Give Way to Night

by Cass Morris

  * * *

  Lusetani Camp, Near Toletum

  Bailar swept a great circle around the pit of ashes in the center of the camp. They only lit the fires when absolutely necessary, for cooking or for rituals, hot as the waning days of summer had stayed. Most of the warriors wore as little clothing as they could get away with. Ekialde wondered how the magic-men in their dust-dragging robes didn’t faint in the swelter. Perhaps the gods helped to cool them.

  A cluster of magic-men waited behind Bailar. With Ekialde were some half-dozen of the best of his war-band, along with a few of the leaders of the Vettoni and other allied tribes. Such a sense of drama, Bailar had, but Ekialde had learned to read the currents of power. That drama was part of why the other magic-men deferred to him, why the Lusetani people believed in his capability. As Ekialde’s golden circlet and leopard-skin cape communicated his status, so Bailar’s flourishes did his. Ekialde waited patiently, arms folded over his chest, feet wide and strong against the earth, until finally Bailar came to a rest before him.

  “Blessed erregerra. The star-readers agree: now is the time to strike.”

  Bailar’s confident smile as he spoke gave Ekialde heart. The akdraugi had held off the Aventan legions, true, and by now the plague would be ravaging the men inside Toletum, but however effective these magics were as military tactics, they were not the same as fighting. The chosen king of Bandue, the god of war, could not comfortably sit in camp and await victory; he had to take it.

  Bailar gestured back at his fellow magic-men. “They have had visions, several of them. A tide of blood, circling their damned city. It is a sign that our magic is strong enough to prevail against all foes.”

  “Good. Good.” Ekialde heard murmuring from his war-band and the chieftains, but he did not turn his head to look at any of them.

  “We can summon a greater force of akdraugi against the legions than we ever have before,” Bailar continued. “I have trained the Vettoni magic-men to assist us. There are enough of us now to send akdraugi to all three of their camps at the same time—enough to subdue them utterly. And once we have done that, our warriors will be able to cut them to pieces.”

  “When shall we begin?”

  “Far be it from me to suggest such nuances of military strategy,” Bailar said, “but it is the dark of the moon tonight. I can perform the necessary preparatory rites tonight, which will give us all tremendous strength. We can make the sacrifice at dawn, and attack the legions thereafter.”

  “Then Bandue and Endovelicos shall give us strength,” Ekialde said, “and we shall prevail.”

  XXXII

  Camp of Legio X Equestris, Outside Toletum

  Sempronius was not sure what sort of an omen it was, that the Lusetani had decided to launch a full-scale attack the same morning that the legions had intended the same thing. Good, he supposed. They had not been taken unawares, at least. The men of the Tenth Legion, along the eastern bend of the river, were well settled into their lines and had nearly reached the forest before the wave of the akdraugi hit.

  Their power was worse than ever, and even with the focale working its heated magic around his throat, Sempronius felt his head swimming with their effect. It was almost like inebriation, the muddle of something sickening and yet seductive, a poison that begged Sempronius to partake of more.

  ‘Shut it out . . .’

  All elements had their dangers, their detractions, and for those of Shadow, the temptation to use their powers for ruthless, selfish gain often presented itself. To sink into darkness, to embrace the deepest, unrelenting secrets of the universe and use them for personal advantage—that was what Sempronius guarded against, all the more so because he kept his gifts a secret from the rest of the world. The gods had entrusted him with power and thus far had given their tacit consent to his violation of Aven’s laws; he could not repay their generosity by misusing those gifts. He had to be severe with himself, circumspect in how far he would allow himself to go. The soul-devouring maw that Pinarius Scaeva had summoned, the day of the Aventine fires, would have been an incredible source of power. So would the akdraugi—a way to leash death itself, to command powers that could harrow any man’s soul—but it would come at far too high a price. It would demand nothing less than his own soul in repayment.

  And so he turned his mind away from the eldritch call of the akdraugi. He had to focus, had to keep his men in command. But how could any man be expected to hold formation with fiends battering away inside his head? Even for Sempronius, the struggle was nauseating. The battle between his own magical instincts, the lure of the akdraugi, their enervating effect on his limbs, the defensive power of his charmed focale, and his own sheer determined grit was likely to swiftly exhaust him.

  On they came, the Lusetani warriors, thundering through the forest behind their magic-men, then pouring out around them and charging across the field. The roar of their battle cries was faint at first but swelled like the tide as they grew closer.

  For the first time in his life, Sempronius felt real fear in a battle. Was that valid, or another trick of the akdraugi, subtle enough to slip by the protection of Latona’s gift? Never before had he doubted the ability of the legions to prevail. Never before had failure seemed a possibility. Not in Numidia, with arrows raining down under the cover of a sandstorm; not in Thessala, fighting between crumbling crags; not in Albina, facing woad-stained warriors and the haunting echoes of their battle-harps. So long as Aventan legions were in control of themselves, with a competent commander, they would win. Failure came only from lack of discipline or the fault of a foolish leader. That fact had underpinned Sempronius’s entire military life.

  ‘Was I a fool, then, to think we could overcome this?’ The physical enemy had not yet come within javelin range, and yet the legionaries were trembling. Their shields ought to present a solid wall for the Lusetani to break themselves against, but it quivered.

  ‘Think, damn you! Think your way out of this, or we’re going to get slaughtered.’

  Then Sempronius caught sight of Hanath and the rest of her auxiliary cavalry unit. She was wheeling her horse around, her sharp face displaying not fiend-stricken horror, but something between confusion and frustration. She yelled, losing her temper and leaning over to cuff another rider in the head. ‘Well, she hasn’t lost control of her senses.’

  He looked at the rest of the cavalry. Many of them were having trouble keeping their seats. Men swayed in the saddle, clutching desperately at the reins with hands that hardly seemed to obey their owners’ commands. Others were bent over, their foreheads nearly touching their horses’ necks. The horses themselves were spooked, though none had yet bolted. Sempronius supposed animals used to the cacophony and carnage of battle were hardy beasts. Most of the riders were in no position to mount a charge.

  Most. Not all. And after another moment, Sempronius realized what all of the unafflicted riders had in common.

  He gave his own horse a kick, spurring him toward the knot of cavalry. The world careened wildly around him as he rode, the surrounding trees and hills seeming to tilt and gyrate as though on multiple axes, a nausea-inducing whorl. Hanath assisted him by grabbing his horse’s reins as he grew near. “General,” she said, her clipped consonants all the sharper for her perplexity. “What’s going on? And what do you wish of us?”

  “For you to save us, Lady Hanath,” he said. He gestured broadly at the men reeling and retching around them. “You and your maids.” Finding the words had become a challenge. Between the influence of the akdraugi, the responding tug of his own magic, and the bright-burning Fire magic of the focale around his neck, Sempronius felt as though his entire vocabulary had flown out of his muddled head—or at least been wrapped in heavy, wet wool, difficult to peel away to find what he needed. “Women . . . unaffected.” It wasn’t all the women, he noticed—but it was many of them.

  It was enough; Hanath took his meaning. At first,
she looked around, confused. Then a broad grin broke out on Hanath’s face, her dark eyes sparking with glee. “Fools,” she chuckled, shaking her head as she looked across the plateau at the knot of Lusetanian magic-men. “What utter fools.” Then she laughed, and her head cut back over to Sempronius. “I shall explain why later, General. You wish the girls and me to ride over and neutralize the threat?” she asked, and Sempronius confirmed the order with a nod. “Understood!” She called out the names of those women who were capable of riding. “On me, girls!” she bellowed, hoisting her spear—the spear the gods had shown Sempronius, the spear that might prove their salvation.

  Hanath knew her business. She led her riders around the left flank of the approaching hoard of Lusetani warriors. As they thundered across the field, charging the unsuspecting magic-men in an ululating herd, Sempronius, to his shame, slid from his own saddle, barely managing to ground his feet beneath him. He leaned against his horse, grateful for the beast’s patience with him, since his knees did not seem entirely equal to holding up his weight. ‘What an indignity . . .’ For that, as much as for the military maneuver, Sempronius was eager to see these Lusetani magic-men brought low.

  Felix, leading his horse rather than riding it, staggered up to him. “Did Hanath . . . go rogue . . . ?” Evidently Felix was suffering the same tongue-tied bewilderment as Sempronius. “Where’re they . . . what’re . . . why . . .”

  Sempronius shook his head—then immediately wished he hadn’t, as the pain was blinding. “My orders,” he managed to say. “Women . . . unaffected . . .” Felix nodded, though whether that was in understanding of what Sempronius said or just in agreement that talking was too difficult, Sempronius could not say. Together, they watched through the dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves. Some of the Arevaci used spears, like Hanath; others had bows and arrows, which they could fire with astonishing accuracy while still a-horse.

  The Lusetani warriors were closer now, but hard to see through the haze of akdraugi. Still, a javelin volley might slow them, even if it wasn’t well-aimed. “Pila at the ready,” he said, as loudly as he could manage—more for the benefit of the horn-bearers than the fighting men themselves. Somehow, enough of the horn-bearers cleared their heads to sound the call. “Loose pila!” Sempronius said a moment later. How well it worked—how many of the legionaries even had the strength to hurl their javelins—he could not tell.

  The hoofbeats of the cavalry were no longer audible, not with the akdraugi howling around the legion. Had Hanath and her women reached the magic-men? Sempronius could only hope. He could not hear the whiz of arrows, nor the wet thunks of spearheads embedding themselves in chest cavities, nor the agony of the dying, but he prayed for them. ‘Father Mars, look here and save us.’

  At that moment, the first of the Lusetani warriors, howling their battle-rage, crashed into the front lines of the Tenth Legion. Some of the legionaries were less affected by the akdraugi, able at least to hold their shields in defense or to make a few jabs with their short swords. Some—but not enough, not to hold the lines.

  Sempronius turned suddenly, despite that the action nearly sent him reeling, and seized the shoulder of one of the standard-bearers. “If our lines falter,” he growled, “you take the eagles and ride for the coast as though the Furies themselves were at your heels. You hear me?” The young man’s eyes were unfocused, tracking the akdraugi swirling around them. Sempronius shook him, hard. The standard-bearer swallowed, dragging his gaze to his commander. “Tell me you understand! Those Lusetani devils will not capture our eagles, you understand?”

  “I do, sir. I-I will do my best, sir.”

  It would have to suffice.

  * * *

  ‘Bandue, you honor us with the blood of our enemies!’ Ekialde had been impressed, at first, when he saw the great lines of the Aventan legions.

  He had chosen to lead the attack against the camp along the western curve of the river. Bailar was with the magic-men of the middle prong, so that he could move east or west if it was necessary. Each group of magic-men had hauled along a dozen Cossetan prisoners to supply the blood for their rites, and if all had gone as smoothly in the east and center prongs as it had here in the west, then Bandue would know much glory this day.

  What music, the crash of metal, the split of wood, the crack of bone! What beauty, to see a blade flashing in the fading light before it came down and sank into flesh! Ekialde could feel his god with him, strengthening his arms, setting his blood to racing. This, this was what he was meant for, not plotting sieges from the safety of a camp. His uncle’s specters were a boon, to be sure, they provided a sound military advantage—but he had tired of letting spirits of blood and ether do his work for him.

  The Aventans were valiant foes, no mistaking. Ekialde would grant them that much honor. Even with the akdraugi harrowing their blood, they tried to hold their lines. Men who could not stand crouched behind their shields, cursing in frustration but not weeping in despair.

  They broke, eventually. Of course they broke. They were mortal men, however well-trained, and mortal men could only expect so much of themselves.

  First they fell back to their camp, and then they abandoned it, running for the high hills with whatever they could carry. Their legs found strength in the retreat, as it took them farther away from the akdraugi. Ekialde considered ordering the magic-men to come forward, so that the akdraugi could follow the Aventans, allowing them no rest nor safety. But he knew that, however strong tonight’s summons, the akdraugi could not remain on the earth indefinitely, nor so far from the magic-men. Better to let the Aventans have their ignominious retreat and finish them off another day, when there was no danger that the akdraugi would weaken mid-charge.

  Ekialde stooped over the body of one fallen man, not quite dead yet, but clearly gasping his last. Ekialde smeared his hand over the man’s wounds, coating his fingers in blood and viscera. He thrust his fist up toward the sky, roaring, a wordless offering to Bandue in thanks for the great favor he had shown the Lusetani this day.

  XXXIII

  Just when Sempronius was thinking that his men could no longer stand the onslaught, that he would have to figure out how to retreat—miserable word!—with minimal damages, the akdraugi began to dissipate. As the mist grew suddenly thin, Sempronius risked reaching out with his own Shadow magic to get a sense of them. The akdraugi were crumbling apart, dissolving back into the shadows from whence they had come. Or, rather, dissolving back into nothing—or back into the veils between the worlds. Sempronius was yet unsure precisely how similar the akdraugi were to the lemures. The magic-men of the Lusetani seemed to be able to conjure them at will, anywhere. Lemures needed a specific gateway to come through, like the mundus in front of the Temple of Janus in the City of Aven. A powerful enough mage might cut through elsewhere, but it still had to be a fixed point. The akdraugi seemed to form out of the air itself.

  Wherever they had come from and however they got on the field of battle, they were leaving now, and their absence cheered the Aventans as much as it alarmed the Lusetani. As the legions surged, one of the Iberians, a bulky bearded man with an animal-skin cloak, fell beneath an Aventan sword. The battle went to utter chaos after that. Bereft of their akdraugi comrades and an apparent commander, the Lusetani warriors panicked and broke off their attack.

  Sempronius wanted to press the advantage, to chase them down—but his own troops were slow in recovering. Many who had been at the front were wounded, and the rest were still muddle-headed and trying to shake lethargy from their limbs. So he gave the instruction to reform lines and march back to camp, and as horns and whistles carried the order across the battlefield, Sempronius could feel no pride, only profound relief.

  * * *

  The sun was midway down in the sky before Hanath returned. Sempronius had shucked off his heavy armor, trying to set the camp to rights. Those men left in one piece were reinforcing the ramparts and administering to the w
ounded and the dead. Many had reported the effects of dehydration, as though the akdraugi had been draining them of that vital life force. ‘How much metaphysical truth might lie in that?’ Sempronius wondered. ‘Another thaumaturgical mystery to reserve for peacetime exploration.’

  Hanath and her fellow riders looked like proper Amazons, all strength and valor and ruthlessness. Their bloody blades and empty quivers would perhaps convince some of the Aventan men who had doubted the wisdom of having women among the auxiliaries. Hanath’s long limbs were spattered with blood, and she had a wild look in her dark eyes, not unlike that which he often saw in Felix’s. “All dead or fled!” she announced, and spat at the ground. “There were too few of us to follow them all, but they ran like rabbits when they realized their magic could not touch us.”

  Sempronius felt no pity for the dead. For all they might look like priests, these were not unarmed men. The Lusetani had made combatants of their mages, then failed to protect them through conventional means. They were no innocents; their deaths were deserved. “I am glad to hear it,” he said. “Settle your horses and your people, and let’s convene in my tent. Someone find Felix. And Corvinus. I think they were both assisting the medics.”

  Within a few moments, the necessary staff had been gathered in the command tent. Hanath gratefully took a towel and a bowl of water from Sempronius and began sponging off the blood caked to her skin while they talked. Corvinus brought forward wine, and Sempronius poured for all four of them. “All right, Lady Hanath,” Sempronius said, setting her cup beside the bowl of water. “You said you would explain. Why did the akdraugi not affect you and some of your ladies today, when they have before?”