by Brian Daley
The Trustee heard the reply while monitoring her worrisome left flank. “Needs no succor, eh?” she repeated, as her aides muttered among themselves. “That was not his claim a fortnight ago. He hates subordinating himself to me, but if he holds his end of things I am content.” She peered more closely to the left. “The Southwastelanders do not like it there, by the water with Blacktarget; he is secure. Send the first reserve element to Swan.” It wasn’t Gil’s turn yet, so another rider galloped off.
The sky had become overcast. Gil looked down to the center where Andre should be and saw the heavy cavalry was no longer there, replaced by a new unit. He asked one of the aides about it.
“There was a quick, impudent sally while you were gone,” she said. She disapproved of his inquisitiveness, but knew he was somehow favored by the Trustee. “Andre deCourteney was hurt, taken back in one of the wagons, his contingent replaced.” Gil fought the impulse to rein around and go see how the wizard was, unsure that he could even find him.
More commanders were coming up now, as units were rotated in gradual attrition. The Trustee still hesitated to group her main strength. Gil viewed the fitful migrations of the banners, forward in conquest or backward in disarray. This wasn’t his kind of military action, chafing on an open field while slow, sometimes hours-long maneuvers took shape. He’d served in an army of tactical radios, air observers, choppers, artillery and personnel carriers. Operations had been mobile, fast-breaking. Sitting on a horse marking time had worn his patience out quickly.
He noticed the Trustee was unoccupied. “Any word on Andre?” he asked. Aides glowered.
“None,” she said, having forgotten her son in the absorptions of the day. “If you would do me a service, go rear and inquire.” Her mind reverted at once to the battle.
He threaded his way back through waiting soldiers, cavalry who stood in their stirrups and infantry who held one another on their shoulders, craning for a view. Further to the rear, those waiting were more relaxed, passing time. At the very edge of the plain the chirurgeons had set up their crude field operations in an open tent with wooden slabs on which they performed desperate surgery. A constant flow of wounded was the engagement’s yield.
Gil spotted Ferrian. Answering to his name, the Horseblooded didn’t stop his work. He carried men and women groaning and screaming their pain to where they must wait until they could be attended to. Gil finally halted him by grabbing his shoulder over an empty sleeve. There was a vacant look in the brawny Horseblooded’s eyes. He motioned to the wounded, “So many, so very many.”
Gil shook him. “Forget that. Where’s deCourteney?”
The left hand pointed; Gil released him.
The wizard was sitting beside a water barrel, rewrap-ping his wounded side more to his liking. Seeing Gil, he achieved a wan grin. “I shall live, it seems,” he conceded. Gil heard sounds of the wounded being treated with measures nearly as sanguinary as the battle itself. He avoided looking into the tent.
“Where’s your horse?”
“Appropriated as soon as ever I fell. Ferrian was first to my side, and carried me to safety.”
“Ferrian better be cool. He’s losing his grip.”
Andre stood up angrily. “Do you know what he has dealt with today? Then go, behind the tent.”
Training his eyes to the ground, he did as Andre bid him, unwillingly. In the area behind the tent were rows of the dead, butchered and savaged in a hundred ways, darkening the earth with blood. To the side was a pile of what he thought at first to be wood, or discarded armor. Closer, he saw they were human limbs, blackening as they lay, arms and legs and hands and feet too ruined to salvage. White bone poked from bloated flesh; clouds of big, shiny black flies covered the piles. The steamy reek drove him back.
He caught shaky balance with one hand on a tent post and fought his compulsion to retch until his stomach inverted. Andre pulled him away. He was breathing harder, heart racing. “I’m clearing out of here; let’s go.” When Gil had remounted, the wizard climbed up on Jeb’s croup. Gil caught a last look at Ferrian, assisting a stumbling lancer who was pressing her intestines back in and crying like a lost child. The American kicked hard. With a peevish snort, Jeb Stuart bolted away.
“Why don’t you and your mother use magic?” he called, as they cantered along. The wind of their passage took away much of the reply.
“Too close… preparation… on their side too.”
It began to drizzle. Gil reined in to find he’d drifted too far left. There was intense fighting along the foot of the slopes. He could see Swan’s banner, with her white-winged namesake. He decided things were going to go the way they were going to go, no matter where Gilbert A. MacDonald was, and wanted to see if the High Constable was all right. Andre made no objection.
Others were going that way. The two rode past a detachment of infantry with Angorman at its head, and swapped news.
The assault on Lord Blacktarget had indeed been a feint, the light sally at Swan a screen for the advance of a larger force. The whole left flank could be rolled back if it wasn’t stopped. Angorman was bringing up his sword-and-shield men to protect the archers. Gil hurried on.
The Sisters of the Line must have repelled the attack and gained ground; there were trampled Occhlon corpses at the rear of their position. It was Gil’s first sight of them close up. They weren’t unusual, just men who were dead. They were a taller race than the Veganáns, with slightly darker skin and hair. These wore armor of cuir bolli, faced and shaped with metal. Their weapons looked light, slender swords both curved and straight, and shorter lances. But, Gil remembered, there were supposed to be more heavily armed and armored Southwastelanders somewhere.
He worked forward, Andre clinging to him, past groups of archers and strings of pikewomen crouching behind mantlets. Dust swirled thickly; they heard the ringing of swords and yells of combatants. A captain rode by, not noticing they weren’t part of her unit. “Up! Up to the line and ’ware. Their knights come against us now. We broke their last onset, but another will come soon.”
The wounded were being dragged away from a point in the line where it had thinned. Swan was there, dismounted for a rest. She’d taken off her helmet, and an aide dashed a bucket of water on her face, cooling her in her stifling armor.
She waved wearily. “How goes the day?” Gil told her as much as he knew. She listened, again turning her head to hold her birthmark away. “Those clanking ironclads will be down on us again,” she admitted. “I had never dealt with plate armor before. It seems rather clumsy. We shall stop them.”
Gil, who’d seen knights of Coramonde in full career, wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t see many of them, though; maybe two hundred had drawn up on a rise a quarter-mile away and formed a wedge, probably to be followed by the more numerous heavy cavalry.
“And what of your pikewomen?” Andre asked.
She motioned rearward with a thumb. “There. I thought they stood no chance against those behemoths in plate.”
“How long are their pikes?”
“Ten, or perhaps eleven feet.”
“Mmm, not good, but perhaps sufficient. I advise you to bring them up in support, High Constable. Let the enemy through your center, stop the knights with pikewomen and try carving them up from their flanks.”
She ordered the infantry up, then looked to Gil. “What do you think, Seeker?”
He shrugged. “Ask me tonight.” He was still in turmoil, angry at what he’d seen and heard through the morning.
“I will. They say fighting on the river bank has gotten sharper, but the men of Veganá are happy for that. I believe the day will be decided here.”
Angorman arrived and dispersed his swordsmen among the pikewomen, placing himself at the head of their formation. Someone shouted; the enemy knights were moving out at a trot. Swan mounted at once, and Gil let Andre down.
That vicious something that had been hovering at the outer circle of his thoughts began to take form. Seeing the charge, Gil f
elt his pulse hammer. It was as if the Occhlon advance was the final affront, obscene provocation. Ignoring Andre’s call, he fell in at the end of Swan’s riders, wanting to see what would happen.
They moved forward at a walk, then a canter. A horn winded. Dressed and aligned, they broke into the charge, Swan in the van. The High Constable of Region Blue hunkered down behind spear and shield and met her antagonist, who led the Occhlon. She downed him at first impact, her point skillfully catching his helmet on its crest, bursting its retaining laces and carrying him backward off his horse. He landed with a clang.
The two sides rammed into each other while Swan stopped to recover her own balance. Gil raced by, all restraint gone, hunting an opponent, calling out, “Nice lick!” She shouted something, but he didn’t catch it.
He spotted an enemy on a roan charger. They bore in on each other by unspoken consent. The man crouched behind his triangular shield. Jeb’s mane was stiff as a flag in Gil’s face. He knew he should have been scared, but wasn’t. The new thing on the rim of his awareness was overriding fear with volcanic anger.
As trained, they came in on each other’s left side, shield to shield, lances held loosely until the last instant. The American kept his point more or less aligned, knowing he’d have to target in the last moment before meeting. The drizzle had made the lance slippery. Jeb, more experienced than his rider, gathered himself for collision just before it happened. The two men clamped knees to their horses’ sides, clutched their weapons and threw all their weight forward. The Occhlon let go a battle cry that the American, in his emotional transport, never heard.
Their spears transversed into shields. Gil’s skidded; the Occhlon’s didn’t. The jolt was like being clothes-lined, blind-sided and body-blocked at the same time. The man felt Gil going and gave his point a clever twist, to kill him right then. Jeb did a kind of change-step, and Gil almost found his balance. Then he toppled sideways and backward as the Southwastelander came around to finish him.
The fall released that thing that had waited in the American. He ignored the pain of the fall and came up in a fit of virulence so vivid he felt he could murder with his will alone. He’d dropped his shield and lance, and took no notice of Jeb, who stood waiting for him. He drew the Browning, raised it in sidelong stance and shot the Occhlon. It gave him an awful elation he’d never known before.
There were outcries all around him. Horses screamed, panic-stricken from the shot and smell. The heavy knights had cut a swath through the Sisters of the Line, and he was surrounded by foemen. It suited him well. He emptied the Browning a shot at a time, with a feral care that he kill as many as he could. He barely noticed the autoloader’s buck, greeting its explosions, a form of malign homecoming.
Swan came up, having lost her spear, to engage an Occhlon with sword and shield. She slashed, striking sparks from the other’s blade, their horses whistling angrily and battering one another. Her shield was dented and her sword notched, and it seemed the knight would win. Gil hardly noticed it was the High Constable in jeopardy when he smoked her opponent. He was in a separate world of misted ebullition.
Angorman dashed up with swordsmen and pike-women at his heels, the trap ruined by Gil’s madness. The Saint-Commander made do as best he could, bringing the fight out to them. A knight charged; Angorman dodged to one side, chopping with Red Pilgrim. The Occhlon’s leg was severed, and the chausse that covered it. The leg toppled to one side of his horse, the knight to the other. Angorman was already busy with his next antagonist.
Swan’s banner went forward. Assorted elements under her scrambled to fill the gap and close up after the cavalry. The Occhlon had been stopped by the countercharge and the terror effect of the Browning. Now they drew back. Gil ran after them, forgetting Jeb. He’d reloaded, and began howling, firing as he went.
Glyffan cavalry pounded past him. Swan might not know exactly what had happened, but she’d seen the opening and knew how to use that. Enemy archers and infantry had followed in the wake of the knights. Now they were milling around. The Sisters of the Line came down on them like harpies, driving them back into each other in a rain of sword strokes.
Some Southwasteland halberdiers made a stand. The High Constable dismounted with a troop of her riders and, with swords and parrying daggers, slipped in among the flashing polearms. Several of them fell, but once the Glyffans were past the halberd heads, the Occhlons were defenseless. Many dropped their weapons and fled. The remnant was quickly overrun.
Gil ran to join, dropping his empty pistol. He’d nearly forgotten what the conflict was about, but wanted passionately to be part of it. But as he ran he felt an ebbing. It became more difficult to think. He slowed to a walk, then stopped. The rain dripped from his face.
His sense of equilibrium waffled. He caught his balance with a sidestep. It seemed extremely hot and bright, as if the sun were out, filling the sky. His legs gave, and he found himself sitting on the ground. Then he keeled over. In his state, it was a relief.
Chapter Eleven
A book may be as great a thing as a battle.
Benjamin Disraeli
Memoir of Isaac D’Israeli
His head was propped against a rock, its graininess scraping the skin beneath his hair. He opened his eyes, expecting a dizzy spin to start, but none did. His steel cap had been removed, the Browning placed by his side.
The field was cluttered with bodies of allies and enemies, and wounded of both sides. The victors were doing what they could for all.
Swan, the Trustee and Angorman were near. The High Constable went down on one knee to study him with untelling brown eyes.
“The Saint-Commander explained your weapons to us,” she said. “They helped break the charge. But why did you not tell us you are Berserker?”
Who, me? he thought, as Andre appeared. “All it was, was I lost my head. I’m not berserk, I know, ’cause I have this friend Dunstan who—”
He stopped and gaped. Andre had found a disk of polished metal, a trapping of some kind. He held it to reflect Gil’s face, or what looked like it, drastically altered. There was saliva drying on his chin and at the corners of his mouth. His skin was waxy, his eyes huge and glassy. From fresh cuts he saw he’d chewed and bitten his lips. The scar on his forehead and the dark smear of powderburn stood out starkly on pale flesh. He’d never seen himself like this, but had seen someone in this condition exactly.
Dunstan after the Berserkergang; I look just like him. Then a flood of horror pried at his sanity. God, please, no! He knew it was true though; it had been waiting to flare up in him.
Andre said, “Some of Dunstan’s Rage must have passed to you when you essayed to pull him from Bey’s mystic circle in Earthfast. I do not know more.” The American moaned. “But you can live with it, as Dunstan did, and control it. You must; it will come more strongly hereafter.”
Gil’s face was buried in his hands. A new thought occurred; did this mean Dunstan was still alive? Was it some shared bond with his friend? Some calm returned. “Was there any sign of Bey, Andre?”
“None whatsoever.”
The Trustee was telling Swan to examine the enemy camp; the Occhlon had been routed when their flank was rolled back along the heights. “We shall pursue them as soon as we may,” the old woman was saying. “It is not beyond chance that they may stand to fight again. Lord Blacktarget promises we shall gather more strength in Veganá with word of Blazetongue and Cynosure, and victory.” She looked at Gil, then away.
Andre helped him to his feet, handed him his pistol and got him onto Jeb Stuart. The wizard didn’t seem disabled by his wound at all. Keeping their pace slow, they all rode to the Southwastelanders’ abandoned pavilions. Inside the biggest tent, Gil let himself down among some cushions. Energy was creeping back into him as the others started sorting through the enemy commander’s property. He supposed he might as well help search; there might be a hint on Bey’s whereabouts. They were poking around sacks, cases and portable shelves when Andre called. He hel
d a small wooden chest. In it were jars and boxes, stained with painty stuff that he said was makeup, and weighted balls that a juggler might use. They all thought about the traveling troupe, in the refugee camp. Among them and perhaps among other displaced persons as well, there had been Occhlon. And maybe, Gil thought, Yardiff Bey.
“We should not delay the pursuit of the Occhlon,” the Trustee said, “but neither can we let southern spies go unhunted.”
“What can they be after?” Andre asked himself aloud. “Blazetongue and the child?”
“No,” the Trustee responded, “I have word that all is well in the camp.”
“What would the Southwastelanders be so hot to get their hands on?” Gil puzzled.
“There is Arrivals Macabre,” Andre replied. “Bey is eager to get it.”
“What is this?” the Trustee snapped. They told her of Bey’s obsession with Rydolomo’s book. “There is a copy at Ladentree,” she said.
“What’s Ladentree?” Gil wanted to know.
“It is our great library.”
“My God, that’s it!” He glared at Andre. “Why didn’t you tell us about the library?”
The wizard ran a hand over his balding head. “When last I was in Glyffa, Ladentree was a monastery, but had no great store of books.”
Swan told him, “It was made a center of study and thought when the Mandate was imposed. Precious books and documents were brought there from every corner of Glyffa.”
“That’s where he’ll go,” Gil stated flatly. Goddam Bey’s got more disguises than a Chinese fox.
The Trustee became brisk. “We act immediately. Swan, take your best women and give chase. Be alert; they may have changed guises yet again. I shall secure this area and follow.”
