The Starfollowers of Coramonde

by Brian Daley

  Two hours passed, during which Springbuck constantly revised his estimate of the positions and speed of his flankers. He went back to his concealed camp twice, to inquire after Gabrielle’s condition. She’d left the trance or coma into which she’d fallen and entered natural sleep.

  Came the glowing of fire, with distant shouting. The fortress’ gates were thrown open. A patrol exited, passing burning cressets in the bailey. The Ku-Mor-Mai waited for their traveling lanterns to send back just one fatal reflection from his Warlord’s contingent. But the patrol passed down the valley, fifty strong, without incident. With it came strings of spare horses, replacements.

  An officer voiced Springbuck’s own thoughts, “Lord, if they go that way they will certainly come upon their ruined Gauntlet.”

  “Aye, but it isn’t to be helped. They aren’t many, and there are none in this territory to whom they can take the tale. But we must beware that they don’t come down on us by raid or sally.”

  He wished he could send some men after that patrol; he badly needed horses, and the intelligent, courageous war mounts of the southern breeds would have outvalued mere gold and gems. However, he needed every man, and held them at their places. Tired as they all were, they got little sleep. The first remote hint of dawn lifted their spirits somewhat.

  The air brought a resounding crack of boulders shifting, the tremor and scrape of a rockslide. Springbuck knew Hightower and his men, heaving and levering with lances, had managed to block the pass at least partially. Men in the ramparts could be heard faintly, calling to find out what had happened.

  The northerners were all ahorse, meals gulped and prayers recited, by the time day was bright enough to be of any use. They cantered out to wind their way down onto the flatlands below, blowing trumpets and unfurling banners. The tip of the sun watched the scene in minor arc. They drew up and gusted their challenge. At first the enemy commander thought them mad, but knowing something had happened in the pass at his back, he reserved judgment. He sent a mounted party out the south gate, to look into the disturbance he’d heard last night, and kept the rest of his men ready, some at the ramparts and others assembled on horseback in the bailey.

  Springbuck came forward after a time. His trumpeter blew defiance, and a herald showed the snarling tiger banner of Coramonde, crimson on black.

  “What alien blazonry is that you do display?” the commander shouted.

  “Coramonde,” Springbuck supplied.

  “You are a long way south, stranger; a foolish trip, only to die.”

  “There is scant office for words here, southern man! We mean to pass through this place.”

  “Do you? Demand our swords from us then, and you shall have them, but not hilts first!”

  “As you wish. We are at your disposal; prove your words on us.” He threw an offhanded salute, but the commander ignored it. The Ku-Mor-Mai thought that the enemy, if he were wise, would wait and see how the situation in the pass looked before committing himself. Springbuck pictured it as he went back to his men. A scouting party going up the pass would meet the jumble of boulders, still-shifting gravel and blowing dust from fallen, powdered rock. They’d be permitted to come close before men of Coramonde struck in ambush from high ground. Arrows, boulders and other debris would be as deadly, thrown from the heights, as the guns of Van Duyn and Gil MacDonald. It would be a mauled reconnaissance detail that returned to the Condor’s Roost.

  Passing time, the Ku-Mor-Mai had his men withdraw to the opposite end of the field and dismount to rest horses. The sun climbed and grew warmer. Many men broke out the light silken awnings given them by the Yalloroon, to spare themselves the heat. Seeing the distance an enemy must sally to reach them, Springbuck made no objection.

  It was late forenoon when the distant sound of drums and cymbals came. The men in the fortress knew they were under siege. Awnings were snatched down with wispy haste from the lances supporting them. The orderly confusion of preparation was carried out in seconds. Springbuck led his men out again, shifting his grip on his lance, settling and resettling his shield on his arm. His supple mail had become uncomfortably warm.

  The sunlight had become acute, wincing-bright. As always, the Ku-Mor-Mai had sharp-eyed aides nearby to inform him of anything his own poor vision might miss. The castle’s drawbridge dropped. Southwastelanders came out with a whooping and howling, whirling scimitars and longswords over their heads in gleaming circles, their lances carrying many battle streamers. These, prisoners had told Springbuck, were Baidii, men of a race that, unlike the Occhlon, had lived in this region throughout history, longtime retainers of Shardish-ku-Salamá. They were fewer than a thousand, so Springbuck gave the order that one-third of the elements left to him stay back in reserve.

  The Baidii came in thick groups, not the precise alignments of Coramonde. Their panoply featured flaring ridges and much scalloping; their headdress-helmets were upholstered with silk and linen and leather, to shed heat. The northerners found intervals and spacings and continued a slow advance; the Ku-Mor-Mai wished to conserve his horses.

  When he saw the gap was small enough, he gave the word and touched spurs to Fireheel. The gray shot forward as the battle flourish blared. Visors clanged down, lance points aligned with the foe, and rowels went into flanks. In each man’s mind the wide valley became an arena, his own corridor of it filled with a thousand perils and possibilities. Fallow yellow earth was gouged by flashing hooves as horses, scenting combat, lengthened stride.

  Springbuck felt the eroding confidence he always knew before mass combat. His imagination was too vivid not to toss up scenes of his death.

  The two groups crashed together. The weightier men of Coramonde bore through lighter-armored Baidii. Lances hunted for direct routes past shields; many found them. The uproar came, compounded of neighs and screams, jockeying hooves and striking steel.

  Men kept to their standards as best they could, the Coramondians with more discipline than the Southwastelanders. They went together over and over, zealots of war. Springbuck’s spear turned from an hourglass-shaped shield, the Baidii’s own lance sliding from his. They came around and went at each other a second time.

  The southerner, perhaps thinking the Ku-Mor-Mai lacked skill or heart, swung his lance in the long, side-sweeping stroke that could only be used safely on an inferior opponent. Springbuck knew what it meant about the man’s estimate of him. He grasped his spear with conviction, tightening at the last moment, and struck just when he should, clamping knees to Fireheel and keeping his seat in drill-field style. His foe’s longer, side-on stroke hadn’t reached him yet.

  The son of Surehand slipped his point past the hourglass shield. The lance struck through the man’s pauldron and drove him back off his horse, Fireheel’s speed and power delivered along its shaft. The weapon, fixed in the Baidii’s chest, was torn from Springbuck’s grip. He looked around; the fight was about even. The Baidii, more lightly armed, were born to the saddle, masters with lances. But now the moment of the lance was over, most spears being broken or left in an enemy’s body. Men of the north worked with heavier broadswords, picks, maces and axes. They could take and deal greater punishment, and that decided the melee.

  Springbuck, with Bar drawn, kept close by his standard, trying to watch what was happening. The sabre was busy, as Springbuck made the acquaintance of the southern scimitar. He dealt a thrust, standing in his stirrups as Fireheel battered, teeth bared, against a southern charger. He never heard the braying of the ram’s horn that called the Baidii to break off battle.

  They withdrew in good order, too fast for the jeering men of Coramonde to catch. The enemy commander had seen all he wished. Now he’d consider his next move, letting Mother Desert do his work in the meantime.

  Coramonde carried its dead and wounded from the field. The clash hadn’t lasted ten minutes. Springbuck had the southern dead dropped at the far end of the valley, just out of bowshot of Condor’s Roost. The few Baidii wounded who hadn’t managed to withdraw with t
heir fellows asked, and were given, the grace-stroke, knowing they were of no further use to Salamá.

  The full weight of the sun’s glare came down. The northerners spread awnings again and found or made what shade they could for their horses. Waterskins were passed. The Ku-Mor-Mai was forced to order that men conserve water, for their own and their mounts’ sakes both. There was no fuel for fires, but they were content to dine on cold food and talk of victory.

  The sun soon had them loosing their armor. Springbuck allowed it, but forbade any man to remove his panoply. He himself stayed fully ready, though he wanted nothing more than to lie in the shade with a little something to drink. Instead, he squatted with his buttocks on a rock and a scrap of silk draped over his head, plumed war mask on the ground at his feet. It would take more men to settle a true siege. If Brodur and the rest were long delayed, this effort might end in disaster. He rose presently, and went among the injured.

  Late that afternoon three scouts came back. They’d found what they thought to be a roundabout way to the pass where Hightower held, but it could only be negotiated by descending a cliff face and climbing another. Springbuck took aside a dozen men of Teebra, who were at home hunting and fighting on rocky crags. He ordered them to contact the Warlord, whatever it took to do so. Other scouts reported no water sources or alternate routes past Condor’s Roost.

  Night came on, and the Trailingsword. Springbuck shivered in the darkness, still surprised at how cold these sun-broiled lands could become, calculating the time it would take the rest of his corps to arrive. Seven days, with luck? More like ten, or even fourteen, if they met intense resistance. He commanded that all water be put under a senior captain, whom he designated Water Officer, and rationed out each day to the leaders of the various elements under him.

  Wind rustled sand against his heels. Now he perceived that other enemy, ally to the Southwastelanders. How many men, he asked himself, had Mother Desert vanquished before she’d come to grips with him?

  Springbuck’s vision wouldn’t keep focus. It hadn’t come to his attention before, because rising waves of heat played with every image meeting the eye in the inferno that was midafternoon. As always, the sky was burned a cloudless blue.

  It was the eighth day following the battle before Condor’s Roost. Rations of water were down to sips per day. Men stinted their energy, not moving much. They ate lightly; dry, parched throats made it difficult and left even greater thirst in the wake of food. Everywhere, horses stood with drooping heads under awnings the men had been forced to erect to keep the sun from them. Unused to the desert’s oppression, some of the chargers had already died. The animals, too, were on drastically short water allotments. The last of the oats and feed had been eaten days ago. Now horses dined on what their masters could spare.

  The desert furnace sucked strength from the Ku-Mor-Mai as he sat. His lips, like everyone’s, were swollen, cracked and peeling. His tongue moved viscously in his mouth; talking was an increasing effort.

  Gabrielle was in the improvised tent he’d had fashioned for her. She’d regained much of her strength, but her arcane energies were gathering to her more slowly. He’d asked if she could help their situation, but after an evening of effort, she’d confessed that she could avail little. Condor’s Roost had been imbued with its own wards and defenses against occult assault. She would be able to penetrate them, given time, but not soon enough to be of use. Her one attempt had endangered her with total collapse.

  In another day or so, Springbuck knew, there’d be no option but to try frontal attack, unless it was to try to get through the pass at night, past now-vigilant Baidii. He’d sent a second group of mountaineers, two days before, to ask his Warlord if they oughtn’t withdraw completely or link up, but had received no reply. He had to presume the message had never arrived. It mattered little now; they’d never make it back through the desert without water. Their only chance of getting some lay in making it through the pass or, if they could get into it, in Condor’s Roost. For the latter, he’d lost most of his hope.

  He damned the delay in his reinforcements, more by rote than in passion. Vultures rested in the heights, waiting for the carrion due them from their Mother Desert. Several men had tried to catch one, to drink its blood, but the birds were wary, and the Ku-Mor-Mai had ordered it ceased, to preserve energy. That had been yesterday; now he didn’t have to command anyone to keep still. His men were surviving on their last reserves. Before evening, he must make some decision.

  His bolder subordinates counseled storming. But there were no rams, no towers or ladders or catapults, few archers, a total absence of cover and little stamina. Still, that was rapidly becoming the only option.

  He heard cymbals and shook his head, thinking his hearing had been affected. They came again on heat-distorted air, with the paying out of heavy chain. He dragged the silk from his head and got unsteadily to his feet, shaking men around him and pulling them to theirs.

  The gates of Condor’s Roost were opening, its drawbridge lowering across the dry, stake-defended moat. Springbuck went to Fireheel, whose head was lowered in unaccustomed indifference. The big gray barely responded as his master climbed clumsily into the saddle. But then Fireheel snorted, and livened somewhat.

  Men were scrambling ahorse now, awkward with haste and depletion. They fell in, not the same iron warriors who’d ridden so fervidly against the Baidii that first day. Mother Desert had daunted them.

  Gabrielle stepped from her tent. Seeing Springbuck, she half-raised her hand, as if she would have waved, then let it fall. He’d had a horse prepared and left for her, with some water and a few provisions. It made him less despondent, thinking she, at least, might leave the valley alive. With the camp so crowded and privacy so scant, he’d avoided her. Now he wished, too late, that they’d spoken.

  There were more Baidii today, he saw, supposing the garrison was out to end the siege at one blow. Perhaps Hightower still had the southern route sealed; Springbuck no longer cared, hoping the old man would find some way to get south with what was left of his unit.

  The Southwastelanders formed ranks more carefully this time, archers at the rear. Springbuck had his men drawn up, but knew they could never charge. The horses’ endurance was gone; they could only save what moment’s vigor might be left, and deal with the Baidii at close quarters.

  The Ku-Mor-Mai wondered if the rest of his army, if it still existed, would be stopped, to end the expedition against Salamá entirely. He was bitter; Salamá had done well against him, while he’d barely gotten to strike.

  The Baidii advanced, undulating eerily in the heat waves. Men of Coramonde readied themselves, but didn’t move. Springbuck took one last look around, execrating Mother Desert. His shield dragged at his arm; chain mail weighted him. Men around him hoisted their swords and bucklers; there weren’t many lances left among them.

  The Baidii hit like a flash flood into a hapless orchard. For dozens of the Coramondian chargers it was the last exertion. Unable to cope with heat and dehydration, their hearts failed and they fell even as they tried to answer the bit one last time.

  The surge of battle sparked hidden remains of Springbuck’s endurance. He met his foe with a good, accurate strike. The man’s falling weight dragged the lance from his hand, and he yanked out Bar. He was glad the enemy hadn’t stood back for an archer’s duel; the Southwastelanders wanted to repay their injuries sword to sword, a transaction Springbuck welcomed.

  They filled the plain, losing formation, gathering to this or that banner to go against some other. The Baidii were darker and leaner than the Occhlon, burned by centuries in the oven of the desert. They were ready to retest themselves against the invaders. Men of Coramonde responded with cold fatalism, taking whatever strokes or wounds they must, patiently waiting out their chance to lash out again. The Baidii, out to prove they could stand their ground against the northerners, found that in truth they couldn’t. Their pride and confidence in Mother Desert had brought them to grips with tenacious
, dogged enemies. Springbuck and his men, accepting that they were to die, were borne up by that terrible emancipation.

  Fighting was ferocious and all-encompassing. The Baidii, in their vanity, ignored the drums that ordered them back. If they hadn’t, archers could have sent showers of steel-headed death at the northerners. But arrogance won; the Southwastelanders elected to stay and test their mettle.

  Springbuck’s arm began to ache, something that hadn’t happened to him since he’d been in training as a boy. More and more northern horses were dropping from exhaustion. Everywhere, men of Coramonde began to show signs of final fatigue, but struck in heavy, killing blows that clove light desert armor and dark southern skin. Blood from both sides covered the thirsty sand and splashed on horses’ fetlocks.

  At last Springbuck drew back, telling his standard-bearer to follow. He meant to withdraw what men he had left, and form a last line. A cry went up from the enemy, to see the remaining banners carried back, clustered in desperation. There were no more than eight hundred northerners against half again that many Southwastelanders. Springbuck had no brave words, and couldn’t have shaped them through his swollen throat if he had.

  The sun seemed to be burning its way through the back of his war mask. With it came eerie calm. The son of Surehand thought a lobster might feel so, in the pot where it meets its boiling end. The Baidii came on again, though their officers forbade them halfheartedly. The Southwastelanders were ordinarily well disciplined, but now they were at retribution, not war.

  Men of Coramonde, stirrup and stirrup, withdrew step by slow step, backing their horses. They surrendered one hundred yards over the next quarter-hour, the hardest fighting Springbuck had ever seen. Suddenly patience and common sense ended. Death was the only coin in which he cared to traffic.