The Mage-Fire War

by Modesitt. Jr. , L. E.

  As the shafts flew, Beltur added more order to a half score. The resulting explosions pelted more hot metal into the troopers on the road. Beltur thought that he could sense some wavering in the white’s shields. “Fire again!”

  This time, he managed adding order to eleven shafts, and the explosions as they struck the white’s shields were far less spectacular, but the shields held, although the wavering increased.

  By now, the Hydlenese troopers on the road had moved away somewhat from the mage.

  “On my command!” Beltur called out, guiding Slowpoke some ten yards farther west to a point where the bushes were markedly thinner—and where he was even closer to the white. Then he issued the order. “Loose shafts!”

  Beltur added even larger amounts of free order to a half score of the iron shafts, then formed his shields into a narrow wedge and urged Slowpoke through the bushes and the low depression and toward the small gap that had opened between the troopers and the white.

  A massive firebolt arrowed directly at Beltur so fast and low that it was all Beltur could do to throw it back at the white, but he immediately followed it with what he could only have called an order bolt. Then Beltur anchored his shields to the ground, hoping that would be enough to protect him as the order bolt merged with the firebolt—just after the iron arrows impacted the white’s shields.

  He closed his eyes, but not quite quickly enough to escape the sight-searing flare of intense whiteness that washed over him. His shields reverberated with a high whining sound and pain more intense than scores of needles ripping through his body and skull. Although his shields held, Beltur felt as though he’d been shaken within them.

  He opened his eyes, but could see nothing. Nor could he sense anything.

  Then, slowly, he began to discern fuzzy shapes. When Beltur could see, he found Slowpoke and himself at the edge of a blackened area, almost fifty yards across, filled with gray ash in the center, and the charred forms of men and mounts farther out … and charred trees on both sides of the main road. He could also discern the order focus that was Jessyla, and he let out a breath that he didn’t know that he’d even been holding.

  Beyond the circle of destruction to the west, Beltur could sense at least two companies of troopers … and one much weaker white mage. To the southeast, the fighting on the lane and the road had largely died away, but farther east, the increasing number of black death mists showed that the battle between the lead Hydlenese companies and Raelf’s outnumbered forces had been joined in full.

  An officer rode up, not Reynaard, but Zekkarat. With him was Jessyla, and the archers followed her, moving east into the charred area.

  “Ser! The green bastards took down Reynaard. What are your orders?”

  “Send two squads with me. We need to finish off the troopers to the west. There’s one more mage. Take all the other squads and assault the rear of the forces attacking Raelf. There aren’t any mages there, and he needs support.” Especially so that they can turn and reinforce Rojak and Lhadoraak.

  “Yes, ser!” Zekkarat nodded and turned his horse. “First and Second Squads! On the mages. Mage-Captain Beltur’s in command!”

  Jessyla moved the mare closer to Beltur. “What are you going to do?”

  “Get a swallow of ale,” he said as he pulled out his second water bottle and uncorked it. After taking a long swallow and recorking and replacing the bottle, he added, “We need to start ripping into the troopers ahead. Try to get the last mage to use chaos bolts. If he doesn’t, we’ll have to cut into the greencoats and then back off and let the troopers do some of it.”

  “Then we should alternate.”

  “To begin with.” That was all Beltur was about to agree to. More than that depended on how they and their shields held up, particularly Jessyla and her shields.

  In moments, the two squads rode into the ashen area. Beltur quickly briefed the squad leaders on what they planned, then ended by saying, “In short, we’ll rip a hole in the Hydlenese and you alternate squads in following up.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Beltur turned Slowpoke eastward, vaguely surprised that the greencoats had neither advanced nor retreated. Waiting for orders?

  In a way, he felt sorry for the Hydlenese troopers, but he pushed the feeling away. Gustaan stood up to bad officers and orders. And he ended up being disgraced and working for a renegade white. Thinking that through has to wait. With that, he extended his shields and urged Slowpoke into almost a gallop.

  As he neared the center of the Hydlenese troopers, several moved forward, raising shields and sabres. One trooper on the end bolted, spurring his mount toward the trees and bushes on the south side of the road, clearly aiming for the field beyond. Then Beltur was through the first two lines, angling to the north side of the road, where he knew the shoulder to be firmer and without a muddy depression, such as on the south side.

  Then the first squad followed, and for a time, sabres flashed, since about a third of the Hydlenese put up a fight, but their efforts were hampered by those who were more interested in finding a way out and those who fled.

  Suddenly, a good fifty yards of the road east of Beltur’s small force was empty of troopers. Beltur blinked, then realized that whoever commanded the Hydlenese had left a single company to hold the road, or at least clog it, while pulling back the remaining force and re-forming it.

  Almost before Beltur realized it, a triple line of lancers, with a well-dressed front, was charging toward the somewhat disarrayed first squad.

  Frig!

  Beltur did the only thing he thought might even work, based on the hope that the Hydlenese commander hadn’t actually seen Beltur’s previous charge. From where he’d reined up Slowpoke on the north side of the road, he put a concealment around himself and the gelding, extended the knife shields, and brought Slowpoke to a full gallop, using his senses to guide the gelding on an angled path that he hoped would not only take out a number of lancers, but also create consternation and confusion among the attackers.

  As Slowpoke cut through the lancers, Beltur sensed that Jessyla was doing the same thing right behind him, except she’d started from the south side of the road and moved to the north.

  He pulled up to the south side of the road and dropped the concealment so that he could see better, as well as shrank his shields close enough just to protect himself and Slowpoke.

  Immediately, a trooper charged at him and slashed with a sabre—except when the sabre struck Beltur’s shields, the force of his slash against the unyielding shield ripped the weapon from his hand. Then another greencoat attacked … with the same result. At that moment, the Montgren troopers from First Squad arrived, and began to cut into the disarrayed Hydlenese company.

  Beltur concentrated on trying to sense what the rest of the Hydlenese to the west were doing, but from what he could tell, the other two companies were doing nothing, but just waiting. There were also no chaos bolts.

  Frig!

  The Hydlenese strategy was more than clear—to make the fight one of arms against arms so that Beltur couldn’t use the whites’ chaos against their troopers.

  As the Montgren troopers pushed forward, if slowly, Beltur eased back and crossed the road to where Jessyla was.

  “We were supposed to alternate attacks,” were her first words.

  “You’re right, but we need to find the archers and use concealments or whatever to move though the fields and orchards to get to that last white…”

  Before he could say more, Jessyla said almost crossly, “I understand. The archers are with Second Squad. We need to move quickly, or we’ll lose all the Montgren troopers.”

  Beltur immediately turned Slowpoke, as did Jessyla.

  After reaching the archers, they ended up going back to the section of bushes they had broken through earlier in order to get into the field. There were no troopers in green farther west in the field, and Beltur couldn’t help wondering about that. Admittedly, it was a small field, not much more than a hundred ya
rds paralleling the road, and less than fifty yards deep. Possibly the bushes had deterred the Hydlenese from using it or perhaps their commander had already decided that staying on the road would be the best way to whittle down the outnumbered Montgren forces.

  That would fit with what they’ve done. Even so, Beltur kept sensing, knowing that they needed to deal with the last mage as quickly as possible.

  At the west end of the field, Beltur could sense that they still needed to move farther west, since they were roughly abreast of the middle of the remaining Hydlenese force, and that required riding through an overgrown, and possibly abandoned, orchard. Beltur thought the orchard held apple trees—at least the green globes looked like apples. Just before they neared the western end of the orchard they crossed a narrow grassy track wider than the spacing between trees.

  “We’ll head back to the road here.” Beltur gestured.

  As he rode north, he could sense that the mage was less than a hundred yards to the northwest, with roughly a company behind him. There were also several troopers posted at the end of the track that had likely once been a lane.

  Beltur turned in the saddle. “When we reach a point just off the road, we need you to loft iron shafts at another mage. We’ll block any troopers from coming at you.”

  “We have less than ten shafts a man, ser.”

  “We’ll use them all, if need be.” He didn’t say that their chances of prevailing were getting slight indeed without using the white’s chaos against his own troopers. “You just put them where I tell you.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  With the overhanging and protruding branches, Beltur thought that trying to proceed under a concealment would be unwise, and using shields would take more strength than he wanted to use. He was already feeling the effort.

  That thought reminded him to drink more of the ale in his water bottle, but there were only two swallows left—and that was in the second bottle. He didn’t remember drinking that much, but he must have. He replaced the water bottle and then thought about the troopers ahead.

  Then he smiled and kept riding. He’d let the troopers guarding the lane make the first move.

  It wasn’t that long before one of them called out, “Who goes there?”

  Beltur’s response was to drop a concealment around the lane guards.

  “I can’t see!”

  “I can’t either…”

  Beltur eased Slowpoke into a fast walk and extended his shields just slightly, enough so that he could press against the concealment-blinded guards.

  “Stop pushing!”

  “I’m not…”

  The three guards, disconcerted by the concealment, ended up colliding with the troopers on the road, who, as the guards under the concealment neared them, also found themselves unable to see. The shouts and epithets from unseen troopers added to the disarray of the nearby Hydlenese troopers.

  Beltur turned to the squad leader. “Can you see that taller trooper who’s about opposite that tall oak?”

  After a moment, the archer answered. “No, ser.”

  “Do you see the oak, maybe ten yards west of the gap in the trees on the north side of the road?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “When I give the order, put your shafts in the middle of the road just forward of the oak.”

  Beltur shifted his shields so that the archers could loose their shafts, hoping that any Hydlenese archers wouldn’t notice.

  “We’re ready, ser.”

  “Loose shafts.”

  Beltur only added order to a few of the shafts.

  The weaker white’s shield appeared only a yard or so above the heads of the Hydlenese troopers, invisible to the sight, although Beltur could sense it. When the ordered iron shafts struck the shield, they stopped and then dropped, but they weren’t fragmented by the shield, and they didn’t fragment and burn the troopers underneath, as had happened with the stronger white.

  Frig! Now what?

  “Another volley!” ordered Beltur, adding order to several more shafts.

  Just then, a Hydlenese officer or squad leader called out, “Troopers! If you can see, hold your position. If you can’t see, follow the road east. If you run into others, you’re riding the wrong way. Now! Move!”

  All that meant Beltur didn’t have much time before the momentarily disorganized Hydlenese nearby would regroup. Beltur also had the feeling he was on the edge of getting light-headed, and that was anything but good.

  The iron arrows slammed into the mage’s shield, pushing it down, and Beltur could feel the wavering of the chaos behind it.

  “Another volley!” This time Beltur added more order to the shafts, especially to one of them.

  The iron shafts came down, and a line of fire flared across the road, just above the troopers, enough to stop the arrows. Beltur strained and wrapped order around that chaos-fire, hurling it at the white mage, who blocked it, added more chaos, and flung it all, not directly at Beltur but toward the unshielded archers.

  Beltur smiled grimly, jamming two containments around that chaos. Then he redirected it all back at the white, closing his eyes as he did. He barely had them closed when the searing white of the explosion hammered on his shields, which, since he was between the mage and the archers, largely shielded them as well.

  When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was sparkles of light wherever he looked. The second thing he realized was that he had almost no shields. He immediately reduced those he had to barely cover himself and Slowpoke.

  “Beltur!” Jessyla’s voice was low and intense as she moved her mare up beside him.

  He turned, and even that motion left him a little dizzy.

  “You can’t use any more order or chaos. You can’t.”

  Before answering, he took in the damage. The order/chaos explosion wasn’t as large as the previous one, but because the troopers were more closely formed up, almost an entire company of Hydlenese troopers and their mounts were turned either to ashes or charred husks of what they had been.

  Still, there had to be almost another company behind those destroyed.

  “We’re not finished,” he replied quietly.

  She handed him a water bottle. “There’s some ale left. Drink it. It’s up to me now.”

  “Archers! On the mages! Forward!” Beltur ordered. He hoped that the sight of Montgren uniforms emerging from the swirling ashes and charred forms would unnerve the remaining Hydlenese troopers. Then he turned in the saddle and looked to the lead archer.

  “Form three ranks. Do you have enough shafts left for several volleys?”

  “Four, maybe five, full volleys, ser.”

  “After Mage Jessyla cuts through the lead lines of the Hydlenese, I’ll order a volley, maybe two. Half into the front lines, half farther back.”

  “There are only eleven of us, ser.”

  “Then you’ll have to be very accurate,” replied Beltur, uncorking the water bottle and drinking the remainder of it. He hoped the ale would lessen the light-headedness and the sparkles in front of his eyes.

  When the two of them, followed by three ranks of archers in Montgren blue, reached the western edge of where the order/chaos conflagration ended, another Hydlenese company was drawn up, seemingly waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  “I’m charging them, before they have time to think about it.” Jessyla immediately urged the mare into a canter, aiming toward the north side of the middle of the Hydlenese troopers. The leading troopers raised shields and sabres, but barely had time to move before she slashed at an angle through two ranks, leaving a trail of blood and dead, dying, or wounded troopers.

  Then she reversed the mare and rode across the front of the third rank of troopers, momentarily reining up on the south shoulder of the road, leaving a second line of blood and death among the green-coated troopers.

  “Loose shafts!” ordered Beltur as loudly as he could. “Volley one!”

  After a long moment, Beltur repeated the command. />
  Jessyla didn’t have to make another charge. The remaining greencoats turned their mounts and withdrew, except in moments, it was a wild flight.

  “Ser?” called the archers’ squad leader.

  “We’re riding back east! Now!” Even as he spoke, Beltur wondered what he and Jessyla and eleven archers could do, given that he was close to exhausted and Jessyla, from what he sensed, was only in a little better shape.

  After a few moments, the small force was riding back through the charred and ashen area, toward Haven and whatever was happening there. Beltur had another confirmation of his unsteady state when he realized he was only able to sense a few hundred yards. He looked to Jessyla. “Can you sense what’s happening ahead?”

  “Not any farther than I can see, and all I can see are a few wounded men, lots of bodies, unattended horses—” At that moment, she sneezed, twice, before finishing, “and a few riders in green trying to sneak away through the wheat field over there.” She gestured.

  Beltur counted six riders, and a man walking toward a riderless mount, then squinted as he looked eastward, trying to see what might be waiting ahead in the streets of Haven. The number of bodies increased as they neared the lane from which they’d begun their attack, then vanished as they rode through the second part of the road that was little more than ashes and charred forms. Beyond that, there were so many bodies that it was impossible to count them all. While most of the fallen wore green uniforms, there were far more than a few bodies wearing blue and maroon.

  Just ahead, Beltur saw several youths, clearly bent on looting bodies, look up and then scurry away from the road, vanishing behind trees and bushes and into the afternoon shadows. Beltur found he was too tired to care … and too worried about what he might find or encounter on the east side of Haven.

  Once they were several hundred yards past the posts marking the west end of the town proper, there were no more bodies, only scores of hoofprints in the street suggesting that the combined forces of Zekkarat and Raelf had prevailed and had hurried eastward to reinforce Rojak and Lhadoraak.

  Beltur hoped that they had been in time for Lhadoraak, but he had his doubts. “It’s looking like we prevailed here in the west.”