by Dragon Lance
As Courage trotted up among the trees, Vinas had to remind himself he was not truly invincible. The moment he was beyond the sight of the war wizards, they could no longer work their magic through him. And, as soon as he actually struck with sword or fist, his protections would be gone. He was a straw hero, as it were, intended merely to scare the daylights out of the attackers and flush them from hiding.
Vinas reined Courage to a halt, still within sight of the opposite bank. With an unconcerned air, he stood in the saddle and looked about. This invitation brought more attacks, as he had hoped. To each he raised a hand. Soon, the blazing rebel victims lit the underside of the forest.
Vinas knew he could not flush them all out. His ploy depended upon deception and fear. He must keep moving. Clenching his jaw, he rode forward. The last lines of sight between Vinas and his wizards disappeared.
“How many of you must I kill today?” It was the signal for the rest of the army to begin crossing, but Vinas spoke the words with true regret. Now, though, was no time for regrets.
“Surrender, all of you, or today you will die.”
*
“... must I kill today?”
Luccia turned to Gaias. “There’s the signal,” she said. “Good luck.”
Without another word, she touched Terraton’s flank. He lifted in a soundless rush into the crisp wind above the rapids. A second surge of wings, a third, and the tawny blur of muscle and feather climbed above the treetops, into an achingly bright sky
A sudden storm of arrows pelted past her. Feathers flew. Squawking, Terraton reeled higher. Luccia glimpsed a pair of secondary wing feathers tumbling toward the waters. The wound was not severe. Even now Terraton struggled against the wind and rose above the black hail that peppered the water below.
Gaias would not have an easy time of it, not with elven archers lining the bank. Vinas may have destroyed the war machines, but the elves could reek havoc with the army.
Shrieking defiantly, Terraton topped the rise. Well above bow shot, he flew over the forest.
Luccia looked straight down among the trees. She saw, beneath the thin leaves of summer, the running rebels. They were as thick and busy as ants.
No, Gaias would not have an easy time of it. Not at all.
She tugged on Terraton’s reins, directing him upstream. A mile north of the crossing, the main share of the griffon cavalry would be swooping on its prey. She intended to join them.
Luccia sent the griffon down in a long, soaring dive. His speed doubled and redoubled until the treetops flashed past. Miles were meaningless for creatures that could cross half of a realm in a day.
The clearing lay just ahead. The rebels had felled plenty of trees to make their logjam; they had razed a patch of forest large enough to construct a castle. Finding the spot had been easy for Luccia. It was pinpointed by Terraton hours before the Ergothian army had reached the riverbank.
The present task was proving equally easy. Scores of griffons and their riders dived into the clearing and rose again with talons holding wriggling, wingless forms – elves and men. The rebels were borne high into the air before being dropped. They hit the ground amid the stumps and rocks and bodies that littered the clearing. The griffons then dived again. When they came up, their wings shed red mists, a blood baptism that united their new victims with their old ones.
Anticipation riffled Terraton’s golden hide. He needlessly pumped his wings twice more before he went literally screaming into the fray.
The rim of trees rushed past as Terraton plunged.
Luccia had but a moment to glimpse the clearing – tangled bodies, crossbows glinting from cover, halfchopped trees, axes and saws spotted with blood, eagle-lions slamming to the ground and rending with beaks and claws.
Terraton snatched up a loose log and dropped it atop one archer. His hooked beak snapped the neck of a second. A maiming and a kill.
Eagle wings carried them in pursuit of a third soldier, fleeing. Talons gripped the man’s head. Terraton rose, the soldier thrashing below.
Luccia slapped the creature’s side. “Quick, not cruel,” she admonished. Her words were answered by a crunching sound, and stillness below. The griffon dived after another victim.
Victim, yes, Luccia realized. That’s what they are. Victims, not warriors.
She banished the thought. Vinas had forbidden such ideas. As Terraton dipped to snag another rebel, Luccia realized that victory over Vingaard could well cost all of them their souls.
*
Another flock of black-fletched arrows vaulted into the sky.
Gaias watched them come. He rode midstream with the fording forces. There was a moment left to glare toward the war wizards. Would they summon the flaming cloud in time? The shafts cut through gray air, turned, and rained down toward the laboring army. As the arrows began to descend, Gaias raised his shield and gritted his teeth.
“Shields!” shouted the veteran. “Shields!”
Overhead, a blue flash of lightning lit the sky. Orange motes in the blue field marked spots where arrows struck and sizzled away. As before, though, white-hot arrowheads tumbled through the field and hailed onto the troops. Above even the roar of the rapids came the sharp spack and hiss of hot rock against wet metal.
Most of the arrowheads bounced to one side or traced black brands along a horse’s stifle before plunging to dance in the turgid waters. Some, though, squarely struck flesh and burned inward, steaming blood away as they penetrated.
Damned mages, thought Gaias. Worthless protections, craven cowards, striking from safety.
As the sheet of lightning vanished and the last arrowheads cracked against shields, three more horses fell. They dragged their riders off the ford and into the depths. A cavalryman slumped from his horse. The triangular hole in his temple steamed as he plunged into the white waters. Another rider had fallen and gotten tangled in his stirrups. The man’s horse galloped frantically toward the far side, dragging the limp doll that had been its rider.
That horse had the idea. The sooner the first wave of cavalry struck land, the sooner they could bring steel against those fey archers.
“Forward, full-out!” cried Gaias.
He dropped his shield to his side and urged his mount to a trot. The others needed no encouragement. All of them wanted out of the icy sluice. The trot quickened as the bed grew shallow and the company of riders galloped toward the far shore.
More arrows leapt toward them. More sheets of lightning magic flashed into existence. The riders paid these little mind. One horse lost its footing and slid into a churning bowl of water. Two others fell to arrowheads or lucky shafts. Gaias’s squad was still ninety-some strong, though, and the main body climbed the far bank.
The mounts gratefully charged up the bank and away from the water. They fanned out into the dense brush. Cavalrymen hacked their swords through brush and elves alike. The bow fire faltered. Shafts darted among the trees, striking as many rebels as imperial soldiers.
“Cleanse the banks!” cried Gaias as his sword plunged among the trees. He hardly knew whether a given swipe slew an elf or struck a bush. The forest was too thick, and the archers’s disguises too expert. Moans and shouts and gouts of blood told him he crippled or killed plenty.
The other soldiers were doing at least as well. As elves fell dead to the ground, they became visible. Already they lay as numerous as boughs blown down in a storm.
Gaias felt a sting in his shoulder. He whirled, his blade cutting in half a rebel warrior who had stabbed him from behind. Silent in defeat, the climber crumpled beside Gaias’s horse. Gaias looked about, seeing other forms as sinewy as snakes making their way up the trees.
“They are climbing! Beware the trees!” shouted Gaias as he finished off another rebel.
His latest foe crashed to the ground and thrashed there, a leaf-shaped dagger clutched in his hand. The elf could have hamstrung his horse in the fall – Gaias would have – but elves respected horses... nature in general.
&n
bsp; Gaias blinked grimly. They did not try to hobble the horses. He wondered, not for the first or last time, why in hell he fought for Ergoth.
Vinas had been right about such thoughts. Pointless. Destructive.
Jabbing another two elves, Gaias wheeled his steed to see how the infantry fared. Between the black-boled hawthorns, he glimpsed wave upon wave of foot soldiers, grimacing as they labored through the waist-deep, algid current. They dragged their shields beside them, unharried by further bow fire.
Gaias whirled away as he felt a slash to the jaw. It would have opened his throat if he had not glimpsed the blade in time to feint. His spiked elbow piece caught the elf’s face and sent him spinning flat toward the ground. Gaias cursed and spat, taking a moment to tamp his beard into the wound. Once this fight was done, he’d better shave.
At least we’ve stopped the bow fire, he thought as his horse stomped atop the crawling undergrowth. The infantry will arrive at any moment. They’ll take these bastards hand to hand, and free us to sweep inward, after Commander Solamnus.
The thought made him suddenly wonder what had become of their leader.
With a rattling crack, a ballista bolt tore through the canopy above. Gaias watched its arc. It trailed leaves as it plunged into the wading ranks of foot soldiers. The wide shaft impaled two men, and swept three others with them into the unforgiving current.
Gaias didn’t know where the commander was now, but knew where he would soon be.
*
In fury, Vinas dug his heels into Courage. The stallion trampled the man who had triggered the ballista. The spell of invulnerability would be gone from him now, but he no longer cared. Vinas leapt from the saddle onto the second rebel there. His sword flashed. It caught the man in the gut and pushed out the other side.
Rage welling, Vinas lifted the impaled rebel above his head and shouted, “I said kneel in surrender, or die!”
The four other rebel soldiers dropped immediately to their knees. Their blood-smudged faces implored Vinas. They stared with horror at the limp man who hung on his upraised sword.
This might have been just another calculated audacity, but Vinas knew it was not. He held the man aloft not to cow the rebels before him, but for the cruel pleasure of it. That realization disgusted him.
Vinas flung his arm downward. The rebel slid from his crimson blade and flopped on the ground. One of the survivors bent to retch. Vinas had to stay his sword from tasting that man’s flesh, too.
Before he could gather his thoughts to issue commands, the forest around was alive with stamping and snorting horses. Vinas blinked. It took him two breaths to recognize the blood-drenched livery of Ergoth. After a third, he noticed Gaias reining in before him.
Vinas planted the bloody tip of his blade in the ground and asked, “What news, Gaias?”
“All good, Commander,” said the veteran. One scarlet hand clutched a long wound along his jaw. “The infantry have taken the shoreline and are poking their swords into anything that moves. There will not be an elf left alive in fifty miles once this is done.”
“What of the losses?”
“Forty-some men, at my last count, and twelve horses. Of course I cannot guess how Luccia fares.”
“Well enough, I’m sure,” said Vinas. “Have these four taken prisoner and held for questioning. Then you and your best men come with me. We’ve a roadway to secure.”
“I need to oversee the rest of the crossing.”
“Yes,” agreed Vinas, “but let me have your best men.”
Gaias nodded. “The griffons should be freed up soon to bring the mages over.”
Vinas dragged his befouled blade across the ground as he returned to Courage. He mounted up. “Luce and hers will be there. Don’t worry.”
*
Luccia was sick to death of the slaughter. The rebels had had no chance. Yes, five griffons lay dead, and twice that many riders, but the rebel dead numbered in the hundreds.
She glanced one last time at the killing grounds. The only movement came from the sixty griffons perched among the bodies, waiting for her next orders. Some had been feeding at the end of the battle, but Luccia quickly stopped that. These were rebels, yes, but countrymen – humans and elves – all the same.
The battle was over.
“Colonel!” came a shout from the edge of the clearing.
Luccia turned to see a cavalryman struggling to keep his rearing, foaming horse from throwing him to the ground. “The enemy is in rout. Commander Solamnus orders you to pursue those who flee.”
“Pursue, or engage?” she shouted.
The horse wheeled, trying to bolt, but the man wrenched brutally on the reins, turning it in frantic circles. “Harry them. Kill half of them mercilessly. Let the others witness your deeds.”
“That’s what he said?” she asked in amazement.
“Word for word!” the man replied. He let his mount flee from the squadron of horse-eating monsters.
Luccia spat virulently, then shouted to her griffon-riders. “You heard what he said. Follow me. The killing’s not done yet.”
*
Erasmas lay wedged among the logs. He was numb from the chest down. Broken back, he realized calmly.
He hadn’t expected it to be like this – death, that is. He had thought it would be quick and hot and glorious. He had not thought he would lie among the frigid tide, one more useless log. Death was proving to be a terrific disappointment.
But war was worse. Much worse. He thought there would be honor in it. He thought he would stand with his side on one end of a field and await the enemy. He thought the two opponents would rush together almost as if to embrace, but instead to engage each other hand to hand, sword to sword. It was not supposed to be like this – chopping trees and hiding like plainsmen and getting tossed about by a bunch of eagle-lions.
He had believed in war, but father was right. War was nothing to be believed in.
There was the rebellion, too, of course. He’d believed in that once, hadn’t he?
Now, it was all gone. Now he’d die here in the shallows, cold and alone, among these logs. He hadn’t been afraid to die, but not this way, not without meaning.
Then he saw the wedge that held the logs in place. If that wedge were pulled out, he would be crushed by tons of wood as it rolled into the river.
But what of the damned imperials? What would happen to them?
*
In the center of the river, Gaias sat his horse. Beside him, the main share of the army’s eighty-three provisions wagons labored tediously across the stream.
The wagons were up to their buckboards in the white-devil flow. Some of the lighter ones had actually begun to float between the horse teams that anchored them. The progress was jolting and unnerving. Rocks that the horses stepped over would tip a wagon onto two wheels. If the handlers weren’t watchful, the wagon would capsize. They’d already lost three that way, eleven horses and four men with them.
“At this rate,” Gaias muttered to himself as he studied the chalky glow of the dying day, “the last wagons’ll roll through after dark.”
There was no threat now but the river itself. The woods had been purged of elves. The human rebels had been slaughtered except for some fifty, spared to regale their comrades with stories of Commander Solamnus’s horrific methods. Only the river and the failing day held any threat.
“What’s that – in the water?” shouted someone over the din of the current. “Oh, no! Move, damned horses! Move!”
Gaias wearily glanced toward the speaker. He followed the fingers pointing upstream. A school of large black fish bobbed excitedly among the rapids. Gaias blinked as he realized what the black fish truly were.
“Double time! Move!” he shouted to the teams in the center of the stream. Then he turned toward the southern bank. “Back! Get back!”
The words were needless. Many of the drivers had already seen the logs that rushed toward them. They lashed reins in the water and shouted harangues to their
horse teams or to the other wagons blocking their way.
The first log lanced in, fast as a missile. It punched through the side of a wagon. The conveyance flipped. Its driver and cargo went with it. The wagon disappeared, but wrenched the log up out of the flood. Horses screamed, dragged down by their traces. Hooves churned in the froth. Only the log itself showed above the water. Then it, too, slid downstream into a deep spiral and was gone.
Gaias spurred his mount toward the spot, but was too late.
More logs crashed into the wagons, into the horses. Shrieks and thrashings, splintered wood and bone, wagons and men.... A wagon turned up on end, burying its driver before it flipped atop the lead horse team. A set of hooves rolled over in the tumbling waters. A log surged and struck the head from a man, then rested on his vacant shoulders.
All was suddenly cold and white. Gaias’s mount dropped beneath him. He went under.
Gaias gasped, sucking in a mouthful of water. His boots snagged the bottom, and he thrust himself up. The horse struggled against a tangle of wood and leather. A log swiped the beast sideways and flung it away.
Gaias stood. The water flowed past him as though he were some monolith. He held his own and watched as the main host of Ergoth’s supply train was smashed beneath a thousand hammer blows and borne away in splinters and broken bodies.
His own log came, finally. He knew it would. There was no escaping this terrible onslaught. It caught him in the side. He felt his ribs snap as it drove him into the rolling rapids.
He no longer fought against his fate. He watched the white bubbles float around him like sprites in some vast, innocuous dance. Even when the light gave way to deeps and darknesses, the bubbles did not seem malicious, only capricious. Great logs jumbled above him.
The bubbles tickled his broken ribs and his old fish belly. He let his last breath go in a hearty laugh.
Meus Pater
I obliterated them today, Father. Historians will look back at the Crossing, as it will henceforward be known, and recount how the elves lay like humus across the forest floor and the human rebels fled like hares before a pack of dogs. They will say that two thousand traitors were slain today, ten times the honored dead of Ergoth. I have learned enough about how histories are written to know what they will say.
