Fortress Draconis (18 page)

And yet, even as he made that judgment, he glanced at Crow. Tired as the man was, as poor as he was, there was something in his eyes that no one in the Dimandowns ever had. Will never heard a trace of bitterness in the man’s laugh. He never saw a furtive glance despite the joking around him. As much as he or Resolute might discipline Will or speak sharply to him, neither was cruel for the sake of spite.

They’re not like normal folk.In the Dimandowns people focused on how to get another mug of ale for free, or a prize that would open a woman’s thighs. They schemed ways to win a king’s ransom, and others schemed ways to take it from them. All they cared about was themselves— and Marcus had been no exception. While he might have taken orphans in and given them food and shelter, they worked for his pleasure.And when they come to rival him, he gets rid of them.

Will suddenly saw his dreams of becoming a legend from another angle. 7want to be Will the Nimble, King of the Dimandowns. I want to be greater than Marcus and the Azure Spider. It will be a treasure that can’t be stolen. It will get me mugs of ale. It will open thighs. It will never die. As glorious as all that would be, Will suddenly realized it lacked something.

The gratitude in Dranae’s voice, the passion that would make Oracle put her own eyes out, the fury that drove Resolute—all of these things shook him. His vision of the world opened up beyond the borders of the Dimandowns. He did not suddenly decide he could be more than the King of the Dimandowns; he just realized that for someone like Dranae, he was more important just as Will than he ever would have been as the lord of Yslin’s slums.

Will swore and threw the handful of grass to the ground with disgust. He shot Crow and Resolute a purely venomous glance. “I hate you both.”

Resolute snorted, but Crow turned with a curious expression on his face. “And that comes from?”

“This journey. All the things you’ve told me. All the things you have not told me. All of it.” Will’s hands convulsed down into fists. “I can never go back to being who I was, can I?”

Crow slowly shook his head. “No.”

“And it’s all your fault!”

“No.” The older man sighed. “It’s the fault of Chytrine.”

“That’s easy to say, but she’s never done anything to me.”

“No, boy?” Resolute shouldered his way past Crow. “If you want to think that, you can, but the fact is she’s done everything to you. If not for her, I would not be here, Oracle would not be who she is, Predator would be some happy gardener, the Vorquelves wouldn’t be in Yslin, Crow would not be Crow. Lots of people would still be alive and your life would be entirely different.”

The Vorquelf stabbed a finger against Will’s breastbone. “You wonder if you could ever go back to being who you were, but you never reallywere that person at all. You were meant to be someone else. Because of Chytrine you aredestined to be someone else. The actions of others have already determined who youare, Wilburforce; but we’re giving you the chance to decide who you willbecome and how you will get there.”

Will snarled. “You can’t put it back on me. That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not.” Resolute shook his head. “No more fair than my losing my home, my future. I’m here to stop that from happening to others. Crow is the same. You, you might have a future, but only if you’re willing to fight for it. If you fail, she wins. Not only will you lose, but so will everyone else. And responsibility for that, boy, is something you can never escape.”

Sitting tall astride her horse, encased in her golden armor, Alyx studied the Aurolani encampment. She saw movement there, but heard no trumpets raising an alarm. Fires burned and sentries paced, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to the cavalry forming up to the east. She knew the gibberers and vylaens had to be able to see her as easily as she could see them, so their lack of anxiety surprised her for a moment.

Then, slowly, she nodded. The gibberers did not rely as much on sight as men did, and the breeze springing from the south meant the scent of her formation was being carried away from the enemy. Moreover, the stink of the city settled over the plain. In addition to that, she had brought her troops up at night and positioned them so they could ride in from the dawning sun. The mountains still shadowed them, while the sun’s warm rays crept over the enemy camp.

The honorable thing to do would have been to have her company’s trumpeter blow a challenge that would waken the enemy. Alyx knew General Caro would do that, but less to give the enemy a sporting chance than to train their eyes on his unit’s banner, so they could know who they faced.For him it would be an act of arrogance, not nobility.

She shook her head.War is not a place for arrogance or nobility. She turned and gave her sister a half smile. “Are they completely gormless, Peri, or laying a trap for us?”

The Gyrkyme blinked her big eyes. “Gormlessly confident of their trap?”

Alyx laughed lightly. “That could be it. You know the two pavilions you will hit?”

Peri nodded and hefted one of the two firecocks she’d been given. The device, which wasn’t much longer than her forearm, had a ceramic sphere for a nose, a cast-iron collar in the middle, and dried cornhusks at the end. It looked nothing so much like a giant shuttlecock. “The red one, and the one with the pennant. I’m ready to go.”

“Go, and good luck.”

“Not luck, just confidence in your plan.” The Gyrkyme unfurled her wings and, with a single strong beat, launched herself into the sky.

Alyx drew her sword and raised it aloft. The Wolves, who formed the center of her line, raised their lances. The light horse units on either wing raised their lances as well, then all three battalions began to trot forward. At the signal, they would all charge. They would hit the Aurolani camp as a relentless wave of steel and horseflesh, blasting through it.

If things go as planned.

The signal came quickly enough. Peri, circling high over the Aurolani encampment, released the first firecock. The cast-iron chamber housed a bit of charcoal. When she twisted the cover on the collar, it exposed vents in the charcoal chamber. As the firecock fell, the air rushing in made the charcoal flare hot, igniting the cornhusks roughly a hundred yards above the ground. The firecock struck the red pavilion and ripped through it, then the collar shattered the ceramic sphere full of oil. The burning husks lit the splashing oil, immediately catching the pavilion on fire.

The second likewise struck its target, which then burst into flame. Gibberers began scurrying about, barking and snarling. The sounds of their voices drowned out the thunder of approaching hooves. While some ran to retrieve their arms and raise some sort of defense, others just ran toward the river.

Alyx snapped her helm’s faceplate down in the last fifty yards of her charge. The Wolves had outdistanced the light horse units only because the other horsemen held themselves back a bit, as per the battle plan. The Wolves, slightly more heavily armored, made up the formation’s spearhead. It pierced the thin defenses at the camp’s rear and stabbed deep into the Aurolani camp.

To the right and left of her, gibberers screamed. Lances splintered explosively, whirling away transfixed bodies. Rising in the stirrups, she slashed down and past the guard of a gibberer who had failed to stab her. She was beyond him when she felt the shock of her blow connecting. Her blade’s tip came back blackened with blood.

The Wolves blew through the Aurolani camp like an ill wind. On her right the Seventh Light Horse Battalion anchored itself against the river and drove into the camp. On the left the King’s Own Light Horse Battalion engaged the enemy, then wheeled west, driving the gibberers toward the river. Alyx knew many of the enemy would try to swim to the other side and sanctuary, but she doubted many could fight the river’s current. Fewer still would be able to fight theweirun, and she hoped its appetite for gibberers would be enormous.

Off to the right the pavilion that had had the pennant flying above it exploded thunderously. She felt a shock wave jolt her.Dragonel powder to be used to sap the walls? Flaming gibberer bodies arced through the sky. Some riders fought to control their mounts through the thunder and meaty rain, and some went down, but her steed merely picked up its pace, racing through the enemy camp. Alyx and her Wolves burst from the enemy lines and cut east as the King’s Own slashed down in their wake.

Alyx smiled.This plan will actually work

The Wolves hit the eastern road to Porasena at a gallop. By the time they reached the walls, the eastern gate’s massive doors had swung wide and the Wolves poured into the city. Hooves striking sparks from cobblestones, they galloped through narrow streets and over a tall bridge spanning the river, then plunged down the road to the western gate. Soldiers manning the towers and above the opening gates cheered as they came on and rode down into the western plain of Sena.

The mistake that both the Aurolani troops and General Caro had made was in not realizing that the city of Porasena formed a ford over the river, and that as long as friendly troops controlled the city, passing from one side to the other was not a problem. Aurolani troops could not cross there, but she was unhindered.

The Aurolani troops on the western plain had used the extra day to prepare defenses against the Alcidese forces arrayed against them. They’d raised basic breastworks to their rear to hold off the heavy cavalry. The defenses they’d set up against a force from the city were sufficient for holding off the heavy infantry. At the commencement of the raid on the other shore, Caro’s troops had appeared at the edge of the forest and started slowly forward, forcing Aurolani troops to the rear to defend, stripping the forward defenses.

The Wolves hit the Aurolani line a quarter of the way in from the end. The very end of that line had been built up to be almost a fortress itself, but up along the line, the defenses had not been so carefully prepared. Because of the line’s arc, the point they hit had been removed from the threat of heavy cavalry. To defend against them the Aurolani defenders now had to rush across the Aurolani position and man their old defenses.

Peri’s aerial survey of the Aurolani line had identified a gap in the lines through which the enemy had made raids. Riders raced ahead of Alyx and, under the cover of arrows from other Wolves, looped grapnel lines around the spiked logs that blocked the gap. They pulled the abatises aside, then Agitare led the Red Caps through. Alyx and her bodyguards came second, then the rest of the Wolves flooded through the gap. They coursed through the Aurolani camp, cutting and slashing, riding down gibberers, shooting arrows into vylaens, and wreaking havoc.

The Aurolani forces broke. Some ran for the river, and others passed south, through their own lines, heading toward the city and the slowly advancing heavy infantry. Some started west, scrambling up the hillsides toward the waiting light foot. Most, though, fled north and away from the Wolves. They escaped in the easiest direction, grasping in their panic at the closest path out of danger.

The northern path proved illusory when it came to safety.

Alyx rode up onto one of the highest points on the Aurolani line and watched gibberers scrambling away as quickly as possible. Ahead of them, forming a dark line at the edge of the forest, the King’s Own Horse waited. She picked Caro out from the center of the line easily enough. Behind him waited two riders, one bearing the unit’s battle standard and the other his family’s flag. The cavalry remained in place, horses stamping and snorting steam in the cool morning air. They waited, letting the enemy come to them.

She knew she had shamed him by saying that his men were at their best in a hundred-yard charge. Alyx half expected him to send them off at a greater distance, just to prove her wrong, but he did not. True to his orders, he held them back. Until the gibberers had closed within one hundred fifty yards, he did not draw his sword. He raised it slowly, then as they neared the hundred-yard limit, he slashed down and his line surged forward.

A ragged, disorganized mass of infantry is to a cavalry charge what ripe wheat stalks are to the reaper’s scythe. The heavy cavalry hit the gibberers like a wall of steel. Bodies, broken-limbed and limp, flew into the air. Thrashing gibberers rose on lances as tortured pennants. Curved sabers sprayed spattered gore with each arced stroke. Hooves ground bodies into the torn earth, leaving bloodied piles of tissue to mew in their wake. Some gibberers did turn to run, but their fellows caught them up, carrying them into the heavy cavalry. It rolled over them as if they were already the phantoms they became a heartbeat later.

The charge did lose its momentum, but then Caro’s troops merely resorted to their other weapons. Swords rose and fell. Maces crushed arms and skulls. Axes clove bodies and short spears stabbed. Those who had not lost their lances flicked them out, stabbing the long-bladed heads through thick gibberer bodies. The work became less fighting than pure butchery. The heavy cavalry took to it without hesitation and with all the righteous fury of warriors cleansing their homeland of invaders.

Alyx shifted her attention to the end of the Aurolani line. There the breastwork had been raised a little higher and the defenders shot arrows at riders, but most fell short. Those few that did hit only stuck in armor or bounced off.A couple of firecocks, then raking it with arrows should weaken it. She doubted the vylaen commanding that area would surrender, but she would inquire first, before she ordered the slaughter.

To the south and west the infantry engaged fleeing gibberers. The Wolves and the heavy cavalry met in the center of the line, then moved west, trapping gibberers at the hills. Those fleeing north strung themselves out along the river, so when the heavy cavalry turned to charge at them, the refugees had but one choice and most drowned exercising it.

Bobbing corpses slowly flowed down the river. More floated up here and there, naked, stripped of any jewelry or armor. Alyx had been told theweirun of the Salersena River was greedy and enjoyed offerings of gold made by the town’s merchants. She wondered if the things plundered from the bodies would show up in market stalls, and the thought that they might sent a shiver through her.