Lynan pointed to a rise about three hundred paces away.
He could clearly see a line of archers dressed in Charion’s colors. “They belong to a Hume regiment,” he said.
Ager squinted through his one good eye. “God, they’re hopeful. They’re shooting at their maximum range. Let them waste their arrows, I say.”
Lynan agreed. Gudon and the Red Hands were spread out in a line to his left, and on his right extended Ager’s warriors. A hundred paces behind him, Kumul had drawn up his lancers into two wedges. Farther on his flanks the rest of the Chett army were still getting into their starting positions for the attack.
Someone on the other side must have realized the archers were wasting their time because the volleys ceased. The ground in between was sparsely coated in arrow shafts sticking out of the ground.
Over the next few minutes riders came to Lynan telling him that their respective banners were ready. Lastly came Korigan. She reined in beside Lynan and Ager.
“Everyone is in position,” she said.
“Give the word, then.”
“Do you want my people to take that ridge first?” Ager asked. “I could clear those archers away in five minutes.”
“We don’t know what’s waiting for you behind the ridge. We go as planned. Flank movements first.”
Korigan nodded and rode off, and for a while the only sound anyone could hear was the beating of her horse’s hooves on the plain. When they stopped, there was a moment of complete silence. There was no wind, and all the birds had long fled.
A cry that sounded like the wailing of an angry grass wolf pierced the air. The cry was taken up by twenty thousand throats, and the ground seemed to rumble like thunder.
“I stopped the archers,” Charion said, embarrassed at her own troops panicking like that.
“How many arrows have they left?”
“Half a dozen each, but I’ve ordered up more.” She pointed to a supply wagon being quickly trundled up the ridge by hand.
“Let’s hope the enemy don’t charge in the center first before they’re restocked,” Galen said dourly.
Charion glared at him, but Sendarus held up a hand to each of them. “No time for this. Has anyone here fought with the Chetts?” Both commanders shook their head. “I don’t suppose anyone here has fought
against
them?”
“If they had, you don’t really think they’d admit it, do you?” Charion said. “The only people to fight against the Chetts in the last two generations have been slavers, mercenaries, and troops from Haxus.”
“What tactics do the Chetts use?”
“Until now, small-scale tactics,” Charion said. “The Chetts have never fielded an army. The largest clan can put up three or four thousand fighters, given time, but no one has ever seen this many warriors before.”
“And never one under the command of a Rosetheme,” Galen added, the contempt clear in his voice.
“You are sure that pennant represents the Key of Union?”
“What else?”
“But they are all horse archers,” Sendarus said, changing the subject. He did not want to think about being in battle against his own wife’s brother, no matter how much she hated him. “So if we keep our discipline, keep our lines intact, we can wear them down.”
“And when the time is right, charge with our own cavalry,” Galen agreed.
“That’s the hard part,” Charion said. “Knowing when to counterattack. The Chetts are good at fooling their enemies into foolish charges, then isolating and destroying them.”
Suddenly the air was rent with the most terrifying cry they had ever heard.
“At least,” Charion added, repressing a shiver, “that’s how the Chetts behaved before they had an army. Who knows how they fight now?”
It was close to midday, but smoke hung so thickly over the city and its harbor that it could have been midnight. Dark figures moved like ghosts through the gloom, lost and aimless. Olio did his best to help organize refugees into groups that came from the same street or the same block so that families could be reunited, but the sheer number of people fleeing the fire made it impossible.
By now magickers from the all the theurgia were present to help, the most successful being those from the Theurgia of Fire—their most powerful spells were able to impede the progress of the fire by lowering its temperature. Mostly the magickers assisted by adding extra bodies to the long water chains that led from the harbor to the worst affected areas of the old quarter. Priests were everywhere, lending a hand and consoling where they could. Royal Guards arrived to help keep control of the crowds, and to distribute food and wine sent down from the palace’s own stores.
The fire had not spread much farther north than the old quarter, where the buildings were uniformly old and badly maintained. Homes beyond the original city gates were spaced farther apart and there were servants and other workers to help landowners defend their property.
Still, it was a larger disaster than Kendra had experienced for many decades; some were saying the worst since the storms that had devastated the whole city one summer day a generation before the late Queen Usharna was born.
Tired and dirty and ragged as he was, Olio was recognized by some members of the Royal Guard and immediately assigned an escort to take him back to the palace. At first he refused to go, but when a brazen cleric pointed out he was more a distraction than a help, he reluctantly left.
The escort took him through that part of the old quarter the fire had already blazed through. Olio could smell charred wood and thatch, and the sickly sweet smell of the occasional burned corpse—sometimes a dog or cat, but usually human—that littered the streets and the burned out shells of what had once been homes. Near the edge of the quarter, where some of the homes seemed less damaged, they came across an inn. The inn’s front wall had partly collapsed, but the roof was still in place and supported by intact beams, and dozens of people lay on the floor. Olio stopped and looked more closely. The people were all injured, and a few uninjured people worked among them to make them comfortable.
“Your Highness,” one of the guards said, “we had best keep moving.”
“Wait here,” he ordered them, and went into the inn. The guards looked unsure but did as they were ordered.
Olio first came across a woman. She had no burns, but one of her legs was broken in several places and she was suffering intense pain. Olio knelt down next to her.
“How did this happen?” he asked her.
“It was the crowd, sir. They trampled all over me. Lucky to have only one leg broken.”
Olio could feel the Key of the Heart warm suddenly. He needed no prompting. He took it out with his left hand and gripped it tightly, then put his right hand on the woman’s knee. She winced in pain but did not cry out, almost as if she knew instinctively what was about to happen. The power surged through him so quickly he had no time to mentally prepare for it. He reeled back, blacked out for a moment. When his vision cleared, he saw that the woman’s leg was completely healed and that she was falling into a deep sleep. Blue energy seemed to crackle around him.
He stood up and felt immediately dizzy, but still made his way to the next person on the floor, another woman, younger, with blackened skin all along her exposed chest and stomach. He did not even talk with her, but bent over and ever so gently placed his fingertips against the curled rind of skin that marked the edge of her burn.
“Soon now,” Trion told Areava. “You are almost there.”
She was crying, and was in too much pain and was too tired to feel embarrassed or ashamed about it.
“My brother,” she whispered hoarsely. “Where is he?”
Trion shook his head. “I am sorry, your Majesty, I don’t know. The midwife and some of your guards are searching for him.”
“He can’t be far,” she said. “Please find him for me. My baby will die ...”
Trion patted her hand. “We’re doing everything we can.”
Someone coughed discreetly near the door. Trion looked up and saw Orkid standing there, his face furrowed in concern. Trion went to him
“How is she?” Orkid asked.
“She is doing fine, but the baby has turned. The contractions are causing her a great deal of pain. Has Prince Olio been found?”
“No.”
“Then I suggest you send out more guards to find him. She calls for him all the time.” He swallowed. “The baby comes too early to live.”
“Does she know?”
“Yes. I think so.” He looked desperately at Orkid. “Only Olio can help.”
“The palace is stripped bare of guards,” Orkid told him. “There has been a terrible fire in city; most of the old quarter had been burned down.”
“God’s death!” Trion hissed. “So that’s what the bells were about.”
“We have no idea how many have died, but the guards are helping to keep things going down there.”
A horrible thought came to Trion. “You don’t think his Highness is down there, do you?”
Orkid could only shrug. “We will find him and bring him to the queen as soon as we can.” He looked across to Areava and saw her arch her back as another spasm of pain rippled through her. He gasped and looked away; he could not stand to see her suffer so.
“Believe me, Chancellor, Areava is young and strong. Nothing will happen to her.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Wait patiently for nature to take its course. And find Prince Olio. I think more than anyone else, Areava needs her brother.”
Lynan had no real idea how the battle was going. From his position in the center he could not see if his army’s flanking attacks were succeeding or being driven back. As the Chett horse archers closed in on the enemy, loosed their arrows, then retreated out of range again, the grass was slowly trammeled to the ground and then destroyed. Clouds of dust were now spiraling into the air, obscuring the view. As well, the lay of the land was not completely flat—there were dips and rises—leading to strange consequences. Lynan could hear the clash of weapons and the cries of the wounded and dying in a skirmish on the far left flank between a troop of Chetts that had been surprised by a sudden charge by light infantry, but he could hear no sound at all from another skirmish much closer on the right flank between Chetts and a small band of Hume cavalry.
Ager, next to him and Gudon in the line, was able to make more sense of goings-on and could tell when the Chetts had the upper hand or when they were on the receiving end, but in one way this made it harder for Lynan. Having given the order for the attack to start he could do little to influence events until he decided to let the center or the reserve join in, and he was loath to do that until he had some clear idea of what the situation was like on the flanks. He needed to know what kind of troops his horse archers were encountering, and whether or not any had met the knights of the Twenty Houses. He had to know what quality of troops they were fighting, and whether or not they were determined or demoralized. He knew Korigan would arrange for riders to bring him information when she had the opportunity, but it seemed that the attack had already been going on for hours.
“Your center is getting itchy,” Gudon said.
Lynan glanced along his line and saw that the Red Hands and Ocean clan warriors were looking frustrated. They were constantly shifting in their saddles, pulling on their bow strings and drawing and resheathing their swords.
Lynan kicked his mare into a canter. He first rode in front of the Ocean clan, making sure they noticed him, then back to the Red Hands. When he had the line’s attention, he stopped before them.
“Our time is soon, but you must be patient. After this battle, no one in Theare will ever be able to stand against the Chetts without feeling fear!” The Chetts started to cheer. “You are
my
warriors, and I
will
lead you to battle today.”
The cheering became louder, and he rejoined Ager and Gudon.
Gudon slapped him on the back. “Truth, little master, that was not bad.”
“Not bad at all,” Ager conceded. “No Elynd Chisal, but not bad.”
“And what would my father have said?”
Ager grinned at him. “Charge.”
Lynan was surprised. “Just charge?”
Ager shrugged. “More like ‘Charge you fucking sons-of-whores,’ but you get the idea.”
Word had spread about the miracle worker. More and more of the injured were being brought to the inn.
Olio was no longer completely aware of what he was doing. The healing surge that coursed through his body was like a river of blue fire in his mind. His vision had narrowed to the point where he could barely see the victims being brought before him. His hand would go out, touch a hand or an eye, a burn or a puncture, and then another would be placed before him.
After a while he could hear a voice in the back of his head, and it sounded familiar but he could not put a name or a face to it.
He needed to stop, but did not know how. He tried to say “enough,” but no sound at all came from his lips.
And all the time there was this voice trying to tell him something, something he was sure was important.
More victims. He felt himself fall, but hands picked him up and supported him. The river of fire grew wider and wider, his vision dimmed more and more, and there came a time when at last all he could see was the river. He wanted to step into it, to leave this place, and even as he wished it, it happened. He was adrift in the river, and slowly it covered him over until at last he was drowning in light. At that moment he heard the voice in the back of his head for the last time, saying a single word over and over, and he recognized the voice as his own.
And then it was gone.
“The infantry cannot take much more of this,” Charion said, shouting to be heard over the din of battle. “Both our flanks are starting to cave in. Most of our infantry and light cavalry have been destroyed. We have to commit our heavy cavalry!”
“No!” Galen shouted back. “It’s not time yet. The Chett center is still uncommitted. If we move the knights into action now, we will have nothing more to throw into the battle. The infantry have to hold or all is lost.”
Both commanders fell silent and turned their gaze on Sendarus. He had visited each flank himself and seen the casualties they were suffering. A Chett troop would gallop in, let loose a volley of arrows, then retreat to be replaced by another troop. None of the volleys by themselves did much damage, but cumulatively they were starting to inflict significant casualties and damage morale. All their attempts so far at counterattacking had only resulted in the destruction of the pursuing units. But Galen was right. Until Sendarus knew what Lynan intended to do with his center, he had no choice but to hold back the knights. Still, there was one thing he could do to help the flanks.