by S L Farrell
He felt himself falling.
There weren’t enough nahualli with Niente to create a war-storm. Ahead of them, in the golden light of late afternoon, they could see the Easterner troops arrayed on the hillsides on either side of the road. Their own numbers appeared to be significantly greater than that of the Easterners unless they had troops hidden in reserve on the far slope.
Tototl sniffed in disdain.
“This is all they bring against us?” he said, and the warriors closest to them chuckled. “Uchben Nahual, it’s time to do as we’ve discussed.”
Niente inclined his head to Tototl and turned his horse, riding back to where the other nahualli were sheltered in the midst of the warriors. He’d had them fill their spell-staffs the night before as usual, so that they could perform this spell at need and still be rested for the battle. They could not create the war-storm, but they could create cloud enough to mask them. That was what they did now, their mass chant pulling power from the X’in Ka, the energy rising into the air and becoming visible. Wisps of cloud began to sway in front of the warriors, from the road to nearly the banks of the river, a fog that thickened and became dense, a wall shaped by the nahualli so that the Easterners could no longer see them. This wall would not need to move with the troops, nor would it need to generate the lightnings of the war-storm. Niente gestured when he could no longer see the Easterner troops ahead of them nor the hills on which they stood, and the nahualli stopped their chant.
Niente swayed on his feet, as if he’d run from here to the river and back: the payment for the chant and his channeling of the energy, but he forced himself to stay upright, even though a few of the younger nahualli collapsed, panting. Using the X’in Ka this way—creating the spell without giving yourself time to recover from the effort—was costly; Niente didn’t understand why the Easterner spellcasters usually performed their magic this way, rather than storing the spells to be released later. “Get up,” he told them. “Take up your spell-staffs. There’s still a battle to be fought.”
With the fog-wall shutting off sight of the Easterner troops, Tototl shouted his orders, gesturing to the lesser warriors and the High Warriors in charge of them. Two companies slid away to the left, toward the river—they would outflank the Easterners and come upon them from the side and rear. Tototl waited as the flanking arm moved away and Niente rode back to him. “If this is all that is between us and the city, we’ll be there by evening, Uchben Nahual,” Tototl said. “It would seem that your son has seen well—sending us across the river was the path to victory. They weren’t prepared for this. We will push through their city and come upon the rest of their army from the rear as Citlali and Nahual Atl attack them from the front. We will crush them between us like a shelled nut between stones.”
The comment only made Niente scowl. He’d tried to use the scrying bowl the night before: everything was confusing, and powers moved on the side of the Easterners that he could not clearly see while the Long Path eluded him entirely. Tototl seemed to find Niente’s irritation amusing—he laughed. “Don’t worry, Uchben Nahual,” he said. “I still have faith in you. Is your spell-staff full?”
Niente lifted the staff, the ebony hardwood he’d carved so carefully decades ago with the symbols of power. His hands over the long years had polished the knobbed end and the middle of the staff to a gleaming satiny finish. The staff felt like part of him; he could feel the energy within, waiting for the release words to burst forth in fury and death. Yet even as he displayed the staff to Tototl and the warriors and nahualli around him gave a shout of affirmation, Niente felt little but despair.
There was no life in this victory, if victory it was to be. No joy. Not if it were to lead to the place he’d once glimpsed.
Tototl unsheathed his sword. He lifted it with Niente’s staff as the shouts redoubled. “It is time for blood!” Tototl declared. “It is time for death or glory!” He pointed the sword toward the cloudbank. “For Sakal!” he roared, and they shouted with him as they charged forward. Niente was carried along with the flood, but he was silent.
They entered the cold, gray blankness of the cloud, and emerged into sun and heat and battle.
Brie had positioned the troops on the two hillsides that flanked the road, with only a single company on the road itself, and the archers in position on either side—they would at least have the high ground to begin this battle. The Westlanders would have to charge uphill if they wished to engage them.
If they had chevarittai, they could have come charging down at terrible speed, like a gigantic spear thrusting into the Westlanders’ midst. But they had no chevarittai and too few archers, only three of the Numetodo—of whom Brie was rather suspicious, there being no Numetodo in Firenzcia at all; at least none who openly showed themselves—and no war-téni at all.
Allesandra had arrived a turn earlier, dressed in her own armor, and Brie had ceded field command to her, as was proper given that the Garde Kralji was hers. The Kraljica had given her approval of Brie’s placement of the gardai. “I see you’ve been taught well,” she said. “I expected no less.” Brie and the Kraljica, along with Sergei and Commandant cu’Ingres, watched the approach of the Westlander troops, under the banner of a winged snake. Brie was sobered by the frightening size of their force; she was even more concerned as they watched their spellcasters—safely out of the range of the archers they had—place a fog-wall between them to mask their formation.
Brie had not been able to conceal a shudder at the sight. “Kraljica, Ambassador, is there some better and more defensible ground between here and Sutegate? Perhaps we should try to harry them rather than stop them? We could send smaller groups against their flanks, create a defensive wall at the city . . .”
Allesandra had glanced at Sergei and cu’Ingres, neither of whom spoke. “It’s too late for that, Hïrzgin,” Allesandra said. “We must stand here, we must hold them as long as we can, and we must make them pay for every stride of ground they take.”
Brie clenched her hands around the reins of her warhorse. “Then I’ll stand with you, Kraljica, at the front.”
“No.” Allesandra shook her head. “That’s my place and responsibility,” she said, “and Jan would never forgive me if you were hurt here. I want you to take the river flank with Talbot’s sparkwheelers,” she said. “They’ll need a steady heart and commander to guide them. Talbot can stay with you, but I need the other Numetodo here—we have too few of them, since most went with Commandant ca’Talin.”
Brie had wanted to argue—to her mind, the Garde Kralji would also need strong leadership or they would break, but she grudgingly inclined her head. “As you say, Kraljica . . .”
Reluctantly, she rode to the western side of the road and up the hill through the Garde Kralji—staring at her worriedly—to the rear flank where the sparkwheelers had been placed. She shook her head at the sight of them: clothed in whatever they already had on their backs. They had no armor at all, except for the few who wore scraps of rusted metal curaisses or ripped and ill-fitting chainmail. Except for the strange-looking devices each of them carried, they were armed only with ancient swords, farm implements, and cudgels. They looked more like a mob than a fighting force—a mob that a bare squadron of Garde Brezno would have been able to rout and send screaming into the streets.
Brie informed Talbot of the Kraljica’s orders; he seemed as distressed by them as she was, but Talbot had hurriedly sent his fellow Numetodo down to where the Kraljica’s banner flew on the eastern side of the road.
“I’m her aide,” he said as he watched the Numetodo moving toward the Kraljica’s banner. “I should be with her. This is madness.”
“Which is why,” Brie said, “she has kept us both back. She knows the odds. Do these sparkwheelers actually have a purpose?”
In answer, Talbot ran them through their drills, forming the sparkwheelers into lines and moving them back in sequence. Brie tried to imagine the the sparkwheels firing, tried to imagine the corps not breaking and fle
eing in terror at the sight of the enemy. As Talbot shouted his orders, she also watched the impossible bank of fog that blanketed the road below, sliding off past the side of the hill on which she stood.
The gray wall was silent.
“What happens when they ‘fire’?” she asked.
“The sparkwheels discharge. They’re actually quite effective. Varina invented them.” He cocked his head slightly at Brie. “There’s no magic involved at all, Hïrzgin, if that’s your worry. No flaunting of ‘Cénzi’s Gift,’ as you of the Faith might term it.”
She started to retort, then . . .
“Talbot . . .” She pointed down the hill.
It began with a muffled roar from behind the cloud: the sound of clashing armor and shouting warriors. From out of the fog, the Tehuantin came rushing toward them, wave upon wave of them, filling the road as well as the fields to either side. Brie, from her vantage point, heard Allesandra call for the archers to fire, and the Numetodo sent fireballs and lightnings crackling toward them. The spells and the arrows cut brief holes in the line that were immediately filled, and now the Westlander spellcasters raised their spell-staffs and sent their own lightnings hurtling toward Allesandra and the troops. There were explosions along both hills, and screams.
The clamor grew louder; the lines came close . . .
. . . and collided with a clash of metal. From the heights where the sparkwheelers were set, Brie could see the battle laid out before her, the two armies swarming like a plague of insects over the landscape. Some of the sparkwheelers were visibly frightened by what they saw and some of them stepped backward up the hill—northward, toward the city. Talbot and Brie both shouted at them to hold, and Brie turned her horse to cut them off, like a sheepdog with its herd. “Retreat, and I will cut you down,” Brie shouted at them, her sword held high, her warhorse stamping its feet in response to her agitation.
“Talbot, let’s move them down so we can . . .” she began, but suddenly clamped her mouth shut.
The battle was already failing below—she could see it. The front line of the Garde Kralji had already buckled, and Allesandra’s banner was moving north along the road, giving ground. The Westlanders were no longer issuing from the fog-wall, and despite their numbers, there seemed to be fewer of them than Brie remembered. Brie looked to Talbot, worried and suddenly suspicious.
“Stay here,” she said. She urged her horse up the slope of the hill toward the ridge, staying in the cover of the trees. When she reached the summit, she peered down. She could see the gray fog-wall arrowing off toward the ribbon of the river. And out in front of it . . .
“Oh, no . . .” She breathed a curse.
Below her, already ascending the slope below, was the remainder of the Westlander army.
The war-storm was both terrifying and deadly, but it was only a chimera: a ghost from the Second World. Even as Varina tore at it with the Scáth Cumhacht, she still had to admire its power, its precision, and its making. She could feel the many individual threads of the storm, how it was woven from the spells of many spellcasters and formed by a single one of them: a particularly strong presence, and one who was close to her.
This was nothing that the téni of the Faith could do, nor the Numetodo—another skill that those of the Eastern world didn’t have. Even as she shredded the clouds and dissipated the spell-threads that held it together, Varina found herself thinking of how she would put together a spell like this herself.
If you live, this is something you should work on, so the Numetodo learn to do it as well.
If you live . . .
That, she was afraid, was no certainty.
She was with Commandant ca’Talin’s Garde Civile at the southern terminus of the front, in the narrowing triangle between the River Infante and the River A’Sele. Here, the Infante broke into two arms as it joined the A’Sele, and the Avi a’Sele arched over it with two bridges. As with Starkkapitän ca’Damont’s command just to the north, and with Hïrzg Jan’s command at the northern end of the front, they had placed themselves on the western side of the Infante. The Tehuantin were set in a long, curving front that stretched from the Avi a’Sele to the Avi a’Nostrosei, somewhat over two miles long.
The war-storm, from what she could see, may have covered their entire length.
The other Numetodo were also ripping into the war-storm with her. The lightning was fading, the black cloud rent and shredded. They could see men moving behind it, charging forward. “Back, back!” Commandant ca’Talin was shouting at her and the others. “Stay behind the line. Archers, fire!” Flags waved; cornets blasted the air, and all along the line flights of arrows rose to meet the war-storm. Varina could see the shields of the warriors flick up, saw the arrows fall mostly to embed themselves in the shields. Swords hacked at the arrows stuck on the shields, shearing them off, and an answering hail of arrows came from the Tehuantin. Varina heard Mason cry out near her and go down, an arrow fletched with gray feathers in his chest. Another arrow thudded into the ground at her feet. “Back!” ca’Talin shouted again, and this time they obeyed, Johannes and Niels dragging Mason with them.
Varina could see little of the battle other than the bodies jostling around her, but she could hear it: the clash of steel against steel, the cries from the soldiers on both sides, the shrill calls of the horns. She could smell it as well: the smoke from the spell-fires, the scent of blood, the nosewrinkling stench of brimstone. But ahead of her there was only a writhing mass of soldiers. Ca’Talin, on his horse, surrounded by chevarittai, went hurtling into that chaos, and for a moment Varina and the others were alone. They sent fire-spells arcing over their gardai into the Tehuantin lines beyond; they used counter-spells to blast away the fire hurled at them by the Westlander spellcasters. Black sand exploded to Varina’s right, sending dirt and body parts hurtling through the air and half-deafening her.
Varina could feel the terrible exhaustion of using the Scáth Cumhacht this way. All the spells she’d stored the night before were gone, and her mind was too tired and confused to create new spells easily. She was done; she was empty.
If you live . . .
She was less certain of that now than ever.
The cornets had altered their call. Varina saw the Commandant and chevarittai emerge from the smoke and confusion of the battle. Behind them, gardai were turning and fleeing eastward. “To the bridges!” ca’Talin shouted as he passed them. “To the bridges!”
Varina was swept up with them, helpless. The retreat was a rout, a confusion. She found herself pushed, stumbling and nearly falling. All around her, people were shoving and she couldn’t stand. It would be easy, she thought, to just lay down here, to let it end. She felt herself starting to fall once again.
A hand went around her waist. “Here, pull yourself up.” Ca’Talin had returned, and he pulled her up onto his warhorse, her arms and shoulders aching. She could see the bridges ahead, clotted with gardai fleeing toward the earthern ramparts on the far side.
“We’ve lost here,” ca’Talin half-shouted to her as they plunged into the press of men. “The Westlanders have this side of the river, all the way north. May Cénzi preserve us for tomorrow.”
Seeing the Tehuantin advancing up the far side of the hill toward them, Brie turned her steed and rode hard down to the sparkwheelers, the horse sending rocks and pebbles cascading down ahead of them.
“Talbot! This way,” she cried. “Bring your people and follow me!” Once she saw Talbot’s acknowledgment, saw him begin to shout orders and shove at the sparkwheelers nearest him, she headed up the slope again until she was on the ridge. The Tehuantin were still ascending the hill, with the obvious intention of flanking the main battle and coming on the Garde Kralji from the side and rear while they were intent on the main assault from along the road. The hill’s summit was flat and mostly treeless; the Westlanders were advancing through a meadow. She’d been seen by them, also; she heard an arrow hiss past her head, and she moved downslope slightly.
Talbot and the sparkwheelers were nearly to the top; she quickly told Talbot what she’d seen. They arranged the lines just below the summit, the sparkwheelers checking their weapons again to make certain they were loaded, and opening the leather pouches they wore that held, Brie had been told, the tiny packets of black sand to reload the weapons. She’d seen the packets; they were hardly impressive—they’d only added to her doubts as to the efficiency of the sparkwheel as a weapon.
But she had no other choice. She had to hope that what Talbot had told her wasn’t an elaborate lie. “All right,” she said. “On my command, we’ll move up to the ridge. Talbot, be ready to fire as soon as you’re there—they have archers, so you’re going to be under attack yourselves.” She saw some of the men blanch at that. “You have the high ground and the advantage. Hit them hard, and the archers will be useless,” she told them, though she didn’t believe that at all. She thought their archers would make a wall of bodies on the summit from the sparkwheelers. “Now—forward!”
Almost grudgingly, the men trudged up to the ridgeline, Brie and Talbot alongside them. She heard the calls in the strange Westlander tongue as they appeared, but Talbot was already shouting out the cadence before the first arrows came. “First line, kneel! First line, fire!”
The racket that ensured made Brie’s horse rear up in terror. White, acrid smoke bloomed along the line, and down the hill . . . Brie could scarcely believe what she saw: Westlanders went down as if a divine blade had scythed through their ranks. She gave a cry of surprise, almost a laugh. “Second line kneel! Second line, fire!”
Again, the reports from the sparkwheels echoed; again, more Westlanders fell, their bodies tumbling back down the hill or crumpling where they stood. A few arrows were slicing into the sparkwheelers now as well, and she saw three or four of the men go down. “Damn it, stand, you bastardos!” Talbot shouted as the lines wavered and started to dissolve. Brie rode behind them as the line in the rear faltered and tried to break rather than reload their weapons.
