Huge claws raked the side of the cart, ripping wood and steel, as the Bhrekxa struck. Its dank smell was overpowering, the full extent of its great size only apparent as it closed. Massive jaws gaped, flinging a wash of crimson, and the pirate’s chant was cut off mid verse.
Flung sideways as the cart jolted from the collision, Mar fell off the seat, scrambling frantically for a hold as his legs dangled over the side. Phehlahm bent to throw out a hand, the legionary shield cocked high over his shoulder as a counterweight. Straining, Mar latched onto the marine’s forearm and used that anchor to regain his place.
Immediately, he corrected the cart’s course, pointing it back toward the Old Keep, and quickly took stock of his passengers. The chanting pirate was missing but the others had taken no additional harm. The young magician swiveled about, trying to spot the Bhrekxa.
“Where did it go?” he shouted at the marine beside him.
Phehlahm pointed down at an angle to starboard. “It fell toward the Citadel, sir!”
Mar stood, fixing the cart’s course and speed. He flexed his legs.
“Sir!” Borlhoir snapped worriedly, reaching out his hand to catch at Mar’s arm. “What are you –“
Mar leaped upward, using a quick burst of ether to boost him up and away from the cart. Borlhoir and Phehlahm cried out in shock as the cart sailed on. Ignoring them, Mar flipped over in the air, letting the earth drag him downward.
Dhun’s death had shaken him.
Yesterday, death and injury, much caused by his own efforts, had lain on every hand, but those deaths had been distant and easily dismissed, and he had exiled them from his thoughts as the battle raged.
Not that he was a stranger to death. Life in Khalar had been harsh and its rulers often without mercy. For most in the Lower City, life was cruelly short, with violence not infrequent and disease and hunger rampant. Carrying corpses paid a full thal, and he had often helped bear the dead to their grave or pyre. On two occasions he had been caught in the street and “invited” by the Imperials to witness executions.
But none of those deaths had had any personal meaning for him. He had never permitted the lives that had belonged to those deaths to have any significance for him. That was the way it had had to be. No associations, no entanglements. He had kept himself separate and apart, an island of solitude in the gregarious sea of the Imperial City.
Sihmal had been one of less than a handful who managed even slightly to penetrate his shield of indifference. He had watched Sihmal take a deathblow, but the chaos of Mar’s desperate flight had diluted the impact of the memory.
Now, on every side, people whose lives were bound up in his confronted him, people that he must defend and preserve, people whose deaths, like Dhun’s, would leave scars on his soul.
His magic had restored life to Ulor, but it had not been able to save Dhun.
Nor had it saved the strange, mad pirate who had been laid in Mar’s cart unconscious, who had stood with insane courage to face a nightmare, and who had died in pain.
But his magic must save the rest, even if it did not save him.
Mar fell toward the city, not bothering to slow his fall as he combed the sky for the Bhrekxa. His helmet obscured his side vision so he snatched it off and cast it away. Caught by the air immediately, it tumbled away toward the earth.
A strong boom echoed from the west and the Bhrekxa rose from the roof of an apartment, a cloud of dust boiling out behind it. Its leap was unnatural, clearly magically enhanced as it climbed through an extended arc that would intersect the path of the cart.
Mar allowed himself a moment of relief as he realized that the beast did not actually fly, but made incredibly large sailing jumps from the earth below. Flight was his only superiority over the magic of the Brotherhood, and he had feared that the Bhrekxa’s appearance had meant that advantage eliminated.
He spelled his trousers and shirt, attempting to fly toward the beast, but though his fall slowed considerably, he was unable to maintain sufficient flux within the cotton cloth to counteract the effect of the earthly red. His chainmail and brigandine were simply too heavy. Thus far, steel had shown a marked resistance to flux and he knew he did not have time to work upon the steel rings. Instead, he delved the hardened leather plates of the brigandine. The leather was dense and thankfully welcoming to flux, almost seeming to siphon in a pedantic milky blue. The straps of the brigandine tightened constrictively as the armor abruptly halted his descent.
Swinging his body in a tight curve, he pointed his booted feet toward the Bhrekxa and accelerated. As he blazed across the sky, narrowing the gap between himself and the beast in mere seconds, he extended his magical awareness to delve its ethereal nature. It was an incredibly complex mass of sound-color, far more sophisticated in the patterns of its numerous spells than anything he had ever experienced. One thing was readily apparent – its physical form was artificial.
From outward appearance alone, the Bhrekxa appeared a gargantuan cross between a bear, a snake, and a hawk, with shaggy black fur, powerful, clawed limbs, and a savage hooked beak and feathered head at the end of a long scaled neck.
Somewhere within, however, was a man. From Ulor, Mar had learned the palette-scale of mankind and recognized a bright-loud bundle that existed at the core of the Bhrekxa as the sound-colors that arose from the flesh of a man. Somehow, through magic, the man had become the beast.
Mar braced himself, stiffening his body and bracing his arms at his side, driving himself to greater speed. He intended to strike against its ribs, to drive it away from the cart by simple force.
As the Bhrekxa loomed, he began to fire waves of disruptive flux at the serenading junctures of its spells, seeking to break their intertwined vessels. At the last moment, just before he struck the beast, he found a simple knot of flux that unraveled with a weak nudge. In a heartbeat, the complex magical symphony of the Bhrekxa collapsed and the beast ceased to be. In its place, a man fell flailing and screaming.
Mar shot through the now empty space before he could slow himself and raced on for hundreds of armlengths. Quickly shedding momentum, he whipped about in a tight arc. Below and to his left, a black figure slammed into the flat roof of a villa.
When Mar landed beside him, there was no doubt that the Phaelle’n was dead. Ignoring the voluminous blood and the man’s crushed head, he examined the corpse, seeking the source of the magic he had sensed. The flux burning in its heart led him to a circle of gold set with three milky gems. He retrieved it and then made the brigandine carry him back toward the serenely sailing cart.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Eishtren raised the faltering child and sat her on his shoulder opposite his bow. She was about the same age as his youngest.
“How much farther would you judge, fugleman?” he asked.
They had decided a litter easier to carry than Aael’s chair, and had fashioned one from odd lengths of wood and an awning. Truhsg carried the forward of it and Taelmhon the rear. Aelwyrd, further introduced as the signifier’s great-grandson, walked alongside. C’edl plodded beside them, pushing a wheelbarrow that bore an elderly man who had a broken leg.
“I think I can see the gates. It can’t be more than a third league.”
“It is exactly one thousand four hundred and six of my paces when I had legs,” Aael said. “That building there is the old headquarters of the Fire Hawk Legion. I walked this route for three years.”
“How far are the Monks, Kyamhyn?” Eishtren called back. The clerk and the other armsmen, with the addition of one wounded legionnaire who insisted he could fight and five more or less hale militia that they had swept up on their long march, formed a rear guard twenty paces behind.
“About the same, sixth of a league,” came the reply.
“We need to increase our speed,” Eishtren repeated for the eighth time.
Neither Truhsg nor C’edl nor Aael bothered to respond.
In front of them, near a hundred noncombatants trudged. Aael’s erstwhile char
ges had been found hiding in a shed behind a tavern a few blocks from the disaster. After Eishtren and his group had collected them, they had almost immediately begun to encounter other wayward refugees: family groups with children, solitary individuals of all ages and both sexes, and near two dozen badly wounded armsmen who had been abandoned by the wayside. These had to be borne in other improvised slings, some carried by as many as six women and boys.
“What is your name?” he asked the little girl.
“Eylis.”
He thought it useless and perhaps harmful to ask about her parents. Wherever they were, alive or dead, she was not with them and it was not within his power to change that.
“I have a baby girl about your age. Her name is Fenriy.”
“That’s a nice name. I’m hungry.”
“There will be food when we reach the fortress.” There were deep larders beneath the Redoubts and siege supplies for a year. It would be long storage grains, pickled vegetables, wine and the like.
Eylis smiled down at him. “Apples? I like apples.”
“There might be apples.”
“Sir!” Kyamhyn called.
“What is it, legionnaire?”
“I think the Phaelle’n are gaining now.”
“Get them running, Truhsg, whatever it takes.”
“Sir! Give me a cadence, legionnaires!”
C’edl began singing; he had the strongest voice. Aael, his ancient voice cracking and shrilling, joined in enthusiastically. The trailing armsmen took up the chorus. It was an old song, a warrior’s song, with a strong beat that started slowly and grew by easy stages. The stanzas were short, innumerable, irreverent, profoundly profane, and dealt most often with women, war, and wine. With each beat, their boots struck the pavement in unison.
Eishtren did not know most of the verses; many changed over time and some were extemporaneous. He sang all the same, blasting the chorus with the others.
“A legionnaire … should die … in the arms of a harlot!”
Truhsg kept the pace, quickening his step every other verse. The marching armsmen gradually herded the clutch of civilians ahead of them to a faster pace. Mothers and older siblings began to carry the smaller children. None looked to the rear; they knew what chased them. The entire mass reached a slow trot, probably the best that it could do. Most had already passed through exhaustion to that place where the body forgets about pain.
Eishtren took little Eylis from his shoulder and passed her to Aael.
“Do not let them stop,” the quaestor ordered.
“Yes, sir.” Truhsg gave him a glance. It was not one familiar to Eishtren, but he suspected it was the look of a man who did not expect to see you alive again.
Eishtren fell back to the rear guard. He signaled to the armsmen to halt and they settled around him in a ragged group. As their voices stilled, he heard Truhsg, C’edl, Aael, and Taelmhon redouble their efforts as the refugees moved farther away.
“Make two ranks,” he told them.
Dhem still had Truhsg’s shield. He took position beside the quaestor. The wounded legionnaire lined up alongside him. The man had no armor, just his ripped field tunic, and bore a large bloody bandage on his right arm and shoulder, but his grip on Dhem’s loaned billhook was firm. Scahll filled the next spot and Kyamhyn anchored the corner. The five new militia, including one with a distinctive large beard that the rest called “Bear,” took station in second rank.
At this spot, the Transept was a full fifty paces wide. Eishtren’s ten looked fairly insignificant standing in the center of it. However, as he had hoped, the advancing Phaelle’n legion, now only perhaps a hundred paces distant, halted to dress their formation.
He waited, praying the shake he could not suppress in his legs was the result of overtaxed muscles and not fear. The maneuver of the Monks gained him almost three minutes, but far too quickly, they began toward him again.
“Double quick march … forward!” Eishtren called out. Thankfully, his dry voice did not fail him. It came out strong and clear. The Mhajhkaeirii responded well, and their lines remained almost straight. Eishtren let the charge gain speed for twenty paces.
“Roll … left!” The turn did not proceed with parade ground precision, but the legionnaires and militiamen made a good effort and wound up cantering at a right angle across the Transept, facing the imposing, tree-carven columns of a large temple of the Forest God, W’aerliq.
“Roll … left!” An advance to the rear was still a retreat, and everyone, Mhajhkaeirii and Phaelle’n alike, would realize this instantly, but it was a disciplined movement that would forestall a rout. At least, so Eishtren’s instructors had said all those many years ago.
As he and the rear guard quickly gained ground on the refugees, he turned his head to look at their pursuers. His tactic had earned the respite of only another hundred paces, The Phaelle’n could have dispatched a smaller force to give chase but they had not. They were in no hurry; their advance to their destination, the West Redoubt, was inevitable. That refuge was still a good eight hundred paces away and already the civilians were lagging, bunching together despite Truhsg’s best efforts. Eishtren’s feint would not work another time; when he swung about again, it would be to stand and die.
“Would that I had arrows!” He would not have complained aloud, if he had put thought to it, but at this point, it hardly seemed to matter.
Dhem, trotting beside him, said evenly, “There is a way to gain some, sir.”
“What? How?”
“The Monks will give them to us.”
“Ah. I see what you mean.”
The quarrels of the Monks’ crossbowmen were at most two thirds of an armlength and much heavier and sturdier than his arrows, but he did not doubt his ability to fire them accurately. Those that did not strike flesh or steel might be fit to return.
“Scahll, you and another militiaman take a turn on the litter.” He pointed to another unarmored man. “You there, take C’edl’s place.” He would need his better protected legionnaires for this final battle.
When the swaps were made, he called for the rear guard to halt and form square. Dhem with his shield again in front, helmed Truhsg to his right and Taelmhon and his segmentata to his left. C’edl and Kyamhyn at Eishtren’s elbows, the wounded legionnaire, the one called Bear, and the remaining militia behind.
“On my command, I want you all down on one knee, armsmen.”
“Sir?” Kyamhyn blurted.
“That will make you a smaller target, legionnaire.”
“Oh! Right, sir.”
A single arrow in flight was difficult to follow; this was certainly true of one launched at the speed a longbow could produce. His gamble was that the Phaelle’n commanders would see the bowman and imply the arrow.
The conventional military response to missile fire was to return same.
Eishtren would learn if the Monks followed convention. He took his stance, drew empty air, and took aim at the unmarked shields of the Phaelle’n legionnaires, two hundred paces distant. Four hundred and thirty-nine steps was the longest shot that Eishtren had made with his grandfather’s bow; at that distance the arrow had not quite penetrated a half-span pine plank. At the current range, the bow had easily punched an arrow cleanly through clamped boards a full span thick.
The effective range of the stubby infantry crossbow was, on the other hand, only between one hundred eighty and two hundred armlengths. At two hundred paces, the Phaelle’n quarrels might not have enough force to penetrate armor. A veteran commander would march his force closer before ordering his men to loose, choosing to accept the inevitable casualties in order to insure that his bowmen could strike their targets. Today, the favor of the Forty-Nine Gods seemed to be with Eishtren. He saw a wave of movement cross the Phaelle’n front as the leading legionnaires grounded shields to allow crossbowmen to move up and fire over them.
Eishtren released, the empty string slapping his extended left forearm. As he dropped into a crouch, he command
ed, “Down!”
Just a heartbeat later, a flight of bolts flashed from the Phaelle’n line. By its very nature, the use of a crossbow required much less training than a longbow, but that did not mean that a minimum level of skill was not required to hit a target at range. Luckily for Eishtren and his Mhajhkaeirii, many of the crossbowmen who fired at them had less than that minimum expertise. Half the hundred bolts went wide, stuck pavement, buildings, or ricocheted toward the gods knew where. The other half of the swarm, however, flew true.
A score bolts bounced off Dhem’s shield. Several skittered along the pavement. One clanged off Truhsg’s helmet, leaving a crease. Another whizzed over Eishtren’s unprotected head, making him duck belatedly. Taelmhon grunted, sagging, a bloody barb poking out of the back of his thigh. C’edl caught his arm and kept him from dropping to the ground.
Eishtren looked around at the militiamen. Both had survived unscathed. The wounded legionnaire lay bleeding out the remainder of his life, a shaft in his throat.
“Gather up the bolts!” He shouted, standing. The Phaelle’n would loose again within five seconds.
Kyamhyn handed him a bolt plucked from a crack in the paving stones at his feet. Without pausing to inspect it, Eishtren drew and fired. A monk in the front rank, pierced squarely through the chest, fell forward on his shield.
Another volley leapt from the ranks of the Monks. Eishtren ducked. Truhsg, Dhem, the injured Taelmhon, and C’edl had held their position and again their armor deflected most of the near spent bolts. Kyamhyn and the militiamen still scrambled for ammunition and were caught in the open.
Bear, nearby, rolled into a ball. Several of the quarrels bounced around him but missed. The other militiamen, straining to pull a quarrel from a signpost, took four bolts squarely in his back and shoulders. He fell, got up slowly, fell again, tried to crawl, and became still. Kyamhyn, sprinting toward Eishtren with two fists crowded with shafts, stumbled as he ran through the swarm, spat some teeth, and then continued, his face a bloody mess. A bolt had passed directly through both his cheeks. Bear rolled to his feet and skidded to a stop beside the quaestor, shoving two bolts into his hand. Eishtren shot them both within three seconds. Two more Phaelle’n fell. When his clerk presented his dearly bought contribution, Eishtren drew and loosed methodically through the opening in the front rank of his enemy, toppling pikemen and crossbowmen, one after another.
Key to Magic 02 Magician Page 20
