by Tom Deitz
The first cavalry had almost reached the bridges by then, and Avall suddenly realized that every third one of those men had ridden double, and that most of the co-riders were armed with stone-hammers and carried pouches of quick-fire. Arrows flew from the fore of Ixti’s ranks, for Barrax had sent almost entirely cavalry—on stolen Eronese horses—and most of them carried bows. Shafts arched high into the air, then down in a glittering rain of death. Raised shields caught most of them. But one horse died just as its rider reached the bridge. The body toppled into the river. The rider managed to leap free, but his steed caught the footman beside him and laid him low. Nor did he rise. First blood to Ixti, then, though the blow had come from friend, not foe.
Avall found his attention drawn away, as Gynn put his plan into play.
His strategy was simple. To take Eron, Barrax would have to cross the Ri-Ormill. That meant taking the bridges. This was not his country, and the longer he remained in it unsubdued, the more vulnerable his flanks—and supply train—would become. Without the bridges, Barrax would have to wait—or dare the gorge. And if he could be made to wait long enough, other forces already in transit could be sent around to attack him from the flank.
Why did Gynn not cross the bridges himself, and take the war to Barrax? Because that meant abandoning the high ground, for one thing. More importantly, it meant moving his force by small increments into a place where attack could come from any quarter, for the land was wider south of the river.
But if he could lure Barrax here, the foe would have almost no maneuvering room.
And if they could destroy the bridges before the foe reached them, it wouldn’t matter. Any further movement north would be subject to attacks by a swelling horde of Eronese intent on protecting their land. Gynn’s hope was in attrition. And buying time. And a superior knowledge of Eronese men, land, and weather.
And then suddenly the battle congealed, as isolated clumps of men and beasts came together. Ixti’s army had always moved as one, unlike Eron’s, which consisted of more specialized groupings. And for once Avall was grateful that everyone who completed a tour in Wood-Hold was required to finish at least ten double eights of arrows. They were using them now; the sky was thick with them. But if they were stemming the approaching Ixtian tide, he didn’t see it.
The bridge crews were having a hard time as well, finding the marshy ground much harder to navigate than they’d expected. Nor had the bridges been made to slight easily. It didn’t help when one pouch of the precious quick-fire powder exploded prematurely.
Yet all that observation occupied but a fraction of Avall’s time. The rest—he forgot what he was put there for, and found himself straining his gaze in search of Rann—or Lykkon, or the King. The latter was easy to spot. Half a shot back from the front, and surrounded by a ring of armed War-Hold knights, which ring also encompassed his friends. He was seeing everything, missing nothing.
And then, without warning, Merryn began feeding him information. “Tell the King that a group has broken off the west flank and are moving toward Narrow Bridge. Tell him—”
Avall didn’t truly hear the words. He simply closed his eyes, linked with the gem, and through it told Rann everything Merryn dictated.
And for moments on end was more his bond-brother than his self, to the point of feeling the horse shift and paw beneath him, as he sat unmoving while the battle flowed around him. Rann was heavily armored—in almost full plate, since he wouldn’t be in a position to fight, except in defense. Yet he was still vulnerable to the ever-raining shafts. Fortunately, few reached him, and of those that did, all but one slid harmlessly off the metal. The other caught in his surcoat. He picked it up absently, studying the workmanship.
Shafts made from inferior wood, with points cast in batches, and rough-filed in haste to a modicum of sharpness. Painted gold to produce an illusion of splendor when they rode the air.
Avall blinked back to his own head.
Both armies were clumped along the banks now, both having trouble with mud and wet grass. Horses were sliding down, and men barely had better traction. It was still raining arrows, but both sides had their shieldmen in place, and few of those shafts got through. Neither side was shooting as often as heretofore.
But the bridges were still intact. And no one had dared step upon them.
Too late Avall saw why the enemy had not advanced.
Bows were raised, but bigger bows than earlier, bows capable of shooting farther than the standard measured shot that was the basic unit of Eronese distance. Bows strong enough to shoot behind the body of Gynn’s force, who were clumped around the bridges. Which meant they were also strong enough to target the open ground between the bridges.
Where the ground was covered with long, dry grass.
Spring was the dry season in Eron. And while the river had been in flood, that water had been snowmelt from the highlands that surrounded them. The grass itself was ripe to take fire from arrow flame.
Which Barrax had just sent hurtling northward in masses so thick it looked as though the sky was blazing.
The grass ignited at once.
And Gynn found his army assailed from behind, even as access along the banks between his phalanxes suddenly became difficult.
Those closest to the flames turned to fight them. But men who turned to fight fire at their backs were men who must turn their backs on their foes. And while shieldmen went on plying their trade, the number of available archers Eron could bring to bear was suddenly diminished by a tithe.
Smoke roiled into the sky, briefly obscuring vision, until the high winds began to fan it away. Which also, unfortunately, fanned the flames toward Eron’s back. Maybe this was why Barrax had waited.
Merryn was shouting observations faster than Avall could comprehend, but he thought it was getting through. What was also getting through, however, was the raw emotion welling up in him. His rage at seeing good men die, and the land assailed. His disappointment in seeing Gynn’s ploy start to fail so easily. An irrational notion that this would be just the grist Tyrill needed to see him unthroned. But all the while he was talking.
It was chaos down there. And in the middle of that chaos, Barrax’s most heavily armed knights pounded onto the bridges, as an ally with a thousand lives and no heart at all to show mercy fought half his battle for him.
“It doesn’t look good,” Merryn gritted. “Damn, but I wish I was down there with them.”
“You may get to fight sooner than you thought,” Avall retorted. “Did the King hold any in reserve?”
“A few. Most are Common Clan, though, and underarmed. Our best are on the field.”
Where there was fighting. Where there was noise and stench and death. Avall heard it as loudly as though he were there, perhaps because his link with Rann was never entirely severed; perhaps because the emotions and images on the battlefield were strong enough to strengthen their connection and reach him without Rann’s volition. But even there on the mountainside, over two shots away, he could see the flash of spears, and the steady push of Ixtian cavalry.
A bridge blew—finally. But it was Narrow Bridge. He reported that fact dutifully, as he reported the fact that the forces sent there were returning to the main battle. And all the while the fire crept closer. Men fought it, and some had sense enough to soak their clothing, or cake it in mud, and run through the flame. But the smoke was a terrible distraction to men already pressed for air inside their helms. That the smoke also troubled Ixti’s army was small comfort.
And then an Ixtian force broke through—not at what Avall had started calling King’s Bridge, but at the other. And the battle realigned as men who’d been unable to find foes found them in great abundance.
He couldn’t stand it. Not sitting here doing nothing, observing calmly, while people he knew and loved or might someday know and care about risked their lives a dozen ways every breath.
“I’m going to try something,” he announced. “Forgive me. But don’t try to stop me.”
>
And with that, he closed his eyes, and gripped the gem as hard as he ever had. But instead of trying to contact Rann or even the King, he thought only of his desire for power. He had the trick of it now: the knack for getting to the Overworld alone. Gynn had given him that much the previous evening, all unknowing. But he’d never gone there alone, nor did he dare rely on Merryn. Not consciously. The gem would take what it would in any case. Maybe a mistake, that, but only one, and only once.
And that way was clear, too: clearer than he recalled, as though someone had opened the path before him, so that he found the way unencumbered. But it still took every bit of will he possessed, like climbing a sheer slope. More than once he wavered, fighting the urge to return to his body, to reject that terrible aloneness he found here, where he had only been with his closest friends.
But he was there. A place that wasn’t and yet was, that terrified him. And he took what he’d come for: a handful of sand from the not-beach on which he’d found himself. And then he fled.
For the barest instant he noted the solid world, and in that instant, while that part of him that visited that other place was still partially there, he tried to fling that remnant of Overworld matter upon his enemy.
An explosion of fire did indeed bloom among the ranks beyond the nearer bridge. But much closer and more intense, and ultimately impossible to endure, was the explosion that occurred in his head.
He saw the ground slamming up to meet him, and had just time to recall that the gem had saved him more than once. And then he was unconscious.
Merryn woke to equal portions of panic and pain. Her head ached as though, like the stump beside her, it had been splintered by lightning. The rest of her hurt as well, but that was mostly concussive force, or the minor bruises and abrasions she’d suffered from hitting rock too hard.
The panic was born in equal parts fear for her country and for Avall. She sat up groggily, but that was enough to determine that her brother sprawled beside her, his fingers still clamped around that infernal gem. And that on the plain below what had never been much of an advantage was in danger of becoming a rout, as the armies of Ixti flowed inexorably toward the bridges, and then out again to clamp Eron’s warriors between themselves and the smoking plain. That was a risky ploy, too, but it seemed to be succeeding, though a fair number of Eronese were electing to brave the river for short swims or rides downstream. It wouldn’t win the battle, but it might put them in position to fight again. If there was an again.
But that was there and she was here, with a brother who she prayed was only unconscious. She scrambled toward him, reeling before her vision cleared, wondering why she felt so cold. And then she saw his chest rise and the twitch of pulse at his throat.
“Avall!” she cried, shaking him as she sought to revive him. He didn’t answer. She slapped him. Hard—but enough to warn his body it was in peril. To no avail. Gritting her teeth, she found her water bag and sloshed water in his face. He grunted and groaned and fought at it, but did not truly waken.
“Avall! You have to get up. I don’t think this is going to last much longer. I think it’s going to be a rout. We have to get back to the army.”
“Duty,” he mumbled. Which relieved her and irked her all over again.
“Not now. The King needs you alive and with him. There’s no good you can do up here now.”
He moved, twitched, tried to rise, then collapsed once more. Merryn dared another glance toward the plain, searching for the King’s party and finding them still mostly intact, though she had no idea which of those ant specks was Rann. As for Strynn, over on the other point, she had no time for her now, though Avall’s blast had surely affected her as well.
Avall moaned. She looked down at him, cursing him for making her choose, for denying her access to her all-but-sister when she might also be in danger. But Avall’s eyelids were fluttering now, and his color was better, his breathing more certain. He tried to sit up again, but slowly, oh so slowly.
And dared look over his shoulder.
“It didn’t work,” he groaned. “I did what I could—all I could think to do, and it failed. There’s no more.”
“There is while there’s hope and will,” Merryn flared, frustration paving the way for an unfocused rage she’d fought all day. “But probably not here, and probably not now.”
Again Avall tried to rise, and shook his head. He indicated the swirling chaos of horses and men and steel and blood and flame that oozed out from the river across the valley. “You’re right. We have to return to camp. They won’t wait for us. But I … I have to rest a little longer. You have no idea …”
“A finger,” Merryn sighed at last. “If I can stand it. If nothing changes. After that … if I have to, I’ll carry you.”
Rann felt a chill surge through him, and then a tightening in his thoughts that made him think his head was going to explode, or his self simply snap like a too-taut bowstring. And then he saw a flash of light somewhere across the bridge, and felt the air pulse toward him like the aftershock of a lightning strike. He rocked in his saddle, but worse was what he felt in his mind—his soul—his head. Wherever the power of the gem took hold. That part of him had been strong all morning, alive from his ongoing link with Avall. Suddenly a vital part of it had vanished, as though he’d had one leg cut from beneath him. Avall wasn’t dead—but something—
“What …?” From a white-faced Lykkon, beside him.
“He used the gem,” Rann gasped, reeling, as were most of those around him. “I’ve felt it used that way, you haven’t. He used it—against our foe.”
“Did he …?” Lykkon dared.
“I can’t tell. There’s some chaos over there, but—”
The King, who’d stationed himself ahead of them in anticipation of a foe that hadn’t reached him yet, twisted around in the saddle, his face taut with hope mingled with despair. “He did something, but … I don’t think it was enough. It wasn’t controlled. It had a feel of desperation about it. What—what does he say about it?”
Rann regarded him squarely. “Nothing, at the moment. He’s … not dead, but whatever that was, it cost him.”
“Us, too,” the King spat bitterly. “I know he meant well, but that did them little harm, and us little good.”
Rann nodded mutely.
“But maybe it’s a distraction we can use,” the King added, whirling his mount around, and setting heels to the horse’s sides. “Eron!” he shouted, drawing his sword, as he and his ring of guard surged forward, as though they were one being.
Rann rode with them because he had no choice. Beside him, he saw Lykkon set his jaw and draw his sword as well. Rann syn Eemon-arr was no coward. Though born of Stone, his one-mother was from War-Hold, and had made sure that he learned swordwork as he’d learned to walk. He was as competent as most of his peers—though by War’s standards, no more than adequate. Still, he gave no thought to shirking the fight, and indeed felt a rise of exhilaration as he found himself bearing down on a small group of Ixtian horse that had ventured too far from their fellows. A gap loomed in the ring of Royal Guard around him, and he forced his horse through—and found himself yelling at the top of his lungs at the startled man who swung around to meet him. His foe was left-handed, as was he, and their blades met and belled in the hot, smoky air. The impact surprised him, but only long enough for him to compensate and dare another blow, as the man likewise shifted his seat. The slash angled past the man’s guard and down the cheekpiece of his helm, grazing his mount’s neck on the downstroke. Rann used the force of that impact to bring it back around toward his foe’s face.
The horse bucked as blood fountained. The man flinched back—and started to slide sideways. Rann stabbed at his throat—and hit something solid, but whether bone or steel he wasn’t certain. He saw the man’s foot wave into the air, and by then was jerking his horse away from the injured steed—and toward the downed soldier. Trained warhorse hooves found the Ixtian as he tried to rise. But by then Rann w
as parrying other blades.
He stabbed one inattentive man where he sat, then sliced neatly through another’s neck, and laid open the thigh of a third before a shout from Lykkon informed him that he was separating himself from his group. He retreated. In that too-brief respite, he saw that Lykkon was also acquitting himself decently, with deft if workmanlike strokes against a man older and larger than he. Myx, who had little use for horses, had jumped off his and was having at whatever foes in similar straits he could find. Which, though brave, put him at too much disadvantage. “Get back on your horse,” Rann yelled, as he passed, only to see Lykkon likewise unhorsed—though not by choice, his mount having grown a pair of arrows in its hip. The boy slipped in mud when he landed and fell, whereupon a pair of Ixtians, also afoot, bore down upon him. He tried to rise and slipped again, but by then Rann was there, wheeling his horse between Lykkon and the startled men, then spinning it around again to slash at them. Lykkon, who tended to think very fast indeed, needed no prompting to grab Rann’s hand as he finally made it to his feet. And though neither he nor Rann was particularly strong, both were lithe and nimble, and with fear as goad, Rann got the younger man up behind him.
Riff galloped in on the left, and together they hurried toward the ring of guards that had been forced uphill to the right by another push from the bridge. He saw the King—fighting now, though the Ixtians seemed to be avoiding him. Gynn’s sword flashed down all clean and silver then rose again, rank with dripping red. A line of droplets flicked across the King’s face. He licked at them absently, then saw Rann watching and grinned. “Regroup,” he yelled. “Make a wedge.”
Rann found himself face-to-face with Gynn. “You’re a fool,” the King snapped. “A brave one, but I can’t risk you. Get to the back. All of you.”
For the briefest moment Rann thought to defy him, but then he saw the glint in his Sovereign’s eyes, and remembered that he was the King of the land and people of Eron and that he was Gynn’s to command, and so he complied.
