A Magic of Twilight nc-1

by S L Farrell

  “Mahri!” Ana shouted in the grasp of the gardai, struggling as they held her arms, as they tried to shove a gag into her mouth as well.

  “What have you done?”

  But Mahri wasn’t there. He had vanished.

  Retreats

  Sergei ca’Rudka

  The battle of Passe a’Fiume began slowly. The same day that the Kraljiki quietly departed the town to return to Nessantico, the Hirzg broke from his encampment on the mountainside, leading his army to the parley field. There, in full view of those watching from the city walls, they erected their tents: thousands of them, like thick mushrooms clustered in the grass. A force of a few dozen Firenzcian chevarittai, dressed in gilded armor and seated on black destriers, rode forward to the far end of the bridge, led by Starkkapitan ca’Linnett.

  Sergei, watching from the wall, saw one of the chevarittai ride forward from the group, his spear tipped with a white kerchief. He cantered his horse across the bridge until he was directly underneath Sergei. He brandished a scroll before dropping it in the dust of the road before the gate. The man saluted Sergei with clasped hands, then turned his horse and rode back across the bridge.

  Sergei knew what it would say, even before it was delivered to him.

  The scroll called for an individual challenge: for the Kraljiki (who could not answer), and for Sergei, who could. “Do we ride out, Commandant?” Sergei could hear the eagerness in Elia ca’Montmorte’s voice.

  “Or, if you don’t wish to accept the challenge, I will go in your stead; I owe ca’Linnett for what he did to us at Ville Colhelm. It would give me nothing but pleasure to see the grass of Nessantico grow tall with his blood.”

  “You can’t answer the challenge, Commandant.” Bahik cu’Garret, A’Offizier of the Garde Civile in Passe a’Fiume-but only a vajiki, not a chevaritt-was shaking his head, as was U’Teni cu’Bachiga. “You can’t let the fate of Passe a’Fiume rest on a duel between chevarittai.”

  “Why not?” ca’Montmorte snorted. “There’s honor in it. And Passe a’Fiume will still be standing afterward, and with the banner of Nessantico flying over it.”

  “The chevarittai code has been abandoned for generations,”

  cu’Bachiga answered. “Look at Jablunkov, or the Battle of the Wastes, or the Riven Fields-there are a dozen or more examples. Why should this be any different? It’s posturing, and nothing more, and the Hirzg knows it. It’s the chevarittai playing at war, and even should you happen to prevail, Chevaritt ca’Montmorte, the Hirzg won’t take his army away.”

  “Then he dishonors himself as a chevaritt,” ca’Montmorte retorted.

  “He is Hirzg, and he wants to be Kraljiki,” cu’Garret scoffed. “You think your ‘dishonor’ worries him even slightly?”

  Sergei listened to the men argue, rubbing the smooth metal of his nose. “Enough!’ he said sharply. “Elia, I’m afraid I agree with A’Offizier cu’Garret: no matter the outcome of this challenge, the Hirzg isn’t likely to pull back his army after coming this far. I think it’s more likely a ruse.

  Our task here is to delay the Hirzg’s advance to give the Kraljiki time to prepare the defense of Nessantico-would you have me swing open the gates of Passe a’Fiume because a chevarittai champion lost their challenge?” Ca’Montmorte scowled but didn’t answer. “I can’t do that. Chevaritt, I would love to ride out across the bridge with you and answer this ca’Linnett’s challenge in the name of the Kraljiki, but I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Then you condemn Passe a’Fiume to slow torture, Commandant”

  ca’Montmorte answered. “I hope A’Offizier cu’Garret and U’Teni cu’Bachiga fully understand that, because they’ll be here with us to experience it, along with many innocents.”

  Sergei ended the conversation not long afterward, and directed one of the archers to wrap the challenge around the shaft of an arrow and shoot it over the bridge. Ca’Linnett himself rode forward to pluck the arrow from the ground and glance at Sergei’s scrawled refusal. Hoots of laughter and derision cascaded from the Firenzcian chevarittai to assault the walls of Passe a’Fiume, but the jeers and taunts did not tear down the battlements.

  Sergei was satisfied with that, if the chevarittai in the city were not.

  Worse news came that night. Stragglers from the troops he’d set out along the north bank of the Clario came rushing back to the town in full retreat. Two battalions of Firenzcians, using war-teni to cover their crossing, had forded the Clario in darkness and attacked the Nessantico troops, overrunning their encampment. Sergei ordered all gates to the city closed; by predawn light, they could see from the walls the colors of Firenzcia surrounding Passe a’Fiume entirely.

  By dawn of the next day, the assault had begun in earnest.

  It began with the war-teni. A dozen great spheres of enchanted fire rose into the dawn, arcing across the sky like huge, roaring meteors. The teni of Passe a’Fiume, along with the war-teni left behind by Archigos ca’Cellibrecca, were waiting on the walls. Their chants began as soon as they saw the spell-fires flicker into life, their hands moved in counter-spells and return-spells, turning aside a hand of the spheres and sending them back to where they’d originated-their efforts were rewarded by faint screams and black smoke rising from the Firenzcian encampment. But far too many of the fireballs rushed past the walls in waves of blistering heat and blinding light, crashing into houses or onto the streets where they rolled and broke open and sent spatters of thick flame flying. Now the screams were close and frantic behind Sergei and those on the walls, as the townsfolk rushed to aid the injured, to put out the fires, and pull the dead from the rubble.

  There was no time to rest. Siege engines in the Firenzcian encampment flung boulders toward the walls, their impacts shuddering the ground and tearing great chunks of rock from the ramparts and crenellations. Only a few strides away from where he stood, Sergei saw a soldier in the livery of the Garde Civile shriek as a huge rock tore his arm entirely from his body before the stone crashed into the street beyond, killing three men and a horse. Now came the rain of arrows from archers moving under cover of the barrage to the far bank of the Clario: as the siege engines continued to hammer at the walls, as more teni-fireballs flared overhead.

  Through the smoke and noise of the assault, Sergei glimpsed movement: soldiers massing on the bridge and pushing a battering ram in its sling; others placing rafts in the river. “Archers!” he shouted, and arrows rained out from the walls, a furious and thick hailstorm. The Clario frothed with men falling into its waters, flailing in panic or motionless, dead before the water took them. The ram squad was better protected with their shields turtling over them-the ram continued steadily and slowly across the bridge, and more soldiers came behind it to replace the fallen.

  “Chevarittai, to the gates!” Sergei called, and hurried down from the walls himself. His horse was there, stamping and nervous as the page held him. Sergei calmed the stallion as he put on his helm and adjusted his mail. The page helped to hoist him astride the destrier.

  Mounted, he pulled the Hirzg’s sword from its sheath as the other chevarittai gathered before the gates. The weight of the blade was heavy and comforting in his hand. “Drive them back across the bridge!” Sergei shouted. “O’Offizier ce’Ulcai, you will take a squadron of the Garde Civile and push that ram into the river once we have the bridge clear.

  Archers, make certain that the bridge stays clear. Understood?” There were salutes and shouts of agreement. “Open the gates!” Sergei called, and soldiers hurried to pull aside the great timbers that braced them, swinging open the thick wooden doors as they raised the portcullis.

  Sergei thrust his sword high. “For the glory of Nessantico and the Kraljiki!”

  The chevarittai and Garde Civile around him echoed the cry, a throaty challenge. They rode out in thunder.

  The destriers, clad in armor and trained in close combat, cleaved through the front ranks of enemy soldiers boiling around the ram. Sergei swung his sword down at a thrusting spear
, breaking the weapon in half and hearing the scream as his mount trampled the man underfoot.

  He cut again, and again, no longer thinking but only reacting to the bodies around him. He could hear screams and cries; he felt a spear tip jab through his mail to bite deep into his thigh, the shaft breaking off with the onward rush of his horse. He screamed himself then, taking the pain and anger and letting it flow through his arm.

  “Back! Back!” he heard someone cry, and suddenly the Firenzcian soldiers were no longer holding their ground but fleeing, and Sergei was past the ram and across the bridge entirely, hacking at the retreating soldiers, running them down under the destrier’s hooves. The other chevarittai surged around him, savage and relentless. Sergei pulled on his mount’s reins, glancing back-on the bridge, soldiers in blue and gold were streaming out from the city and pushing at the ram. Arrows streaked overhead, so thick they seemed to dim the sun. His wounded thigh throbbed as he clamped his legs around the saddle, holding back his mount.

  “Form up!’ he called the chevarittai. “Hold here!” Most of them obeyed, though not all: a few continued beyond the bridge, chasing the soldiers. In the field ahead, he could see the Firenzcian chevarittai readying to charge: the Red Lancers. “Return to the city!” Sergei ordered.

  There were protests from the chevarittai, and Sergei scowled. “I am commandant here. Inside! There will be time enough for fighting. Inside!” He turned his horse; reluctantly, they followed. The bridge had been cleared; soldiers from the city were bringing in their own dead and wounded.

  Sergei slid from his destrier as he passed the gates, handing the reins to one of the waiting pages. His leg buckled under him from the shock of hitting the ground; he forced himself to stand, though he allowed the page who rushed over to help to wrap a binding around his leg to staunch the bleeding. He watched as the chevarittai passed, then the remainder of the Garde Civile on the bridge. He gestured to those around the gate; the portcullis rang metallically as it slammed back down, the hinges groaned as the men pushed the gates closed and replaced the bracing. Sergei limped to the wall. Around the town was smoke and destruction and bodies. Crows were already flapping to the ground. A lone chevaritt rode forward to the far end of the bridge, with a white flag on his spear.

  “The Hirzg asks for a brief truce to give us time to recover our dead,” he called up to Sergei.

  “Tell the Hirzg he has the Kraljiki’s permission to do so if he wishes,” Sergei replied.

  The chevaritt gave a salute and rode away. In time, soldiers approached the walls from the encampment with carts and began to haul away the dead. In both Passe a’Fiume and in the fields outside, the flames of pyres would light the evening sky.

  The second day of the siege of Passe a’Fiume ended.

  On the third day, the teni redoubled their assault on the city, striking from all sides of the wall, not only from beyond the Clario. The bulk of the teni-fire passed through the defenses of the town’s few and exhausted war-teni, reaching even into the city center. There were few buildings left whose roofs were untouched or that didn’t show some damage; the casualties, civilian and military, mounted quickly as the siege engines again began their merciless barrage, also from all sides.

  All five city gates were under assault, not just the Clario Gate, and Sergei directed the chevarittai in sallies against them, but they were spread too thin now, and the enemy rams battered at the gates. Arrows rained down on the besiegers; those war-teni who were still able cast their spells; heated oil cascaded down from the battlements and was set afire.

  The smell of smoke and blood were thick in the air from morning until dusk.

  When the day finally ended, the sun falling behind a hundred columns of smoke and ash, the city walls were pockmarked and gouged, the gates cracked, and fires burned unchecked, but the city had held.

  Sergei knew she might not hold for another day under the ferocious assault.

  “Two hundred or more dead of the Garde Civile; fully half the force injured so badly they can’t fight.” Ca’Montmorte read the tallies tone-lessly as Sergei and U’Teni cu’Bachiga and A’Offizier cu’Garret listened.

  “Of the chevarittai, three double-hands have fallen, most are injured, and three quarters are unhorsed. I’m told that the wall of the west gate is nearly broken through. There are fires burning everywhere, and no one is able to say how many of the citizens of the city who remained behind have been killed or injured.”

  Sergei grimaced as he limped to the table to pour wine, his injured leg protesting. The leg had swelled, and blood seeped through the ban-daging. “Passe a’Fiume has never been taken,” cu’Garret said doggedly, and ca’Montmorte glanced at him with a look of distaste.

  “Well, that might change tomorrow,” ca’Montmorte answered.

  “Unless Cenzi grants us a miracle.”

  U’Teni cu’Bachiga glared at him and muttered something, the only word of which Sergei caught was “blasphemy.”

  “Unfortunately, I have to agree with Chevaritt ca’Montmorte,” Sergei said, sipping the wine. It tasted as if it had been dipped in greasy smoke, or perhaps it was just the air in the room. They were all filthy, their clothing stained with dirt and blood and worse, and the smell in the room was foul. Sergei set the goblet down and rubbed at his nose-it was cold and too hard. “The town may well fall tomorrow, and the Hirzg realizes it. We’ve done all we can do here.”

  “So we must surrender and hope that the Hirzg will show us mercy?” ca’Montmorte asked.

  “That’s an option we should consider,” Sergei said. “We can send a chevaritt with a petition in the morning, surrender our arms to the Hirzg, and he can release those he wishes and hold the rest of us for ransom.”

  “Or?”

  “We stay and we fight until the walls collapse and the entire town burns, and we leave our corpses here as we return to Cenzi. We might be able to give the Kraljiki another day to ready Nessantico for the Hirzg.” Sergei shrugged. He glanced at each of their faces and saw the grim, weary fatalism there.

  Or,” he added, “we remember that the deciding battle in this war won’t be Passe a’Fiume but Nessantico, and acknowledge that is where we should go now. Those of us who wish to do so will ride out at first light, all of us who wish to attempt this. The Hirzg’s forces are thinnest near the southwest gate. We can try to break through his line to gain the Avi and retreat toward Nessantico-some of us may make it. Those who don’t wish to join the foray can stay here to surrender the city to the Hirzg and his mercy.”

  Ca’Montmorte was already nodding, his fist softly pounding his thigh. Cu’Garret stared at the table between them. Cu’Bachiga, in his green robes, wrung his hands. “I will lead the foray. As for the rest of you. . I don’t care which choice you make,” Sergei told them.

  “That is between you and Cenzi. We have done all we can here, and we have fulfilled our promise to the Kraljiki to hold as long as possible.”

  “Even if we can fight our way through, the Firenzcian army will follow us-and most will be on foot,” cu’Garret said. “We’d be harried all the way to Nessantico.”

  Sergei shook his head. “If we can push through their ranks, I don’t believe the Hirzg will pursue; he’ll need to move his full army across the Clario and re-form them before they move on to Nessantico, and he won’t believe that a few more chevarittai and Garde Civile at Nessantico will make a difference.”

  “You’re wagering your life on that guess, and everyone else’s.”

  Sergei managed to smile. “I am. But we all must die sometime.

  Why not now?” He gulped the last of the wine, wiping his lips with his sleeves and tossing the goblet across the room. The pottery shattered against the wall. “There’s nothing more to discuss here,” he told them. “A’Offizier ca’Montmorte, spread the word to all the chevarittai; A’Offizier cu’Garret, you’ll do the same with the Garde Civile; U’Teni cu’Bachiga, if you or any of the war-teni wish to join us, your help will be appreciated. But remember
, no one who chooses to stay and surrender with the city will be punished.” He took a breath, going to the open window and staring down at the ruin of the town.

  I would suggest you rest as well as you can tonight,” Sergei said.

  “And make your peace with Cenzi.”

  A’Offizier cu’Garret decided to remain in the city and negotiate the surrender. “Passe a’Fiume is my charge as Nessantico is yours,” he told Sergei, “and I will see her through to the end.” Sergei could only nod in understanding at that, and clap the man on the back. Nearly all the Garde Civile garrison of the city stayed with cu’Garret. Those chevarittai or Garde Civile too badly injured to ride or walk would by necessity remain behind, as would U’Teni cu’Bachiga and most of his teni.

  At the southwest gate in the wan light of predawn, Sergei looked at the courtyard to see those grim-faced chevarittai who were still able to ride. Around them were the Garde Civile of the other garrisons, and a bare handful of the war-teni from Nessantico. Three hundred. Maybe less. Certainly fewer than he had hoped.

  They waited, and Sergei knew that the tension was singing as loudly in each of their ears as it was in his. He checked that his injured leg was tied securely to the saddle, then gripped the Hirzg’s sword tightly in his hand and drew it from its scabbard. Around him, he heard the shimmering of well-used blades leaving leather scabbards as the others did the same.