by James Erich
“Master Geilin,” Sael shouted, rushing up to the old wizard, “I’ve been asked to pass something along to you.”
Quickly he relayed Koreh’s words. Geilin glanced up at the dark clouds overhead and squinted his eyes. In order to reach any great distance with their fireballs, the vönan would have to send them arcing up into the sky to fall down upon their opponents. With the clouds hanging as low as they were, it would be impossible for these shots not to penetrate the cloud cover. “Did Koreh say what would happen if we fired at the clouds?”
“No,” Sael said. “He just said not to waste your energy.”
“I see.”
Geilin continued to stare up at the clouds for a moment longer before suddenly chanting and flinging his arm up. A small burst of flame shot upward from his hand and hurtled into the clouds, climbing higher and higher until….
Nothing. It never fell back to the ground. It simply vanished into the clouds. Geilin watched for a long time, until he was certain of what had happened; then he chuckled. “Interesting.”
Sael knew what it meant. If everything shot into the clouds vanished without a trace, the vönan would be unable to attack from any great distance. “Will this give us an advantage?”
“A bit, perhaps. Not much. But it will be easier for us to strike down at them than for them to shoot fireballs over the walls. Please inform the vek of this. I’ll have word sent to Master Snidmot and the other mages.” Snidmot was in the tallest tower of the keep, where he could overlook the entire battle.
Sael ran down the steps that climbed the inner wall and into the stable to mount his horse, then charged out the main gate. He had spent hours with his father and Meik going over the positions of every vönan and high-ranking warrior in and around the keep at the beginning of the battle, as well as where they were likely to move to during the battle. His father, Sael knew, would be on horseback, out among the troops he’d brought from Worlen. Though his advisors had begged him to remain safely within the walls of Harleh and conduct the battle from there, the vek had refused to do so. He had always been a warrior and would rather die than cower inside the keep while his men were risking their lives on the front lines.
Sael found him riding alongside Meik, inspecting the troops while keeping one eye on the horizon, where the enemy army seemed little more than a long line of specks. Sael reined in his horse alongside his father and apprised him of the situation.
Worlen snorted, unimpressed by the news. “They’ll figure it out soon enough, if they haven’t already—that fireball Geilin sent up was visible for leagues.”
“As you said,” Sael retorted, feeling the need to defend his master, “the emperor’s vönan will figure it out, soon enough.” He also knew his father wouldn’t have taken Koreh’s word on anything related to the battle. As far as the vek was concerned, Koreh was a traitor who’d put them all in a precarious position.
Worlen spoke to General Meik. “Once they do figure out that their long-range attacks have been rendered ineffective, they’ll have to move the vönan closer. Unless the clouds have miraculously decided to eat arrows as well,” he added, his contempt for magic obvious in his tone, “that means we may be able to bring our archers into play before their mages will be able to launch an effective attack. Their wards will have to be recast, and that could prove difficult during the battle.”
“I’ll have someone alert the others, Your Lordship,” Meik said. With the ömem unable to function, the vek had been forced to fall back on messengers.
Sael also volunteered to pass the word, but his father snapped, “I’ll not have you running around as a messenger boy. Your place is with your men.”
He was right, Sael knew. He received a few last minute instructions from his father and then galloped off to where his men were awaiting him. He had been assigned a battalion consisting of ten companies of approximately one hundred soldiers each—nearly a thousand men. In reality, the battalion was being led by Colonel Toren, one of Harleh’s more experienced soldiers. But Toren reported to and took his orders from Sael.
Sael rode past rows and rows of men standing at attention as they awaited the order to charge onto the battlefield. They seemed to go on forever, a vast sea of soldiers gathered on the western side of Harleh’s great outer wall. But Sael knew that, as impressive as this army was, the forces of the emperor were far greater. And only a fraction of his forces had made the trek to Harleh. If these troops failed, more would come to relieve them eventually.
Sael pushed that thought out of his mind. The only thing that mattered was the battle being fought today between the armies that were gathered here now. All else was irrelevant.
“Colonel!” Sael shouted as he caught sight of the man riding on horseback among the rows of infantry. Sael spurred his horse to meet him, but before they were close enough to talk, a tremendous noise reached his ears from the west. He glanced in that direction and saw trails of fire leaping upward from the rear of the army as the vönan launched their attack, sending fireballs arcing toward Harleh’s troops. They would fail to reach their targets, Sael knew, but this was only a half-hearted first volley. They were saving their strength for later. At the same time, the emperor’s infantry surged forward, thousands of men screaming at the top of their lungs. Off to Sael’s left, Toren called out sharply to his men and raised his sword arm. He looked at Sael, who nodded, and then Toren brought his arm down decisively, thrusting his sword toward the approaching army. Sael’s battalion answered with a tremendous war cry of its own and charged out to meet the attackers. All around him, Sael could hear the soldiers of Harleh shouting and surging forward.
The battle had begun.
IN THE center of the clearing, a column of water rose upward to the clouds and provided a shimmering window onto the battlefield. The clearing was packed with hundreds of Taaweh, standing or sitting in silence, facing the water with eyes closed. Beyond them, seeming to fill the dark forest in all directions, were thousands more, all focusing intently on the water column. What they were doing, Koreh didn’t know. But he could feel a powerful magical current surrounding and washing over him, engulfing the forest.
He stood not far from the water, where he’d been told to wait. He watched in trepidation as trails of fire erupted from the emperor’s army and thousands of soldiers charged the comparatively small army surrounding Harleh Keep. Sael would be on the receiving end of that onslaught.
Koreh forced himself to breathe, though fear for his lover’s safety caused his gut to clench, as the Iinu Shaa stepped out from behind the column and approached him. The man-god’s visage was fearsome now, and a massive greatsword was girded about his waist. Koreh couldn’t help but take a step back as those empty eye sockets somehow seemed to fix upon him.
“It has begun,” the Taaweh all around him whispered.
Koreh forced himself to stand his ground and look into the Iinu Shaa’s face. “Will we… I mean, the Taaweh… fight?”
“When it is time.”
“I want to fight too.”
There was a momentary pause, and then the Taaweh answered, “You must remain safe. You will be needed soon enough.”
Koreh had learned little in the past day of what purpose the Taaweh wanted him to serve. All his questions had been met with a calm silence, as though he hadn’t said anything at all, so he had stopped asking. But he couldn’t just stand by while Sael faced this threat.
“Please,” he said, “I need to fight alongside my husband.” He used the Taaweh word, tyeh-iinyeh.
The Iinu Shaa turned away from him to watch the battle begin in earnest as the opposing armies reached one another and engaged. There was another long pause before Koreh heard, “The Taaweh will fight for your tyeh-iinyeh. You will remain here.”
IT HAD been strongly suggested that Sael hang back during the battle and avoid taking any unnecessary risks. He was inexperienced, and the death of the last surviving Menaük heir could be a serious blow the vek’s cause. On the other hand, Sael had
to be seen fighting alongside his men, if these men were to have any respect for him. These conflicting directives might have presented Sael with a problem had his mind not been made up for him by the sight of Toren on horseback, attempting to fend off two pikemen, oblivious to the cavalry officer charging at his back. Sael spurred his horse forward to intercept, but it was impossible for him to reach them in time.
Without thinking, he shouted, “Dinu ad Caedni!” and the cavalry officer was suddenly engulfed in a ball of fire. The man screamed and fell from his horse just a few feet from the dancing hooves of Toren’s horse.
Toren yanked on the reins and turned toward the smoldering corpse, having no more than a moment to glance at it, then up at Sael in surprise, before his attention was once more caught by the foot soldiers swarming past and around him.
Sael was just as surprised as Toren. That spell had never worked before when he was under pressure. Unfortunately there was no time to celebrate this small victory. Sael was now in the thick of it, surrounded by soldiers from both sides, and he had no choice but to press forward.
The foot soldiers were reluctant to brave his horse’s hooves, thrusting at him with pikes but avoiding coming too close, so Sael used that to his advantage, cutting a path through them and swiping his sword at any who drew near.
He wasn’t sure where he was going. His experience with warfare was limited to the few days of intense tutoring his father and Meik had given him, with no practical knowledge at all until this very moment. He supposed heading in a straight line wouldn’t accomplish much, though, apart from separating him from his troops and Colonel Toren. So he tried to circle around and head back to where he’d last seen the colonel.
He noticed the cloud cover over the valley had begun to take on an eerie bluish tinge, and a swirling spiral shape was forming over the plain to the west of Harleh where most of the battle was taking place, as though a tornado was brewing. Whatever it was, Sael couldn’t believe it would bode well for either side. The Taaweh appeared to be engaged in some kind of powerful magic, and the best thing for the poor mortal men on the ground was probably to get out of the way.
Sael heard the distinctive whistling and fluttering of fireballs being launched through the air before exploding on the ground. The enemy mages had already given up their long-range attack, once they saw nothing was reaching the ground near Harleh, but this was nearby. Sael glanced quickly around and located the source of the sound—the mages of Harleh were launching a volley at the warriors near the west gate. This seemed odd, as it risked hitting their own men and the buildings on either side of the wide road, but Sael soon saw the reason. Something massive was parting the sea of warriors like the bow of a ship, and it was heading directly for the gate. As the men cleared out of its path and the path of the fireballs being launched at it, it was revealed to be a long object like an overturned ship—some kind of framework with animal hides stretched taut over it. Sael could see the legs of perhaps fifty men jutting out from under the hides, running and gaining speed while fire struck the hides and sizzled, sending up clouds of steam. The hides were drenched in water, or perhaps vinegar, to resist the flame long enough to reach the gate, though several of the men fell as their legs were scorched.
That the boat-like structure also concealed a massive tree trunk became apparent when the front end rammed the gate. The hollow thunk resounded across the plain, making Sael’s heart race in alarm. The battering ram failed to break through, but already another was following rapidly behind while the men carrying the first backed up for a second attempt.
Sael could do nothing. If he rode closer to the gate, he’d be caught in the barrage of fire coming from his own mages. He turned and spurred his horse into a gallop, trying to find Torens. He hadn’t gone far, however, before he saw a page in Harleh livery galloping hard to intercept him. Sael changed course and met the boy halfway.
“My lord!” the page gasped as he drew alongside. “The vek sent me to find you. There are men scaling the east wall!”
It wasn’t entirely unexpected. Sael’s father and Meik had discussed the possibility of a battalion circling around the keep in the dead of night to launch a rear attack in the morning, while Harleh’s troops were occupied near the west gate. If just a few could get over the outer wall, they might succeed in sneaking around to the west gate and overpowering the guards there to open it. Or they could drop rope ladders from the battlements, allowing more or their men to swarm up into the keep.
“Password?” Sael insisted.
“Ghusat.”
“Lead on, then.”
The page led Sael at a fast gallop around to the south of the keep so they could meet up with his father on the opposite side. But something nagged at Sael. Why would his father be on the eastern side of the keep to begin with? Surely the attack at the west gate would still command his attention and he would have sent Meik or someone else to deal with this threat.
Too late, Sael realized he’d been led into a trap as four of the emperor’s horsemen converged on him from the front and both sides. Password or no, the page was either a plant or he’d been bought off and sent to lure the dekan away from his men to be killed or captured. Almost as Sael thought that, the page dug his spurs hard into his horse’s side, causing the animal to leap ahead, away from Sael. The page shot through two of the advancing horsemen and kept going while Sael was forced to veer off to his left, brandishing his sword at the man riding in from that side. The blade struck the man’s sword hard, sending a jolt up Sael’s arm that almost—but not quite—unbalanced him. Instead he brought his sword arm down and struck the rump of his assailant’s horse hard with the flat of his blade as he sailed by. The horse started and bolted ahead, giving Sael the opportunity to gallop away and head back toward the city wall.
There was no safety in those bare stone walls, however, and it wasn’t long before his pursuers swung their horses around to charge after him. Sael knew he’d be unable to dodge them for long out here on the open plain, and he didn’t like the idea of taking all four of them on. Though it seemed ludicrous, he knew he’d fare better if he returned to the battlefield where others might engage at least one or two of these men and he could fight off those who remained. So he turned toward the west and bade his poor, overworked horse to run even faster.
THE Taaweh had begun to move. While Koreh stood on the sidelines beside the Iinu Shaa, the silent robed figures marched steadily into the fountain of water, four lines coming from different quarters, all converging and then disappearing before they reached the other side. They were being transported, Koreh knew, to the battlefield or somewhere near it. He’d used this magic portal himself when he’d been allowed one last visit with Sael. It was faster and less tiring than slipping through the earth, and could apparently cover longer distances—at least, longer distances than a beginner like Koreh could achieve on his own.
Each of the Taaweh marching through the gate carried a staff, and Koreh watched them in growing frustration. He thought back to how he’d teased Sael about rescuing him so many times, and knew it hadn’t just been a joke. Sael needed him. The young dekan had a knack for getting himself into trouble. The Taaweh would look out for the interests of Harleh, Koreh felt certain, but would they look out for Sael? Now that Sael had played his part in forging the alliance the Taaweh wanted, he might have ceased to be important to them.
The more he fretted about this, the more Koreh realized he couldn’t just stand idly by while Sael was in the midst of the battle. Koreh had to find a way to get to him! And there was only one way that could happen—through the gate. He wasn’t certain if it would allow him to pass, but he felt certain that he could at least reach it before any of the Taaweh could grab him.
Hopefully they wouldn’t be angered enough to kill him.
There was no escaping the gaze of the Iinu Shaa, whose fathomless black eye sockets gave the impression of seeing everything, so Koreh struggled to keep his face blank as he watched the Taaweh warriors, gauging th
e best moment to make his move.
He couldn’t help but take a deep breath as he broke into a run. Just before he leapt through the gate, Koreh made a grab for one of the warriors’ staves. To his surprise—and probably to the surprise of the Taaweh who’d been holding it—the staff remained in his grasp as he shot through.
His last experience with the gate had taught him that he wouldn’t get wet, but Koreh had no idea what determined where he would come out. He held the image of Sael in his mind, hoping that the gate might work somewhat like transport through the ground did. A moment later, he found himself running out of the shadows near the base of Harleh’s outer wall.
Koreh wasn’t familiar with the lay of the land here, though he guessed he was near the south wall. The lighting was odd—bluish and not nearly as bright as early morning should be, even when overcast. The clouds swirled in an ominous way off to the west, and it was from that direction that Koreh could hear the sounds of fighting.
He heard horses approaching from his left and turned just in time to avoid being run down by one of them. In that brief flash, as the rider flew past, Koreh recognized Sael’s face. Koreh had only a second to determine that Sael’s pursuers wore the emperor’s colors. Without thinking, he swung his newly acquired staff at the head of one of the riders, and was rewarded with a satisfying clunk at the same moment he was jarred off his feet and sent sprawling in the grass.
The rider was knocked from his horse and landed heavily upon the turf, but the other three continued after their quarry.
Damn it! Koreh thought, lying flat on his back while he caught his breath. How was he to catch up to Sael now?
Suddenly someone was standing over him, garbed in the cowled robe of the Taaweh. “Iinyeh Koreh,” a woman’s voice admonished him, “that was very foolish. The Iinu Shaa is displeased.”
