Blood of War

by Remi Michaud

  “I have no money right now. I will pay you back at a later date.” If I survive. He started forward, his eyes growing quickly accustomed to the gloom, and he inspected each of the horses in their stalls. He stopped in front of a tall stallion.

  “But...but, milord...”

  Jurel turned and fixed a steely glare on Duma. Duma wisely shut up as he shrank away, swallowing with an audible click.

  Jurel carefully opened the stall door and speaking in low, comforting tones, approached. The horse huffed and shook his head but seemed to recognize that Jurel meant no harm. Allowing the horse to get used to his scent and his voice, Jurel stroked the animal's nose and neck, still speaking softly. In a short time, Jurel felt comfortable enough to check the flanks, fetlocks and hooves for anything that might later pose a problem. He had no desire to meet his enemy on a horse that was one breath short of blowing out and one step short of lameness.

  Satisfied, he turned back to Duma. “This one will do. I will require a saddle and bridle as well.”

  “But sir!” Duma was quailing now, ashen-faced and visibly shaking. Sweat rolled down his forehead and neck. “He's me best one! Please!”

  “What's his name?” When silence met his question, Jurel turned to Duma with the same relentlessness. Duma wore an expression of sourness, a petulance that almost made Jurel laugh. Almost. “His name.”

  “Hopper. M'lord.”

  “Fine. I need that saddle.”

  Reluctantly, Duma produced a decent set of riding gear. The saddle was a little worn and the bridle had seen much use but it would suffice. After saddling the horse, Jurel took Hopper from his stall and rode him. At first the horse was skittish—it was likely Duma rarely, if ever, rode the animal—but soon Jurel had Hopper settled into a groove. It was a farm animal and was not trained for battle. It would not respond to commands delivered by Jurel's legs but that did not overly concern him. In time, Hopper would learn.

  Having appropriated a sack filled with oats, Jurel turned to leave. He spoke one last time to Duma.

  “I will compensate you for your troubles.” if I survive. Let's not forget that. “Watch for me.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Jurel set heels to Hopper's flanks, and they were off.

  He had friends to save. He had a lot to atone for.

  And then he could disappear.

  Chapter 37

  With a jerk, he drew his blade across the sentry's throat. The sentry fell to his side with only a slight gurgle. Cleaning off his blade, Gaven figured that the sentry deserved his fate; over-confidence led to complacence. Nodding off while on duty was definitely a deadly mistake. He inspected his blade by the thin moonlight and, satisfied, sheathed his dagger.

  Silently, Gaven dragged the soldier back into the woods, depositing the body in a small gully, noting a dark circle spreading down the white cloak, and keeping alert for sounds in the forest that should not have been there. Had he been more alert, he never would have killed the sentry, but in his efforts to keep his bearings, as well as the shock when he began to realize just how large this army was, he had nearly tripped over the silent sentinel in the darkness. It had only been a lucky snore close enough that Gaven could have reached out and touched the hapless sentry that had alerted him.

  He and the small group of survivors had arrived a short while before, leaving their pilfered mounts in a clearing a mile west, just as the moon had begun its ascent through the thin, tattered clouds. After disposing of three far ranging outriders, Mikal had ordered several of them to scout the camp and see if they could find any weakness to exploit. And maybe, if they were lucky, locate where Kurin was being held.

  Under the shelter of the trees he had crested a berm which had given him a commanding view of the army the Salosian Order would have to face. The view from his vantage on the western flank had stunned him, dismayed him, caused him to question the plans they had drawn up on their way south, caused him, in fact, to question the very sanity of even trying to face such a juggernaut. If the number of fires pricking the plain surrounding the Eastern Caravan Route and the distance between the furthest was any indication, then the Salosians were in for a rough ride.

  The huge numbers were frightening but what most disturbed him was that it was barely four day's ride through the forest north of the Sun Sea to the doorstep of the Abbey.

  But numbers were not enough. Mikal had taught him many things about military deployment during his time at the Abbey and marching toward the ill-fated ambush later; Gaven needed to know more about the cavalry and the infantry and what weapons each would be using—Mikal would demand that information. He needed to know how many archers they would have to contend with. He needed to know how many priests had tagged along. He would even liked to have known the general morale of the forces arrayed against them.

  He wondered if there was anything he could do right then and there that could create an advantage—any advantage—in the coming siege.

  He returned to where he'd stumbled on the sentry and again took his bearings. Beyond the shadows of the trees, he saw a fire. Flowing silently through the cover he reached the tree line and scanned ahead. The scent of roasting venison rode on the chill autumn breeze. In the glow of the firelight, he spied several Soldiers of God and what appeared to be pikes leaning against the sides of several small one-man tents. Infantry then.

  Backing carefully away, Gaven made his way south through the trees, silently dispatching two sentries as he went (hoping that the sentries would not be missed for at least an hour or two—long enough to put some distance between him and this army) toward the clearing and the rendezvous with Mikal and the others.

  The pickets alone occupied a greater area than their entire expeditionary force had before the Soldiers of God had annihilated them. His first thought of disrupting this army had been finding a way to sabotage their horses. Faced with sentries posted in pairs every hundred feet and with a sea of horses, Gaven had to wonder if he could possibly manage to do any real amount of damage here without endangering him and his friends.

  He began to wonder if there was anything he could do to any part of this encampment that would have more effect than a mosquito biting a bull. There were always the food stores, he surmised but he quickly discarded the thought. They were not far from Twin Town and only a couple of weeks north of Grayson. Supplies could easily be replaced. Firing the spare weapons would accomplish little as well; from what he saw, each soldier carried his or her own weapons close at hand.

  No, there was very little for him to accomplish on his own here, save perhaps riling up the enemy army and causing them to strike sooner. His only advantage, his only hope, was that they would stay here for a time longer, giving the Salosians the time they needed to organize whatever defenses they had left. His hope of winning the battle had dwindled to a hope that they could prolong the battle and kill as many prelacy forces as possible before the Salosians were annihilated.

  As he slid silently between the trees, a hand clamped solidly over his mouth. Jerking, he stumbled. He tried to spin to face his adversary, but another hand snaked around his waist and held him.

  “Quiet,” a familiar voice honed to an unfamiliar edge whispered in his ear.

  His heart thumping in his chest, he nodded. Slowly, the hands released their steel grip and Gaven turned.

  And there he was. Bloody hells, there he was. Gaven had not heard his ghostly silent approach. Yet he was solid and huge and radiating a new sense that Gaven had never felt before. He looked, felt, dangerous. Deadly. He looked not like Gaven's friend but more like a man who could smash mountains. Gaven swallowed with an audible click.

  Jurel, his face hidden in shadow, gestures for Gaven to take the lead.

  Stifling his questions, Gaven slipped back through the trees. He knew that Jurel followed but he heard no sound and when he glanced back to check on Jurel, he never saw him. Until he paused to ensure Jurel was not lost and Jurel materialized at his shoulder whispering for Gaven to hurry up. Gaven k
new his time training with Mikal's men had changed him, knew that he was a better warrior and woodsman for it. But beside Jurel, Gaven felt like a blundering child playing at men's business.

  It was shortly before sunrise, in that time when the world waited with pent breath, when the air itself held the sharp smell of anticipation for the dawn, when they entered the camp.

  Having been spotted by the outer sentries, Gaven was not surprised that Mikal and Metana were waiting near the edge of the camp. Mikal nodded a greeting to Gaven then his eyes widened when Jurel stepped out of the trees. Again flummoxed, Gaven realized that none of the sentries had seen Jurel. Was he so skilled at woodcraft? Was he that much of a ghost?

  Not only was Mikal shocked, Gaven saw, but so was Metana. For an instant she stood frozen. Then in a flurry of raven hair and billowing robes she flew into Jurel's arms. Her shoulders shook and Gaven looked away embarrassed. He found it difficult to watch this strong, hard-edged woman weeping.

  He also could not bear the distant, disinterested look in Jurel's eyes as he hugged her stiffly in return. Then he gently pushed her away without yet actually looking at her. The shock on her face was quickly replaced by heart-wrenching hurt and shame.

  And still Jurel's stone cold expression did not change a wit.

  What's happened to you, Jurel?

  “We must make plans,” Jurel said. His voice was as hard as his expression.

  “For what?” Mikal said quietly.

  Pointing back over his shoulder, Jurel said, “Kurin and about a hundred survivors are penned in a stockade. We need to break them free. About a hundred paces south of your last position Gaven.”

  “You saw them?”

  Jurel nodded. “Any idea on how to get them out without losing any more?”

  Gaven pictured the enemy's camp in his mind: the position of the sentries, the lines of horse pickets, the supply wagons. He dredged up all the knowledge he had of the Soldiers of God.

  And in a flash of insight, Gaven knew how to do it. He smiled, and it was as cold as Jurel's eyes.

  Chapter 38

  The sounds of battle, Kurin noted, were eerie in a forest at night. Steel clashes echoed hollowly through the trees, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once as though it was the trees themselves singing a strange song, perhaps in an attempt to mimic the tiny humans that crawled around at the bases of their trunks. Shouts of anger and cries of pain followed, just as spine-tingling, disembodied as they were.

  He raised his head, his neck protesting dully, and saw the eighty-odd caged men and women of the failed assault do the same. Confused looks passed between them, darkly shadowed and oddly liquid in the flickering torchlight, though words were still taboo; there were still two dozen crossbows pointed at them, crossbows that suddenly looked sharper, more ominous, more immediate.

  To those who glanced his way, he signaled silently to wait, don't do anything foolish.

  In the east, blue light flickered, each followed by a dull thud that caused pebbles to shiver in the dry packed dirt of the stockade. Nearer, just the other side of the wooden teeth, shouts and stumping footsteps.

  The distant clamor seemed to crescendo while at the same time, the surrounding camp went calm, as still as the eye of a hurricane. As carefully as a mouse entering a cat's den, Kurin let his mind unfurl, let his senses peak from behind his own wall of sharpened stakes he had banished them to upon his capture.

  And he felt nothing. Not a trace, not a whisper. He had not spent most of his life on the road as a fugitive without learning a thing or two about detecting those who sought him. He was proficient at sniffing out the watchers. As he let his senses extend a little further, he found not a one—and had the added benefit of at least some relief from the bruises and lacerations that his hosts so graciously bestowed upon him during his days here.

  In the distance, where the blue lights flickered, turned red and green, caused the earth to shiver, he felt the reverberations of the release of massive amounts of arcanum.

  Now.

  As though trying to get comfortable he changed position, burrowing further into the darkness where the torches did not reach. Letting only a fingernail's worth of power loose, he worked the locks of his shackles, careful to not let his expression change lest the guards see. The cuffs released with a faint snick and a sudden jolt in the thread of power.

  Suppressing a triumphant shout, he breathed deeply, quickly thinking up ideas on what to do next. Just as quickly, for one reason or another, he rejected his ideas: a sudden call to storm the barricade would be stupid in the extreme; a blast of arcanum would destroy the wall and the sentries but a blast like that was not choosy and his own people would not fare well—not to mention every man, woman and child within a ten mile radius who had any sensitivity to arcanum would feel as though they had been struck by a hammer; a lesser, more focused attack might not take out all the guards quickly enough—a single shouted warning might be as effective as a telltale surge of arcanum.

  He winced as a particularly strong blast of arcanum sent a shudder through him. In the forest, a ruddy glow sprang up. Someone had set the trees afire; the summer had seen enough rain for the crops to survive, but it had been drier than most. That fire would spread quickly. The battle was reaching its climax. It was time to act. It was time to make his move. It was time to...something.

  Throw caution to the wind, his instincts told him. Good people would die, but this was war and good people were often lost in war. Hastily, he counted the guards on each side of the stockade. He shot looks at a few of those with him, officers, veterans with enough experience to decipher unspoken communications. Slight nods responded, and the officers nonchalantly blended in with the rest of the prisoners. Kurin knew there was urgent whispering going on; he hoped the guards would not notice. He hoped the guards would not notice the sudden but slow evacuation at the east side of the stockade. He hoped, most of all, that all the Gaorlan priests were too busy to investigate when Kurin acted. He would be stretched too thinly to protect any of them if the interest of even a single priest was piqued.

  He took a deep breath, marshaling his strength and his concentration. No easy thing: besides the distracting sounds of battle and the unsettling electric hum in the air, he was exhausted, ill-fed, injured. He felt weak as a kitten. Grimly, he reached into his self, summoning that familiar light that always seemed just outside his periphery. As always, it came readily, easily, and as always, it coursed through him like fine wine, left him giddy and exultant. Suddenly, he could smell the smoke of the fires as though he were on top of them, could smell that, at one, food was burning. He smelled sweat, acrid and musky with fear, and soil, and sweet late-blooming flowers. And blood. It filled his nose and coated his tongue with its metallic, coppery flavor and he suppressed a gag. He could see the individual veins on each individual leaf, he could hear footsteps and metal clashing.

  The senior officer, a captain watched him gravely. They had no weapons. They would be facing armed and armored soldiers. They were starving, bereft of hope. They needed to act. No matter the cost. The captain held his eyes, nodded.

  Now.

  In one smooth motion, Kurin rose to his feet to face the east wall and lifted his arms over his head. He threw up an obscuring shield behind him, a shield which would make it seem to the sentries that suddenly there was no one in the stockade while at the same time, would hopefully deflect at least the majority of the missiles that were sure to come raining down.

  At the same moment, he released his power in one massive surge. The stockade along that wall exploded, the eight foot wooden stakes suddenly becoming splintered projectiles. The guards that manned that wall essentially evaporated into red mists.

  And, now.

  The captain barked an order; prisoners stared dull-eyed for a moment, but soon enough began to move toward the opening. Slowly at first, as quiet as a funeral procession, the men and women of the Salosian army filtered through the ragged maw that gaped, but their momentum soon p
icked up and within seconds, they began grumbling angrily, gladly, victoriously, some few breaking into a jog. Within moments, the jog became a sprinting exodus.

  Kurin felt pinches in the shield behind him; the guards were firing blindly. Some few, he knew would have enough presence of mind to call out and begin circling the perimeter. He lashed out again, another wave of pure, violent power surging back through his shield, crushing the west and north sides.

  In the gap and beyond, his soldiers had begun to race across the camp, some few stooping to pick up anything they might use as a weapon: a spade, a spare lance—not particularly effective for scattered foot troops but better than nothing; Kurin even saw occasional lucky souls brandishing short swords.

  He let his rage loose as he lagged behind. He launched another volley of power into the south wall, and there was, except for the dusty packed earth and Kurin's chains, suddenly no trace of the stockade left. As the prisoners disappeared into the camp, Kurin took his time, launching more attacks, raining more destruction through the camp. Supply wagons erupted in sudden flame; larger tents that he took to be command or gathering tents were shredded; a mobile smithy, complete with forge and anvil became tattered, twisted metal. The banked but still burning coals pattered on structures for a hundred paces and flickering pricks of flame licked hungrily at dry fabric and wood.

  As the last of the prisoners disappeared into the darkness, Kurin reined himself in. His shield collapsed until it was a bubble surrounding just him. He could not have done so at a more fortuitous time: almost as soon as his power was shored up, something intangible hammered him to his knees. If his shield had not been in place, he would have been no more than a very messy memory. As it was, he felt a white heat eating at the left side of his face, down to his shoulder.

  He rose unsteadily to his feet, took exactly two steps when everything turned white. A terrible concussion like a mountain falling blasted through the camp, followed by a wave of heat. Eyes watering, Kurin blinked, tried to clear the black spots from his vision. Sound turned into a distant thing, nearly covered by the ringing in his ears.