War Maid's choice wg-4

by David Weber

  “ Tomanak! ”

  Walsharno’s shrill, high whistle of defiance and rejection matched his chosen brother’s bull-throated bellow, and Bahzell Bahnakson drew his bow at last. No human arm could have bent that bow, and precious few hradani ones. Four hundred pounds-that was the draw of Bahzell’s bow-and his shaft was sized to his stature, the next best thing to four feet in length.

  He drew the string to the angle of his jaw, gazing down that long, straight shaft at the horned devil ripping its way through its own terror-maddened army to reach him. And as he gazed, the bladed steel arrowhead began to change. Blue lightning crackled from Bahzell’s right hand. It ran down the string, dripped from the fletching, danced down the shaft, coalesced in a seething corona around the arrowhead. And as it coalesced, it changed, taking on other colors. All the colors-the colors of Wencit of Rum’s witchfire eyes.

  Brandark shrank away from his friend, eyes wide as he recognized the sizzling, hissing fury of the wild magic. He stared at Bahzell, and his ears went flat as he saw the same incandescent light glitter in the pupils of the Horse Stealer’s brown eyes.

  And then Bahzell Bahnakson released his string.

  Over the years, he’d been ribbed mercilessly by his closest friends as he learned to master the mysteries of the bow. It wasn’t as simple as an arbalest, and his accuracy with it remained considerably than the sort of pinpoint performance he routinely turned in with the weapon he’d favored for so long. But there was no sign of that now-not in that shot.

  The arrow leapt from the string. It shrilled through the air, no longer an arrow but a lightning bolt, and it rode a flat, explosive concussion of thunder. It flashed across the wounded ranks of infantry holding back the tide of ghouls, and the creatures beyond that hard-held line screamed, cowering down, their bodies bursting into flame as that fist of fury streaked over their heads. It slammed into the center of the mammoth devil’s stupendous chest, and the creature’s flame-shot eyes flew wide in astonishment.

  Fresh thunder rolled. A blast of energy blew back from the point of impact, spreading in a cone-shaped fan, and the ghouls caught within it had no time to shriek as they flashed instantly into charred bone and drifting flecks of ash. At least fifty of the creatures vanished in that instant, but it was only the back blast, only the echo.

  A holocaust enveloped Bahzell’s towering enemy. It exploded up out of the monster’s ruptured chest. It wrapped about him in a corona like a python of wild magic, and unlike the ghouls, he did have time to shriek.

  He staggered back. He dropped his glowing mace, crushing another dozen ghouls to death. He clutched at the light-gouting wound in his chest, taloned hands etched against the brilliance as they tried vainly to staunch that deadly gash. He stared at Bahzell, but this time there was no rage, no hunger in his eyes-only disbelief, shock…and fear.

  Bahzell lowered his bow, half-reeling in the saddle, feeling even Walsharno’s immense vitality sag under him, but he never looked away from his foe, and his brown eyes were harder than flint and colder than the dark side of the moon.

  The horned monstrosity sagged, still clutching at his chest, going to his knees. Ghouls scattered in every direction, clawing their way up and over one another in their panic. At least a score were unable to escape, and his massive body crashed down across them. He landed on his back, spine arched in agony, and that same holocaust of light gushed from his opened mouth as he screamed.

  Then there was a final, earsplitting crash of thunder, a flash of brilliance that blinded every eye that looked upon it…and when the blindness cleared, there was only a crater blasted into the muddy, bloody trampled grass of the Ghoul Moor. Twenty yards across, that crater, its lip crowned with seared and tattered charcoal scarecrows which had once been ghouls, and smoke and steam poured up out of its depths.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The ghoul shaman pounding the enormous drum directly in front of Anshakar looked up as his new and terrible god halted abruptly. Looked up-then wailed in terror as the devil’s head snapped erect, his nostrils flared, and a horrific bellow erupted from him.

  That wail was the last sound the shaman ever made. It was still bursting from him when Anshakar brought both massive fists crashing down upon the earth. They hit wrapped in haloes of green fire, like whirlpools of poison that gyred out in all directions, and smashed the shaman and the drum-bearers into bloody ruin. Half a score of other ghouls were sucked into those whirling vortexes with squeals of despair, their bones licked clean of flesh in the single heartbeat before the bones themselves dissolved into dancing ash, and at least fifty more scrambled desperately away from the yard-deep craters those fists punched into the muddy ground.

  How? How? The question hammered Anshakar’s brain as furiously as his fists had pounded the Ghoul Moor. He’d felt Kimazh’s destruction-not simply his death; his destruction. Nothing of the horned devil remained. Not a trace of his physical being, not a scrap of his essence-not in this universe or any other. He was gone, blotted away even more utterly than any soul Anshakar himself had ever consumed!

  He straightened slowly, glaring around at the cowering ghouls who surrounded him. They quailed before his flaming eyes and turned away, surging towards their enemies once more under the lash of his will, and he scowled, feeling the empty place where Kimazh had once dwelt.

  He’d never liked Kimazh. The horned devil had believed brute strength on the physical plane was all that really mattered, and while he’d possessed that in abundance, he’d never been noted for his intelligence or any other sort of strength. Of all the trio Anshakar’s Master had sent into this world to serve his purposes, Kimazh had been the stupidest and-physical strength aside-the weakest. Anshakar would shed no tears for Kimazh, and when he returned to his own place, he would cheerfully seize all the power and all the slaves which had once been Kimazh’s. Yet his companion’s obliteration suggested that perhaps he himself had underestimated the opposition of this Bahzell Bahnakson.

  Kimazh’s destruction carried the taste of Bahzell, the scent Anshakar had been given to hunt him down if he’d been wise enough to decline to come to Anshakar. No doubt Kimazh had scented it as well. He’d seen Bahzell within reach and thought to take him now, as his own prey, devouring the champion’s power and claiming Krashnark’s reward for himself alone. Well, greed and overconfidence had earned their just reward, yet the nature of his fate was sobering. Nothing Anshakar had ever seen suggested the power and ability to simply wipe away a greater devil as if he’d never even existed. Slay one’s physical avatar, even banish one’s essence back to the universe from whence it had come in tatters that might take centuries to heal, yes; that he’d seen before, although never a foe who could have done it to him. But the power to simply…extinguish Kimazh? Blot him out like a candle flame? No. No, that was something new, something neither Anshakar nor any other devil, so far as he knew, had ever seen or experienced.

  Yet a blow of that devastating power could not have come cheaply. Tomanak’s champions were but mortal. To channel that much power, release that much destruction, had to have drained any mortal conduit to the point of self — destruction, as well. And not even the greatest of mortal champions was proof against more mundane means of death.

  The idiot Kimazh had been supposed to feed his ghouls into the furnace, break the mortals’ line, draw Bahzell into the melee. No champion of Tomanak could resist that situation! Their simpering sense of “honor” would compel them forward, lending their aid to those in need, and when it did they would expose themselves to the edged, blood-hungry flint and obsidian of the ghouls’ weapons. Let them be struck down, wounded-weakened, or even slain-and even the mightiest champion’s soul would be easy to take. And if these worthless, terrified ghouls proved incapable of even that much, the champion would still be distracted, forced to defend himself against purely physical threats, when their true foes finally struck. It was a strategy which would see thousands upon thousands of ghouls slaughtered in the doing, but what were they to A
nshakar and his fellows? They existed only to be used, and he bellowed his own rage and hatred as he sent them crashing against the shield wall of Trianal Bowmaster’s army like hurricane-driven surf.

  ***

  “What was that?” Prince Yurokhas demanded, staring southwest to where a boil of light reared itself above the confused battle.

  “ That, Your Highness,” Vaijon Almerhas replied dryly, “was Bahzell and Walsharno.” He shook his head like a man trying to throw off the effects of a hard, straight punch. He’d felt Kimazh’s destruction and the enormous surge of Bahzell and Walsharno’s combined attack just as clearly as Anshakar. Indeed, the echoes rolling out and reverberating from that eruption of power could have been felt by any champion of Tomanak within a thousand leagues. “Whatever we’ve been sensing may have been, there’s only two of them now.”

  “Are they all right?” Prince Arsham asked urgently from where he sat his horse beside Yurokhas’ Vahrchanak.

  Even the burly, powerfully built Prince of Navahk looked like a youngster perched on his first pony beside the towering courser, but he and Yurokhas had taken to one another more strongly than anyone would have cared to predict before they’d met. More to the point at the moment, the concern for Bahzell and Walsharno in his voice was completely genuine, and Sharkah Bahnaksdaughter looked up quickly from where she stood in the ranks of the Order’s foot troops.

  “So far,” Vaijon said a bit more grimly. “Whatever they did, though, it took a lot out of them. They’re going to need time to recover before they can do it again.”

  “Lovely.”

  At that moment, Arsham sounded a great deal like his countryman Brandark, Vaijon reflected. The Navahkan shook his head and grimaced.

  “I don’t suppose you happen to know just what ‘whatever they did’ was, would you?” he continued, and Vaijon shook his head.

  “We each have our own technique,” Vaijon said almost absently, looking away from the prince to where the tempo of screams, warcries, and the ululating howls of ghouls had just redoubled. The Sothoii horse archers between the Order and the long, southern front of the army’s formation were beginning to move slowly forward, and those in the front two or three ranks were casing their bows and drawing lances from their saddle boots. “None of us come at it quite the same way. And Bahzell is more…improvisational than most of us.”

  “Somehow I can believe that,” Arsham said.

  “So can I,” Yurokhas added, readying his own heavier, longer lance. “I think it might be a good idea for you to begin thinking about an approach of your own, though, Vaijon.”

  Vaijon nodded, his eyes hardening and his jaw muscles tightening as he saw the huge four-armed, spike-skinned, cat-headed shape looming up beyond the crossing showers of javelins and flights of Sothoii arrows. He leaned from the saddle to take his own lance from one of the Order’s Horse Stealers and then looked at Hurthang.

  “Get ready to clear me a path,” he said quietly, and Hurthang nodded.

  “Aye,” he promised grimly. “We’ll just be doing that.”

  He slapped Vaijon’s armored thigh, then turned away and began bellowing orders of his own.

  “You’ll oblige me please, Your Highness- both Your Highnesses-by staying alive, if you please,” Vaijon said, never looking away from that cat-headed monstrosity. “If I thought it would do any good, I’d have some of Hurthang’s lads drag the pair of you out to one of the barges.”

  “It’s a little late for that now, Vaijon,” Yurokhas pointed out with a thin smile.

  “Besides,” Arsham added, looking over his shoulder at the combat raging along the riverbank just as another flaming charge of banefire flew overhead, “it looks like at least half the barges are under attack, as well.”

  ***

  The devil named Zurak squalled like the universe’s largest panther as twenty gallons of banefire hit him squarely in the belly. The impact alone was enough to stagger even something his size, and he found himself wishing he’d brought along at least one shield instead of the swords and battle axes clutched in all four of his hands. The banefire ignited instantly, running down his iron-plated hide, clinging and burning with enough purely physical pain to make him howl in anguish. His seared scales replaced themselves almost as quickly as they were consumed, but that did little to slake his flaming torment or the devastation dripping from him to lick over and consume the tight packed ghouls about him.

  He glared furiously at the barges anchored in mid-river, at the catapult crews and arbalesteers continuing to pour fire into the bleeding ranks of ghouls even as others of the creatures hurled themselves upon the vessels. Three of those barges had been swamped, their defenders butchered, but the others still held out and continued to sweep the western face of the defending army with their murderous darts. And the catapult barges, farther out, rained fire and destruction far into the ranks of his own terrified force.

  He, too, had felt Kimazh’s destruction, but he’d been even closer than Anshakar. He knew it hadn’t been Bahzell alone; the deed had required Bahzell and Walsharno both. And he could sense the other champion, the one called Vaijon, before him on the far side of the infantry line which had finally begun to crumble. Vaijon…who had no courser champion to aid him.

  “On!” he shrieked from his cocoon of flame, screaming the command at the desperately drumming shamans. “ On! Break them- break them now! ”

  The shamans heard him, and the drums thundered and rolled, pounding out their commands and the fury of the shamans’ god. They swept over the ghouls, gathered them up, and hurled them straight into the teeth of the defenders’ shields, swords, and pikes. It was death to charge that unyielding line…yet there were some things worse than simple death, and one of them was named Zurak.

  ***

  “Stand! Stand your ground! ”

  Yurgazh Charkson’s thunderous shout carried clearly even through the tumult of battle and the deafening boom of the drums. It was probably the most superfluous order he’d ever given, he thought, remembering other fields and other battles. He’d won his officer’s rank by holding even Rage-maddened hradani firm in the face of defeat, but there was no comparison between the foes he’d fought then and the ones his men faced today. Bahnak Karathson’s infantry had been hard, dangerous opponents, but they’d been men, not red-fanged creatures driven and goaded by something out of nightmare.

  He drew his own sword and settled his shield as the avalanche of shrieking ghouls hurled themselves forward with redoubled fury. Around him, his staff and runners did the same. They’d learned, as Prince Bahnak had demanded, that generals-even hradani generals-had no business surrendering control of their forces by wading into the middle of a melee. Unfortunately, this time it looked like the melee was going to be wading into them.

  ***

  The ghoulish charge slammed into the hradani infantry like a battering ram. War clubs, spears, talons, and fangs came at them in a wave of fury beyond belief. They obeyed their general, those infantry. They stood their ground, as only hradani riding the Rage could, but standing their ground wasn’t enough. Not this time.

  Hundreds of them died where they stood that ground, and the line directly in front of Zurak broke.

  ***

  Bugles sounded, their notes rising clear and clean above the yammering thunder of battle, summoning the reserves. But in that instant, in that moment when the line broke, there was no time for any of those reserves to respond.

  A torrent of ghouls exploded through the break, foaming out, swinging to take the pikemen to either side in flank and rear. Squads of infantry posted immediately behind the line turned to face them, battling to hold the influx until more powerful reinforcements could arrive, but they were driven back, forced to give ground step by bleeding step. And through the middle of that break, straight into the teeth of the Sothoii behind it, came a creature out of nightmare, still wrapped in its glaring corona of banefire and shrieking its fury.

  Arrows and arbalest bolts streaked to
meet it from either side, but the men directly in front of it were too busy fighting for their lives, and the Sothoii armsmen who’d exchanged bows for lances surged forward. A mounted trooper’s most valuable weapon was momentum. They would have been fools to take that charge standing, but neither did they have the time and space to build speed. Against something with the physical size and power of ghouls, that was a fatal shortcoming. Their light lances gave them the advantage of reach even over something with arms that long, but they lacked the velocity to drive home a true countercharge. Scores of the creatures went down, shrieking and twisting, clutching at the lances which had transfixed them. But they also took those lances with them, dragging them out of the hands of the armsmen who’d felled them.

  The veteran armsmen released their weapons rather than try vainly to retain them. Sabers swept out of scabbards all along the Sothoii front, thrusting and hewing desperately, but now it was the ghouls with their unnaturally long limbs who had the reach advantage. Stone-edged weapons hacked wildly-with a minimum of skill, but enormous speed and power. Some of them shattered on steel breastplates; more of them found the more vulnerable leather armor protecting arms and legs. The screams of wounded men rose to meet the howls of wounded and rampaging ghouls. Horses shrieked as throats were torn out or legs were hewn out from under them. Armsmen were snatched from saddles, disappearing into the flood of destruction. Dismounted hradani infantry fought desperately to reach them, a millennium of mutual hatred forgotten…and most of those infantry died in the process.

  The rupture of the army’s line spread, widened. The last of the mounted Sothoii went down, and Zurak bellowed in triumph from the heart of his shroud of banefire as his creatures engulfed their foes like the Spear River in springtime flood.