“That’s because none of the firebolts have hit us yet. They will if we stay here. I can’t—”
At that moment, another firebolt arches over the trees, right toward Lerial and Korlyn and the center of second company.
Frigging sowshit! Lerial throws up another diversion pattern, a weak one, but all he can manage.
Then heat and hot blackness crush him down.
LXII
“You may be the son of a Duke, Captain, but you won’t be for long if you keep this up.” The gentle words are the first sounds Lerial recognizes as he swims out of a haze of fireballs and darkness, of burning trees and acrid smoke. Except … there are no trees, and he is lying on his back in a tent in darkness, and the Verdyn healer is blotting his forehead with a cool cloth. She lifts the cloth.
“What glass … what day … where…?”
“It’s eighth glass in the evening on oneday, and you’re lying in a tent on the green in the hamlet of Suaddern.” The healer straightens.
Suaddern? Lerial doesn’t recognize the name. “The Meroweyans…?”
“They burned their way into the Verd along the south road. They stopped attacking when it got dark and they started losing men in the trees. That’s what one of the wounded said.”
Lerial cannot help but wonder. “My company?”
“They got back fine … mostly.”
“We might have lost a few to firebolts.”
“Hasn’t every company?” Her voice is matter-of-fact. “This time you almost didn’t have enough order in your body.” She puts a surprisingly strong arm behind his shoulders and helps him into a semisitting position, then puts a mug to his lips. “Drink.”
Lerial does. Whatever it is makes tart greenberry juice seem sweet, but even after the first swallow, he can feel some of the pounding in his head begin to ease, if only slightly.
“Drink it all. Keep sitting up, but don’t try to stand yet.” With that final command, the healer stands. “You cannot do anything with order or chaos for the next day, preferably two. If you do, it will likely kill you. I’ll be back later.” She leaves the tent, disappearing into the dark.
Lerial forces himself to keep drinking until the mug is empty and he can set it aside.
“Ser?”
Lerial turns, and he sees a figure peering in the tent, but he cannot order-sense who it is close as the man might be. “Yes?”
“Korlyn, ser. You all right, ser?”
“The healer seems to think I will be.”
“I’m sorry, ser.” The way Korlyn is standing, he doesn’t seem to want to look directly at Lerial, but then the words tumble out. “I didn’t know, I mean, not really, that you were the one keeping that wizard fire from us…”
“What happened after that last fireball … the last one I saw anyway?”
“The wizard didn’t send any more, not that I saw. We got clear pretty quick. First squad … well … we lost two rankers, and two others got bad burns.”
“What about the other squads?”
“No casualties there, ser. Not from the Meroweyans. One of Moraris’s archers ripped up her arm on a tree … chief archer said she was careless. Wouldn’t want to cross her…”
Why didn’t the wizard throw any more firebolts? Because he thought you were dead? Could it be that when he’d been unconscious the wizards couldn’t sense him? Was that why there were more wizards remaining than he’d thought? Because he’d only knocked one of them out? “Did they keep throwing the chaos at the trees?”
“For a time, sir. Maybe, two or three more. We didn’t stay to see. Not when you couldn’t … do what you were doing.”
“You did what you were supposed to do. I’d already ordered the withdrawal.” And if I hadn’t had to explain … but shouldn’t you, as captain, have made that clear earlier?
Korlyn has barely left the tent when another figure appears. While Lerial cannot sense who it is, the man’s stance tells him that it must be Altyrn.
“I see that you almost managed to get yourself killed again.” Although the majer’s voice is dry, Lerial can hear concern behind the dryness.
“I already was trying to withdraw second company before the last firebolt almost hit us. I misjudged a little.” Before Altyrn can say anything about that, Lerial quickly adds, “This is new to me, ser, and I’m still learning. I worry that if I don’t do as much as I can…”
“If you try to do more than you can, then you won’t be around for the next attack, and your men will suffer even more. I took the liberty of talking to the squad leaders and pointing out that you were risking your own life trying to protect them from the firebolts. I think you can be a bit more judiciously cautious from now on.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Your squad leaders didn’t seem to know all that happened. They said that all they saw was firebolts beyond the trees.”
“That was because we couldn’t get through the thornbushes. The white wizards probably burned through them after second company withdrew.”
“That’s what the Verd wardens reported. The Meroweyans are waiting for the fires to subside. They’ll likely attack there tomorrow. Their force may need some reinforcements. The wardens say that the firebolts you turned back incinerated two companies, maybe more. They couldn’t tell about the wizards.”
“There were three. There are two now.” Sparks flash across Lerial’s vision, and an unseen hammer pounds his skull. He can tell he is getting tired. Tired? Just sitting up?
“The healer says it will be days before you can handle order or chaos again. Why didn’t you withdraw earlier?”
Altyrn’s repetition of the question tells Lerial that the majer is concerned … and that he is very serious about Lerial not overextending himself.
“I misjudged how long it would take, and there was another firebolt that would have hit us. I think that was the Merowyan strategy. To wear me out and then throw several firebolts at once.” Lerial isn’t about to explain again that he’d already ordered second squad to withdraw.
Altyrn nods slowly. “I’m holding second company out of the fighting tomorrow—unless it’s absolutely necessary. If I have to use your rankers, you won’t be commanding them.”
“Ser?”
“You’re just the type who will try to protect them if it’s possible. I can’t afford that kind of sacrifice. Neither can your rankers. Nor can the Verdyn. Besides, the healer says you’ll be too weak.”
“She’s probably right,” Lerial admits. His head is beginning to spin once more.
The healer reappears, holding a large jug. “You need to drink more and then rest.” She bends and picks up the empty mug, refills it, and hands it to Lerial. “Drink.”
Lerial’s hands are shaking, but he manages several swallows of the tart and exceedingly bitter greenberry potion, then holds the mug in both hands, hoping the dizziness and shaking will subside. After several moments, he feels that they have receded slightly, and he takes another swallow. As he lowers the mug, he realizes that the majer has left.
“When you finish drinking that, you need to lie down and sleep.” The healer’s voice is pleasant enough, but Lerial can hear the tone of command.
“Yes, healer.”
“Elizean will do, Captain. Keep drinking.”
Lerial finishes the potion and hands her the mug. She does not need to tell him to lie down.
LXIII
The air is still, heavy, and acrid, with the smell of ashes and smoke everywhere, when Lerial struggles awake sometime after dawn but before sunrise on twoday morning to the sound of barked commands, wagons, and horses. He pulls on his boots and as much as staggers to his feet as stands. He is not dizzy, but he does feel unsteady as he dons his visor cap and straightens his riding jacket, then steps out of the tent, aware that his eyes are watering slightly from the acrid smoke.
He glances around, seeing rankers seemingly hurrying everywhere.
“Strike that tent! Now! Majer says we have to be out of here in less than a
glass.”
“That long? Burned out the woods on both sides of the road gates…”
“Takes longer when you got that many troopers…”
As Lerial hears those words, two other rankers hurry up, the second leading his gelding, already saddled. The first hands him a water bottle and a small pouch. “These are from the healer, ser.”
“Here’s your mount, ser. Majer requests you join him.” The second ranker points. “He’s by the road over there.”
“Thank you.” Lerial eases the pouch into his jacket and slips the water bottle into the saddle holder. Then, he gathers himself together and climbs into the saddle, the difficulty he has underscoring just how weak he is. He guides the gelding in the direction of the majer, discovering as he nears Altyrn, mounted beside another rider, that he has regained some ability to order-sense, if but to a distance of perhaps ten yards. The lack of range in order-sensing and the weakness in his legs prompt him to lift the water bottle and take a long swallow of the tart and bitter greenberry liquid.
He replaces the water bottle and then takes out the pouch, which, he discovers, contains several hard biscuits. He puts one in his mouth, gingerly, and discovers that, while neither bitter nor tart, it has little taste at all. He eats the first biscuit in moments and then the next, replacing the pouch in his jacket as he reins up beside Altyrn, who is talking to Juist.
“… those road traps and makeshift caltrops ready to put in place, ser, once we engage them…”
“Then take up that position and look like you’re going to hold it, but if they start to throw fireballs, fall back immediately behind the log barricade. Have your archers loft shafts into their rear. That’s where the white wizards are. Ease back as quickly as you can.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Go!”
Lerial has only the vaguest idea of what Altyrn has just ordered, except that it sounds like a ploy of some sort. “You’re trying to lure them into something?”
“That comes later. I’m hoping that they’ll drop fireballs into some bitumen and oil that will surround a mass of their armsmen on three sides.”
“If they don’t?”
“Then Juist will likely lose the rankers who will have to use torches.” Altyrn’s voice is steady, as if he were discussing the worms that made shimmercloth fibers. He turns his mount. “Just stay with me and watch. Don’t ask any questions until I tell you that you can.”
“Yes, ser.” The only wagon that Lerial can see around the area where second company had been posted creaks by him, leaving the area with little but flattened grass where tents had been and almost empty of Lancers—except for third company, forming up across the road. To the south, in the direction of the apparently still-intact but useless road gates, Lerial can hear horn signals, but he can sense nothing more than a few yards away.
“We need to move back. This way,” commands the majer, turning his horse.
Lerial follows Altyrn along the shoulder of the road, through and past another wider clearing, beyond which the trees are spaced more widely. Some hundred yards later, the majer reins up behind a pair of trees with wide trunks that almost touch. He positions himself so that he can look through the gap at the road that leads to where the roadgates are … not that they have done much more than delay the Meroweyans. “Stay behind me.”
Third company rides past, and the area where the Verdyn forces had been for the past eightday or so appears empty. For a good quarter glass, nothing seems to move, not even the air, and there are no clouds in the sky that is slowly turning from gray to green-blue as the sun begins to rise, not that Lerial can see it yet, not from within the confines of the Verd forest.
He shifts his weight in the saddle and takes several more swallows of the greenberry liquid, admitting wordlessly that he does feel better, and slightly stronger, as a result of drinking it and eating the biscuits. He shifts in the saddle again.
“Watch,” orders Altyrn quietly. “Say nothing.”
From the south come sounds, a muted series of vibrations. Lerial stands in his stirrups, so that he can look over Altyrn’s head and through the opening between the two tree trunks. He can make out what at first looks to be a huge brownish worm with spikes jutting out and walking sideways on many legs, but then realizes it is a Meroweyan shieldwall some fifty yards wide, centered on the road and moving toward the majer and him. Behind the shieldmen are pikemen, their pikes leveled to discourage a mounted attack. Behind the pikes and shields are footmen, although Lerial can only see their heads, while behind each end of the formation are mounted troopers.
When the shieldmen are about a hundred yards from the majer and Lerial, a wall of flame races from somewhere well to the sides of the road and under the boots of the shieldmen. Several yell, and one man staggers out of formation, his uniform in flames … and then another … and another. As the shieldmen run forward to keep from getting burned, the pikemen are left at least partly exposed to the arrows that come from all sides. Then two squads of Verdyn Lancers—one from the east, and one from the west—charge the pikemen.
The mounted troopers behind the ends of the line of pikemen move forward, but by the time they get around the chaos of wounded pikemen and disorganized shieldmen, both squads have turned and vanished back into the trees.
“Time to withdraw!” snaps Altyrn, turning his mount and urging it into a canter along the shoulder of the road.
Lerial follows, wondering where or when Juist’s men will do what he had heard the majer discussing, because what he has just seen does not match what he had heard between the two.
Altyrn does not slow his mount until they have covered almost a kay and entered a larger clearing. Closer to the north side is a log barricade almost eighty yards long and somewhat more than two yards high that straddles the road. The two sides are slightly angled so that the middle is perhaps ten yards forward of the ends. Lerial can see the tips of spears and caps and the like behind the barrier, and slightly less than two squads of riders in formation at each end. Altyrn keeps riding, circling around the east end of the log barricade and into the trees on the northeast end of the clearing. Once there, he turns his mount so that he can see the clearing, but so that he is largely shielded by the trunk of the tree. Lerial follows his example and reins up the gelding beside a nearby tree. Looking back, he can see that most of the figures behind the log barricade are crudely formed of vines and branches or other material with caps or scarves or the like on the “head,” and that the spears and weapons are merely crude poles with carved points. Still, from a distance, they looked real enough. What is real, however, is the small catapult behind the mock force. Three youths, even younger than Lerial or any of the rankers, wait by the catapult. Behind the catapult are two rows of women archers, presumably from third company.
Almost a glass passes before the shieldwall of the Meroweyans enters the south side of the clearing and moves roughly twenty yards into the clearing before a horn sounds, and the shieldwall comes to a halt, while the pikemen ground their pikes, as if expecting an attack.
Lerial cannot see exactly what is happening, and his order senses have not recovered enough for him to determine anything at that distance, either, but he can see movement.
Then, at some signal he does not catch, a flaming ball of fire arches from the catapult behind the log barrier toward the shieldwall, landing on the ground and spraying feeble shards of burning matter. There is no reaction from the Meroweyan forces. Several moments later, another flaming ball arches over the log barricade, and this flaming ball catches the top of one of the outsized shields, and burning goo splashes on the shield-bearer, who drops his shield and rolls in the grass trying to smother the flames burning his sleeves and chest.
Then a third ball of flame hits another shield-bearer.
The Meroweyan horn sounds, and the pikes level. The shieldwall marches forward, solid step by solid step. Another flaming ball arches into the Meroweyan force, this time into the armed footmen behind the shields.
At that, a chaos-bolt arcs from the rear of the Meroweyan formation toward the catapult, but misses to one side, incinerating three stick dummies. Another chaos-bolt follows. The fireballs are smaller than the ones Lerial has diverted, and he wonders if that is because the white wizards are tired as well … or because they have been ordered to husband their chaos strength. The youths sprint away. Two escape. The third, trailing by a yard or so, is enveloped in flame.
With that, the archers loft shafts toward the rear of the Meroweyan troopers.
In response, the mounted armsmen race from each end of the Meroweyan formation toward the small squads of Verdyn Lancers flanking the ends of the log barricade. The Lancers wheel and gallop behind the barricade and then onto the road. As they pass, the archers also turn and run.
Seeing the fleeing Verdyn forces, the Meroweyan riders urge their mounts onward also around the ends of the log barricade. Lerial sees a ranker with a torch running forward, but the Meroweyans don’t seem to see him—or are more interested in running down the women archers.
Lerial wonders if something has gone wrong, despite Altyrn’s plans … and why the archers don’t sprint for the trees. Then he sees the Lancers slow and turn.
At that moment, fire erupts, seemingly from the ground, creating a semicircle with each end touching the log barricade, enclosing almost two companies of riders. In addition, after a few moments, the log barricade also begins to burn. Startled by the sudden flame and heat, more than a few of the Meroweyan mounts either rear or balk, but perhaps a squad of riders either crosses the line of flame before it is at full strength or bursts through it anyway, only to find that the archers have turned and begin to loose shafts at those riders. The three remaining squads from third company charge back at the surviving Meroweyan riders. In a matter of moments, none of the less than a score of the attacking riders who escaped the flames remain alive or unwounded. The archers, still carrying their bows, sprint toward the edge of the woods, where, Lerial sees, their mounts are tethered.
Cyador’s Heirs Page 46
