The firecat beside him looked up. “Not to worry. Hergrim’s Thirty-first ran into more than they bargained for. Hardornan mercenaries, of all things, serving the Black. Most of the Black-robes’ mercenaries are dead, the rest scattered. In the name of the Good God, they’ll be at the city by dawn.” It stretched and yawned, its job done.
“All right,” Tregaran replied, to the scout. “Give the Warmaster the same report and tell him to bring up the rest of the regiment. Once we’ve secured the priory, we’ll drive onto the city.” He paused, looking over the scout’s shoulder. “Never mind, the warmaster’s here.”
The older man, also on a “found” horse, halted in a spray of dust. The animal heaved and swayed. Cogern didn’t so much ride horses as wrestle them.
“Sir,” he said, while trying to control his snapping mount, “scouts report a village ahead. The trail goes straight in. Big fires. You’ll see ’em on the horizon once you come up out of the wadi.”
Tregaran shook his head. “No, our line of travel is north against the priory. That’s were they’ve massed their strength.”
Cogern shook his, a broad sweeping “no.” “Sir, looks like the Black-robes are drawn out. Not at the priory. Troops, mebbe a couple hundred. Priests out doing the Fires. Scout says there are mebbe forty to fifty Robes down there, and villagers. Hundreds of them.”
Tregaran puffed out his cheeks, thinking. “Okay, the village. Second Battle for the assault, hold the other two in reserve. It’s going to be too tight in there for one than one Battle at a time.”
Cogern nodded, rapping out orders to the under officers. The regiment shook itself out, moving from traveling order to assault column, then picked up Cogern’s trot.
Tregaran, a little ahead with the scouts, crested the wadi, and saw the firelight glow from over the low hills. Pillars of smoke rose, then spread out forming a black layer like a roof over the burning. The lurid red flames flickered and danced against the smoke and clouds, giving the little valley a hellish cast.
Second Battle came clattering up behind him, shields at the ready.
One scout, momentarily highlighted against the flickering red background, swung a piece of cloth over his head. Any sentries placed were now dead.
Tregaran led his Battle forward, charging up out of the wadi, across the flat ground, and started up the slope to where the scout now lay hidden. He heard the rest of the Battle, some four hundred men, go to ground below them. They sounded like a herd of horses puffing and blowing after the exertion of climbing the hill.
He leaned his head up over the crest of the hill, and peered over. The outer portion of the village glowed eerily in the firelight. Flames from fires leaped high, at thrice the height of a grown man. The firelight threw more red than yellow, the bonfires set in a rough circle around the outer court. The same pillars of smoke all but blocked the view into the inner part of the village. Tregaran could see the impression of more fires but little details. The rising smoke formed a complete veil over the town square.
He shook his head. Karse, wood-poor as it was, lost a treasure in the fires that night. An entire forest had to have gone into creating this much burning.
A knot of troops, several hundred strong, came into view from the village center. They formed a rough line, facing the regiment behind the hill. They obviously meant to defend the village from the Nineteenth Foot.
“They’re onto us, sir,” said the scout.
“No kidding,” replied Tregaran, then waved the horncallers to him. “Pass the word: ‘Rise and Make Ready.’ No Horns.”
The hornsmen scattered, running along the line and preparing the units for the charge. The Battle drawn into three rough lines, stood ready.
Tregaran raised his sword over his head and cut it down sharply.
“First sally. Go!”
The leading line of Second Battle gave the single shout “V’KANDIS!” and charged. They crested the low hill and sprang down the far side. The units’ leading edges lost coherence in the steep slide down the hill, but training, discipline, and momentum carried them into the thin line the Black-robes’ warriors set to defend their chiefs.
The mercenary men fought like lions, but in the eternal fight between soldier and warrior, soldier wins. The warriors, no matter how skilled, fought as singletons. The Men of Karse, trained and blooded brethren, fought as part of a larger unit. No shame in ganging two on one, three on two, five on two. No honor in the line, just the imperative of stab, guard, parry . . . shuffle step right to cover your mate’s exposed side. Thrust into the enemy’s back. His bad luck his mates didn’t cover down.
The leading edge of Second Battle broke into the black-robes’ line, fracturing it. Tregaran sent the second sally at that point, the men sliding down the steep slope. The reinforcements, piling into the first line, shattered the black-robes’ forces. They began to fall back. Warrior after warrior broke and ran as the fight turned south.
Tregaran still on the hilltop with the reserve, watched the enemy line fragment and fail.
He made a “come-here” gesture to the horncallers. “Blow ‘Halt Pursuit. Form Double Line.’ ” He looked at the Battle’s double squad of archers. They stood close by, weapons strung and ready. “Kill them,” he said quietly.
The archers leaped into action. They used the new Rethwellen pattern bows, sinew and wood . . . all backed with horn. The weapons shot fearsome distances on a flat trajectory. The archers brought the weapons into play quickly, standing on the hilltop and taking a savage toll on the firelit men who fled. Tregaran noted that the archers killed as many as the line. The Black-robes’ forces fell back into the village in disarray.
Tregaran’s mind flashed to a place where a regiment used the bow to provide the bulk of the killing power, rather than just skirmishing. He had an image of a line of pikes with Reth’ bows salted in, yard-long arrows in direct, flat-trajectory fire, and two or three more rows of archers behind, shooting overhead. The pikes would hold cavalry at bay, likely enough, and the Reth’ bows would punch through field armor for cert. If a half-company could work this slaughter, a regiment of bows would black the sun, and an arrow-storm that would shatter any unit closing. Valdemar’s slow, heavy foot would never have a chance.
The “Cease Arms” call brought him back to the moment.
The last of the Black-robes’ troops fled within the inner ring of houses surrounding the town square, depriving the archers of clear targets. Plunging fire remained an option, but there still remained at least one more fight tonight. Best to conserve arrows for the later fight.
He left a small detachment to guard the archers, and led the balance of the reserve down the hill. The horse they’d found for him plunged forward eagerly, not needing spur or goad. It nearly fell in the scree, and at one point sat down to avoid plunging tail over head.
The battle-line reformed quickly, the reserve moving to its accustomed place. He passed their lines, his horse bucking a little at the soldiers’ cheers. The troops’ blood was up. Winning did that, especially when the win laid low two of three enemy with no loss on your side.
Tregaran led them into the Fire-lit streets, nearly staggering from the heat and smell. No wood fed these flames. Instead, long bones marked the Fires’ fuel. Each piled between knee and waist high, and all burning with an unholy vitality. He was no stranger to battlefield carnage, enough to estimate a death count, and his gut told him hundreds lay slain just in the outer court. Most of the dead now fueled these fires.
He heard the sounds behind him as the soldiers took in the carnage and what burned in the fires all around. Their morale would soften if he gave them too much time.
“To me,” he bellowed. Then, “Charge!”
The Battle came behind him with a shout, and he led them between the thick, greasy pillars and around the line of buildings. The horse refused the flames, battling and bucking to avoid being driven forward. He felt it slide in the street, and fall heavily on one shoulder. Tregaran had bare moments to kick fr
ee to avoid having his leg crushed. He rolled away as the horse got its hooves under it and staggered upright, slipping one more time, before bolting in panic.
The troops, now ahead, rounded the corner. He grabbed what remained of his dignity, picked up his blade and shield from the street and ran to follow. His right leg still hurt, for cert from the fall, and it was more of a limp than a sprint when he cleared the corner.
His men already engaged hard, slamming into the fragments of the enemy battleline that still stood. A long line of families stood behind, calmly lined up by a roaring bonfire. The furnace heat struck him like a hammer, and he inhaled superheated air that brought him up short. Black-robes stood scattered throughout the town’s square.
Tregaran stood mute as more soldiers surged past him and broke into the square, cutting into the remaining mercenaries. Behind the mercenaries’ failing line, a priest calmly tapped a man on his shoulder. Tregaran watched helplessly as the man gathered up his daughter and, together with his wife and son, calmly walked into the center bonfire. The man’s flesh immediately burst into flames, but he stood without expression as the fires consumed him and all he loved.
Something about the smoke and rising sparks drew his eye. Tregaran slowly looked up, seeing the smoke from the fires bending together, blending into a single cloud, a maelstrom that slowly spun and turned, gathering the Fires into itself. He knew he should move, join the fight, but the overwhelming scene froze him. Decades of experience failed him as he took in something literally beyond his capacity. Failure and depression rolled over him. He had brought his men to this, failed them utterly. He tried to think of something to say, something to do, but his experience betrayed him as well. He simply couldn’t move.
The Black-robes’ last troops fell, and the soldiers broke past. They cut down priest after priest, and no few of the villagers as they turned to clumsily fight the veteran infantry. It became apparent to Tregaran than none of the victims moved of their own volition.
He shook himself out of his fugue. Now that he was aware of it, he could feel a heavy weight, like a blanket soaked in water, trying to descend on him. Its message was heavy, soporific. “Listen to me. Do as I bid. Give over. You have failed. You are a failure. Just listen and all will be well.”
Tregaran tried to shrug the weight away, but now that he sensed it, he could feel it working its way into his mind. The depression built. He scanned around, frantically looking for the source of the oppressive weight in his mind. In the very center of the town square, next to the largest Fire, stood a priest working his stave.
A half-dozen soldiers cut their way through his final protection and pressed down on him. He raised his stave, and a something flowed out, moving like smoke. It coalesced in a few heartbeats, becoming a malevolent, envenomed whip, drawn from the end of the stave.
The first soldier swung his sword at the looping whip, his arm cutting smoke. Even in the distance Tregaran heard his high-keening scream. The man fell back, his arm boiling with blisters that ruptured. Maggots spilled from the wounds and chewed into his skin.
The second soldier charged full into the same sick smoke, then the priest whipped the thing on the end of his stave, carrying it through the other four. Each fell, screaming, flesh consumed by boils that burst into parasites that ate at their hosts. The men fell, screaming and writhing, still several feet short of the priest.
Tregaran looked around desperately, wishing he hadn’t left the archers on the hill. His men continued their assault through the open center, slaughtering mercenary, priest, and townsfolk alike. Windrows of dead piled up near the Fires, as the defense failed against his men. The soldiers had cut down most every living thing.
It wasn’t until he saw a tongue of flame bend, reach from the fire and engulf a fallen priest that he truly understood. Its movements were sentient, alive. The priests were making something.
He felt the touch of the firecat’s voice in his head. “Aye. And when they are done, they will bring it through. He thinks he can control it, but it is a master . . . not a slave. He seeks to use it to make miracles, to succeed where Laskaris has failed. Instead, he will be its tool.”
“Do something!” Tregaran cried aloud, as another of his soldiers fell to the smoking stave. Flames now licked around the arch-priest, swirling like a cyclone up above him.
“I cannot. You’re halfway into its world now, where I cannot enter.”
“Then how?” he screamed. He saw his soldiers slowing as the last of the minor priests fell, beginning to look around, and beginning to perceive the center of the holocaust they were now in. Most of the surrounding smoke now limned with flame, darting and dancing like things alive, as they licked and drew on the bodies of the fallen. A soldier dropped his sword in despair and fell to his knees. The weight of the voice, calling on them to despair, built now that blood cooled and panic built.
“Break the key, and break the binding that draws the thing here. Break the stave. That is the center.”
Tregaran looked around wildly, seeing the first of his troops fall as the Fires, strengthened by the bodies of the fallen, lashed out at the living. A soldier frantically defended himself, using his blade to block the fist-shaped tounge of flame that grew out of the bonfire, punched through his armor, and immolated him. He had bare seconds to scream before writhing on the scorched paving stones, his body alight in sickly red flames. Tregaran heard a second scream to his right a moment later, and saw a third soldier fall across the square.
Tregaran knew then what he had to do.
He threw his shield away and gripped his sword tightly in both hands. He shook off the last feelings of despair and gathered his will into a single dart of purpose.
He lifted the blade over his head and charged the swirling pillar of flame.
Cogern with the First Battle just crested the hill and started the running slide down into the fight when the detonation blew him backward onto the scree. The entire center of the village, totally shrouded by flames and rising smoke, blew outward, the pressure wave tossing the smoke aside as it would a curtain. The lurid red glow that marked the horizon faded then, to something more normal.
An under-officer, his armor scorched and one arm hanging free, staggered into him. “Warmaster! Thank V’kandis! The colonel’s down.”
Cogern followed at a run, the bulk of First Battle behind. They passed into the center square, where the bonfires had been snuffed by the blast. A distant part of Cogern’s mind registered there was no wood in those fires, only bones. Second Battle lay scattered around the square, some dead, more hurt, most stunned from the detonation.
In the center lay Tregaran, held by an openly weeping soldier. Nearby lay the blasted body of something with too many arms, and a broken stave lay nearby.
Cogern fell to his knees next to what was left of Tregaran. Shiny skull showed at Tregaran’s forehead and his fingers and armor appeared burned away. Strips of flesh hung from the colonel’s ruined body, and sightless eyes stared up. Cogern wept freely.
The chirurgeon appeared from behind the men, falling to his knees besides them. He took a silvered mirror and held it to where Tregaran’s lips had been.
“By all that’s Holy, he’s alive!”
Cogern looked up, tears pouring down his sooty face.
“Will he live?”
The chirurgeon looked down, then up. “No. He’s too badly hurt. There’s nothing we can do. He’s probably not even aware of us.”
The firecat, unnoticed, sat to one side. It had done what it could to take as much of the man’s pain as he could. He opened the door to the man’s mind and began to ease him away. Better to end this now.
Tregaran slipped into something like a dream. He walked on a wide plain, marked only by the dead Herald and the horse’s head on the pike.
“It’s not your fault, you know.”
She sat on a rock nearby, her squarish jaw not a feature he liked. She stood, her acolyte’s chiton flaring around her and settling back. Her long, lithe
legs flashed as she jumped down from the rock and walked toward the Herald.
“You see this as what you fight for,” she said. It was not a question. “You march your regiment from border to border, defending those who pervert the Way.” She gently took his hand between hers. He could feel his scarred fingers rough against her smooth palm, feel the scribe’s callus on the index finger against the back of his hand. “You lead your regiment to battle after battle. You execute traitors condemned by Laskaris’ word, with not a peep in their defense. You start wars you know are wrong, execute orders you know are wrong, and sent many a brave soldier to their deaths for a Son of the Sun you don’t believe in.”
Each sentence, softly spoken, struck him like a physical blow. “Yes,” he could but nod. “Yes.”
Her cool hand brushed his face. “You saved those you could from the Fires, spared the wounded from pointless burning. You did as you were sworn to do, leading your regiment to battle to defend your country, and enforcing those laws placed in your hands to enforce. Your doubt of your orders came often afterward, in the full light of day, and in growing realization of error . . . when duty compelled and honor failed.”
She smiled at him. He inhaled her scent, of honeysuckle and jasmine. “You have guarded your country, obeyed those you swore to obey, and held to duty when faith swayed.” She leaned down to him and kissed his brow. “Your god is pleased with you, Tregaran.”
“I love you, Solaris,” he whispered.
And in Cogern’s arms, he died.
The firecat lay still as the noon sun streamed down overhead. Tregaran’s body had been removed in great honor. Cogern’s men had worked their revenge, rooting out Black-robe sanctuaries all over the outskirts of Sunhame. It would be a miracle if even a few survived who lived within a day’s ride of the capital.
The ’cat felt the surge and heave of the god’s presence, even this far from Sunhame, as He made His own appearance. By now, Laskaris would be dead, and Solaris, ascendant.
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