Noonshade

by James Barclay

  “It is assured!” thundered Yasal. “The Kaan are now so desperate that not merely do they seek alliance with the weak water-dwellers but even bring Balaians to their aid. Do you really believe they can stand where you are failing? We will make ash from their bones before your very eyes and I will lead the Naik triumphant through the gateway while you lie dying on the ground, never to lift your wings again. We will drive the water from their oceans, tear down their puny towers and crack the fabric of their mountains. Any who survive will be food for my young. I will not stop until every insect in Balaia is dead. When I am done, nothing will grow, walk or fly there again.”

  “So much hate,” said Sha-Kaan, his tone carefully measured. “So much venom that it blinds you. Since you have found me here, I offer for the final time. Cease your attacks and we will not pursue the Naik to destruction when the gateway closes.”

  Yasal-Naik swooped in from his circle to fly alongside Sha-Kaan, his flat green eyes burning with contempt, his mouth unable to contain his drool which was whipped away from him in the winds.

  “The gateway will never close.” His voice was a rasp in Sha-Kaan's head. “Perhaps your age has defeated your mind at last. We have won, Great Kaan. All I am here to do is remind you that you preside over the demise of all your Brood. I am here to look upon the face of failure.”

  “Then fly to the ocean and look upon your reflection, Yasal. Tomorrow the gateway closes and the Naik will feel the wrath of the Kaan every cycle until they are no more. Take your escort and go. For all your might, you have not the courage to face me alone. You are small, Yasal-Naik, and your passing shall signal the moment when the Broods begin to respect the lands they so carelessly destroy.”

  “I will feast on your flesh myself,” said Yasal. Sha-Kaan opened his mouth and roared his frustration, his wings beating hard, his body angling upward, taking him above his enemy.

  “Leave, Yasal!” he cried. “Leave before I take us both from the sky. Dare not to trespass in Kaan space when the orb lightens the sky or face your death.”

  Yasal summoned his escorts to him. “You are an old fool, Sha-Kaan. Pray to the Skies for your Brood and your melde. Before the orb sinks again, you will all be gone and the Naik will rule. Until tomorrow, Great Kaan.” He turned and sped away, his escorts flanking him.

  Sha-Kaan thought for a moment to give chase. To kill Yasal now would swing the battle around. But to die himself trying would seal the Kaan's ultimate defeat. He roared again, this time blasting the air with fire, before dropping into the clouds and heading home.

  Feint left, strike right, axe. Sword flat defence, midriff, axe overhead. Drop sweep, axe, sword head high, angle left defence. Half pace forward, sword drive, axe back right quarter, block low. Drop off, strap wound, space filled. Rest. Fast strike upper left quadrant, drive on axe, pace back. Hold.

  Every strike sure, every move deliberate, even and accurate. The Protectors fought with a terrifying silent ferocity, their souls communicating at the speed of thought and their eyes interlocked, missing nothing. The thundering force of the Wesmen assault was met with steel and fist. Their roars and shouts with the clash of weapons and the thud of blade in flesh. And their shifting orders and tactics with measured strike and unyielding strength.

  Brother fallen. Grieve for the body, comfort the soul. Prepare for uplift.

  The waves of Wesmen broke time and again against the flashing metal barrier and blank masks, their numbers huge, their dead rising and their confidence ebbing and flowing, such that each single Protector kill transmitted through the whole army. But the Protectors fought far beyond their numbers. In ranks three deep, spaced to allow maximum use of weapons, they deflected attack after attack, resting and switching as the Wesmen lines fractured and reformed under the orders of their commanders.

  And where the Wesmen bodies littered the ground packed too close to fight around, the Protectors simply waited while their comrades pulled them from the front, gore and blood slicks tracing their last journeys.

  Aeb could respect the Wesmen energy but not their disorder in the fight. Each man fought alone or with just one or two others, leaving defensive holes to exploit and making block and thrust a long-term plan for defensive success. He had no idea how long they must hold, just that their Given had ordered them to do so. He and Sol whom they all held in awe. The Protector who became a free man again.

  And all the while, the messages, advices, orders and warnings flooded through his mind, filtered for relevance or tagged for his attention. He struck the axe arm from a Wesman, blocked back a strike from his comrade and sent warning five left to Fyn whose flank defence was temporarily opened by a stun wound to Jal.

  Lower quadrant axe sweep Aeb.

  He responded automatically, feeling the axe clash against a Wesman weapon. Placing his sword to block forward he turned his gaze on the wide-eyed enemy who couldn't hope to match his speed. He leaned in, smashed his elbow into the man's face and brought his axe back up and right, feeling it bury in his midriff, lifting him from his feet. He shook the corpse off, his attention already on the warrior attacking his left flank.

  Falling back, rear Manse elevation. Front rank rest, third to line. Weapons ready. Joining.

  Aeb savaged his sword into an exposed neck.

  It was midafternoon.

  “Balaia, let's march!” Darrick roared, swinging his sword arm in a wide circle over his head, and his desperate move began. Eschewing his horse in favour of walking at the head of the exclusively footborne army, Darrick nonetheless made himself as visible as possible. He knew that the Wesmen scouts would report back to Tessaya almost immediately and he wanted them all looking for him.

  He'd been at pains to make his Captains understand that an attack could come at any time, at which point they were to scatter in centiles into the forest, heading for their allotted grid positions. They were not to engage on open ground unless absolutely necessary. Indeed, if the Wesmen stayed out, Darrick was happy to develop a stand off. He had warned of the chaos of forest warfare and of the importance of continued communication along the fragmented front line. He knew it was a gamble but he considered it the only chance they had.

  Darrick would have loved to have spoken to the assembled army but that luxury was denied him by the pressures of time and organisational necessity. Instead, he had impressed very hard on his command team the importance of that which they undertook. Once again, Balaia could not afford for them to fail. Once again, The Raven deserved their unflagging courage and energy. There was no sense in saving themselves for the next fight because failing in this one would mean there were no other fights. Not for them, not for the Wesmen.

  The army set off in tight formation, mage assassin pairs ahead under CloakedWalks, searching for enemy scouts. In his heart, Darrick knew their task would bear little or no fruit but there was no sense in holding them back; and at the least, they would provide an element of early warning.

  They were less than an hour from total chaos in Grethern Forest and he wanted to squeeze out any advantage he had. His regiments marched quickly along the main trail, making good ground toward the Wesmen camp a mile distant. They had travelled less than half distance when a roar like rising thunder grew ahead.

  It echoed off the far crags, fell away down the gentle slopes into Grethern and hung above the rise they approached, like a cloud of sound. The Wesmen. And they were charging. Darrick heard the sound of running feet approach and two pairs of mage-assassins dropped their Cloaks and appeared near him.

  “Wesmen seven hundred yards and running, General,” said one, a willow-framed elf, very tall, bald and dressed in tight-fitting cloth.

  “Spread?” asked Darrick.

  “Three hundred to three fifty, touching the first north rises and down closing on the first trees south.”

  “Thank you.” It was a wide front but nothing more than Darrick had anticipated. He assessed their terrain.

  To his left and north, the trail broke into small rocky undulatio
ns that cut up to high crag and scree slopes a mile distant. South, the Grethern Forest stood, dark and dense. Its first boles were scattered no more than a hundred yards from them but Darrick's preferred battleground was the thick growth that burgeoned a further two hundred yards distant. He could see the darkness within, could sense the restrictive snags of bough and branch and prayed to all the Gods that he'd made the right decision.

  Behind his army, Izack would be leading the Manse relief column south. Now was the time of greatest threat to the plan. Darrick could not afford a single Wesman scout to report the split of the army. Tessaya had to believe he was fighting all of the last Eastern regulars outside of Korina. Mage-assassins from Gyernath swept the forest behind and the crags and rises north. It was time to move.

  He raised a hand and the order sped down the column to halt. Next, he clenched the raised fist, splayed his fingers and shouted the order to split.

  “Centiles, detach, crescent formation by number. Running. Now!”

  Slight unevenly, the result of a lack of drill time, the centiles broke formation, cutting away from the main trail in sequence, leaving a strong line defending the trail. Darrick called it a crescent and in his drawings, that's how it appeared. In reality, however, it was a more uneven cascade. He could be nothing less than satisfied that they understood his orders at all.

  Darrick nodded his appreciation and set off with his own double centile, angling only slightly from the main trail. He was little more than bait. Acting as running vanguard, he hoped to bring Tessaya's army to the forest before they had a chance to work out the weakness of the defence leading to his camp. They could, he knew, be quickly surrounded but he was relying on the Wesmen desire for battle. And though Tessaya was tactically aware, Darrick remained confident he would see their move into the forest as an attempt to skirt around to the Septern Manse.

  Behind him, the army ran down toward the forest, breaking its borders. Orders rang out, centiles switched directions and from the morass came order as each found its feet and space from its adjacent centiles. A wall half bricked and a temptation surely too much for the Wesmen to ignore.

  Darrick would not be disappointed.

  Ahead of him, the leading Wesmen crested a rise, bellowing out cries as they surveyed the fragmented army below. For a while they gathered, like a dark stain spreading on the near horizon, then a blast from a hundred horns sent them flooding down on the Balaians, their battle cries and chants splitting the air, Tessaya plainly visible at the centre.

  For a moment, Darrick considered attacking him but, though he was in the front line, he would be very well defended. And Darrick had better things to do than commit suicide. He took his twin centile and ran for Grethern, the first arrows of the Wesmen falling short.

  “Stand ready!” he shouted, seeing his men ranked inside the confines of the forest. “Fall back three paces. Make them break stride. Mages, fill those gaps.”

  The orders were relayed through the forest as the Wesmen swept toward them, no more than half a minute behind. Arrows skipped and snapped against trees and branches, howls and taunts echoing darkly into the depths of the forest. Darrick turned, drew a line in the leaf mould in front of him, his men forming around and behind him.

  The sky, brooding and grey, spilled rain, and the wind whipped up beneath the cloud, whistling through the trees. Somewhere, Izack and his men raced to the aid of the Protectors. Darrick watched the Wesmen pour on toward the forest, so far taking the bait laid for them. But the Balaians were outnumbered and would have to work very hard to remain unbroken. It was going to be a long afternoon.

  Senedai brooded over the reports from his army surrounding the pitifully small band of masked warriors defending the Septern Manse and its gateway to the land of the dragons. As his warriors tired, the enemy seemed to grow in strength. Their movement was smooth, their fighting ordered, like nothing he had ever seen. He knew there was magic involved but he couldn't see where. There was no mage, of that he was now certain.

  Yet that hardly mattered. What mattered was what was before his eyes. The bodies of his men covered the ground, in places so thickly that the dead and injured had to be dragged away through the legs of the fighting front line to give them solid ground. And as the afternoon wore on, with the rain increasing in intensity hour by hour, Senedai's desperation increased with it. The enemy left no gaps, the numbers of their dead could be counted on the fingers and toes of a single man; and even though his warriors had injured a good many, they simply melted back from the battle to bind their wounds while others took their place.

  Their strength and endurance were extraordinary, their courage something Senedai could admire. But his failure to overwhelm them despite massive odds in his favour gnawed at his confidence and at the belief of his men. It should have been a quick victory and yet, with the afternoon waning, he was now faced with returning to his camp as night fell, to face another day of humiliation.

  He could force his warriors to fight on by fire and moonlight but somehow those masks would be even more terrifying in shadow. And to fight at night was not the Wesman way, though he had done so at Julatsa. It displeased the spirits. He growled, silently cursed Tessaya's failure to appear, called up more reserves and ordered another push.

  Fire bloomed to Darrick's right, the injured Wesmen shrieking in pain, the burning trees casting stark light on the confused battle scene. As the General had hoped, the Wesmen line had been forced to slow and break by the density of trees and the early exchanges had been even as he had foreseen. And with his mages calling FlameOrb, HellFire and IceWind from the mana, the Wesmen charge was blunted.

  Now, though, the tactics had changed, Tessaya had broken off the frontal attack, sending a sizeable force toward the Balaian encampment and concentrating on an area of Grethern perhaps seventy yards wide, daring his enemy to close ranks. So far, it was a temptation Darrick had been able to resist. He'd quickly reorganised mage teams to prevent flanking and keep the Wesmen line ahead thin, left four centiles in reserve to provide emergency cover and brought in all of his mage assassins to maraud outside the flanks.

  A barrage of metal on metal had him moving smartly forward. Ahead, the Wesmen had forced a triple centile back and were pushing their advantage to the limit. Calling reinforcements to him, Darrick raced in from his overseeing position, too late to save a knot of Balaian swordsmen and mages, caught against a wall of trees and cut to pieces by triumphant Wesmen.

  “I want fire behind the front line! First centile right flank, attack at will!” roared Darrick as he crashed into the battle. With veteran swordsmen either side of him and a trio of mages behind, he waded into the Wesmen line, hundreds strong, his blade flashing down on a defensively placed axe. “Second centile, mage protection!” The axe was knocked aside and Darrick followed up with a boot to the abdomen and a reverse sword strike to the bowed head.

  Left and right, Wesmen were cut down before the main body reacted to the attack. Darrick blocked a thrust with a spear, driving his free forearm into the face of his attacker, splitting his lips and nose. He trod on the spear tip before the Wesman could pick it up and drove his sword through the undefended midriff. Behind the fighting line, howls abruptly cut off, the clatter of metal and the unmistakable sound of shattering ice told of an IceWind ploughing its awful course. Further back, HellFire smashed in from the sky. Bodies flew, the explosion of spell on soul battered at the ears and a tattered arm flopped down next to Darrick.

  In front of him, his next opponent quailed at the sight and hesitated fatally. Darrick didn't pause and the Wesman was chopped through the side to his spine, the Balaian General feeling his sword score bone, the blood surging on to the grass.

  The Wesmen began to back off. Darrick held his line. They had no need to chase and, with the afternoon light fading quickly in the shrouded forest, they didn't have to hold out too much longer.

  We tire. It is understood. Light fades. Lower right quadrant, block, axe. They will not pursue the attack after
dusk. Be strong. Strike left, pace back. Rest. Hold the line. Our Given requires it. There will be no failure.

  Aeb's limbs protested but he refused to allow the fatigue to show. The Wesmen were ragged. It had been a hard day and their organisation was lacking, their warriors not cycled for maximum efficiency. Yet there were many thousands of them and, despite their lack of victory, still they came on. It was less than two hours until full night and already, with the sky dull and grey, the light was fading fast.

  The gloom made no difference to Aeb and his brothers. They had no need of illumination to see the fight. Aeb chopped downward, crashing his axe through the shoulder of a tiring Wesman, his blade already positioned to block the blow he knew was coming in from his upper left.

  Beside him, a Wesman broke the guard of Oln. The Protector took a savage cut to his right thigh, the enemy axe wrenched clear with a gout of flesh. Oln staggered, unable to maintain balance.

  Crouch.

  Aeb backhanded his axe across the space left open by Oln and the Wesman who had so recently tasted victory, tasted violent death instead.

  Withdraw. Aeb covers.

  Oln half fell backward. He would not fight again unless the brethren survived to give him strength. Aeb shattered a Wesman skull with the pommel of his blade and turned to his next opponent, mind full of the words of his brothers. They had lost thirty men this day and another fifty were unable to fight on. They would survive the day but would not take another. Aeb had to assume it would be enough.

  Tessaya, Lord of the Paleon Tribes, broke from the forest, axe dripping blood, to take quick reports. The Easterners fought a guerrilla action that he could not fathom, surely having enough strength to meet them head on. The Wesmen met them on a broad front in the trees and on a shorter side across the trail, where the fighting had ebbed and flowed, the Easterners unwilling to move up to force home the advantage they gained early on. It was as if they were waiting for something but Tessaya could not think what. There were no reinforcements coming, of that he was certain.