Fortress Draconis (59 page)

The centermost legion of heavy cavalry was yet more magnificent, for they rode grand temeryces. Whereas their smaller counterparts had snowy feathers covering them, the grand temeryces wore a brilliant rainbow plumage that was mirrored in the layers of multihued leather that made up their armor. Some had colorful crests rising from within the leather hoods they wore, and the ribbons dangling from the face armor made Alyx wonder if Chytrine wished her beasts to mock Oriosans for some reason.

Gibberers mostly, but a few men, rode the grand temeryces. Steel encased the riders and their lances ended in horrid, tridentine claws designed to punch clean through armor, rending and tearing what they found beneath it. The riders bobbed up and down as their mounts advanced, each powerful leg more than capable of bearing the weight of beast, man, and steel.

Leading them came Malarkex, and the first sight of her made Alyx’s mouth grow dry. The temeryx thesullanciri rode had the size of a grand temeryx, but was covered in a jet-black plumage that the rising sun burnished gold. Whereas the other beasts had amber eyes, or gold, even brown, her mount’s eyes burned the yellow-orange of a coal, and even had fleckings of ash to darken it. Wisps of smoke rising from the beast’s eye sockets made Alyx wonder what she was truly seeing, but the temeryx was nothing compared to its mistress.

That Malarkex was female Alyx discerned by knowledge of who she had been, and nothing more. In Edamis Vilkaso’s shifting form there were no clues as to her gender. A black cloak shrouded her and appeared to burn, much as had the cloak of thesullanciri at Porasena, but Malarkex’s garment remained black for the most part. A jagged webbing of red appeared around the hem, outlining little bits of shadow that leaped away to evaporate. Her eyes, which glowed from within a closed steel helm, had the same steel-silver hue as her curved saber. The blade appeared to be no more natural than its owner, for it reflected no sunlight. Instead, it coruscated with a pale green fire that slithered snakelike up and down its length.

A courier from the Jeranese Horse Guards rode up to her. “Compliments of General Adrogans, General. He thanks you for the information about avoiding the standards. His orders for you are as follows: the Heavy Guards will advance three hundred yards on the signal, and set themselves. At the next signal, a gap will open right and left, with the Kingsmen going left and your Wolves right. You are to flow with the current as a mighty river to drown your enemies. Do you understand these orders?”

She nodded. “Simple, a bit lyrical. They are understood.” She made a mark on the receipt the courier presented her, then summoned the commanders of the Kingsmen and the wings of the Heavy Guards, relaying their orders to them. They headed off to communicate to their subordinates, then sent messengers back to her to let her know the orders had been understood.

Crow came riding up to her side. “The general is letting you deal with Malarkex?”

Alexia nodded, then glanced back toward the tent that served as Adrogans’ home. Smoke rose through the hole at the center and Zhusk scouts were carrying buckets of water up to it. “It would appear he wants a warm bath while we fight. My only real concern is that the Kingsmen’s charge will likely drive the Aurolani troops east, which will carry them more to our rear.”

“Yes, but it will prevent them from linking up with the legions coming down the lakeshore.” He turned in the saddle and pointed back toward the second cavalry formation. “General Caro and the Savarese Knights seem to be up and about as well. They can range west as well as east, so could easily be our reserve.”

“No debating that.” She sighed. “I know there are things I am not being told. I have to hope, have totrust that General Adrogans knows what he is doing.”

“Do you?”

Alyx frowned, considering her previous encounter with the task force’s leader. “For now, yes, I must. Do you?”

Crow nodded, then rested his left hand on the pommel of his sword. “I have to. Scant few of us here today have the means to kill asullanciri. I trust Adrogans will get me close enough to do it. Edamis was always bold and resourceful, so doubtless knows how she wants the battle to go. I hope Adrogans will find a way to disappoint her.”

“I share your hope, Crow. I want to stop her and break their backs.” Alexia drew her saber as heralds blasted out an advance. “Ride with me and we’ll both get what we want.”

Will fumed at having to wait back with the baggage train as the trumpets blared to send troops forward. Crow had explained very clearly why he couldn’t join the battle. While they had no doubts about Will’s combat skills serving him well, the simple fact was that he had no military experience. The key to winning the battle would be discipline and training; Will’s lack of each was precisely the sort of thing that could get him killed.

Much as he hated it, Will had accepted that. At Vilwan he’d been too tired and too confused to make any sense of the emotions he was feeling. He watched Crow and Resolute get ready to ride off and it occurred to him that, very realistically, they might die. The very thought of that thickened his throat and tightened his eyes.

Such emotion felt very alien to him. He’d formed attachments to other kids in Marcus’ gang, but they’d never been in the position where they had a good chance of dying. Kids did die, and others disappeared, but there was never really any time to anticipate their going away—one just dealt with it after the fact. Marcus would always make those situations into a learning experience, which meant beatings until everyone understood how bad it was to be stupid.

As much as he didn’t want his friends to die, and as much as he didn’t want to watch them die, the heralds’ blaring advance drew him from the relative safety of the baggage area up to the hill where Adrogans had his tent. The Horse Guards stationed there to ward folks off just smiled and nodded at him, which allowed him to steal up to the hilltop and hide in the tent’s shadow.

In the distance the Alcidese Heavy Guards marched forward across what was fairly level ground. The landscape actually did rise a bit toward the north, but not so much that it would give the Aurolani an advantage. The ranks moving forward rippled as some men stepped into little valleys, then walked out the other side. Their heads might dip for only a step or two, but it gave the whole formation the illusion of being decorative cloth caressed by a lazy breeze.

The bristling of long spears did partially dispel that illusion. Pennants waved and snapped from some spears, and those in the forward ranks were carried low, pointing at the enemy. Tightly packed as the infantry were, with a second and third rank angling their spears forward, they would present an impenetrable wall to the enemy cavalry.

Behind the infantry, likewise sporting spears and lances, came the cavalry. The dolorous black tabards on the Okrannel Kingsmen somehow made that unit seem more substantial. Though it had been unproven in combat, the desire to liberate their homeland fired the hearts of every man and woman encased in steel there. Their horses wore heavy armor as well, fitted with spikes and hooks, and some even had banners streaming back from little posts planted behind the saddle.

To the right rode the Alcidese Wolves. Their blue tabards had a slash of gold from right shoulder to left hip, and a stripe on the left shoulder had been made of the color of the company with which each rider fought. They appeared to be every bit as colorful as the grand temeryces toward which they rode.

Three hundred yards forward of where they had started, the infantry came to a stop. Spears rotated forward on a command, presenting man-made thorns eager to pierce Aurolani flesh. With one throat, the Alcidese troops voiced an ancient war cry that sent a shiver up Will’s spine.

Blood and bone, for our home; King, kin, and nation.

Will’s heart swelled even as his growing smile rubbed his mask over his cheeks.Oriosa may claim me, but I am Alcidese.

-Drummers within the Aurolani formations pounded out an advance that started their lines surging forward. They kept roughly even across their line, despite their center moving through the cavalry formation. Will was left with the impression of a wolf hiding its teeth, but the threat was still there.

Closer and closer the Aurolani troops marched. The hoargoun moved to the fore of their legions. They hefted weapons capable of blasting huge holes in the Alcidese formation. A swipe of a club would clear spears, spinning the men who wielded them into their companions, wreaking havoc.

And the center, it’s never closed. They are planning something.

Will frowned, concentrating, trying to puzzle out what the Aurolani were trying to do. His efforts came to naught—half because he had no experience, and the other half because of the sounds coming from the tent. Amid the cant of the Zhusk, which he recognized but did not understand, Will caught gasps and groans, as well as an inhuman creaking and set of popping noises. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it wasn’t right and that, regardless, Adrogans should be out there figuring out what Will couldn’t about the Aurolani.

Without thinking the young thief darted around the curve of the tent and slipped inside. It took his eyes a second to adjust to the darkness, but what he saw in that moment took his breath away.

Adrogans, naked, bloody, bound to a cruciform rack above a watery hole in the ground, had pierced his breast, stomach, thighs, and arms with iron nails. Smoke choked the tent, the smoke of sizzling flesh. One Zhusk held a glowing nail in a pair of pincers, while another grabbed a fold of Adrogan’s flesh at his left shoulders. Muttering some sibilant curse, the Zhusk shoved the nail home, while a third hung an oddly shaped weight from it on a slender cord.

Before Will could sound an alarm, the old Zhusk headman turned and gestured at him. The man’s hand quivered, then tightened into a fist. Will felt all the air crushed from him, then his sight darkened.

He never felt himself hitting the ground.

Markus Adrogans barely caught the flash of light betokening Will’s entry to the tent, and scarcely heard his smothered gasp or the sound of his collapse to the ground. The agonies pulsing through his body demanded most all his attention, as red-hot iron pierced his flesh, as his joints twisted and ground with his struggles. His chest felt fair to bursting with the scream he kept locked in, and in a momentary surcease, he harshed out a whisper. “More, still more.”

He clenched his jaw tight, closing his throat, as nimble Zhusks pinched skin into tabs through which they thrust burning metal. To the skewers they fastened wires, on the end of which hung talismans. They tugged and pulled, reigniting nerves that sent waves of pain surging through his body. The sweat covering his body seared into wounds, blood streaked him, boiling when rivulets hit some new piercing. His flesh and blood rose from him in a dozen little streams of sacrificial smoke, the stink of it further torturing him.

He opened his mouth to request more, he needed more and wanted more, but instead his body protested with a wracking cough. Phfas snapped a word—Adrogans made no sense of the sound, but knew there was a sense to it. The ropes at his waist and wrists parted, the pain in his shoulders eased for a moment, then he slid forward, feet first, as the rack tipped down. His sweat-and blood-slicked body picked up splinters from the rack as he glided off.

For a moment he flew free, wrapped by nothing but air and agony, then plunged into the quenching water. It engulfed him and consumed him, subsuming him as well. It flowed over him, cooling the metal, shocking away the heat in his body, penetrating him with a frigidity that numbed him. He slowly descended, his weight and speed accepted by the water, bled off by it. It supported his tired arms and let him dangle there, effortlessly, as if his body, for heartbeat after heartbeat, had ceased to exist.

Adrogans opened his eyes and found himself in union with the water. Through it, through the moisture in the ground, he was able to spread out, seeing and hearing, feeling and smelling. At once he was part of the battlefield. He could see it all, see the Aurolani infantry splashing forward. He could feel himself running down their bodies, soaking their fur as they came on. The temeryx claws tore at his flesh, horse’s hooves pounded it.

Blood flowed into it.

At once he could sense it all, everything. The whirl and swirl of battle, the skirling song of the wounded shrieking, the husky chuff of a chest pierced by a spear, it all came to him. The warm spray of blood, the heavy thump of a body hitting the ground, and the shudder of a spear-butt, planted firmly in the earth, accepting the weight of an impaled temeryx before bowing and shattering, peppering warriors with splinters, the fearful clawing at the ground by a wounded frostclaw, the scrabbling of the broken-legged rider beneath it, and the fearsome war cry of a warrior, sword in hand, advancing to finish both; all of these things made up the tapestry of battle for him.

Tapestry.Dimly, in whatever part of him remained human, the inappropriateness of that word struck him. It suggested beauty and artistry, yet what writhed over the landscape was a carpet of pain and death, of blood and torn flesh, shattered limbs, ended dreams and unending nightmares. As sword cleaved flesh, so it rent the mind and soul, compounding the damage and creating wounds that would never heal.

Adrogans focused, narrowing his perceptions to those of more human proportions. He rose over the battlefield with the morning mist, watching as the Aurolani lines hit and engaged the Alcidese infantry on the left wing. Hoargoun swung clubs that shattered some spears, but others rose and thrust, sticking the giants here and there, fending them off for a moment. Pendulum-like, the clubs came back, breaking hafts, but leaving the hoargoun stickled as if the infantry were some iron porcupine and their spears quills.

Through the open center came the Aurolani cavalry. The light cavalry hit the engaged line, tearing into it. Likewise, at the center, the heavy struck hard. The grand temeryces leaped well past the spears, soaring over the front lines, to land heavily, crushing men into the mud. Claws rent armor, opening flesh, tearing spines, then teeth flashed and men spun away with half a face or less one arm. Though some spearmen did catch temeryces in mid-flight, even the weight of a heartstuck frostclaw was enough to smash down the soldiers between it and the ground.