The Conquerors Shadow

  “You’ve seen Audriss’s army in action. How do you see it playing out?”

  Losalis frowned thoughtfully. “Without our interference, it’ll be close. Once the Guilds finally hopped on board, they held nothing back. As it says there,” he gestured at the report, “our best guess is that the regent can muster thirty thousand men. He won’t field them all—he’ll want to keep a good many back to defend the walls. Between numbers and fortifications, if all else was equal, I’d say Mecepheum could hold.

  “But Audriss cheats. Considering the types of soldiers he can call on … well, he may find Lorum the toughest nut he’s ever cracked, but he’ll still come out ahead.”

  “Then we’ll just have to intervene, won’t we?” Corvis observed. “We wait until the battle’s joined, and then hit their flank. Hard.”

  “Umm, my lord, you do remember what I told you about Pelapheron, don’t you?”

  Corvis laughed. “Relax, Losalis. I’ve been through a lot, but I haven’t gone insane or senile. Not quite, anyway. Yes, I know it’s the same tactic you utilized at Pelapheron. Audriss may even be expecting it. But so what? If our numbers are accurate, he can’t afford to hold anything more than a token force back from the main battle. Even if he knows we’re coming, he can’t throw much at us to stop us. He doesn’t have the manpower.” His smile grew tight. “Go get some sleep. It’s midnight, and I doubt Audriss plans to spend any longer camped on Lorum’s doorstep than he has to. I imagine we’ll see the first attack tomorrow morning. I want to be ready the instant our opportunity presents itself.”

  Losalis departed with a swift salute.

  “Well,” Corvis said to the empty room, “you’ve been awfully quiet tonight. What’s the matter? Not feeling well?”

  /I feel like hell./

  “Oh, ha. Ha, ha. And, in case I forget to mention it later, ha.”

  /You’re the one who asked the question./

  “Seriously, Khanda. You didn’t make a single comment the entire time Losalis and I were talking. For that matter, you haven’t said much since we escaped from Audriss.” Corvis absently tapped a finger on the breastplate, close to where the pendant rested against his chest. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think something was bothering you.”

  /And what, my porcine-brained companion, could have given you the impression that you do know better?/

  The warlord blinked and leaned back slightly in his chair.

  “You mean something is bothering you? I thought you didn’t let anything get to you.”

  /I doubt that./

  “You doubt that I thought nothing got to you?”

  /That you thought./

  Corvis scowled. The demon was, if anything, even more pugnacious than usual. Utterly alien as the idea sounded, something really had upset Khanda. But it seemed unlikely that he’d admit it, and even less that he’d talk about it.

  The Eastern Terror decided, reluctantly, to let it go. What else could he do?

  So what he said instead was, “Well, as utterly stupefying as the notion may be to you, Khanda, I’ve got another idea.”

  /Will wonders never cease? Or will I merely cease to wonder?/

  “Right. Anyway, after what I’ve been through for the past few months, I think it best to minimize the possibility of us being separated again.”

  /You enjoy having me around. I’m touched./

  “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  /If I was easy, you wouldn’t respect me in the morning./

  Corvis, who felt as if he’d just danced six or seven times around the tent, sensed that he was rapidly losing control of the situation. Determined to stay on track, he cleared his throat. “My point,” he said firmly, “is that it’s too easy to lose a necklace, or to have it taken off. I think it’s time we—and by ‘we,’ of course, I mean you—expand our options.”

  /What did you have in mind?/

  “A bracer, I think. Something thin enough to fit under the armor. No clasps, either. I don’t want it to be possible to remove without your cooperation. One solid piece.”

  /That just means anyone who wants me badly enough will simply cut off your arm./

  “Khanda …”

  A humming sounded from beneath Corvis’s armor. He felt a spot of heat form against his chest, then slither across his body and down his left arm, where it settled just above the wrist. Swiftly the heat faded, and he could feel the unfamiliar pressure of a thin metal band.

  /Is this what you had in mind?/

  “Actually, I was wondering if you could bring the heat back for a minute. I’m not as young as I used to be, and this weather is murder on the joints.”

  /You want heat?/

  “Umm, no. Now that I think about it, I believe that maybe you’re not the best person to ask.” Corvis unfastened the straps holding the metallic sleeve of his armor in place, and let it fall to the table.

  The blood-red jewel was now fastened not to a thin chain of silver, but to three narrow bands encircling Corvis’s arm. It boasted no latch, no clasp, and the bands would never fit over his hand. As he’d wished, the bauble couldn’t be removed without taking part of the arm along with it.

  Of course, quite a few people would be delighted to do just that.

  Corvis Rebaine finally fell asleep. His right hand clenched in slumber about the unaccustomed pressure on his left arm, he dreamed quiet dreams of dismemberment.

  MAINTAINING AN UNBROKEN STREAM of curses, Corvis ducked beneath the first sword, knocked the second aside with an armored forearm, and slammed Sunder into the chest of the man before him. Armor, flesh, and bone split as one, and the soldier fell back, blood pouring from him in a thick torrent.

  The second warrior—a large bearded man who resembled a shorter, lighter-hued version of Losalis—tried to thrust forward with his own blade before the warlord recovered from his killing stroke. The Terror dropped to a crouch, left hand palm-down in the snow behind him, as the razor-edged blade passed over his head. Leaning most of his weight on that arm, he lashed out with a kick. The bone spines on his greaves punched through the soldier’s leather leggings, shredding the skin and muscle of his calf. Corvis scrambled to his feet even as the crippled warrior fell screaming to the ground. A single, efficient stroke with Sunder, and the screaming stopped.

  /Left!/

  Corvis’s curses grew even more profane as another band of soldiers, half a dozen of them, charged doggedly from the flank, swords held high.

  It was just possible that Corvis was good enough to take on all six, despite the fatigue of two solid hours of battle. It was also possible, and substantially more probable, that he wasn’t.

  Wishing it hadn’t come to this, Corvis gave a subvocal command and obliterated all six in a burst of hellfire. When the smoke and the steam finally cleared, twelve charred legs, seared clean at the knees, lay amid a huge circle of ash and molten steel.

  /Smells yummy./

  “Shut up!”

  Through the nearby trees and atop a winter-white rise, Corvis saw Davro and several ogres battling a squad that outnumbered them four to one. Those odds probably didn’t bother the ogres, but there was a real danger of losing at least one or two of them. Realizing that he’d probably feel guilty if it was Davro who fell, the warlord sprinted toward the hill, smashing foes from his path with great sweeps of Sunder.

  One of the ogres heard the crunch of footsteps, lowering his weapon only when he saw who it was. “Davro!” he called out in the cyclopean giants’ native tongue. “Nev raheth, ukrahkan Rebaine ma et!”

  “Che,” Davro answered, jamming his blade through his enemy’s defensive parries and into the soldier’s skull.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Davro said neutrally as he moved to fight back-to-back with the man who’d dragged him into this whole mess. Corvis could feel the enormous muscles tensing and flexing behind him as they each faced down an opponent, axe and sword rising and falling in unison.

  “Silly me,” the ogre continued, y
anking his blade from a stubbornly clinging rib cage, “but I thought you and Losalis said something about Audriss not having enough men to intercept us. Obviously, I misheard you. We ogres don’t hear very good.” He paused to decapitate a chain-mail-clad warrior trying to edge around them. “Comes from only having one eye, I expect.”

  Corvis ignored the comment in favor of handling the endless flow of enemy soldiers.

  Sunder parried a stroke that would have cleaved Corvis’s skull in two, helm or no helm, had it connected. A quick thrust sent the butt-cap of the axe into the groin of the man who’d tried to split him, and a twist of the weapon finished the job. Corvis reached down with his left hand, grabbed the edge of his cloak, and tossed, so the next soldier charging up behind the first got a faceful of heavy wool. The soldier batted it aside just in time to see Sunder coming up at him. His head bounced into the snow even as Corvis twisted to slam the axe into yet a third soldier …

  Who crumpled toward Corvis rather than away from him. The man’s feet spasmed out from under him, and his weight, augmented by the chain-mail hauberk he wore, hung entirely across the Kholben Shiar. Corvis’s fingers clenched, strained … released. The dead body tumbled into the snow, Sunder efficiently buried beneath him.

  “Oh, hell.”

  Maybe there was no one in immediate striking distance. Maybe the ogres were keeping everyone busy enough he’d have time to recover the weapon. Maybe …

  Corvis glanced around furtively, and then hurled himself aside, barely avoiding the edge of a broadsword.

  His attacker was a coarse-featured man, his face made up entirely of crags and angles. A coat of chain protected his trunk, heavy leathers his legs and hands. Broadsword held high, a triumphant grin playing across his jaw, he advanced on his unarmed foe.

  He was too close for Khanda to burn him without Corvis feeling the flames as well. The warlord dived forward, shoulder tucked into a roll. The armor’s spines churned dirt and snow from the earth, and he came to his feet with his fist clenched tightly around the hair of the man he’d just decapitated.

  The advancing soldier froze as Corvis twirled the head, a grotesque flail of bone and flesh. The gruesome weapon moaned eerily, air flowing through the mouth and gaping throat, as it spun once, twice, and then collided with sickening force against the soldier’s own skull.

  It might or might not have been a crippling injury, but the point became moot as Corvis stepped forward, grasped the dazed man’s throat in the tips of his fingers, and twisted. The soldier dropped, thrashing and very quickly dying, to the ground.

  /I see you’ll do just about anything to get ahead./

  Corvis, who finally stood in a spot of calm, went to retrieve his axe. Shoving the ruined body aside with the toe of his boot, he reached for Sunder, surreptitiously taking the opportunity to kneel down and rest for just a few precious seconds.

  I’m really, really getting too old for this, Corvis thought.

  Fortunately for Corvis and his advancing age, the struggle had receded, leaving the flotsam of dead bodies heaped in piles where the tide of battle deposited them. Only one of the ogres had fallen, laid low by a pike through the midsection, but more than two dozen of the enemy had paid with their lives. The sphere of quiet now encompassed Davro and the others as well, and for a time, they could stop and breathe. The fighting flowed around them, never drawing near, as though they stood atop a single tiny island in some rough and deadly sea.

  Davro knelt, cleaning the worst of the gore from his sword with handfuls of snow. Corvis merely shook Sunder twice and watched in morbid fascination as the blood and solids easily slid from the blade and splashed at his feet.

  “Well, Davro,” the warlord began, “I’ve got to say—”

  He saw the sudden shock on Davro’s face, heard Khanda’s shout of /Look out!/ Even then, he wasn’t quite fast enough.

  He tried to duck, succeeding well enough that the heavy sword slammed into the side of his helm rather than cleaving through the softer armor protecting his neck. Blazing lights erupted before his eyes, and the world bucked under his feet. He heard a clattering sound from nearby, slowly realizing it must have been Sunder falling once more from his grip. He staggered, mind reeling, eyes blinking. Two steps back, three, and Corvis found himself sitting in the snow, staring stupidly ahead. Stunned, he couldn’t quite comprehend the significance of the heavy white cloak and hood his attacker wore, until he saw a dozen men, similarly garbed, rise from where they’d belly-crawled across the winter carpet.

  Even as the ogres surged forward, calling upon Chalsene Night-Bringer while they moved to protect their fallen leader, the men charged to meet them, bellowing war cries with steaming breath. It was a suicide run, eleven humans against four maddened ogres. But they’d slow the ogres long enough for the remaining man to finish the job he’d begun. Unable to shake the lethargy and confusion caused by his head wound, Corvis watched through his iron-banded helm as death advanced on him, broadsword in hand.

  And then something flashed past him, a blur of chain and leather and blond hair. The oncoming soldier stopped short, his seemingly inexorable tread suspended by the whirlwind of sharpened steel in his path. Hatchets, one shinier and cleaner than the other, blazed in intricate patterns, a constantly moving yet unbreachable wall. The broadsword, never intended as a defensive weapon, parried desperately as, slowly but steadily, Ellowaine forced him away from the helpless Terror. The air resounded with the constant clatter of metal on metal, so swiftly it seemed to be snowing steel. Every time the sword intercepted one of the wicked hatchets, the other was already in motion, seeking the gap in the man’s defenses, that mere instant of delay.

  And then that instant was upon them both, and the clatter ended in a sudden meaty thunk.

  Ellowaine decided the ogres had the situation well in hand-already more than half the camouflaged warriors were dead—and then briskly wiped her weapons clean on the dead man’s cloak. She strode through the snow to stand beside Corvis, who finally shook off the worst of his bewilderment, though his head ached something fierce. He looked up gratefully as the thin mercenary crouched before him, carefully examining the helm to be certain it was undamaged and safe to remove.

  “Thank you,” Corvis began sincerely, looking into her sharp features. “I …”

  “Teagan’s dead,” she reported simply, her voice quavering briefly with the grief she forbade her face to show. “An arrow. He never even had the chance to fight back.”

  Corvis closed his eyes in a moment of respect. Annoying he may have been, but the man was one of his best field commanders. “I’m sorry. I know you’d become friends.”

  Apparently satisfied that the skull helm was indeed safe to remove, Ellowaine unfastened the straps. She glanced up once as Davro and the ogres approached.

  “Can I help?” Davro asked.

  “Do you know anything about battlefield medicine?” she asked him. “I—”

  “On humans?”

  “Ah, no.”

  “Then go find Seilloah. I’ll do what I can in the meantime.”

  The ogre nodded once, horn bobbing, and ran.

  “Ellowaine,” Corvis began as she lifted the helmet up and set it roughly aside, “this isn’t necessary. It wasn’t that bad a—”

  “Shut up … my lord. We’ve already lost Teagan. If you die here, the army falls apart.”

  /So when did she become a convert to the cause?/

  “All right, Ellowaine,” Corvis said, ignoring the demon, “do what you think best.”

  He winced, biting his lip to keep from crying out, as she proceeded to poke and prod. “Can you see all right?” she asked professionally.

  “Fine. No concussion, I’d say.”

  “Don’t say. When I’m convinced, I’ll say.”

  Despite the pain, Corvis couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ellowaine smiled, too, just a little.

  “What I don’t understand,” Corvis continued, as much to take his mind of
f the pain as anything else, “is how Audriss managed this. He should barely have had the manpower to keep an eye on us, let alone stop us in our tracks. I—”

  “It wasn’t Audriss.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  Ellowaine scowled. “You must have been hit harder than I thought. Lord Rebaine, Audriss did the same thing you did: He hired mercenaries. A lot of them.”

  “Right,” Corvis agreed, still not catching her point. “And?”

  “Look at the bodies around you, my lord.”

  He saw it as soon as he started looking, and if he hadn’t been sitting he’d have kicked himself. These men were equipped identically: the same chain hauberks, the same leather pants, gauntlets, and boots, the same broadswords. None of the patchwork, “use what you can afford or what you scavenge” gear he’d expect of mercenaries.

  Further, these men willingly threw their lives away to ensure Corvis’s own demise. Hardly the behavior of soldiers-for-hire.

  “Military,” Corvis breathed, frowning. “Audriss didn’t send them. Lorum did.”

  Ellowaine nodded curtly. “He must have thought we were a separate unit of the Serpent’s army. Maybe a special strike force or something.”

  Corvis shivered. The snow-covered ground had leached the heat from his body, but he knew Ellowaine probably wouldn’t let him up yet.

  “Any idea who led the force?” he asked her.

  “Some guy in black armor with what looked like a bloody fish on his tabard.”

  “Jassion,” the warlord hissed. “I wonder why he didn’t come after me personally?” And what, for that matter, is he doing here at all? he added silently.

  “Probably couldn’t find you in the chaos,” she suggested.

  “Maybe.” But Corvis, glancing down at his left wrist, didn’t seem convinced. “Any idea where he is now?”

  “I imagine he’s retreated with the rest of his men, assuming he’s not dead in the snow somewhere. Why?”