by David Hair
He glanced back at the young men trotting along in his retinue: the sons of Midrean merchants and bankers, some of them also magi. They’d been whining about saddle-sores all morning and Robear could sympathise, but at least his old endurance was returning. And those pricks are getting to see what real soldiering looks like. Maybe they’ll give us more respect – and better loans – after this.
Then a thud of hooves told him that Sacrista was on her way in from wherever she’d been skulking. She did try hard to look like she was in charge, he gave her that. ‘Brother!’ she hailed, trotting up in a cloud of steam from her horse’s nostrils. She was riding bareheaded, her shock of coppery hair unruly, and rather fetching. If only she’d loosen up, she could be a real asset socially.
‘Crista! What news?’
She looked pleased. ‘A windskiff flew high over Magas Gorge at dawn and saw people and horses moving south. They couldn’t say how many because of the terrain, but they swear there were hundreds!’
‘So they really are in this gorge?’ Robear asked. ‘Is that good or bad?’
Sacrista rolled her eyes. ‘It’s brilliant news, Brother – if we can get archers and magi on the cliffs above, we can slaughter them.’ She glanced back at the investors’ sons and added more softly, ‘Even those fools couldn’t miss.’
‘So we should press on?’
‘Yes, absolutely – as fast as we can. We have to keep moving while daylight holds, at the gallop – we’re only ten miles from the gorge so we can reach them before dusk. I’ll tell the units to the north; you tell the main body. Don’t wait for the footmen, Brother—’
Before she’d even finished speaking she’d turned her horse and was spurring it hard, and for a moment he was captivated by her energy and excitement, wishing she was someone other than his sister so he could show her how to really live. Then his new ‘friends’ cantered up, their faces weary of the ride already, but curious. ‘What’s your mad sister doing?’ one asked.
‘We have news,’ he told them. ‘The enemy is at hand!’
Neplezko Flat, Magas Gorge, Mollachia
Kyrik splashed across the shallow ford and onto a wide strip of flat gravel dotted with sharp, tough grasses: Neplezko Flat. He pushed his beast into a canter around the shore of the small lake. Behind him, a low waterfall churned the waters: the water was a vivid icy-blue at the north end, turning deeper blue-green as it flowed south. His eyes went immediately to the eastern cliffs. The ledge was some seventy yards above, bare of trees – and devoid of waiting people too. He picked out the Gazda’s Stair, a treacherous path winding up the rocky face.
Brazko’s men thundered in behind him, kicking up the water into a cloud of droplets, and Kyrik reined in and awaited Brazko and Rothgar.
‘Brazko, we must get men up there immediately – it’ll be faster if we leave our horses, so let’s get the first twenty men up there and have the stragglers tend the mounts.’ He looked at the sun – it was early afternoon.
Kyrik dismounted, flung his reins to Rothgar and engaged Air-gnosis, soaring up the cliff-face and landing at the top in a few seconds. He glanced down and waved to the riders below, who were staring upwards in awe, then turned his attention to the landscape ahead. The cliff-top lay beneath a higher ridge some two hundred yards before him. He could see a few goat trails running into a thicket of hagwoods clinging to the slope below that ridge. He picked one and climbed to it, looking out east over White Stag Land.
To his left, low mountains arced away, culminating in Watcher’s Peak, where the Rahnti Mines lay. He looked that way first, hoping for some sign that Dragan was on the way, but there was nothing. Then he followed the horizon, looking eastwards over a sea of undulating forests and occasional open spaces, a rugged land where only trappers and hunters lived; many of those were Vitezai men who had been forced to abandon their homes. There were higher peaks to his right, marking the boundary to White Stag Land, cutting the high woodlands off from the lower valley.
He was still watching and fretting when Brazko and Rothgar joined him, the rest of the riders following in at intervals as they climbed the stair. ‘Let’s set up a perimeter here,’ he ordered, ‘until we can get the horses up. We need enough men up here to hold off a Rondian patrol. Dragan shouldn’t be far away.’
‘And after here?’ Brazko asked.
‘The main column will continue down the gorge until the Magas River joins the Tuzvolg River, then we take an eastward path into the Domhalott hill country.’ Kyrik was watching a far-away black dot in the skies right at the edge of his sight. Is that a skiff, or just a mountain eagle?
More and more men began to arrive and within an hour he had almost a hundred men up here. Those below set up camp on the Flat: there was water aplenty, and room to make a proper camp, for those few thousand who’d come this far. The rest of the column would have to make do with another night perched wherever they could find a place. Now that he’d seen the lie of the land himself, Kyrik was starting to think they should keep a sizeable force up here to shadow their march south and protect their flank.
‘Let’s send out scouts,’ he told Rothgar. ‘See if we can find Dragan.’
Mid-afternoon became late afternoon, Brazko went back down the Stair to coordinate the camp as he continued to marshal more men up. Yrhen, the Sydian’s head scout, joined him as he began to seriously fret. Where are you, Dragan, Valdyr? Where are you?
Then a glint of light flashed where it shouldn’t and his worry deepened. Dragan’s men would never be so careless as to allow sunlight to hit metal. He narrowed his eyes and this time he did see something moving in a cleft between two broken outcroppings, too big to be anything but a mounted man, maybe half a mile off.
He turned to Yrhen. ‘See that? Southeast, between those two high points?’ His mind was racing. ‘If it’s a Rondian scout, we need to get out there and bring him down before he sees us.’
Yrhen squinted. ‘A rider, ysh – he’s wearing . . . red.’
‘Scouts don’t wear red. He’s cavalry.’ Kyrik hesitated, calculating.
We’ve got maybe two hundred men up here now . . . the camp below has twice as many. Retreating upstream will be impossible with everyone coming in behind – and where would we go? Going downstream only brings us to more Narrows . . . The conclusion was obvious: We have to hold these cliffs.
He pulled Yrhen down from the ridgeline. ‘Tell Brazko to get as many men up here as possible – if there’s cavalry here, then we’ve already been spotted. The Rondians know we’re here—’
The minutes felt endless as Brazko arrived, breathing hard, then took his men to form a defensive line along the ridge. There were half a dozen Vitezai Sarkanum as well, who formed a small guard cohort around Kyrik. All the while, more riders climbed the Gazda’s Stair; they now had three hundred or more here.
The sun was westering, about to kiss the highest peaks, but there would be a lengthy twilight. In the distance they heard the call of the wolves and the rutting bellow of a stag. The air grew steadily colder and the wind rose. Little wonder the skiff he’d seen earlier had gone; there were clouds churning in from the north and Watcher’s Peak had vanished. This wasn’t a night to be flying.
Then Yrhen pointed. ‘Ufgar,’ he said, mangling Rothgar’s name, and Kyrik followed his arm: a small band of men had broken from the trees at the bottom of the slope below and were splashing through a tiny stream, Rothgar Baredge at their head. In a few minutes they were puffing and panting their way to the top of the ridge. Rothgar made straight for Kyrik, an urgent look on his face. ‘Redcloak riders in the next valley – lots of them, perhaps a full maniple, coming our way.’
This day was turning worse. ‘No sign of Valdyr and Dragan?’
‘No. The redcloaks are likely between them and us now – in fact, it’s likely they’ve been between us for a good few days, which would be why Dragan isn’t here.’ The Vitezai ranger patted the wolf-head pommel of his sword. ‘It’s unlikely they don’t realise we’re here.’<
br />
‘Tell the men to prepare.’
After the endless waiting, the next twenty minutes felt terrifyingly short. The first Rondians were spotted: a bareheaded rider emerged from the treeline below, about three hundred yards away, the last of the sunlight glinting on coppery hair. Kyrik caught his breath: Sacrista Delestre. Memories of the dungeon in Hegikaro resurfaced.
She’s likely their strongest mage, and I’m ours. He loosened his blade, anticipating the duel to come.
Inside a few seconds, the far slopes were teeming with red-cloaked horsemen: three hundred, perhaps four hundred. His men were concealed all along the ridgeline, behind boulders and in the hagwoods, quivers full and arrows nocked. Kyrik opened his inner eye, seeking the tell-tale aura of magi, and found three more, pacing their mounts in Sacrista’s wake as she led the horsemen down the slope and then stopped in a ragged line.
That confirms it: they know we’re here.
*
Sacrista looked up at the next ridge, not liking this place at all. The slopes were treacherous, covered by the debris of a thousand tiny landslides. They’d already lost horses to falls and broken limbs that day, in just such places. But Magas Gorge was close, according to the scouts who’d mapped this area the previous week, and she fancied she could hear the thunder of rapids – although that could just be the rising wind. The whole of the north was being eaten up by grey clouds spewing down from the heights.
It’s going to be a shitty night, and we can’t stop here.
Her scouts had spotted men on the slope above half an hour ago: a dozen, maybe more, they thought. She was easily within an archer’s range, but there’d been no sign of life from above: either the enemy had already fled, or they had some discipline.
Either way, I’ve got almost a full maniple here, and Robear is only twenty minutes behind . . .
At her side, Glan Fressyn turned to the head scout. ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ the battle-mage asked.
‘Aye, saw ’em on the ridge,’ the scout replied.
Sacrista told Fressyn to stay put, then made her way to Draius Neuston, the maniple’s commander, a bastard son of a Augenheim noble. ‘The scouts saw men on the rise above,’ she told him. ‘If they’re still up there, we should attack on foot – that slope is a leg-breaker.’
‘We’re cavalry,’ Neuston replied dismissively. ‘I’ll handle the details, Lady.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘Battle-mage Neuston, that wasn’t a suggestion. Tell your men to—’
—and suddenly the air filled with a vicious hiss, her senses screamed a warning and her shields flared. An instant later, two arrows slammed into them and shattered while all around her, a sleet of shafts sliced through the air and plunged into horse- and man-flesh.
‘Ware!’ she shouted, too late, as her horse staggered, its legs wobbled and an instant before it fell she rolled free, before it could crush her leg. She crunched into a thorny bush, unable to shield everything, mouthing agonised curses as she was punctured by thorns all down her side. Another volley diced the air and she saw riders and horses dropping like flies with arrows in bellies and limbs, while the remaining horses stampeded about, a menace to all around them. She pressed against the back of a heavy boulder, looking up in disbelief as Neuston simply stood his ground, placating his mare.
‘A commander never hides,’ he declared. Then three arrows slammed into him at once, two tearing through his wards and the third taking him in the left eye.
Fressyn dropped beside her. ‘There’s hundreds of them – they’ve got us cold—’
‘There’s a few dozen firing fast,’ she retorted, ‘and we’ve got five hundred men – get them into cover in the trees behind and form them up.’
Fressyn looked like he’d sooner just wait out the storm and let someone else take the risks.
Must I do everything myself? She spat, screwed up her courage and broke from cover, shielding hard as she dashed across the scree, hurdling bodies of the dead and wounded. ‘Pull back to the trees!’ she shouted as she went, and enough heard her to create a wave of retreat, dropping towards the wooded far slope, stumbling and cursing as they sought new cover. The arrows continued to fall, more precisely aimed now, taking down another dozen in a few seconds, leaving more wounded and a whole bunch of men trapped behind boulders, under cover but too scared to move.
She hurled a mage-bolt up the rise at an archer she glimpsed, but the range was too great and it flew wide. ‘DISMOUNT – FORM UP – ON ME – FORM UP ON ME,’ she cried. Ensuring she was behind a pine, she gestured left and right. ‘SKIRMISH LINES – MOVE!’
On her own, she’d never have got them to move, but enough of the cohort leaders took up her orders and a line formed three men deep, stragglers and rear-guard pouring in to boost them. She stole glances from her vantage and realised things weren’t as bad as she’d thought: maybe sixty or seventy dead or wounded, though that was bad enough, but she had plenty left for an assault.
They can’t have many more arrows left. A weird sense of excitement took over: finally, this was war – the shadow-fencing was over. I hope the bloody Sarkany brothers are up there – let’s finish this tonight.
She took a deep breath, re-kindled her wards and stepped into the open. ‘READY? ADVANCE!’
With a shout, the soldiers broke cover and piled up the slope behind her.
*
The Sydian bows sang and more arrows flew – a rapid fire that defied sight – and punctuating those flights were the three-foot shafts from the bows of Mollach archers, singing a slower, deeper tune as they sent precisely aimed volleys down the slope into the charging press of Rondian legionaries.
Kyrik had been counting, and by his reckoning they must be down to their last half-dozen arrows – and the number of men below was growing, not shrinking. A maniple was five hundred soldiers: the Rondians would take losses in the charge, but they would still likely match his force in numbers, and there was nowhere to retreat.
‘SHOOT! LOOSE EVERY ARROW!’ he cried, and another storm of flying wood and steel ripped into the men below – but in the centre a gnostic shield was splashing pale blue light across the gloom, and inside that bubble he could see Sacrista, her face set hard and determined. The Rondian soldiers had locked their shields together – they weren’t carrying the big infantry shields that covered half the body, but they were still an impediment to archery – and scrambling up the stony, uneven slope. His men ran out of shafts and unsheathed their bladed weapons. The Vitezai had boar-spears, thick, heavy skewers eight feet long, with wide flanged heads; while the Sydian had only their light scimitars. Most had a little armour – leather plates for their chests and shoulders – but that was nothing compared to the tempered steel the legionaries wore.
Things were about to get brutally ugly.
Twenty yards, fifteen, ten . . .
‘HIT THEM!’ he shouted, and as he leaped from cover, his people rose to their feet from behind bushes, rocks and the stunted hagwoods and used the slope to drive down on their foes, thrusting spears and swords at any exposed flesh. Kyrik went in with his sword in one hand and his left hand blazing mage-fire, livid gouts of energy that cut down one man, then another, and another. For a moment the Rondian advance wavered as those in the fore struggled to deal with the sudden attack and the challenges of fighting uphill. Kyrik used kinesis to set a boulder rolling, crushing at least one soldier and scattering a dozen more – then a mage-bolt from Sacrista Delestre slammed into his shields. He fended it off and hurled a counterblast that she easily swatted away.
Then the frontlines crashed together, weapons clattered, men screamed, and the real carnage began.
The first man to reach him took Kyrik’s sword in the throat
, the second and third he battered backwards, then lanced with mage-bolts, and all the while, thrown javelins were bouncing off his shields. When he drove his blade right through the chest of a cohort commander the rankers recoiled, screaming, ‘Mage! Ware: battle-mage!’
‘He’s mine!’ Sacrista shouted, her voice bell-like amidst the clamour, and her men gratefully gave way. Her gaze locked on his. ‘I see you’ve gone native with your warpaint and furs,’ she sneered.
She blocked his mage-bolt, then sent a mesmeric-thrust at him, which he batted aside with more difficulty than he’d have liked. ‘Don’t you get sick of ruining lives for your father’s coffers?’ he panted, seeking an opening.
She battered away his lunge in a clatter of steel. ‘Never. It’s my only joy.’
They circled, exchanging blows, feeling out each other’s speed and style, while around them, the Rondian lines, broken by the rough terrain, had turned into an uncoordinated mêlée. Here and there, outliers were battling each other one-on-one. As far as Kyrik could see, his tribesmen and hunters were holding, but there was an unending stream of soldiers coming up from below.
Then Sacrista lunged and suddenly they were toe to toe and hammering at each other’s guard. He threw a blur of illusory movement left and stepped right, seeking to deceive her into misstepping, but she followed his true movement easily; her longsword flashed in like a striking snake, steel clattered and shields flashed, cones of pale blue light slashed with scarlet as they carved at each other, seeking weakness.
His blade was heavier, but her arm was strong; he tried to batter her backwards and instead found himself parrying frantically. When he gave ground, he almost tripped. All round him, the redcloaks were pressing onwards as his men fell under them or gave way beneath their well-honed attacks. Brazko was holding the centre together, but he saw Yrhen stabbed through the belly, then someone hacked the back of his neck as he dropped. Rothgar’s wolf-hilted sword carved open a man’s throat, but another two drove him back. The disciplined professionalism of the Rondian soldiers was carrying the day.
