it had never occurred to her that it might be a Khalidoran who fulfilled the prophecy.
“You said Moburu fought the Godking. Who won?” Logan asked.
“Moburu was driven to Black Barrow.”
“In our prophecies,” Lantano Garuwashi said, standing, “When Ceura has a king once more, that king will fight beside the High King. I will never fight beside this Moburu. This I swear on my soul.” He put his hand on Ceur’caelestos and it flared to life in answer. Then he sheathed the blade and sat.
“That’s good enough for me,” Praetor Marcus said. “In Alitaera the prophecies of a High King speak of days of turmoil and woe, so I don’t envy you the troubles the next decades may visit on you. But I think that’s one problem we may safely dismiss for now.”
“Sister Viridiana, you said you had two things?” Logan asked.
Vi glanced at Sister Ariel, “I’m not actually a full Sister yet. Anyway, I’m sorry to bring a personal matter before this council, but does anyone know where Elene Cromwyll is?”
No one showed any sign of recognition. “The name sounds familiar,” King Gyre said. “Who is she?”
“She’s Kylar’s wife,” Vi said. “And he’s going to come for her.”
Logan’s face lost all color. Everyone else looked curious but unknowing, except for Solon and Feir, who both looked afraid. Afraid of Kylar? Regardless, they knew him. Sister Ariel’s fear was for Vi. The damn fool girl had casually spilled a truth that could spell her own destruction. “Oh, by the way, I’m not married to Kylar.” If Logan had proved how excellent he was at this kind of council, Vi had shown herself to stand at the antipodes.
“You’re right, that’s more of a personal matter. I’ll speak with you about that later,” Logan said. He thought Vi was crazy. Thank the gods. “Are there any other questions?”
“I have some,” Praetor Marcus said. “What if Black Barrow isn’t meant to keep things out? What if it’s meant to keep something in? What if Moburu wasn’t driven there? What if he went to get something?”
“Oh, gods,” someone said.
90
The armies formed up while it was still dark. Stomach knotted with tension, Logan tended to his horse, checking the straps a third time. The allied armies were stretched left and right, extending further and deeper than anything he’d ever seen. The Lae’knaught’s five thousand would lead the charge. Behind them, twenty thousand Cenarian infantry would take the center, flanked by twenty thousand sa’ceurai. Lantano Garuwashi’s original five thousand sa’ceurai would secure the forest to the west to make sure the Khalidorans didn’t have any nasty surprises hiding there, and if possible sweep from the forest into the Godking’s camp. A thousand of Vi’s Shield Sisters would hold the dam and the bridges from magical attacks. The other seven thousand had spread out among the armies according to a logic they didn’t deign to share with Logan. The two thousand Alitaeran light cavalry and one thousand Sethi light infantry would be their reserves.
Much would depend on the first Lae’knaught charge. With twenty thousand krul added to their ranks, the Khalidorans would have forty-five thousand to stand against the allies’ fifty-three thousand—or sixty thousand if one counted the Shield Sisters. The Khalidorans would have their backs to the Dead Demesne. If the first Lae’knaught charge could shatter them against it, the army could be halved and separated from command.
Of course, no one really knew how krul fought. The magi had offered centuries-old accounts of brutes with great strength, poor eyesight, and an inability to feel pain. That last was the most worrying. “What kind of a monster can’t feel pain?” Garuwashi asked. Overlord Rotans jerked in his chair. “They’ll die like anything else,” he said, angry at the curious glances.
Odd man, never took off his heavy gauntlets in six hours of deliberations. And through it all, Solon had offered excellent suggestions that reminded Logan of how much time Solon had spent on tactics with Regnus Gyre. Solon, Logan’s tutor, was now a king. It was all Logan could do to keep from demanding an explanation from the man right in front of everyone.
“Your Majesty,” his guard Aurella said, “do you remember last month, when you went down to the Hole again?”
Logan made it a habit to go every month. He was sorry to inflict it on his bodyguards, but he hadn’t stopped. Logan looked at Aurella, sitting ahorse, holding her sword like she knew what to do with it now. She was one of the few women of the Order of the Garter who’d chosen to join Logan’s bodyguard rather than go back to their lives after Pavvil’s Grove. Logan hadn’t been surprised when Garuwashi had singled her out as a natural talent with the sword. Not as strong as a man, he’d said pointedly, but damn good for a woman. Aurella had wisely chosen not to take offense. Logan said, “You asked me what kind of idiot I was to keep going down to that hell, when it gives me nightmares every time.” She had, of course, been more diplomatic.
“You told me it was to prove nightmares had no power over you,” Aurella said.
“You’re making me nervous.”
“I think you should mount, sire.”
Logan mounted. The gloom of night was lifting by slow degrees, revealing nothing more than the deeper blackness of the Dead Demesne a
dvancing toward them. It took Logan far too long to understand what he was seeing. It was krul, bodies dark gray or mottled black or even white, loping forward in a massive wave. There had to be eighty thousand krul alone. The Khalidoran army was at least a hundred thousand strong, and every one of them stood between Logan and his wife. His right arm tingled as rage washed over him.
“Vi,” Logan barked. “Give me light!”
“Look away!” the maja shouted. The order was an exercise in futility. The Sisters had given Vi a new dress, deeming both the scandalous wetboy grays and the plain robes of an Adept ill suited to the woman they were now calling Battle Mistress. The new dress was red, with skirts divided for riding. Logan suspected it might be woven entirely of magic. It shimmered despite the low light, and—as Vi’s figure did in any garb—it demanded attention. “Luxe exeat!” she yelled.
Logan barely looked away in time, and despite his closed eyes, the light was blinding. There was a rush and when he looked, a white fireball was arcing out over the plain, then it froze in midair. Moments later, a dozen more followed from points all along the line, illuminating the charging krul, who’d already closed half the distance.
“Signal ready!”
Another maja in Vi’s cadre gestured and a magical version of the signal flag flew into the air over Logan’s head, glowing and big enough for the entire army to see.
The rattling of armor and stirrups, low curses and prayers, the creaking of leather, the popping of knuckles, and the synchronized clash of the Lae’knaught lances on shields yielded to the sudden ululations of the sa’ceurai battle chant.
“Advance!”
The magical signal winked out and was replaced with a waving red banner. The sa’ceurai ululations pitched higher, and the army rumbled forward.
91
Kylar came through the pass as the armies on the plains below sprinted the last paces toward each other. He was too far away to hear the crash, but he could see the shock of it passing through the ranks. He continued running, not slowing as he passed the camp followers who had gathered to watch the battle, many of them carrying all their possessions in case the battle turned out badly.
He lost sight of the battle as he sprinted down the valley. Those few armed men he encountered he passed before they could raise a challenge, until he got to Black Bridge. There, half a dozen men with pikes and short swords at their belts turned from the battle to watch his approach.
“Hold!” a young man shouted.
As Kylar stopped in front of them, a crack like thunder shook the earth. Kylar was the only one who kept his feet. He turned his eyes to Black Barrow. The slight rises and dips of the plain between him and the great dome were covered with warriors, both human and krul, but the battle slowed as those not in the front line looked to the great shining black sphere. Another thunder crack shook the plain, and this time, jagged cracks raced from the highest point of the dome down its sides. Men cursed in fear and wonder.
The third crack shattered the dome from inside. Huge chunks of black rock three feet thick exploded into the air and rained onto the Dead Demesne and the battlefield, crushing krul and men alike. Most of the dome still stood, quivering, edges sharp around the hole in its crown.
More sharp blows followed and the rest of the dome fell in, raising a huge cloud of black dust like a stain of night across the morning. Something huge moved inside it.
“What is that?” the young man guarding the bridge asked.
Kylar was already running.
Most of the fighting men had noticed nothing. The grim business of war took all their attention. The allies’ armies were doing extremely well if what Kylar had seen of their relative numbers was accurate. He saw one of Agon’s archers fit an odd arrow to his Ymmuri bow and shoot. Two hundred paces away, one of the Khalidoran signal flags went up in flames. It was obviously on purpose, because only one or two Khalidoran signal flags remained on the entire plain. Kylar wondered briefly whose good idea that had been.
Curoch was still strapped to his back and the black ka’kari concealed it. Kylar drew neither as he closed with the rear of the Cenarian line. His battle senses seemed to explode, obliterating conscious thought, blotting out everything but the sharp outlines of the figures in his path. This group was spearmen, packed tightly and surging forward. There would be no slipping through these men. They pushed against the backs of the men in front of them with oblong shields, holding their elbows up so their spears wouldn’t become entangled in the press.
Kylar leapt lightly and pushed off one man’s shoulder, twisted, pushed off another’s spear hand, then planted both feet on the shoulders of a man in the second row and jumped as hard as he could. He was over the Cenarians so fast he didn’t even hear their cries of surprise.
His leap took him over the first six lines of krul. Kylar read the bodies of those among which he would land. Five black creatures and one a diseased flaky white that seemed their leader. Two saw him. Kylar tucked his knees to his chest, flipped, then threw his feet forward at the last second. His feet connected with a big black krul over its eyes. Its head snapped back and its neck cracked. Kylar rolled to his feet.
He’d never seen krul before. They were shaped like men with grotesquely bulging muscles, their eyes small and piggish, brows prominent, shoulders heavy, necks almost nonexistent, but beyond that, each was different, as if they were the products of many different hands. The one closest to Kylar’s left was covered with fur, two others were hairless. The one directly in front of him had a nose smashed upward into a snout. It also had thin curling horns. Three had an extra knuckle’s worth of finger on their hands, sharpened into claws. Their skin or fur was the black of a bloated corpse, and they smelled of rot. None wore armor or clothes except the white one, and few had weapons other than their claws or horns. The white was taller than the others, more than six feet, and recovered first, swinging a huge dull blade at Kylar.
Kylar dodged it and crushed the white’s throat with a kick. Kylar darted behind another, grabbed its horns, and broke its neck before he realized that perhaps a dozen black krul weren’t moving at all; they simply stared at their dying white leader. It was hissing, trying to breathe. Unnerved by their sudden listlessness, Kylar paused for a moment—a pause that in a normal battle could have been lethal. He pulled a tanto from his belt and jammed it into the white krul’s heart. Krul apparently kept their hearts where men did, because it died as he withdrew the blade.
What little light had been in the piggish eyes around him guttered out. The ten krul looked lost. For three impossible seconds, they didn’t move. Kylar could sense them searching for something. Then, as if each had been yanked on a leash toward a new master, the krul bolted in ten different directions.
A jolt of fear more intense than any he’d ever felt lashed through Kylar’s bond with Vi. She was two hundred paces to his left.
Kylar ran through the Dead Demesne, over corpses that looked oddly fresh but didn’t stink. He was behind the main line of krul, but there were still hundreds that saw him. His Talent filled him like a fire. He was a blur.
As always, he could feel Vi more intensely the closer he got. She was in the middle of a thick knot of fighting. The sheer volume of magic was astounding. Magae flanked Vi and they faced a dozen Vürdmeisters with vir clawing through every inch of exposed skin. On a white charger in white enameled armor, Logan and a score of his bodyguards faced dozens of monsters. A great sword-tooth cat leapt for the king. Logan slashed his sword into the top of its head. Its claws scored his horse’s armor as it fell dead.
A wash of fire spurted from a Vürdmeister toward the king and lapped against a shimmering shield one of the magae had put around him. A squat red krul, a head shorter than most of its kin but three times as wide, with skin that looked like it was entirely made of bone, grabbed a horse’s leg. The horse whinnied as its leg cracked. It fell, spilling one of Logan’s bodyguards to the ground. He jumped up and slashed at the creature, but his thin blade rang off its skin
. He stabbed it; his blade bowed but then pierced the creature’s skin. It ignored it and grabbed his arm, then his face. Gnasher grabbed the man’s other arm and tried to pull him up onto his horse. His scream was muffled against the krul’s palm until it crushed helmet and head together. Gnasher kept pulling, not understanding the guard was already dead.
Greenish krul with splayed legs like frogs leapt at Logan, trying to knock him from his saddle. Vi blasted them aside with Talent and bodyguards opened their throats.
As Logan’s knot of warriors ground slowly toward the Dead Demesne, a Vürdmeister beyond the fighting chanted calmly. Kylar saw the sword-tooth cat’s split head mend, and moments later it stood. Everywhere, the scene was repeated. The Vürdmeisters were instantly replacing the most powerful krul they lost.
Kylar unlimbered Curoch and decapitated that Vürdmeister, and then another before it could raise the red-skinned ogre, and cut a third in half. Through the press of bodies, he saw Vi. A krul claw slapped into her arm, but bounced off as her blood-red dress hardened like armor. She sliced off the krul’s arm and met Kylar’s eyes. She pointed behind him.
It was the Titan, looming huge. It had cracked open Black Barrow and now it was coming to war. The sheer size of it was hard to believe. It was shaped almost like a man, its skin a coolly luminous blue under scale armor, its hair gold and short and spiky like an unruly boy’s, its eyes black with silver vertical irises like a cat’s, its muscles smooth and beautiful. But if it was a god from the front, it was a demon from behind. Huge spikes extended from its spine, reptilian wings draped from its shoulders, and a rat-like hairy tail dragged behind it. It wielded a spiked pole as a cudgel.
“Kylar!” Vi shouted. “Kill it!”
He could feel her intimately enough to know she hadn’t meant to invoke the bond, but she’d done it anyway. Like he’d been lashed with a cat o’nine tails, his attention focused instantly, irrevocably on the Titan. He had no choice.