Getting out alive? What had happened? Things had been well in hand last night before he’d passed out; their victory had been complete, total, and final.
Dain shifted in his boots. There could be only one explanation. These mysterious lands had spawned some new evil to challenge them. A new calamity had struck.
He surveyed the faces that surrounded him. Though the sour smell of last night’s rum-soaked revels lingered, all were clear-eyed and alert. Whatever Balerion had said before he’d arrived shocked these men from their hangovers. Shocked or scared them, he corrected himself.
Balerion’s gaze fixed on one cluster of soldiers at his left before he spoke again.
“There will be no more killing, and absolutely no more burning. We cannot afford to lose more supplies.”
The general then turned to face the rest of the group.
“Tomorrow, many of you will be sent into the fields to gather food. Only this won’t be like working your father’s crops. You can expect a few spears tossed you way, but our lives depend on how much you gather and bring back. Have I made myself clear?”
No one spoke. Dain wanted to ask what had happened, but there would be time enough for that later, after the men dispersed.
“Dain,” Balerion said, looking directly at him. “You and your major, wait.” He nodded toward the recently arrived Tindall. “I’ve a task for you and your men. The rest of you are dismissed.”
In groups of twos and threes, the other men left, talking among themselves. The still obviously hungover Tindall leaned against the wall, head down, drawing deep breaths, trying not to vomit.
Dain smiled to himself. On the walk here his mind and body had recovered from the night’s ill-advised indulgence. His training and ability to cleanse poisons allowed him to block most of the effects of a hangover and be clear-headed the next day; something one of the older paladins told him once.
Dain, Tindall, and a group of ranking Esterian observers remained behind. The Esterians’ faces were somber and they didn’t speak.
“How much did you hear?” Balerion.
“We’re in trouble. Something has changed, but I didn’t hear what,” Dain replied.
Balerion sighed and then started in.
“Last night, while most of the camp slept, the enemy snuck in and killed the Pyre Riders’ guards. They slaughtered the Riders and all their mounts. We found them this morning. The savages didn’t take any chances. A half-dozen spears were in each of them.”
The older mercenary paused, letting the information sink in.
Dain’s mind was already jumping ahead. “And our trail back out?” he asked.
“It’s more than just spearmen out there. Their spellcasters, these shamen, are regrowing the grass.” He gestured to the mud on Tindall. “Last night’s rain wasn’t natural. It was their doing. It did something to our trail and there’s grass an inch tall covering it already. Soon we’ll be trapped.”
“What do you need of us, then?”
“Two Riders survived. They just finished seeing to the bodies of the others. I will keep one with me and guard him. You will protect the other.”
“Are we supposed to keep it secret from the others?” Dain asked.
“Not secret…but I don’t want it shouted from the rooftops. I suspect the surviving Tyberons, whom we need as hostages, may have some method of communicating with their warriors.”
“How long until we move, then?” Dain wanted to know what the plan was. Normally, he might not have been able to push the general this far, but if Balerion was trusting him he intended to take full advantage. He had been chosen to guard a valuable asset. They needed him. Needed his skills. He let the silence hang, squeezing for information.
One of the advisers cleared his throat, about to interject. Balerion cut him off with a raised hand.
“We’ll make a run in the next day or two, after we gather some food and before the grass can grow much taller. When we break we’ll run as fast as we can, keeping the Riders under cover, and then use them to burn the rest of the way out.”
“Flee?” It was Tindall. “If we but wait them out, help will arrive. General Reiken will bring aid.”
“Your father cannot save us,” one of the observers spoke up. “How will he get here? Even we didn’t know our final destination until the Riders found a city, and there are hardly any Riders left.”
“Jyrle is correct.” Balerion answered. “Help isn’t coming. We are on our own here, and if we are to survive we must help ourselves. That does not include waiting. We cannot afford to divide our attention now. We must move as one, every man together, to reach the river.
“Nico, please introduce yourself. This is the man I told you about,” Balerion continued.
Near the back of the room, a pair of figures emerged from the shadows. Dain chastised himself. He hadn’t noticed them there. Perhaps that hangover wasn’t quite as nonexistent as he’d thought.
Both Riders remained covered head to toe in wrappings, though their clothing was brown and tan and green now instead of black and scarlet. Only their eyes and fingers were exposed. After seeing the flames leap from their hands he understood why they wouldn’t want anything flammable there. Jensen wore his usual three armbands over his arm and Nico one.
Neither offered a handclasp, and Dain wasn’t offended. Probably worried about damaging their delicate instruments of death.
Dain hadn’t seen a Rider this close since meeting Lupal and Nico the day after their arrival and he was struck again by their small stature. Jensen, the larger of the two would still be sixty pounds lighter than himself and half a foot shorter.
“Nico is now under your care. Keep him safe until we return to the river. He and Jensen are our best chance at surviving this,” Balerion said.
“How’s this going to work if he can’t speak? It’s going to be difficult to protect someone who can’t understand me.”
“I understand you just fine, paladin. And I just choose not to speak.”
The voice sounded strange—oddly false—and higher in pitch than Dain had expected. Common must not have been the Riders’ native language.
“Follow Dain back to his adobe and rest, Nico,” Jensen said in the same odd tone.
Balerion turned to Dain. “For now you and your men are excluded from all other duties. Stay in one of the adobes adjacent to this one. The Tyberons might discover that two Riders remain. They will come for them. Be sure you are ready.”
The grass was knee-high when they made their break for freedom.
Hardly anyone rode—the spearmen had struck the night before and killed all but a handful of the horses. The remaining horses had been confiscated to draw the supply wagons and for a select few outriders. So they walked. They walked for a day and a night before stopping, and the sea of grass rose another two inches. Balerion signaled for the halt and, after a full day of marching, Dain, Tindall, and the others dropped.
No one spoke. Several of the men rubbed their feet and legs. Though his feet may not have agreed, Dain preferred to walk at this point. Those riding were assigned to the outside edges and were the most likely to draw Tyberon spears first. He and the remnants of the patrol were in the army’s center. Nico was too precious to risk at the outer edge. The Pyre Rider was to be kept safe, like a swaddling babe in the patrol’s arms.
“Water,” Dain said. “Be sure you drink enough water or you’ll cramp. There’s salt in the dried pork. Take your day’s ration now, along with the water.”
“Won’t that remove the water from your body?” Tindall asked.
“No, the salt will trap fluids in your stomach.”
“But what about—”
“He’s right,” Nico interrupted in that strange voice of his. “The salt is good for you.” It was the first time he’d s
poken since the meeting with Balerion. The Pyre Rider had stayed to himself, well away from the others, as they’d waited to start out. He too rubbed at his small feet now.
“Everything alright here?” Balerion asked as he approached, maneuvering his horse among them.
“All good here,” Dain said. “Any idea how close we are?”
“No. There’s open burn ahead, though. On the far horizon, a patch of black and gray. The shamen haven’t started regrowing it yet. We might be able to outrun them and break into the clear.”
“Will it be so easy?” Tindall asked, a note of hope in his voice.
Balerion leveled his eyes at Dain. The look said much. If it seems easy, it’s a trap. And one we have no choice but to step into.
Without another word, the big merc moved to the next group of men.
That night, the killing began. Tyberon spears flew from all around the camp. Not every spear hit a man but, compacted as the camp was, one in three did.
There could be neither rest nor mercy. For any of them to survive they had to travel fast, and the wounded would only slow them down. In the morning, a hundred men were left behind, and when the army was but a mile away they heard their screams as the Tyberons swept in and took them.
By midday they arrived at Balerion’s black patch only to find a fine green mat covering it. Step by step it grew taller until it reached knee height when they finally camped.
The sun set and the culling began anew. For three days it continued, the losses greater each day as more spears rained down.
Less than two hundred mercenaries remained when the Tyberons overwhelmed them. The hate-filled larks and cranes outnumbered the remnants of the Esterian army five to one. Like a great, rolling wave of spears and fury they swept over the broken expedition. Exhausted after days without sleep and miles of marching on low rations, many of the soldiers simply dropped their weapons in despair and collapsed.
Several mercs placed their swords down, hilt first, and then fell on their own blades. They did it without screams, without ceremony. One such man stood near Dain, his lips moving in a muted prayer. Little could be heard over the charging Tyberons’ war cries. The merc’s eyes closed. The blade slid into his body and out through his back. He smiled and, among the chaos, seemed to find peace in his last moments.
Balerion fell off to Dain’s left. Fighting like a man possessed and refusing to yield, a half-dozen Tyberons perished on his sweeping halberd before he died.
For his own part, Dain knew when he was beaten. He placed his own sword, blade first, into the ground and knelt before it.
He wasn’t sure what to expect. The Tyberons were a fierce people and the expedition had burned one of their cities and ravaged its people.
We will all be put to death.
There had been too much death already. He’d seen the Tyberon children piled up like cordwood behind one of their adobes, their silken hair plastered to their skulls by dried blood, their faces a mask of flies. His comrades had done that. That and worse.
He too was covered in the blood of the innocent. He had led the charge that broke the enemy. He studied his empty palms and waited for death.
It is good that it will end this way, he thought. At least the nightmares will be over.
Dain began praying to the Creator. Not for salvation—he didn’t deserve it, he couldn’t expect it—instead he asked for the Light’s forgiveness.
In life, he’d largely been a failure. His honor was gone. His ancestors would disown him in the next world as surely as his father and mother had disowned him in this one. But for that act, the sin he had committed to draw his father’s scorn, Dain refused to ask forgiveness. He wasn’t ashamed of it then. He wasn’t ashamed of it now. It was for his actions since, old offenses and new, that he pleaded for the Creator’s mercy.
A Tyberon warrior approached and towered before him. The man’s white feathers rattled. The broad tattoo of a crane, wings spread wide, decorated his chest. The rest of his body was painted white from the waist up. Only his eyes, black and full of rage, were bare.
Dain looked at him, forcing himself to meet those eyes. He deserved every bit of that boiling hate. He let it scourge his soul.
The warrior lifted his spear, and Dain fell into darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
No Esterian was spared.
To a man they were hunted and executed. A few unlucky mercenaries who resembled Esterians, those well-dressed or simply shorter than average, died along with them.
The survivors, now less than a hundred, were bound into pairs by shackles and chains and marched away. There had been an odd number of mercenaries, and when the Tyberons couldn’t find anyone to match the last man to, they speared and killed him.
Brutal but efficient, Dain thought. While unconscious, he’d dreamt of his land by the mountains and of building a home there. He’d awoken with newfound resolve to escape and return to the mountains—but first, to live.
He ended up with Nico. Surprisingly they had let the Pyre Rider live. Jensen, the other Rider, had also survived. He was chained to Wilhem, one of Balerion’s bodyguards, the only one who hadn’t joined their leader in death. In addition to the long chains at their wrists, their captors placed a set of restricting clamps over Nico and Jensen’s hands. If the Pyre Riders used their powers the clamp would trap the heat and melt their own flesh.
Dain they didn’t bother with. Either they hadn’t seen him fight or they knew he couldn’t project the Light. In any event, his abilities were internal; the clamps would have had little or no effect on him. He resolved to keep the Light to himself. If the Tyberons thought they couldn’t control it, he’d likely end up with a spear in the gut. And Nico besides.
He wasn’t sure why they allowed the spellcasters to live. Ransom, he thought, that would be the only possible reason. Rumor held that Pyre Riders would ransom one of their own with their bodyweight in gold. Still, he wasn’t altogether sure the Tyberons cared for gold.
Trying to speak with their captors was pointless. The savages traveled with little or no words, using hand signals to communicate with each other. And they had their own way of giving commands to their captives.
The guards touched spears to a prisoner then pointed where they wanted them to go. Anyone who failed to catch on or who failed to move quick enough took a spear through the chest, as did their partner. Dain and Nico learned fast.
At first, Dain feared that the smaller man couldn’t possibly keep up, but Nico surprised him. Despite taking almost two steps for every one of his, the Pyre Rider fell into a steady rhythm and matched his pace.
Though chained together, he learned little of Nico. They didn’t speak. None of the mercenaries did. Attempts to talk above a low whisper were punished with a swift and firm beating.
For days they plodded on. The grass reached high enough that only a small window of sky and a few silver-bellied clouds could be seen during the day. Only at night, when the glimmering stars came out, did the monotony lift a little.
Dain thought he’d go mad. Did the grass go on forever? The general direction of travel was west and south, he knew that from the sun, but they turned at seemingly random times, swerving around unseen obstacles ahead. Whenever this happened the Tyberons took it in stride, showing no signs of concern.
On the eighth day, he and Nico were marching near the front and they caught a glimpse of the army’s guide—an older man with crane feathers. The crane walked with arms outstretched and his eyes shut as if drawn onward by an invisible force that he alone felt. Dain wondered if they were lost.
That would be foolish. Surely the Tyberons could navigate their own grasslands. They had found the patrols and then vanished easy enough. Obviously they had some means of sensing direction, but his only clue into what that might be was the white-feathered old man.
What is he following?
By midday the Tyberons and captive mercs emerged into a clearing at the edge of a small pond. Ducks, geese, cranes, and other waterfowl watched them, and a pair of shaggy bison stood in the pond’s muddy edge opposite the traveling army.
It was the only break from the green Dain had seen in days. He took a deep breath and heard Nico do the same. Though less than a hundred feet wide, the pond seemed open and vast after the long march.
After drinking their fill, the Tyberons led them away from the water. Dain and Nico again fell in near the front. Arriving at this pool was no accident. Somehow, the lead warrior had guided them here. And if the Tyberons could navigate the grass, Dain wanted to see if he could learn how. This time it was a different man—one he recognized as the crane warrior who had captured him—leading the group. He too walked with outstretched arms in the same manner as the previous guide.
If two can do this, perhaps all of the cranes can—or even all Tyberons, Dain thought.
For much of the time, the Tyberons seemed to fear nothing. They were the grassland’s masters. But each night they posted dozens of guards. Strangely, the guards didn’t look at their prisoners often, but rather faced the grass around the camp. It seemed they were more afraid of what lurked there than the captured mercs.
“What do you think they watch for?” Nico whispered the night after they left the pond.
“I’m not sure. Whatever it is scares them a great deal. Notice how they keep their spears up at all times?”
“I saw one of them putting some sort of poison, juice from an orange root, on his last night.”
They were silent for a moment while one of their captors walked past.
“You thinking of escape?” Dain murmured when the man had gone.
River of Spears (Kingdom's Forge Book 0) Page 6
