Blade of Empire

by Mercedes Lackey

  The waterspout approached, and the Great Keep would provide them no shelter. The Elves did the only thing they could: they fled northward, hoping to outrun the disaster. Riderless horses ran with the retreating army, both destriers and Lightborn palfreys. Some knights rode double. It was a true retreat, however, not a rout: the enemy meisne engaged any Otherfolk they could reach.

  Runacar spurred Hialgo up the hill toward the forest, now in the army’s fantail. He could sense the great stallion’s energy was flagging: in a battle from Before, Runacar would have left the field several times already to change to a new mount. He could not do that here, but it didn’t matter. All he had to do was reach Delfierarathadan and the sanctuary it represented.

  He nearly didn’t make it. The wind rose to a howling gale. The light shifted, first to grey, then to green. The grass waved wildly in the wind and the branches of the trees thrashed, shedding leaves and blossoms. By the time Hialgo reached the top of the slope the wind was filled with sand, for the waterspout had reached the shallows and begun ripping up the sea-bed. Urging Hialgo forward, Runacar risked a look back.

  The waterspout walked up onto the land and struck the outer wall of Amrolion Great Keep. There was a sound louder than a thousand thunderclaps. And the Keep …

  Dissolved.

  Walls, roofs, and towers softened and collapsed as if made of wet mud. Flashes of silver, purple, and green danced over the shifting edifice as the interlocking webwork of spells that had both destroyed and maintained it was triggered by the collision. The ground shook with the impact, and mature trees at the forest’s edge whipped back and forth as if they were slender saplings; some toppled and fell. Hialgo danced madly, desperate to keep his feet. He lurched sideways, slamming his shoulder against a tree, and it took all of Runacar’s strength and skill to remain in the saddle and keep the stallion from hurting himself further.

  If he’d led his army into the Keep there would have been no survivors.

  The waterspout collapsed abruptly with a sound like dough tossed into hot fat, dousing what had been the Great Keep with thousands of tons of water. The wave curled as it raced forward, capturing the whole of the beach and the battlefield, and racing up into the outskirts of the forest itself before it retreated.

  When it did, the battlefield was swept clean of both the wounded and the dead. Nothing remained behind.

  Hialgo stood quiet at last, sweat-covered, sides heaving. The clouds were breaking up and the westering sun showed itself in a sky of perfect blue. Runacar slid from the saddle, groaning at the manifold aches and bruises he felt. He hoped all the Otherfolk were safe inside Delfierarathadan, but he didn’t know. What he did know was that the enemy was far from finished, and if he could, Runacar had to marshal his forces to resume the attack. He staggered to the edge of the hillside on unsteady legs, Hidalgo’s reins in one hand and his sword in the other.

  A cloud of multicolored sparks appeared, swirling about his head. He swatted at them reflexively, before recalling what they were. “Tell the others to come at once!” he said to the fairies. He was unable to understand any response they made: when they spoke, it sounded to him like hawking bells chiming. Nor was he sure of how much of his speech they understood. But he was a pragmatist: using them to carry messages and orders worked.

  Suddenly he heard screams.

  Just beyond where the Great Keep had been, where a half-circle gouged into the shore marked the site of a deep tidal pool, the remains of the combined army of the Western Shore was mustered. The damage done by the waterspout and the bespelled Great Keep had been local enough; whoever had planned the battle had meant to catch the Otherfolk in a classic hammer and anvil pattern, and while the “anvil” had been obliterated, much of the “hammer” was intact.

  At least for a few more moments.

  The water in the tidal pool churned as if it were being boiled, and he could see the silver flash of fish as they leaped into the air, trying to flee. For a moment Runacar thought that the waterspout had somehow, improbably, forced a new island to appear in the bay.

  Then he saw the sea-foam was tinged with blood, and realized that the “island” was the long dark body of some immense living thing. Its back was the bronzy-brown of sun-dried dates; its tentacles were the same color, save on the undersides, which were a startling shell-pink, covered with row upon row of quivering white suckers.

  Those tentacles, like snakes or horribly-animated roots, writhed among the Western Shore army. Runacar watched as two of them—one holding a destrier, the other its rider—lifted themselves fully from the water, curling as they dropped their burdens into an open circular maw whose entire gullet seemed lined with gleaming teeth. There were too many tentacles to count, so many that it did not matter how many the defenders severed. Only distance made them look slender; at their tips they were as thick as an Elven body, and thicker by far where they joined the body of the beast.

  By ones and twos, by tailles and meisnes, the creature scooped knights, horses, armor, into its tireless maw, plucking them from the sand just as a pampered lordling would choose sweetmeats from a tray. Those who tried to flee were captured. Those who tried to fight back were crushed. Some it tore in half. Some it drew beneath the water alive.

  He felt the warmth of another body as Keloit moved to stand beside him. Blindly, he put out a hand and fisted it in the thick gold fur. Keloit made a sad sound and shifted closer to put an arm around Runacar’s shoulders. “Oh,” the Bearward said softly. “I don’t know what that is.”

  Runacar stared at the carnage, numb inside. Who should he hope would be the victor? Which side was he supposed to be on? Was this what the Ocean’s Own had summoned up as their ally?

  “Kraken,” he said, almost whispering.

  He recognized it now. Lannarien’s Book of Living Things was a scroll present in nearly every War Prince’s castel. Hunters used it because it listed every beast of the land and bird of the air, and the moonturns and seasons in which it was lawful to hunt them. But beyond those beasts of venery, the Book of Living Things listed all creatures, from Aesalion to Unicorn … many of them noted as “almost certainly imaginary.”

  Right now he wished that were true. It was one thing to attack and to kill in the hot blood of war, and to laugh together afterward at the victory feast. It was quite another to stand, cold and aching, and watch knights and honorable warriors slaughtered with less dignity than the castel cooks gave to the chickens they slaughtered for stew.

  This is the price of a war fought with magic, Runacar thought. He felt numb inside. Vieliessar’s War Magicians had been children playing with their first wooden swords compared to this.

  A handful of komen escaped. The sand was sanguinary and churned by the time the kraken withdrew. Not even its own severed limbs remained. It had eaten those, too.

  The sun, setting at last, turned the surface of the ocean to blood and gold.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SWORD MOON: THE REBOUNDING STROKE

  Since the moment of their founding, the Hundred Houses held half the Otherfolk hostage without knowing it. Every creature of forest, pond, and river was at their mercy—they could have asked any terms they chose, and the Otherfolk would have had no recourse but to accept. But hostages and parleys are part of the Code of Battle, and the one thing the Hundred Houses were never willing to believe was that their enemies were people.

  —Runacar Warlord, The Other Way of War

  The vanguard had been primarily Minotaurs and Centaurs—both relatively slow-moving—while the fantail had been almost entirely Woodwose and the Bearward Spellmothers—Runacar was not sure what Amrolion and Daroldan would think when the reports reached them of “Elves” fighting beside Otherfolk, but anything that added to the enemy’s confusion was to the Otherfolk’s benefit. It would take a score of candlemarks for all those scattered elements to regroup. Keloit led Runacar deeper into the forest; the fairies that had come to him just before the kraken’s attack had been trying to tell him wher
e the camp was. He suppressed a groan of relief at the sight of Pelere and Audalo among those gathered around the tiny cookfire built in the center of the clearing. His generals—his friends—had survived the day.

  “Sit down,” Pelere said briskly, coming over to him. “You look terrible.” She took Hialgo’s reins from his hand. “Enbor will take care of your better half,” she added, making a long-familiar joke as she handed the reins to the Centaur beside her.

  “We saw the kraken,” Keloit said helpfully.

  “Oh,” Pelere said. “Radafa said it had come.”

  “Is he all right?” Runacar asked, as she bullied him toward the fire.

  “None of the Gryphons came within a bowshot of the ground,” she answered. “We lost several of the Hippogriffs, though. Gunyel is trying to gather her flight and find out the tally.” She pushed a tankard into his hands. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”

  “I have to—”

  “You have to let us do what you trained us for, Houseborn,” Tanet said, walking into the clearing. “If we don’t know by now how to end a battle as well as begin one, you are even stupider than most Houseborn. Oh, and Andhel said if I saw you, to tell you she is alive. She does not wish you to gain too much joy from this day.”

  That startled a laugh out of Runacar. “Tell her I am grief-stricken at this news, and next time I will set her in the vanguard.” He was gratified to see Tanet smile.

  * * *

  As the sun set and the night deepened, the army slowly drew itself together again. The Ocean’s Own had recovered much of the gear belonging to the land-based force—it had been swept into the sea by the wave—but their provisions were lost. This was no real impediment—Amrolion could feed them, and what the land couldn’t provide, the ocean would.

  Dozing by the fire, Runacar woke to take reports throughout the night as his generals and captains came to share information. He ached from combat, for there were no Lightborn Healers to make the injuries sustained in a day of war conveniently vanish, and the salves, poultices, potions, and charms the Otherfolk used didn’t work nearly as fast. But the news made up for that. Their losses had been minimal: Otherfolk dead numbered roughly a grand-taille, or one out of every twelve who had taken the field. An early report had given him the initial count of the enemy—Daroldan and Amrolion had taken the field jointly and in force with fifty great-tailles made up not just of komen, but Rangers and Lightborn as well—but the information Runacar really needed was how many were left. The only true metric of victory was the number of enemy dead.

  Near dawn, Pelere finally came with the answer. “Radafa said ‘not many,’” Pelere said. “Ten hands. Perhaps twenty. At least more of them than us died.”

  Runacar knew that to a Centaur, a “hand” was a count of five. He multiplied the numbers, converted them to tailles, and was shocked by the total.

  Sixteen. Sixteen tailles—perhaps—out of the grand meisne fielded by two War Princes. Fifty great-tailles took the field … and that’s all that are left.

  “Was this a war?” Drotha asked, breaking into Runacar’s grim thoughts. The Aesalion sounded confused for the first time since Runacar had met him.

  “No,” Runacar answered softly. “This was a slaughter.”

  * * *

  Three days later the Otherfolk were ready to march again. They continued to move northward, this time within the Flower Forest itself. The weather stayed fair, and the sortie parties that moved between forest and ocean—so the Ocean’s Own could be kept informed, and their help called upon at need—did so unmolested. Delfierarathadan fed them, sheltered them, and gave them spies Daroldan and Amrolion could not equal. And if Runacar had to receive their reports through intercessors who could see and hear them while he could not, well, his pride had been killed along with the Ghostwood.

  A sennight after the Battle of the Kraken, the line of march (such as it was) covered several hundred hectares at any given time. Outlying elements of the Otherfolk force began to report clashes with Rangers and Lightborn—information-gathering skirmishes at best, tests of force at worst. Runacar spent candlemarks pondering how he was going to convince Leopheine and Damulothir’s folk to flee east, even after such a shattering defeat.

  With their forces so diminished, it was unlikely the Western Shore would choose to stage another conventional battle, though they would certainly continue to fight. Since this was not war as the War Princes understood it, it was difficult to imagine them suing to surrender. Or attending a parley under a flag of truce. The very thought made Runacar laugh bitterly. The last formal parley he’d attended had worked out so well, hadn’t it?

  I wonder what they will try next?

  On the tenth day after the Battle of the Kraken, he found out.

  * * *

  Runacar awoke in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. By the time he was fully awake and reaching for his boots, he knew that this was not a matter of a badly-tended cookfire. The smoke was thick enough to haze the air, though he could see no fire. Colored lights flitted agitatedly in the air above him, then arrowed off, seeking folk who could hear what they had to tell. Around him, the Woodwose and the Centaurs were up, moving, lighting lanterns, packing up blankets and bedding. Runacar hunted until he found Pelere.

  “The witches have set fire to Delfierarathadan,” Pelere said without preamble.

  “That’s impossible,” Runacar said in disbelief. “Without the Flower Forest, the Lightborn don’t have any power.”

  “But Delfierarathadan is large enough that they could burn half of it and still have enough left to use,” Audalo said, joining them. His expression was grave and worried. “And it’s certainly burning. Some of the witches flanked us and went south almost to Kashadabadshar. Runacar, what do you want us to do? The fairies are asking.”

  Suddenly, in his mind, it was not now, but then. The Flower Forest wasn’t Delfierarathadan, but Janglanipaikharain, the Ghostwood. And Runacar stood in the center of a clearing choked with tiny skeletons, staring at the bones of a Dryad’s tree.

  Bile filled his mouth until he choked and spat. Every living creature ran from fire—but some couldn’t run. The Lightborn had no idea of how thoroughly the Flower Forests were inhabited—Sword and Star knew he hadn’t until he’d joined the Otherfolk. And if they had, they wouldn’t care, would they? They’d set this blaze to kill the ones they did know about. Anything else would just be a bonus.

  He could keep marching the army north. With this much head start, they could almost certainly outpace the blaze. Damulothir would almost certainly quench it or divert it once it got close to Daroldan Great Keep.

  And meanwhile, everyone caught in the fire would die. Nearby Otherfolk would do what they could to help, but if the Nine Races had little idea of how to cooperate as a fighting force, they had less notion of how to act as one people. Aid would be local and sporadic.

  The army—organized, disciplined, and here—was the best hope of those caught in the fire. But to help them, Runacar would have to abandon the attack.

  If victory was the only important thing, Runacar wouldn’t have been here at all.

  “We have to stop the fire,” he said. “You know how many of the Brightfolk are mobile—find out what they need to leave their homes and make them do it: they aren’t safe where they are. Send them north; Damulothir won’t burn the forest near his castel; it wouldn’t be safe. Have the fairies warn everyone that they can. Find out exactly what’s burning, and where, and—who can work weather besides the Ocean’s Own?”

  “The Gryphons,” Pelere said slowly. “And the Hippogriffs, maybe, a little.”

  “We can’t,” Audalo said, speaking of the Minotaurs. “If you wanted to shake the ground, our Earthdancers could do that, but if you want to work the weather, you’ll need the Ocean’s Own. They’ll be near the shore at noon. We can talk to them then…”

  “We can’t afford to wait,” Runacar said. Vieliessar had used fires as weapons when she’d fought in the west, a
nd every domain feared fire season at summer’s end. He knew that a forest fire could move faster than a galloping horse and double its size every candlemark. “Pass the word as fast as you can,” he said to Pelere. “We march south at once. Get everyone out of the forest who doesn’t need to be here—we’ll move faster along the shoreline.”

  “South?” Pelere asked, switching her long tail nervously. “That’s back the way we came. It will give Daroldan more time to prepare.”

  “And if we don’t rescue everyone we can,” Runacar said evenly, “then why are we fighting at all?”

  * * *

  The wind blowing landward from the sea swept the air clean of smoke taint. The ocean gleamed with faint phosphorescence where the waves spilled over the sand. The stars filled the sky, sweeping down to meet the ocean at the horizon—the absence of stars was the only way to tell where the sea began.

  But when he looked southward Runacar could see the orange gleam where the flames of the burning Flower Forest illuminated the smoke that rose from its burning. The whole army was not yet on the move, but Runacar, Keloit and his Bearwards, and a couple of troops of Centaurs were already heading south.

  It was still a candlemark before dawn when Radafa arrived—he must have seen the unusual movement below. When Runacar saw the familiar shape wheeling through the pre-dawn mist, he reined Hialgo to a halt. The Gryphon landed in the shallows, backwinging to stop himself, then bounded up the sand.

  “I thought you’d be here, Runacar,” Radafa said. “I smelled the smoke. The Elves are burning the Flower Forest.”

  “I know,” Runacar said. “We’re going to stop them. And stop the fire.” Somehow, he added mentally. “And for that, we need magic. The Ocean’s Own should see the fire soon and come to find out what we’re doing, and I’ll ask for their aid, but … I know your people have weather magic—can you help as well?”

  Radafa clacked his beak unhappily. “It is true that we have … some magic. But it is a magic of wind and cloud only.”