Balerion alone stepped forward to greet them. The young sun glistened off his sweat-beaded head. He met with their leader and bowed before him. The Rider bowed in return—deeper, but only slightly. His face remained shrouded.
Tindall motioned for Dain to follow, then led the way up to the wagon. Another merc and an Esterian Dain didn’t know followed them.
“Jensen, this is Major Tindall and Dain. They, along with Major Valynt and mercenary Hallock, will be escorting your wagon,” Balerion said.
The Rider pointed to them and mumbled something indecipherable. To Dain it sounded like a question.
“I assure you these two patrols are the best we have. Their records are superior to all others. Besides, leaving too many guards would defeat our purpose,” Balerion said. He turned to face Dain and Tindall. “Gentlemen, this is Jensen. He is the leader of the Pyre Riders. Guard this wagon with your lives, for I assure you they depend on it.”
Dain bowed his head to Jensen, as did the others. The hooded Rider nodded back. Without a word Jensen then swept his arm up, circled it once, and pointed to the looming wall of grass, and the two remaining flyers demonstrated what their purpose was.
Both stopped circling and descended to skim over the wild grassland sea. As they flew, fire lanced out of their hands and ignited the greenery below. They banked some distance from camp and doubled back, flying wider this time, scorching away an ever-larger area. Once their fires consumed a swath a mile wide and several miles deep they returned to their slow figure eights.
With the grass reduced to a fine ash, Balerion led the mercenary army into the gap. Dain and the two patrols stayed behind as ordered, guarding the Riders’ perches.
“Think we should try talking to one?” Hallock asked him. He and his commanding officer, Valynt, had ridden their horses up to wait beside Dain and Tindall. Hallock was actually his patrol’s leader, Dain guessed, and had an arrangement with his major like he himself did. Hallock was, by all accounts, a capable leader and fighter, but the other merc had a boyish naiveté about him that Dain couldn’t remember ever possessing, though he knew that he must have, once.
Probably hasn’t seen enough of the world yet. That’ll fade.
“Do you?” Dain asked back.
“Of course not.”
“Worried about getting sacrificed to their gods?”
“No, that’s just a stupid story. Anyway, I heard they weren’t human, just undead skeletons wrapped in cloth and leather.” Hallock paused for a moment, staring at the nearest of the specialized wagons and the grim men who stood beside it. No one else spoke. “You don’t think it’s true?”
“Who knows? They are starved-looking. Maybe there are only bones under those wraps,” Tindall said.
“Makes sense they wouldn’t want to tire their mounts,” Dain said. He studied the burnt grassland ahead. “Pretty clever of Balerion, denying the Tyberons cover.”
“What’s next, Dain?” Valynt asked.
“We wait for orders. The Rider down there, Lupal. The one with double bands around his arm. Balerion said he’s Jensen’s second-in-command.”
At midday, all of the Riders excepting two took to the skies. The remaining pair took up the reins of each wagon’s draft horses and drove into the scarred land to catch up with the bulk of the army. Wary and watching the edges of the burned area for movement, Dain and the patrols rode in a loose ring around them.
Dain was thankful that the grass burned clean without the thick, sooty smell it left around the post. Probably something to do with the hotter fires a spellcaster could produce. At least they and their horses wouldn’t choke on ashes.
Before nightfall they caught the main body of troops, eighteen miles further into the grasslands. Not a bad pace, Dain thought. A large area, almost two miles wide, had been burned where they would stop for the night.
After getting the wagons ready, most of the Riders descended and retreated to a tent in the camp’s center, one reserved for their use only. A pair remained aloft, on watch until daybreak.
Dain smiled. There won’t be any Tyberons approaching unseen tonight.
In the morning the army set out again while the wagons remained behind. As before, they would allow the bulk of the army to proceed until midday and then catch up in the afternoon.
The patrol’s commanders, Dain included, were finishing up breakfast when Lupal and another Rider approached.
“You, paladin. You are in charge here?” Lupal asked. The voice was raspy and gruff.
Dain stood. Pacts with fire demons, he recalled. Perhaps the stories about them being covered in burns were true.
“We four are. Major Tindall and I command one patrol. Major Valynt and Hallock here command the other.” Dain gestured with his cup.
“I am Lupal, and this is Nico.” Nico wore a single narrow band around his arm. “He or I or Jensen will always be on the ground, and we are in charge of you. Is that clear?”
“Balerion has made that clear.” Dain said. “We are to keep you safe at all costs.”
Lupal gave a curt nod. “When the enemy strikes you will form up defensively around the wagons. One patrol for each. You may attack only if they get within thirty yards. Do not venture more than that distance from the wagons. Is that clear?”
Dain nodded. “Clear as can be.”
Lupal said nothing more. He turned on his heel and headed back to the wagon. Nico lingered a moment, facing each of the men in turn, staring at them, and then followed after Lupal.
“Cold, aren’t they,” Valynt said.
“You hear that voice?” Hallock asked. “It even sounded burnt and scarred. I heard they set themselves on fire to prove their loyalty to their god, Hycropolis.”
“Hycropolis isn’t a god, it’s their city. Out on a rocky peninsula in the great sea. Few enter in and, other than the Riders, no one ever leaves,” Tindall said.
“Whatever it is and whatever they are, they make the back of my neck itch,” Hallock said.
Dain said nothing. There were many strange things in the world. Things he’d never expected to see. Things he’d once thought were only fairy tales had proven true. The Riders weren’t skeletal though. For an instant he’d caught sight of Nico’s hands. The caster’s fingers were long, delicate, and flesh-covered. Still, whatever or whoever the Riders were, they were dangerous. The edge in Lupal’s voice could tell anyone that.
“Did you hear Lupal? Did you hear him say ‘when the enemy strikes’?” Tindall said. “What do they know that we don’t?”
Of course it’s a question of “when” and not “if,” Dain thought. To their credit, the Tyberons weren’t fools. They would know the Riders could change the course of the war. And they knew where the true strength of their Esterian enemies now lay.
Just after the wagons set out, Dain was riding point when they struck.
Over a hundred spearmen, the strongest raid he had ever seen, sprinted out of the grass to the west.
“Tyberons!” Hallock yelled.
“Remember the plan. Stay spread out and loose. Protect the wagons at all costs. No one moves until they get within thirty yards,” Dain ordered.
Behind him he heard Lupal and Nico stop the wagons, and then the creak of hoists and a flapping of leathery wings.
Twenty men against over a hundred spearmen…long odds. Dain drew his sword and began praying, readying to call on the Light.
A shadow swept overhead and Dain looked up to see Nico and Lupal flying high above them. They soared out over the incoming Tyberons, ignoring the few spears that were thrown up at them. Their targets now airborne, the uncertain spearmen paused their assault, and if not for Lupal’s instruction Dain would have used that confusion to smash them.
One of the other guards, a young Esterian, had the same idea. He roared a cha
rge and his horse shot forward. Two more threatened to follow.
“STOP. Thirty yards. Remember your orders. We stay within thirty yards of the wagon at all times,” Dain yelled.
At that moment, Lupal and Nico passed over the grassland’s burned edge and banked their bats in a tight arc. They swooped low toward the enemy. The Riders leaned ahead and held their hands forward. Streams of fire flew from their fingers. It lanced among the Tyberons, roasting the spearmen in a great inferno. Beneath the Riders’ spells, the Tyberons burned as readily as their grassy home. Dain watched in horror as the lone guard who’d ridden forward was consumed with them.
A half-dozen dazed survivors crawled toward the wagons and escaped the blaze. The guards eagerly finished them off.
When the Riders returned, Dain rode out alone among the dead. Bodies sizzled. Thin, gray tendrils of smoke curled up from their mouths and eyes.
Tindall rode up beside him. The Esterian held a handkerchief over his nose.
“Not pretty, is it?” Dain asked. “Not what a man thinks about when he’s enlisting.” He dismounted and, with his boot, nudged the still-warm breastplate of the lone Esterian who’d broken ranks. Black ash spilled from it.
Dain stared down at the smoldering remains surrounding them. There were no bodies, no screams of the wounded and dying, no sign that they’d ever existed, just soft blowing ash. Everything had changed. This wasn’t a war anymore; it was extermination.
What manner of men were these Pyre Riders?
They marched for a week, burning their way into the grasslands like a burrowing worm aiming for an apple’s core. Twice more the Tyberons made attempts at the wagons. They failed to wound even a single soldier.
At week’s end the Pyre Riders brought back word of a Tyberon city ahead, the first ever discovered by the outside world as far as anyone knew.
The bulk of the army found it the following day. A settlement sitting in a shallow depression three miles wide and almost fifty feet lower in elevation than the grasslands.
In his role guarding the wagons, Dain was among the last to see it. Broad fields of shining red tomatoes, striped melons, and tasseled corn stretched outward from a collection of buildings like a great wheel. Canals carried water between each field like the wheel’s spokes and, on the city’s far side, away from the invading army, were thick groves and vineyards laden with fruits of all types. The untamed grasslands encompassed both city and fields.
Dain looked out on the settlement’s white-bleached adobe structures. There couldn’t be more than a thousand people living there.
More village than true city, he thought. The odds of there being plunder enough here to stop fighting and buy his land seemed slim.
Balerion summoned the officers, Esterian and mercenary alike, together when they arrived. He ordered a small patch of ground cleared and his bodyguards went to work with shovel and pick, tilling up the soil, removing plant and root, and churning in the pale ash. Satisfied, he called them to stop. He raked the sandy surface smooth. Then he knelt down before it.
To his left stood the highest-ranking Esterian observer. Very few had learned the man’s name—Dain hadn’t—but by the look on his face he wasn’t happy with his new role.
Probably jealous of this chance at glory, Dain reflected. He scanned the Esterian faces around him. Years of effort with no success and now a merc has achieved it. Many won’t be happy.
“I know that you are all eager to begin,” Balerion began. “Many of us have waited years for this. But you will not attack until you see my signal. For those of you who haven’t served with me before, I will find the first man who fails to follow orders, take my knife, and gut him from his crotch to his neck.”
With that, Balerion sank the knife into the loose soil. Its bright blade caught the light. His eyes swept the crowd, mercenary and Esterian alike, letting the words sink in as well.
Dain didn’t doubt him. Not for a moment.
“I expect the enemy to gather here.” Balerion took his knife and circled an area on the crudely drawn map. “Directly between us and the city. The Riders have been working since we arrived and Jensen has already cleared a wide area to our flanks, so if the Tyberons plan on ambushing us, we will see them coming. There’s not enough light left for a battle today, though we’ll keep a few Riders flying through the night in case they try something. Tomorrow we’ll form up to meet the savages. The footmen will line up into ranks two hundred wide and five deep.” He marked a second area on the map.
“The mounted soldiers—all of the mounted soldiers—will form up into eight columns near the rear. They will act as a reserve force and flank the enemy as I direct them.”
“And what of the Pyre Riders?” a voice called out from near the back.
“They will be in the air, and I will call them down as I see fit. As they are our only assurance out of here, I won’t risk more than a few. And I will place a strong contingent of footmen to watch over their wagons.”
“Do we know how many we’ll end up facing here?” Dain asked.
“No. But we do know more of them are arriving by the hour. The Riders have seen at least two hundred arrive from the east.”
“Shouldn’t we attack now, then? Before they grow stronger?”
Balerion smiled. His dark eyes took on a wolfish gleam.
“We want them to grow stronger. No mercenary-led force has ever fought the Tyberons in formation. It’s only been hit-and-run skirmishes.” He paused. His head swiveled to sweep the crowd. “We want them to gather. We want them to form up for battle tomorrow. And we want to kill as many of the bastards as possible. Any other questions?”
In the morning, the trumpeters blew their horns, calling the invaders up. The Pyre Riders had burned clear a wide area and both armies stood facing one another. Today, there would be no attacks from the grass. No ambushes from cover. No fading away. At first the merc and Esterian footmen milled about restlessly, then their officers arrived and, with a few barked orders, formed them up into even ranks between Balerion’s tent and the enemy. Few spoke, or if they did it was in low whispers.
A slight breeze stirred the Esterians’ flags and banners. The bright sun shone overhead.
Good weather for a battle, Dain thought as he joined the ranks of cavalry.
He looked out over the battlefield from atop the gray roan. His thoughts roamed ahead to the cavalry’s role today and to his own. Where will we meet the Tyberons? Where could we be used best?
He gauged the enemy forces.
Most were naked to the waist, their spiked hair plastered up and the feathers of larks or cranes lifting in the morning breeze. Tattoos covered their chests. Several of the younger men were springing up and down, and it seemed as if they were competing to see who could leap the highest. Their feathered piercings fluttered with each jump.
Young men, even Tyberon men, were the same all over, it occurred to him. All competing to determine who was the fastest or the strongest or who could leap the highest. All convinced that it wouldn’t be them who died today.
Dain may have been young still, but he knew that experience had aged him well beyond his years. He no longer felt the need to compete. He had nothing to prove, and he had seen enough death to know it came for everyone, sooner or later.
To the left, a short distance from the main Tyberon army, stood a cluster of robed men and women. A few looked young, but most had white or gray in their beards and hair. They wore neither the tattoos nor feathers of the others. Each held a Magentite gem.
Spellcasters. Balerion would likely send the mounted men after them. It’s what I would do if I were in charge.
Women and children of all sizes and ages lined the flat tops of the adobe buildings. Evidently the Tyberons aren’t hatched from eggs, Dain thought. Probably a nice view from there. Once the battle started, i
t would become considerably less so. These people would never have seen anyone who wasn’t a Tyberon. To them the shining armor, swords, and horses would all seem foreign and exciting and dangerous.
He drew a trickle of power from the Light and willed it into the invisible spellshield around him.
Not for the first time, he wished Boon were there with him. Even after these last days, he wasn’t familiar enough with his roan to predict how the horse would react during a full battle. He hoped the horse didn’t mind explosions. The casters would surely turn their spells on the horses when they sensed the threat.
Unlike all but a select few Esterians and many of the younger mercenaries, Dain had seen battle before. Real battle. He’d fought several back in his days as a Paladin.
Real battle, as opposed to the ambushes they were all familiar with, was a far different beast. In an ambush everyone fought for their lives because there would be no escape. In an ambush there were no real orders, just chaos. Today they’d be fighting in ranks and with discipline. Or at least it’ll start that way, he corrected himself. Plans always broke down once iron and steel met skin and meat. This would be new for many on both sides. The Tyberons had certainly never seen anything like a formation battle before, Dain was sure of it. The invaders should have an advantage. They, mercenaries and Esterians both, at least drilled for this.
A great horn sounded from the command tent. Balerion sat there, erect and towering, atop a huge black horse. He wore his customary leather armor and held his halberd beside him. Sunlight glinted off its steel point. Balerion nodded. Beside him a flag bearer waved a yellow banner, and the infantry began to march.
The savages were eager. They beat their chests with their fists and screamed. More began to leap.
River of Spears (Kingdom's Forge Book 0) Page 4
