Age of War: Book Three of The Legends of the First Empire

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “Why would I wait for you?” She grinned. Suri could play the unconcerned game, too.

  Stepping to the edge of the tower, Suri looked down. The gate was open and the first of their soldiers began to pour out onto the bridge. “What about the bridge? Won’t they destroy it?”

  “How would they get in here, then?”

  Suri thought a moment. “What if they don’t want to get in here? What if they just want us all dead?”

  This caused Arion to pause. She looked unsure, then said, “Let’s hope that’s not the case.”

  * * *

  —

  The sun was rising as Raithe led the men of the First Spear out of the bronze gates and across the Grandford Bridge. Looked like any other day—better even. Things he would normally take for granted all screamed for his attention: the way the light was so bright and golden, how dew glistened on everything in fine droplets, the blueness of the sky, and the warm and fragrant air. The little things were saying goodbye.

  Raithe walked at the head of the army as any good chieftain should. The first target, the first casualty—these were the risks associated with privilege. Raithe had never gotten the lodge or the feasts, he only had a clan of one, maybe two—he still didn’t know where Malcolm fit—but this privilege of being first in battle he had received often, at least since he had arrived in Dahl Rhen.

  He tilted his head down slightly, the brim of his helmet blocking the glare of the sun—Roan thought of everything. On his left arm was the Dherg shield complete with runes; the design had been copied on all the new iron shields. Some of the men painted pictures on theirs. The less talented went with a big X or T; the more adept painted lions or dragons. Wedon, his First Spearman, had painted a target bullseye, saying he’d rather they hit it than him. Raithe left his blank. He liked the way it shone.

  He would have bet against his reaching the far side of the bridge but imagined the gods enjoyed absurd poetics. Raithe, the quiet son of Herkimer, who had promised his sister and mother he wouldn’t be like his father, would fall in battle on the plains of Dureya less than a day’s walk from where he was born. Having accomplished nothing, making no difference to anyone, his failure couldn’t possibly be more complete. And yet he walked quickly. Raithe, who had never before taken pleasure from a fight, was eager for this one. An explosion had been building in him for months. Frustrations caused by a shut door had wound him tight, and the coil screamed to be unleashed. If not for the fane’s army, it would have been Nyphron. With luck, he would die and be free of it all.

  They reached the far side of the bridge without incident. The only indication the elves knew they were coming was the darkening sky. Early morning looked like twilight. As they cleared the bridge, Raithe saw the fane’s army—the rows and rows of tents set in perfect squares. In front, in gleaming bronze, stretched lines of elven soldiers. Two thousand formed a wall of spears and shields.

  “It’s too wide,” Wedon told Raithe. “Too wide for us to form three-deep. They’ll fold around. They’ll flank us easy.”

  Raithe was impressed by the old farmer’s transformation into a thinking soldier. “But it’s thin. Look there.” He gestured with his spear to a rise where a group of Fhrey gathered. “That hill, that’s Wolf’s Head. That’s our objective. We aren’t here to win, we just need to open a path and get close enough for Moya to hit that hill. Our three-deep will give us the endurance to get there.”

  “And our flanks?”

  “Order the ends to fold.”

  “And if they surround us? How do we get back out?”

  What makes you think we ever had any chance to get back?

  Wedon sounded like a soldier, but he wasn’t—not yet—and he certainly wasn’t Dureyan. The thought of surviving a battle was far too optimistic.

  Accept that you’re going to get hurt, that you’re going to die; embrace it, and you’ll find the freedom to live. This was one of the many ridiculous things his father had told him that sounded less stupid every day.

  “We’ll make a full square if we have to.”

  “Not very smart tactically, but…” Malcolm gave Wedon a crazy grin. “Not much chance of anyone breaking and running.”

  “Would have thought something would have happened by now,” Tope said, his head tilted up so he could stare at the clouds.

  “Waiting for all of us to come out,” Raithe told them. “Trying to lure us away from the safety of our warren. Probably overjoyed that we’re leaving the walls.”

  They reached the edge of the crest. Raithe called for the break order, and the column fanned out. Each soldier took his prearranged place in a set of three rows, one behind the other. Raithe stood in the center, Wedon on his right, Malcolm on his left. Tope Highland and Gavin Killian stood side by side, their eldest sons Colin and Hanson with them. Their younger sons were in the second row with Wedon’s boys, Bruce Baker, Gilroy, and Konniger’s brother-in-law, Fig. Bergin and Heath Coswall were in the third row back. All of them stood with shields shining against the morning light, helms high, spears with butts on the ground. They really did look like an army.

  Next came the following columns led by Tegan, who broke right, and Harkon, who broke left, forming up in the same fashion as Raithe’s soldiers. Wedon was correct; the Fhrey line was much wider. Last came Moya and her archers, who fell in behind Raithe. Once in position, the world stood still—everything except the sky.

  Everyone waited on Raithe. Even the elves waited. His was the final action—his order would call the clash and see hundreds killed. Feeling the weight of that great lever, Raithe looked back at the fortress. The black flags had been exchanged for green. Everything was on him.

  Raithe thought of his father.

  Maybe he’d misjudged the man. The way Herkimer frequented the High Spear battles, Raithe had always believed that his father and brothers were killers who longed for blood. Raithe had tried his best to avoid becoming like them, and here he was at the center of a line, in the middle of a battle, at the start of a war. Maybe his father hadn’t wanted to be in his battles, either. Maybe he, too, only ever wanted a bit of land in a quiet meadow where his family could live in peace. War had a way of enslaving a man who had a talent for fighting. Battle was what Herkimer was good at, and just like Raithe, that talent gave him a home he’d never sought. Raithe imagined his father had stood many times where he was, in the middle of a line of men facing a wall of spears, and for that one brief instant as he raised his arm, he felt…perhaps not love but…understanding. In that understanding, he found forgiveness. And with the lowering of his arm, the war officially began.

  A moment later, Raithe was hit by lightning.

  * * *

  —

  Moya jumped and let out an undignified scream when the first lightning bolts hit. One after another, they rained out of the clouds, crashing with blinding flashes and followed by chest-rattling thunder. She watched as man after man was struck and illuminated brilliantly in the dim cloud-covered world. Raithe was the first hit, and Moya felt her heart stop, realizing he was dead. Gelston’s luck—if it could have been called luck—was too rare a thing to happen twice. When the flash left her eyes, she expected to see a charred husk laying on the thin grass. Instead, she saw a miracle.

  Raithe hadn’t even faltered.

  The man walked forward as if nothing had happened, and the rest of the army followed. Looking around, she saw that all of those struck remained on their feet. The elves saw it, too, and soon balls of fire rained from the sky, bursting through ranks of men. The soldiers hesitated, and some flinched, but the flames did nothing.

  The runes.

  Protected only by a leather tunic, Moya felt horribly naked. Neither she nor any of her archer auxiliaries wore metal or runes. No one had expected them to march into battle. In retrospect, Moya realized no one knew what to do with them. Archers had never been used in warfare,
but the original idea had been for her cohort to stay within the protection of the walls and shoot down at the attackers. At the last minute, Nyphron had come up with the idea of sending them out behind the Spears to attack the Miralyith. Being outside the walls was bad enough, but he also told them they couldn’t wear runes. The plan was for Arion and Suri to hide them, and they couldn’t do that if runes protected the archers from the Art. He’d given his assurances they’d be safe, but Moya found that difficult to swallow. Luckily, the terrible light show was centered on the forward lines. Not a single bolt hit any of her archers. Thunder boomed, and flashes of lightning rained on Raithe’s, Tegan’s, and Harkon’s men as they advanced across the open space, but those with bows walked under a quiet sky.

  Fire came next. Great waves of flames washed over the front lines, so hot Moya felt her skin prickle. These sputtered out as Raithe and his front line closed on the enemy. Then Moya heard a new sound: the scream of metal on metal as men and elves clashed.

  “Shouldn’t we shoot?” Engleton asked.

  “Our orders are to wait until we can hit that hill,” Moya replied.

  “But we could—”

  “We wait.”

  * * *

  —

  With spears thrown, Raithe and the rest of the front line fought with sword and shield. Packed in a line, Raithe was elated to find that the greater mobility and speed of the elves was limited. Strength, courage, and sheer weight pushed the line forward. In these simple virtues, men were superior to Fhrey. He could see it—those beautiful sky-eyes were scared to die. He couldn’t blame them. Men gambled with a few dozen miserable years of dirt, sweat, and cold, but elves risked thousands of years of ease.

  Only a handful of thrown spears had done damage. The Fhrey were too agile. Raithe wasn’t the first to kill. That distinction went to Malcolm, who slew the Fhrey across from him with a well-timed jab from Narsirabad. Despite all the iron, Malcolm still retained the old spear he’d taken from Dahl Rhen’s lodge. Raithe killed his opponent a few seconds after. Wedon slew his, and they pushed forward a step, leading with their shields, driving with longer, stronger legs.

  For all the training, for all the technique, there was little finesse in warfare. Formed in tight lines, violence came in two forms: slamming the shield and jabbing the sword. Raithe felt the effort just as much in his legs as his arms as he kept them bent, giving him the power to shove forward, driving the Fhrey off-balance. He discovered that an off-balance Fhrey was a dead one.

  Blood sprayed. Men grunted and screamed—so did the Fhrey.

  Some think the Fhrey, Dherg, and Rhunes are all related. Malcolm’s words spoken a lifetime ago came back to him. He couldn’t believe it then, but deadly combat—the simplicity, the totality, the desperation—changed his mind about a great many things.

  You never truly know someone until you fight them, his father had often said. Supposedly brave men are unmasked as cowards, and quiet, unassuming souls are revealed as heroes. Truths are exposed amidst blood. The Fhrey were no different from men. This revelation swallowed him even as he fought. He knew he’d discovered something important, brushed against the profound, but he also knew he didn’t know what that was, and before long the demands of battle smothered ideas with the practical needs of survival.

  Exhausted and nearly blind with all the sweat and blood filling his eyes, Raithe called the switch. The front line stepped back, exchanging positions with the second line that moved up with renewed vigor and shoved forward in a burst of aggression. Even better than in training, the third line advanced, letting Raithe and his row sink farther back. There, they wiped their faces, took deep breaths, and swigged water from shoulder-slung skins. Looking around, Raithe found Malcolm still beside him, but Wedon was missing. So was Hanson, Killian’s eldest. Old Killian had a worried look as he searched up and down the ranks.

  Behind them, Moya and her archers walked at a slight distance.

  Just as Wedon had predicted, the flanks swung in, but Tegan and Harkon had wheeled around and were holding them off as best they could, and their best was excellent. They appeared to be gaining ground. Crazy, buoyant thoughts of survival rose as Raithe saw their little force of men ripping through the elven lines. They had momentum. They were winning. If they caused a rout, the battle—the war itself—might be won that day.

  Then the giants came.

  * * *

  —

  Moya felt the ground shake with footfalls. Vast tremors caught everyone’s attention. They came from the rear of the Fhrey lines, the same hulking monsters that had attacked Dahl Rhen. These were the big ones, standing three and four stories high, with fists the size of Roan’s wagons. Wielding great stone axes and hammers, they cleared swaths in the lines of men. Bodies were thrown in the air. Helmets came off along with arms and legs. The forward push halted as the giants, acting as breakwaters, turned the tide.

  Moya looked toward the Wolf’s Head. She could see the rise, a barren patch in the center of the field, an exposed gray rock. On it, rings of Fhrey encircled one who stood in the center, a conductor flailing his arms, directing the others. They moved and writhed in concert, performing some rehearsed ritual. The lightning had ended, and the fires were gone. Moya couldn’t imagine what they might be doing, but also couldn’t imagine it was a good idea to leave them to it. They were still too far away—even for Audrey, even if Moya wound her tight. Raithe looked at her. She knew what he was thinking.

  This might be as far as we can get. Tell me it’s good enough.

  It wasn’t, and she shook her head.

  Raithe frowned and his shoulders slumped, but he nodded.

  Then Moya saw a giant turn their way. Raithe’s cohort had pushed the hardest, driven the deepest into the Fhrey and made itself the biggest threat. As a reward, they drew the biggest giant. Large as an old tree, he charged the center line.

  Raithe gave her one last look, a sad one, as he shouted, “First Principal forward!” Then he rushed ahead to take his place once more at the front.

  * * *

  —

  The giant, dressed in patchwork rags and sporting a bushy beard and a thin-lipped sneer, swept men away like dirt from the floor. The only consolation was his speed, or lack thereof. Raithe knew it took a lot of time to get that much weight in motion. Once the giant made a swing, there were several beats before the return stroke. Fighting a hammer-wielding mountain had never been on the list of things Raithe’s father taught him. The Galantians had skipped the lesson as well. Wasn’t like he had a lot of options. All Raithe could do was attack the thing’s feet. In that window between strokes, Raithe sprinted forward and shoved straight down; he pierced the beast in the foot with his sword just behind its big toe.

  Grenmorian flesh was no tougher than a man’s—softer even, since the bones were spread out—and the iron blade went deep. The giant howled and jerked, which for a slow behemoth was more of a slow lift of his weight-bearing foot. This did two things. As Raithe refused to lose his sword and hung on with all his might, the blade was pulled down, dragging razor sharp iron. He would have severed the toe but couldn’t cut through the bone. Still, it caused the giant to stumble, which was good and bad. The mountain staggered—didn’t look as if he had great balance to start with. The giant wavered, swaying back and forth. Formed in lines of combat, men and their elven enemy had no hope of dodging bed-sized feet. Dozens, maybe more, died beneath that monster’s dance. Shining gems crushed underfoot, crackling like ice crystals.

  The line broke. In panic, men and elves gave up their positions in favor of survival. The fight disintegrated into a melee, careful jabs replaced with wild swings. The giant continued to waver, tilting first toward the human line, then the Fhrey. Each combatant was forced to swing and block with one eye on their enemy and one eye on the teetering mountain. Raithe alone charged the giant. He tried to read the pattern of weight-shift. Anticipating w
here the next foot might fall, he ran for that spot. The odds were even that the foot would land either beside him or on him—no telling which. This sort of gamble, the overextension that left him vulnerable but could possibly win the fight, was one he’d learned to make in combat. Most men refused to take such risks. That was the strength of the Dureya, and the weakness of the Fhrey. Risk was the secret ingredient in combat—timidity invited death. Quite often risk invited death, too. Death welcomed everyone.

  The foot came down close enough that Raithe felt the wind. Lunging and using both hands, Raithe slashed across the big tendon running up the back of the leg from the giant’s heel. The cord was the thickness of a heavy rope, but in his hand he held much more than a stone spear. The same iron blade that broke the bronze sword in Tirre made the difference once more. The giant sounded like a howling wind on a frigid winter’s night—a chilling cry that carried. With no support, the great tree fell. While it could have been better, it could have been worse. The giant crashed across both sides. Twelve people died instantly. Dozens scattered.

  “Re-form the line!” Raithe shouted.

  Wedon miraculously reappeared as he and Malcolm found Raithe and slammed shoulders with his. Both men were panting and slick with blood. He had no idea whose.

  “Stay close, Moya!” he yelled. “Shield brace!” he cried and drove the line forward at a run.

  We’re going to succeed or die in the attempt!

  The Fhrey hastily shuffled to defend as shields collided. Men were stronger and had momentum, but elves had elevation. Seeing the rush, fearing the penetration dividing their force, horns blew. Raithe saw the heads of giants turn and take their first lumbering strides toward them.

  Finally, he thought with an odd relief, this is where we die. The Grenmorian herd ambled their way—his prize for being successful.