by Brian Daley
“It looks to be,” the captain agreed. “It is from the Old Tongue, meaning ‘rescue.’”
“Very concentrated,” Van Duyn went on, “quite flammable. Suppose we burned it upwind, when the Southwastelanders came?”
They all struggled to absorb the idea, except the King. Arms folded across his chest, he strolled over to look down the slope to the south. “Would they not avoid it?”
The American frowned. “Very well then, scatter it among the grass and fire it. Or better yet, egg them into charging upslope, and fire the mahonn as they pass through it.”
The captain spoke up, “If it does no more than afford us time it will be much, my Lord King.”
Reacher turned back to them. “We have only some minutes,” he warned; “therefore, let us do this thing with all speed.”
Prepared in the form of mahonn, the Dreamdrowse wasn’t effective until burned. Still, Van Duyn and the others tore strips of cloth and masked themselves against the dust they would raise sowing their bizarre seed. It was stored in long, thin tubes of canvas. Holding one end of a sack, they slit a corner at the opposite end and cantered along, shaking Earnai in among the tufts of grass, losing little to the wind. There were a dozen sacks in all, the area’s entire refined product of “rescue” for this growing season. The captive couldn’t bear to watch; he sat rocking and wailing with the hem of his robe to his eyes. At the bottom of the slope, sheltered by rocks, Reacher and fifty men waited to bait the trap.
Van Duyn finished, gave the command and sped back up the hill. The American and Reacher’s captain crouched and marked time.
They’d barely made it. The Southwastelanders’ formation, less disciplined than was the northern habit, appeared. It had extended itself in the course of a hard ride; Reacher had counted on that. He slammed down his visor, dropped his lance and charged, leading the way, but left it to his men to take up the war cry. The Wolf-Brother and his little wedge of armored men hewed into the southerners’ left flank, throwing dozens of them down with their first strikes. Then they fell in among the surprised desert men with swords, maces and cavalry picks. There was the wild, random exchange of blows. From the crest of the hill Van Duyn watched sunlight flicker on metal and heard the screams of the wounded and dying. The Freegaters had gotten to close quarters before the Occhlon could use their maneuverability, and Reacher’s strongly armored men prevailed.
But more Southwastelanders came up quickly behind the first. The King gave his trumpeter a yell. Retreat blew, and Reacher raced from the fray, his standard-bearer and trumpeter close after. They swept up the hill, their horses still fresh. Only a handful of desert men gave immediate chase; few really knew what had happened.
When they topped the hill, the men of Freegate turned and gave battle again. The captain spurred up in support, with the other northerners. While a milling skirmish broke out beside the way station, the rest of the Occhlon regrouped at the foot of the hill, and followed. Van Duyn noticed the southern banner for the first time, a black scorpion on a crimson field, the device carried by Ibn-al-Yed, the sorcerer who’d died during the battle of the Hightower.
Reacher slid from his saddle and took the bow and fire-arrows that had been readied. He took his first arrow, with its collar of oil-soaked straw tied by wetted gut, and lit it from a fire-pot. He nocked, drew until the nock lay under his right eye, sighted and released in smooth series. There were three more arrows prepared, burning. Before the first had landed, he’d fired them all. Downslope, they thudded in among the clumps of sun-browned grass, scattering embers.
Smoke appeared, the wind nurturing it, as Reacher completed his pattern with three more shafts. The Southwastelanders, pouring up the slope, ignored the burning grass as being too low and dispersed to stop them.
Van Duyn unslung his Garand, holding it at high port, watching the charging cavalry worriedly. The King held up his hand though, to keep him from shooting. “That might deter their charge,” he said. “Few enough more will make it through.”
Prevailing winds rushed the fires down toward the enemy. The smoke took a reddish tinge as the Dream-drowse was consumed. First wisps of it blew into the body of the Occhlon. Van Duyn prayed the breeze wouldn’t shift.
The charge wavered; some desert men actually drew rein. Then insanity broke out in what had been a determined, competent attack. Horses threw their riders; men fell or jumped from the saddle, colliding with one another. They ran screaming from imaginary terrors or sat weeping. They cringed from each other or lunged together with murder in mind, or sprawled out in a drugged stupor, depending on their turn of mind, tolerance, and exposure to the mahonn. Some in the rear weren’t affected and, divining that the smoke was more than it appeared, retreated. But the major part of the force was engulfed.
Van Duyn stayed to one side, as defenders on the hilltop finished off those Southwastelanders who’d made it to the top. He watched men below stagger through the smoke in tears, nausea, hallucinations and hysteria. Those who were able to lurched off the field to escape southward.
After several minutes, the smoke below began to thin as the fire burned itself out. The victors gathered. “That was no clean triumph,” the captain alleged, “but smacked more of conjuror’s tricks.”
“You have the high ground,” Van Duyn grated, “and your casualties are small. The enemy’s in route, and has lost heavily.”
Reacher, watching stricken Southwastelanders crawl from the field or huddle down close to the ground, said nothing.
The last prisoners had been herded together when Katya arrived, the main body of Freegate coming in ranks behind her. With her was great Kisst-Haa and several of his kin, the reptile-men. Bringing up the rear were the laughing, unregimented Horseblooded, singing and cavorting among themselves. Spying Reacher, they forged ahead, calling, “Wolf-Brother, we are here!” They had given him that sobriquet, as they’d named his sister Sleethaná, the Snow Leopardess.
Now she vaulted from the saddle and caught Van Duyn and her brother up in a boisterous double hug. “I did worry,” she admitted, “but mounted archers were hitting us side and side, and outran even our fleet Horse-blooded there, where southerners alone know the twisty canyons. I perforce set them a little trap. Staring hard, you may see the carrion birds from here. How went matters by you?”
“Well enough,” Reacher allowed. He held up a captured standard, the black scorpion on crimson field.
She puzzled aloud, “Why is this emblem still flown?”
The Wolf-Brother didn’t know, but was concerned as much as she. But he remembered to say, “Congratulate Edward; his inspiration gave us the day.” She bussed Van Duyn soundly; he hung an arm around her and returned it enthusiastically. She was first to stop for breath.
When she got around to checking the lay of the land to the south, she was delighted. “There is no fortress or impediment as far as the eye can see; only open plains. With Horseblooded outriders and heavy Freegate knights, we will make good way.”
Reacher was still distracted. With Van Duyn’s arm around her waist, the Snow Leopardess took her brother’s hand. “Leave off; a day’s work is done.”
The King went with them then, letting the defeated banner fall. But the black scorpion had awakened a disquiet he couldn’t set aside.
Chapter Twenty-six
In desperate matters the boldest counsels are the safest.
Livy
Histories
SPRINGBUCK and Hightower sweated, coaxed, ranted and had the army off-loaded within a day and a half. Shifts of men trudged burdens through breaking surf. Flailing, blindfolded horses were set down by winch, knee deep in the waves.
Among those was Fireheel, Springbuck’s favorite. The long-legged gray, ill-humored from shipboard confinement, went high-stepping, eager for a hard ride.
Hightower sent out deep patrols while craftsmen assembled carts, water barrels and other equipment from parts they’d brought. In the meantime, men worked staleness and stiffness out of themselves.
Early on the second morning after their landing, horns sounded and drums beat. Tents were struck, columns formed, and for the first time the Ku-Mor-Mai saw his entire corps drawn up. They were formidable in their thousands, but hardly a match for the hordes rumored to be in the Southwastelands.
Except for the war-drays, water wagons and baggage wains, the column would be entirely made up of horsemen, including infantrymen who’d dismount to fight afoot if needed.
Springbuck left the unmounted portion of his infantry as security for the city, hoping to keep an escape path open.
Most of the men had removed part of their armor or cut up light blankets to supplement the protection of their tabbards. Springbuck accepted Kalakeet’s offer of a light robe makeshift-tailored for him. To the spare Alebowrenian outfit, he’d added a hauberk of light rings suitable for the warmer climate. Though it was early morning, the sun was hot, a demonstration of what was to come.
He met Hightower and Gabrielle, who waited at the head of the formation. The sorceress wore a white burnoose, untroubled by the heat as she sat her sidesaddled mare. At her cantle hung her brother Andre’s sword, holding within its pommel the gemstone Calundronius. Nearby stood Balagon, who’d mustered the One Hundred of his Brotherhood. Springbuck called Brodur, and they trotted in hasty review.
The Legions were ready with the preparation of a lifetime’s professional soldiering. Rank on rank of light and medium cavalry, mounted pikemen and bowmen and panoplied knights, they were used to biding their time against the order to march. Behind them, Alebowrenian bravoes joked and boasted, decked out in their finery, calling greetings to the Ku-Mor-Mai. Next, archers of Rugor tested their bowstrings and squinted at the morning light.
The men of Teebra, hardy mountaineers, had raised their animal totems, and worn their war bonnets of eagle feathers. Over their hauberks they’d donned their necklaces, strung claws and fangs of beasts of prey.
At the rear, the war-drays of Matloo were drawn up. They were sturdy wooden wagons, faced and strapped with iron. Their bodies were halved, articulated, to make them more maneuverable. Their wheels, fitted with spikes, slashing rims and hub-blades, could do terrible damage. Each was pulled by eight giant armored war-horses bred for the job. The driver held his handfulls of reins in a turret at the wagon’s prow, and his riders could either close their side plates for protection or open them for the use of spears, bows and the over-long swords they used. At the fore, astride the lead horse, sat the Lead-Line Rider, practicing the most perilous, prestigious calling there was for a man of Matloo. Without him to control and direct the team, the driver’s guidance might be inadequate. In rigorously puritanical Matloo, no one was more esteemed than the champions who rose to that rank.
The men of Matloo were set to depart, all Lead-Line Riders in their high-cantled saddles, but around them a dozen of the Yalloroon had gathered. Springbuck and Brodur stopped. Drakemirth, the grim old step-chieftain who led the contingent, was at words with Kalakeet the Speaker. Drakemirth was almost the size of Hightower, his slate-gray hair and beard plaited and clamped in dozens of small braids. He stood with mail-gloved fists on hips, listening to pleas that he let some of the Yalloroon go with him in the drays. Noticing the Ku-Mor-Mai, he said, “Your Grace, here is a decision for you.”
Springbuck got down. The little Yalloroon repeated the request. “Kalakeet,” the son of Surehand said, “I promise your people will go with the ships if trouble comes. What would it profit for you to come with us into the heart of Salamá?”
Kalakeet was unswerving. “Protector-Suzerain, we do not ask all to go; only a few. Who has endured more at the hands of the Five than the Yalloroon? Who has a better right to send witnesses, to bring back the tale of this faring? Any of us would risk it, but we know only a few may go. Is that so much to petition?”
Springbuck found himself conceding that it wasn’t. “What think you, Drakemirth?”
“We can tuck along such small passengers as these,” he granted. “We have four drays, room enough for two of them in each. Speaker, mind you, do as you are instructed and be no distraction to us, should battle come.”
Kalakeet bowed low, but the Speaker’s voice held an amused note. “Exalted Drakemirth, calm in the midst of peril is our single aptitude.”
They went with all the speed they could maintain, raising choking dust in the heat of the wastelands, discovering the special rigors of travel there. Scouts came across what seemed to be a well-traveled route. It was decided that the army would trace it to its source, paralleling it but keeping well off it. It was Springbuck’s order that they cold-camp each night.
On the third evening, the value of that was proved. They’d stopped early, on the edge of a long plateau, to keep the advantage of high ground. Toward dusk a long file of men and animals wound its way up from the south. It settled down for the night, not three miles from them. Hightower pointed out that the northerners had a clear advantage of numbers, saying they should take this camp for the information they could gain.
Springbuck let another factor decide him, that there were many strings of spare horses among that column, while his own forces lacked a single remount. The men of Coramonde quietly resaddled in the gloaming. When night had come on, they made their careful way down, and formed up on the plain. The wagons and war-drays were left behind for consideration of noise. Advancing at a walk, the army came stealthily to within a quarter-mile of the camp.
For the first time, the battle flourish of the Ku-Mor-Mai sounded south of the Central Sea. Heavy lances were clenched. Men whooped forward at the gallop.
There were a few guards in wicker armor wound in leather, carrying light target-shields and slim, straightbladed swords. Most had the simple sense to dive for cover. The ground shook from iron hooves drumming in the darkness.
The attackers hadn’t hit a military unit, but rather a supply caravan headed northwest. Only a handful of its escorting soldiers ever got to their saddles. Women who’d been cooking dinner or kneading camel dung into rings for fuel, and men who’d been tending this or that chore, screamed and flattened to the ground. Giant northern chargers soared out of the darkness, hurtling campfires. Pack animals brayed in fear, fighting their tethers, their harness bells ringing. Any man who raised a sword was struck down. Captives, most of them caravaners and their families, were rounded up and guarded. The freight was unremarkable, provisions and livestock bound for an army in the field.
The desert men’s gabbled responses were barely coherent, the only clear fact being that they’d traveled for many days now.
In the largest of the tents, Springbuck assembled all the documents and maps he could find. He’d learned from Gil MacDonald what a treasure house of military information captured papers could be. He called in Kalakeet, who’d stayed back with the war-drays and whose knowledge of the area, vague as it was, was superior to his own. As the Ku-Mor-Mai and the Speaker bent over the papers, Gabrielle came in, cooling herself with a silken fan.
As best Springbuck could make out, there lay between the northerners and their way south a mountain range some dozens of leagues long, the Demon’s Breastwork, one of Salamá’s great natural defenses, a palisade of jagged, impassable cliffs. To the west, it descended into a low-lying, searing desert called Amon’s Cauldron. Much farther to the southeast, the Demon’s Breastwork ended, but that circuit was a well-traveled convoy route, much patrolled, on which the northerners would run a high risk of battle. The caravan had departed a major fortress somewhere south of the Breastwork, its destination the northwestern tip of the Masters’ domain.
“You have been south of the Central Sea before,” Springbuck said to the sorceress. “Have you any comment?”
“I came by a far different path,” she replied cryptically, “and went by it too. Yet, that is the terrain as I
heard it.”
Springbuck was holding a document that, composed of paragraphs and lists and bordered with official seals, had the look of an orders letter. Neither he nor Gabrielle could read its southern characters, and Kalakeet’s people had been forbidden literacy, but at Springbuck’s urging, Gabrielle labored over the date of signature, set down in the eccentric lunar reckoning of the Southwastelands. It was four days previous.
The Ku-Mor-Mai ruminated, “There is some discrepancy. The orders would have come at this fortress we hear mentioned, not somewhere en route. Yet, how could a shuffling caravan skirt this Demon’s Breastwork in so brief a time?”
“There was once a passage through these mountains,” Gabrielle recalled, “or so the story runs in my family. But that was said to have been destroyed, to further isolate Shardishku-Salamá. Not destroyed, perhaps, but only hidden? And now, when it is so vital to speed supplies up to their army in the Crescent Lands, in use once more?”
“A question for the caravan leader,” said the Ku-Mor-Mai.
Hightower brought the man, whose teeth chattered as he refused to give any information, his terror of the Masters outweighing any threat the northerners could bring against him. Gabrielle moved the Ku-Mor-Mai and the Warlord apart with her soft white hands, slipped an arm through the astonished captive’s, and walked him out of the tent.
They watched her draw him aside a short way, fanning herself and speaking in words too soft to hear. He listened, then shook his head no, violently. She spoke again, leaning close, holding a palm up. The blue glow of deCourteney magic came up off it, illuminating both their faces. She let it fade, and bespoke him again. This time, he seemed to yield. Leading the sweating, trembling caravaner back as if he were her swain, she smiled. “This one has seen the blue light of reason. There is indeed a way through the Breastwork. Salamá is using it more and more to hurry troops and materiel to its campaign.”
