Cobweb Empire (39 page)

As the pikemen and marksmen saluted, then
broke into their ordered trot, the Duke stood at the sidelines
watching, his brows drawn in a frown.

“What will you do now?” Beltain asked.

“I have no blasted idea!” Plaimes replied in
a frustrated whisper. “You know, I had been on my way to assume
command of the border defense. . . . But
now—everything has changed. How do you fight a war when the
battlefield itself has just shifted under your feet? We had a
front, we had a border; by God, we even had a viable fortress in
Duorma! And now, what? Where do I return to assess the situation?
What lines do I draw? How can I plan strategy when the very map of
the military theatre is redrawn?”

“Not to mention, the enemy is a dead army,
and invulnerable to the usual methods one might use in war,”
Beltain observed. “How do we fight the dead? The question came up
at Letheburg and someone mentioned fire—and this girl here.”

“Oh, blasted hell, yes, the dead that keep
coming—don’t even begin to explain that impossibility! Any of it!”
The Duke’s ringing baritone voice rose enough that the columns of
passing soldiers likely heard his ranting as they quickly jogged
past.

“For the short term, Your Grace, what will
you do? Continue forward with us, south, and hope we do not run
into the enemy head on?”

“Oh, but we
will
run into them head
on, there is no doubt. My question is, how will you proceed then?
Can this girl strike the dead down as you ride?”

“She has done so before. It’s how we broke
out of Letheburg.”

The Duke looked at Percy appraisingly.
“Ah-h-h, now I am sorely tempted to hold you, girl, and confiscate
you on behalf of the Imperial Crown as an asset, and take you back
to Court. . . .”

And as Beltain’s expression began to darken,
the Duke shook his head and said, “Fortunately, I pride myself for
always thinking long-term. Your immediate value may be a
temptation, but your ability to bring this whole no-death situation
to an end is the priority. Worry not, you are free to continue your
quest—on behalf of Her Imperial Highness, naturally.” And he winked
at Beltain.

Beltain and Percy both exhaled in relief. “I
thank you for your understanding, Your Grace,” she said softly,
while Beltain nodded.

“Never let it be said that I am not a
reasonable man,” the Duke replied. “And now, what is there to do,
but proceed onward? So much needs be done—the stunning things I’ve
been told about the manner of fighting at the border! A handful of
my men have ridden hard all night to make reports, as early as this
morning, even before the enemy breached our lines—as I am only
now
being told of this latest calamity. Apparently, the more
limbs the dead lose, the more of their humanity goes with it, and
they become rather single-minded in their few remaining options—the
options being, to just lie there like a wine sack or to fight with
every fiber of their being, with every spark of what’s left. And
yes, just as this unit commander here has mentioned, often they
simply go on fighting regardless of allegiance, striking out at
anyone whom they might perceive as being in their way, once they
lose enough of their spirit and perspective. Or so I am told, for I
am yet to see such a melee in person. Indeed, what fine fortune
awaits me, eh, Chidair?” And the Duke gave a sardonic laugh.

Beltain shook his head grimly. “Oh yes, it’s
a rare delight, Your Grace.”

“It is said, war is our purgatory on earth,
and as such, it calls upon us,” the Duke concluded. “So, let us not
waste a moment!”

They had to wait only a few minutes longer
while the remainder of the retreating army passed, and the road was
clear. And then they resumed their journey, moving south.

“I shall ride along with you for the moment,
as I think on what to do,” admitted the Duke. “For in truth, I am
at a loss. I might as well turn around and return back to the
Imperial citadel and assume command of these same poor fellows as
they arrive. The Silver Court was to have the Field Marshal
services of the Duke Claude Rovait in command of the Rovait portion
of the Morphaea military, stationed there in defense of the
Emperor—while I was to handle the southern front, out here. And now
that my own portion of the forces at the border and Duorma are
amassing back at Court, I will be needed there likewise. However,
we must know more, infinitely more, in order to gauge the extent of
the damage done already. . . . I must find my King
at least, and I refuse to concede that we have lost all of southern
Mophaea!”

“What is that?” said Percy suddenly,
pointing ahead of them at the road and the surrounding fields on
both sides. “I believe, it’s
them
. I can now sense their
death shadows.”

“Where?” Beltain cast his gaze at the white
panorama ahead.

The Duke lifted his gauntlet to shield his
eyes and looked also. Neither of the men was able to see any
approaching army movement, however.

“Percy, there’s nothing there,” Beltain
said. “Are you certain?”

Percy nodded.

“They’re there. They’re—”

And Beltain understood at last. “They’re
underneath
the snow!”

It was then that the white-blanketed plain
in the visible distance all around them began to bubble and churn,
as the surface of the land itself acquired impossible motion.

The dead, those without sufficient limbs to
remain upright,
crawled
upon the earth. . . .
They plowed directly forward, regardless of terrain or road, and
many of them dug themselves into deep snowdrifts, and yet continued
forward relentlessly, unable to feel need or pain or weariness—only
a single-minded
purpose
.

“Surely, these are not
Trovadii . . .” the Duke thought out loud. “No, I
think these must be the dead who had fallen along the border
earlier this morning or last night, possibly Balmue occupying
forces, possibly some of our own boys, the poor bastards, trying to
return home. They’ve had a head start and are thus arriving
first. . . .”

“How can you tell?” Beltain said. “They are
still too far to observe.”

“An assumption.” The Duke gave him a hard
thoughtful look. “Men crawling will be swiftly outdistanced by men
on foot or astride, unless they’ve had a long head start. Their
less damaged fellows were probably given new orders, or told to
wait and be absorbed by the bulk of the arriving Trovadii. These,
meanwhile, are likely of no use to anyone, pitiful carcasses with
hacked off limbs . . . so they simply continue
waging war on their own, following their last recognizable orders,
bent on their one and only final purpose—”

“Has anyone told Your Grace you’re a
gruesome bastard?”

The Duke laughed and tapped Beltain along
his rerebrace armor on the upper arm, with the back of his
gauntlet. But his eyes remained bleak.

They had stopped riding forward meanwhile,
halting their warhorses that neighed and spat in anger at being
reined in. And the two knights stared at the bizarre soft approach
of the confusing enemy, slow and yet inevitable, along the width of
the plain.

“I believe they are not a sufficient threat
to us if we ride hard forward,” said Beltain, narrowing his
eyes.

“Agreed,” replied the Duke. “Shall we?”

They spurred their horses onward. Beltain
lifted his long shield in position so that once again it was
protecting Percy’s back. And both men drew their swords.

The powerful muscles of the ebony warhorse
contracted underneath them, as the world went into motion. And
alongside Jack, like molten deep red fire, galloped the blood
bay. . . . Percy held on to the saddle and to the
black knight’s ring armor near his belt, giving him free use of
both his hands. The churning field on both sides of the road became
a blur.

She could
feel
them, hundreds of
death shadows, billowing softly, while the broken amputated bodies
of the men to whom they belonged, crawled relentlessly upon the
earth.

Many of them had moved onto the road, and
were crawling directly in their way, underfoot. Stumps of arms and
occasional hands reached up, a few attached fingers still
clawing. . . .

And the two great warhorses plowed right
on top
of them.

The snow-covered, vaguely human lumps
revealed themselves upon occasion and it was possible to catch
glimpses of torn shreds of uniforms—mostly sienna brown trimmed
with silver, the colors of Balmue, and occasionally the tan and
teal of Morphaea. Among snowdrifts, misshapen heads breached the
layers of snow, with faces stilled in their last fixed expressions
before the freezing cold made them permanent; torsos moved, limbs
shifted slowly like snakes. . . .

“I was correct, these abominations are not
Trovadii,” cried the Duke, riding hard at the side of the black
knight.

“No, they are not . . .”
Beltain retorted, leaning forward into the saddle and holding Percy
tight in his armored embrace. “But, look ahead!”

And as they all stared, in the distance,
among the hazy whiteness and beginnings of green and brown at the
horizon to mark the changing nature of the terrain, there was a
hint of red in motion—blood and pomegranate.

“And so . . . it begins,”
mused the Duke in snatches.

“Percy!” Beltain whispered close to her ear.
“Will you be ready?”

But she heard him only with one half of her
awareness. The rest was consumed by the pressure of an approaching
tidal wave of death—a hundred thousand death shadows upon her
mind.

So thick they came!

Blood and pomegranate.

Percy closed her eyes. “Yes,” she said, “I
am ready.”

But once again she lied.

Nothing could have prepared her for the
onslaught.
Something
infinitely complex and yet misshapen,
something the size of a mountain, was coming down upon her mind,
blasting and pounding at her with the anvil weight of darkness and
unrelieved hungry
need
.

The void itself had arrived—an empty place
that needed to be filled . . . with the rest of the
world.

The Trovadii came.

But first, came their drums. The dead had no
heartbeat, but it was provided for them by the rhythmic pulse of
wood against taut animal skins. The drums gave their movement
structure and cohesion and a marching rhythm. And since they had no
blood, they were clad in it—pomegranate uniforms of the color that
was closest to the thing that once flowed in their veins. And now
these were also stained with the juices of themselves and
others.

The horizon became a red line. In the winter
sun the red was a fiery shade against the predominant whiteness of
the landscape, and as the formations and squares and columns came
closer, the immortal symmetry of their motion was a thing of
beauty.

Infantry was displaced by ranks of cavalry,
then repeating, again and again. Formations advanced in a sea of
pikes held with points forward in the charge position, with
unwavering hands that felt no weariness and could thus maintain the
position indefinitely.

But not all of them came in ordered units.
Some cavalry companies rode haphazardly, dead men mounted upon dead
lumbering beasts that could not move with the grace of the living
no matter how they tried. They scattered over the fields unevenly
like approaching wild herds, moving in bright red flashes of metal
and color.

“May God give us strength!” exclaimed the
Duke of Plaimes, and raised his sword. Within moments, they would
clash head on with the first of the enemy, a sparse line of runners
and mounted cavalrymen.

“Hold on tight, Percy!” Beltain said through
his teeth, and drew her even closer in the metal embrace of his
immense arms and shield. . . .

The Trovadii were upon them.

Beltain held his sword at the ready and in
seconds the first rider passed him, while the next clashed against
his sword. Beltain’s arm held, and the rider was pulled down
halfway out of his saddle by the impact with the black knight’s
unshakable force. There was but an instant to see the dead man’s
pale bloodless face, and then they were past him and riding
onward. . . .

Percy heard the Duke striking another
approaching rider, and the clash of his sword against the other’s,
and then the dead man’s severed arm came flying down, under the
feet of the horses.

Percy took a deep breath and allowed herself
to exhale softly in order to gain a steady focus. She then reached
out with her death
sense
to a perimeter of about thirty feet
around them, casting a bubble of awareness, and taking hold of
whatever came within that sphere, picking up the closest energy
threads, and then
snapping
them.

The dead around them—those within the short
perimeter—started to fall.

“Is she doing this?” the Duke cried, riding
slightly ahead of them and turning around to glance momentarily at
Beltain and Percy.

“Yes!” Beltain glanced at Percy’s strangely
blank face, inches away from his own. “Now, simply look ahead and
treat the oncoming as obstacles. Anything that falls, ride around
them! Do not bother to engage!”

“Understood!” And the Duke leaned forward
into the saddle and flew like the wind, meandering out of the way
when necessary, as great oncoming warhorses and cavarlymen slid off
their saddles like limp sacks and occasionally fell down directly
in his path.

Percy’s head was ringing.

Soon, all the dead became aware of her, and
they came like bees at honey. She could feel them turning inward
from all directions, breaking ranks, and simply approaching their
moving position.

“This is not good,” the Duke gasped, again
readying his sword.

“No, it is not—but nothing is to be done,”
replied Beltain. “She can only do so much before she
collapses.”