“When will we be together, my master?” The pain of keeping the link intensified; she felt her energy levels ebbing.
Sooooon, the answer screamed into her mind, and she saw the pseudo hands gripping and pulling the entity down into their depths. The Ancient One forced her away.
With the link broken, she collapsed to the floor, her energy spent.
In the distance, she could hear the sounds of men’s voices screaming for mercy as they were cut down by here priestesses.
She paid them no heed.
Chapter 6
The Battle of Dragorsloth
Ness Ri woke from the dream. His body was drenched in sweat and the sheets piled together in a heap; he must have been thrashing about for some time.
He had difficulty holding onto the dream as it was starting to fragment and disappear. He got a strong sense of concern from another mind, which was far older than his own was. It was calling to him from a long distance, calling for help.
He got up and washed his face in a wooden bowl by his bed. Deciding that sleep was now beyond him, he put his clothes on. Besides, he did not relish the thought of another nightmare. He had had many such dreams throughout his time as a Ri Lord, but not one as intense; the feeling of something invading his mind was something he did not relish. However, the dream disturbed him and he did not know why. He would meditate and think on it later.
In the middle of his tent, propped up against the central post, was his sword-staff, made of deep dark mahogany. At its tip was a wolf’s head, carved from obsidian, which made up the sword’s pommel. It stood about five feet high, and was perfectly straight and slender. The sword, called Belthoin, meaning Battle Mage, was like all Rawn swords, it had no hand guard so it could blend with the staff when sheathed. He reached for it and pulled out the blade. Its gleam was a cold blue in the moonlight from the open tent flap.
The sword-staff was the trademark of a Ri; they carried them wherever they went and they were allowed anywhere. As a rule, members of the Ri Order were forbidden to use force, unless in self-defence; theirs was a peaceful organisation. As a result, they were never touched, purely because of the fact that a Ri was far quicker and more powerful than your average Rawn Master.
He left his tent. All was quiet in the early morning hours. The sky seemed clear, but dark clouds threatened from the east. The dust rings around the moon glittered silvery light that showed the many rows of tents in the Rogun camp. Most were for the officers; the main army slept out in the cold starlight wrapped up in their blankets or cloaks.
They had spent five long days marching from the pass and Fort Curran, but Ness Ri thought they had made very good time. The host was now camped at the narrow entrance to the Dragorsloth. Far in the distance sat the rebel camp with their fires burning brightly. Off to the east, hidden from view, was the Vallkyte host camped behind the ridgeline. Their part tomorrow was to lend support to the Sonoran left flank and provide reserves when needed.
The Ri looked to the west at the Tattoium Ridge. In the distance, a small hillside would provide a very good view of the battlefield.
He knew that battle on this day was a certainty. Negotiations opened as soon as the allied forces arrived yesterday afternoon, but totally ignored by Mad-daimen.
The Ri sighed. He had seen enough battle to make his guts churn, and he would pray to the gods for a quick victory. War was for the young.
The Southron Pass was a seldom-used, seldom-known route through the Tattoium Mountains and over the Great River. General Plysov could see why. It had sheer drops into dark ravines of a thousand feet or more as the pass edged around the mountains. He had already lost three of his men, due to their lack of vigilance, of course. It was also unnervingly close to the Dracolinth-sol, the twin volcanoes that sat in the middle of the wastelands; its reeking fumes took the very air from his lungs.
Once through the pass, the going was easier, which gave the general much relief. They had lost a day’s journey as it was. His large host took the mountain route through the narrow Wing Valley and rested in the Perwood on the second day. They were dangerously close to the north Jertiani people, who allied themselves with the Roguns, so he sent out scouts to find a safer route that could hide them before they took the open ground of high grasses that was the Aln Plain. Once on the plain, there would be no place to hide, but he planned to stay away from the main roads and trade routes, hoping that the vastness of the plain would hide them.
King Vanduke was beginning to regret sending another herald out to the rebel force. As before, the messenger returned without any reply from Mad-daimen, but also without his head. He was, at this moment, looking at the headless corpse tied to his horse, sitting against a y-shaped birch yolk that was keeping the body upright.
Word of this had spread like wildfire throughout the ranks, and shouts of abuse were thrown out to the rebel force, who were too far away to hear, but were getting closer by the minute as the allies marched into position.
The Sonorans took the left flank and the Roguns the right; the two armies stretched for two miles across the marshland. The infantry and spearmen marched in their square columns wore their half armour and skillet helmets. Lord Rett, an able cavalry commander, had split the Carras Knights into three separate forces; one stayed in the middle with the Rogun King while the others protected the flanks. The duke himself took the right while King Hagan commanded the knights on his left.
Mad-daimen’s host had already moved into position. Even though the Rogun and Sonoran Kings believed that these rebels had fought for their lives for almost two years, they seemed prepared, burly and well nourished, with thick hide armour known as Ferrington Woade, long swords, axes and many archers.
The allies halted at about a hundred yards from the rebel host.
All was still. The clouds that had been threatening to open all morning did so and a light hail descended on the stationary ranks. An annoying pinging sound accompanied the downpour as the hail hit the soldiers’ helmets and armour. Both sides stared at each other across the distance. The stench from the bog to the south blew away as a cold wind fought its way through the ranks of both sides.
On his vantage point on the hillside, Lord Ness had watched both hosts move into position; he was standing on the edge of a deep abyss that looked black and uninviting.
He watched the Vallkytes form up on their ridge and thought that Kasan had picked a good tactical position. He could swoop down from that height and smash into the enemy flank. From his position on the ground, Mad-daimen could not see who occupied the ridge.
Over to the south would be General Plysov, thought the Ri, sitting in wait for the routing of the rebels. He looked that way now and saw no sign of him, but that was to be expected; his orders were to hide and guard the south of the Dragorsloth.
After being alone on the high hill for about four hours, he saw a rider approach from the Vallkyte lines. As the rider reached the foot of the hillside, he could see it was Saltyn Ri, King Kasan’s consul, wearing a grey hooded cloak and carrying his sword staff, which was made of pine and walnut and had a fox’s head on the pommel.
They greeted each other warmly with an embrace and, together, they stood on the hill and watched the events unfold.
Soujonn wiped the rainwater from his brow; he looked out across the dark dismal Aln Plain for any sign of movement. General Plysov’s force was due any time now; without him, the capture of the Rogun citadel was impossible.
He stooped to drink from a stream that came down from the Aln Hills. For three days now, some six thousand Vallkytes and Nithi had hidden here from any prying eyes, but they had not seen a soul in all that time.
He was itching to leave; all the soldiers in this host felt the same; time was of the essence, and time was pressing. Going to the citadel exited him in more ways than he could explain; vengeance was foremost on his mind; his cousin would suffer for the humiliation of two years previous. Havoc would find him a different man, no longer a novice knight; he was nearly
ready for his final trials, and his fat body had shrunk to a slimmer frame.
The servant, Eleana, was also on his mind; how he relished the chance to take her for his own, with force, if necessary.
The dull sound of hoof beats suddenly interrupted his thoughts. In the dark gloom, a column of several riders rode around the side of the hill, swinging west towards Soujonn’s direction. They halted at the opening to the valley; the front two murmured to each other. In the dark crevice where Soujonn hid, he could see they wore armour.
One of them put his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Reaping!”
Soujonn let out his breath. The password, at last, they are here. He thought.
He walked out from his hiding place and approached the riders.
“Harvest,” he called back to complete the transaction of verbal codes, and the riders turned towards him.
One disengaged from the rest and trotted over to Soujonn.
“How far?” asked General Plysov.
“The men are about a mile into the valley, sir,”
“Good, tell them we are here and bring them out. I will meet you on the north side, now go.”
Soujonn ran, his heart pounding, but it was not beating with exertion.
The two evenly matched sides continued to shout abuse at each other. Stone slingers on the rebel side would rush out some distance to shorten their range, and strike at the unwary front rank; some would find their mark. One of the slingers got to close and was speared though the chest for his stupidity. Ness Ri knew from past experience that both sides were psyching each other out and their warriors’ ardour was up.
Presently, there was some slight movement in the rebel force. A small gap opened up to allow a lean, muscled warrior wearing a high-ridged helmet and carrying a broadsword tightly held by both hands over his shoulder; he wandered halfway to the allied lines.
The Rite of Ancarryn, or the champion’s bout, was a traditional duel fought before battle. Those men who were superstitious saw it as a good omen for the outcome of a battle if their champion won.
“A worthy adversary for the Red Duke, don’t you think?” asked Saltyn Ri.
Ness Ri had to admit that the warrior was formidable. The rebels’ voices grew loud as they chanted their champion’s name.
A cheer from the Rogun side went up as Lord Rett exited casually from the ranks. He walked to within four feet of his opponent and he looked very small against him even in his armour. He stood still leaving his sword unsheathed. The rules forbade Rawn Masters in summoning elemental powers during the Ancarryn; only weapon skills mattered here.
There was a pause as they looked at each other; Ness Ri assumed that some words passed between the combatants, because the rebel champion shrugged and then hefted the long broadsword downwards in an arc towards the Red Duke’s head.
What happened next was too quick even for the keen eyes of the Ris on the hillside to see. The rebel’s broadsword imbedded into the ground where the duke had stood, and Lord Rett had Selnour in his hand, finishing his own quick move with a single sword strike.
As if in slow motion, a long stream of blood that seemed to attach the rebel champion’s head to his neck disappeared into a fine spay of mist. The head in question bounced twice on the damp earth and stopped face down. A huge cheer went up from the allies; Rett kicked off the champion’s helmet, picked up the head and showed the stunned rebels their defeated hero.
“Our herald is missing his head; this will be an adequate substitute,” he shouted, and walked back to his lines, where he received applause from the soldiers.
Verbal communications on both sides broke down at that point.
Mad-daimen unleashed his archers first; a mass of black arrows filled the sky. The allies squatted behind their shields and flinched at the impact; some screams issued along the ranks as the bodkins found their targets and pierced flesh. Ness Ri watched as his king sat his horse calmly behind the rows of shielded men, the arrows fell like sharp rain around him; if any came close, he would beat them away with the wind element which he quickly summoned with a wave of his arms.
The problem that the allies had was the weather and the dim early evening light; the black arrows were hard to see against the dark clouds. Many men fell against this torrent of sharp hail due to that fact.
When the rebel bombardment stopped, the allied kings ordered their own longbow archers up, and another storm of arrows flew through the air, this time in the opposite direction. Mad-daimen’s host took the brunt of the allied volley gracefully, but the archers never stopped firing down upon the rebels. Soon, the enemy host would break.
After several minutes of constant battering, Mad-daimen gave the order to charge through the boggy field of white-feathered arrows. The Rogun front rank of spear and shield footmen braced for the impact of several thousand screaming warriors running over the wet ground. Hail had turned to sleet and the rainwater splashed out of puddles by thousands of booted feet as the Nithi host charged forward in an undulating surge.
The enemy slammed into the Rogun front rank of spearmen with such a force that the whole Rogun host fell back several paces before they dug into the slick ground and started to push back. Officers screamed out orders to hold the wall of overlapping shields and quickly fill gaps should any soldier fall.
Rebel soldiers screamed as spear points pierced their flesh due to the push from the rear and the attacks momentum. Nithi axmen tilted Rogun shields and hacked down, slicing through helmet and skull. The ground pummelled into a morass of mud, and footing was hard to find by soldiers on both sides. The Roguns began to slowly fall back under the weight of the Nithi.
Lord Rett rode into the enemy left flank with fifty horses in a V-shaped formation. It had the effect of splitting men off from one side of the enemy, but those men ran back to their second lines, where a row of spears greeted the Red Duke’s men on the outskirts of the marshes. The duke saw the danger of the softer ground just in time and gave a hand signal to his men, who wheeled their horse’s right, in a well-executed formation. The enemy was trying to bog them into the marsh, where they would be easy pickings.
Lord Ness could see the rebel tactics as well as Lord Rett. They had mainly attacked the Rogun right flank and had succeeded in pushing them around one hundred and eighty degrees. Mad-daimen’s archers fired at close range into the Sonoran ranks to keep them pinned. A gap had opened up in the middle of their lines as it began to disintegrate, and King Hagan rushed in with a handful of Carras Knights and infantry to close it.
Carras Knights on the Sonoran left braved the boggy terrain and dispersed the archers, cutting most down were they stood. However, they were slowed by the wet ground and caught by the rebel spears; there followed a short battle there as the knights eventually disengaged with half of their original number.
The rebel spears from the second formation ran straight towards the Sonoran Kings thinly organised formation that now filled the gap, which included a mix of allied soldiers’ only two lines deep. However, they bravely held as the rebels attacked. King Hagan and his knights aided the front ranks from behind, using their longer lances to spear the enemy.
Nithi axmen slipped through their own warriors, started to hack at heads and shins, trying to prise open the gap again. One saw Hagan not far from him and threw his axe with a mighty grunt; it turned end over end towards the king, but Hagan saw it just in time and leant to his side as the axe sailed past him. A knight behind the king caught it in his chest, and blood gushed from his mouth and stained his armour. Hagan roared and charged into the enemy with his knights at his side to try to relieve the pressure. He was in danger of becoming surrounded in the press of battle as the enemy moved closer.
Lord Ness looked with concern at the battle lines; the Roguns had stalled the shove from the rebel attack, even though there were more rebels attacking in that area than there were against the Sonoran side. The positioning had changed too, now they had moved almost parallel to the Vallkyte ridgeline.
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p; He looked up at that ridge now and saw the Vallkyte force watching on the very edge; they arrayed in their thousands with Royal Standard raised and heraldic banners flapping in the wind. He also noted that they were far more in number than led to believe.
“Why does he not attack? Hagan could use the help,” he said to Saltyn Ri who did not answer. His next concern was Mad-daimen standing within his bodyguards with what was left of his second line. He could not fail to see Kasan now, if he was worried about the Vallkyte host he did not show it.
The Rogun Regiment of Horsed Archers were changing the tide of the battle with their curved composite bows and shorter ranged arrows. They moved up and down their beleaguered right wing firing shafts at will into the rebel’s flanks with every pass. It slackened off the stalemate and the Roguns were able to push back.
King Kasan took that moment to attack.
Ness Ri was shocked. The Vallkytes were attacking in one long line straight into the Rogun and Sonoran rear.
“What?” he cried.
The effect was devastating. Carras Knights either dispersed or pulled down as the running tide swarmed over their positions, the rear lines of the allied force crumbled and the Vallkytes now surrounded the Sonorans. Mad-daimen, now suddenly animated into action, charged with all of his reserves into the fray.
Then the Ri felt it, the use of a Rawn Arts, and it was coming from behind him.
Saltyn Ri had summoned a large blazing fireball and was holding it with both hands. He starred at Lord Ness with narrow hate filled eyes and a crooked sneer.
“Saltyn, what are you…?” said Lord Ness as he turned.
Saltyn used the wind element to throw the fireball at him with incredible speed. Ness Ri barely had time to protect himself as the fire stuck him and lifted him off his feet with the sheer force of the impact. Flame surrounded his entire body as he plummeted into the dark abyss below.
The Rawn Chronicles Book One: The Orrinn and the Blacksword: Unabridged (The Rawn Chronicles Series 1) Page 8
