Kingmaker (38 page)

The knights actually faltered for a moment when the ninja finally got one of the cannon into operation.

Loaded with case shot, it swept a thick column of destruction through the knights. If it had been operational for the first charge, it might have made a difference. As it was, it only bought them a few more seconds. Sullivan's heavy cavalry stiffened and attacked again.

The third time the knights assaulted her line, Ellie knew it was over.

The sun had reached the horizon, but it wasn't properly twilight. The knights would have plenty of light for killing.

As she watched, a knot of knights slaughtered unarmored ninja guarding one of the wagons, pushed their way to its top, and started chopping down at the spearpoints the remaining ninja brought to bear.

All around her, the ninja were dying.

She hadn't lost this many soldiers for months, since that horrible assault on Moray. And the killing was only going to get worse.

"Five man teams,” she shouted. “Break for the forests. Abandon everything."

She tossed a torch into the wagon the knights had captured, threw an abandoned spear after it, sliced off a reaching arm, and ran.

The caltrops she'd had sewn behind her palisade saved some of the ninja from Sullivan's concentrated charge.

She, Micael, Lart, and Alys angled to the left rather than straight away from the knights. The more the ninja teams dispersed, the better the chance that at least some of them would survive.

Whooping shouts from behind her indicated that the knights had found the wine she'd kept behind, but Sullivan's angry growl kept most of the knights fully on the task of killing, of eliminating the wonderful army she'd worked so hard to build.

Ellie blinked the tears away and ran. She kept her body down, presenting as low a profile as she could, veered when she sensed a pistol shot coming, and kept moving. A mounted knight isn't much of a projectile threat, but there were a lot of them and they could throw a lot of lead.

A high-pitched shout told her that they'd been spotted.

She signaled to Alys to toss the rest of her caltrops and did the same, then risked a look behind her.

A dozen knights were riding them down.

As she watched, the lead horse stumbled and screamed. The rider fell and didn't get back up. A two-hundred-pound man aided with a hundred pounds of steel armor builds up a lot of inertia as he tumbles from a fast-moving horse.

Which left eleven.

Lart drew his short ninja sword. “Go on,” he shouted. “I'll follow."

She turned to fight with him but Micael grabbed her and yanked her on. “He made his decision. Don't make it meaningless.” Micael might not have a tongue, but his signing could be eloquent.

She nodded, kept on running.

Behind her, she heard horses screaming, the dying shouts of one of the knights, and then Lart's attack kia, suddenly cut short.

"Poor Lart,” Alys signed. “He was a good man."

His sacrifice had bought them a little time. And the sun had finally dropped below the horizon leaving bright spring twilight behind it.

Ellie veered further to her left, angling toward the forest that would provide safety and hiding places for ex-bandits and guerilla fighters.

The dozen knights who'd initially followed were down to nine now. So Lart hadn't died alone. In the gathering twilight, her black-clad group must have been hard to see. The knights pulled up, and then divided. Half continued in their former direction while five blundered onto the route Ellie, Alys, and Micael had taken.

"No more heroics,” Ellie signed. “We'll take them together."

"Maybe they won't find us,” Alys offered.

Ellie looked back. Not going to happen.

"There they are. To me."

The knights weren't charging any more. Their horses were blown and they were being careful of caltrops, but the knights got their animals into a sort of trot—faster than an exhausted ninja could run—and closed the distance.

From further away, other knights shouted but it wasn't clear whether they were coming or hunting down their own prey.

Ellie kept up a steady jog. She'd been in shape before she'd come to this world, but months of cross-country skiing and continual fighting had honed her body to a peak of aerobic fitness. She could run forever, if she wasn't killed first.

Occasional bushes marked the end of the cultivated area and the beginning of the forest, but the knights were almost on them.

"Turn and fight,” she signed.

They'd almost made it. Another hundred yards—only a few seconds at full sprint—and they would have been in the thick of the forest. Once there, a human on foot would have the advantage over the bulky mounted rider. But a hundred yards proved to be that much too far.

She drew and cut.

The knights had lost or abandoned their lances. They tried riding the ninja down, but Alys, Micael, and Ellie had plenty of practice dealing with horsemen. They ducked, rolled, and slashed.

Well-trained warhorses are dangerous animals and Ellie barely ducked in time to avoid one horse's flashing hoof. But she nicked it as the animal drew it back and the horse reared.

The knight was a bit off-balance from swinging at Alys. He tumbled off his horse, dropped his knife, and went to sleep when Ellie smashed a sidekick into his head.

Micael had disabled one of the other soldiers, and Alys had hamstrung a horse which left two mounted knights and one on foot.

"Finish the dismounted one. Micael and I will take the two on horseback,” Ellie signed to Alys.

She had one shuriken left and threw it directly in a horse's face.

Despite the gathering gloom, the horseman saw the weapon and, incredibly, knocked it away with his sword.

The swing exposed his side.

Ellie relaxed, using her body's weight to drive her katana up, into the weak joint under his right armpit and into his throat.

She tried to capture his horse as it thundered by, but it bit at her and kept moving.

Micael was still fighting his man, but he was holding his own. Alys, though, was in trouble.

As Ellie ran toward her friend, Alys missed a block, took a sword through her thigh and went down.

Ellie reached for every drop of energy that she could find and threw her sword, end over end, at the grinning knight.

It clanged against him, rocking him away from Alys, but didn't even stun him. A katana makes a lousy projectile.

He laughed. “Two sluts for the price of one."

In his dreams.

An unarmed woman against an armored, sword-armed man who had been trained in the weapon for a decade or more doesn't have a chance.

Ellie knew that. But she also knew that Alys was bleeding to death while she stood there.

She launched herself at the knight.

He opened his mouth—to shout or in shock of her stupid move, Ellie didn't know. But he also brought up his sword.

She caught his sword hand just as it reached its apex, reached both hands around to a figure-4 hold, and continued past him, taking him down.

He fell heavily and she followed by dropping her knee directly down on his open-faced helmet.

His nose and skull cracked disgustingly beneath her knee.

She scooped up her katana, then threw Alys over her back and turned to the forest.

Of the five hundred ninja Ellie had led out on her raid, only one hundred straggled back to the main army camp.

She could almost feel the mood of the army sag as she led the last group of wounded ninja in.

Her ninja had been the heroes of the revolution, invincible soldiers of the guerilla war that had been so successful through the previous winter. Now they were just another beaten mob, essentially out of the fight for good. And it was her fault. She'd asked them to do what no irregular force should be expected to survive—face heavy trained professionals in a stand-up fight.

Mark's face looked almost as gray as if he'd been on that desperate march back to camp with her. “I'm sorry, Ellie."

"Somebody had to do it.” If only she could have died with her soldiers so she wouldn't have to live with the guilt.

"That doesn't make it any easier."

"Tell me about it. So, what next?"

"We're already tearing down the camp. Sullivan has poured every bandit he can hire into the north, cutting off our supply route to the main army. Our scouts tell us he's destroyed every bridge and chopped down thousands of trees over the road. And he seems to have really liked your caltrops because he's been building his own and has those scattered everywhere, too. We can't go north, so we're going to try to swing around the capital to the south before heading back east."

"South will put us closer to Sullivan. Sounds risky."

Mark just looked at her for maybe fifteen seconds. “It's insane, Ellie. But Sergius and Sullivan have to believe we're beaten, that we're on the run."

She took a look at their depleted army. “I'd say they'd believe right."

The worst part about leading the ninja to their deaths was that she hadn't been able to tell them why she'd exposed them in such an obvious mistake. Sure she'd only taken volunteers for the raid and told them it was risky, but she hadn't told them that they were an intentional sacrifice. Sergius's spies and mages would have detected the truth if her soldiers had known. Instead, she had that horror on her conscience.

"We need to make sure the wounded ninja are safe."

"I'll take care of that, Ellie. Now get some sleep.” Mark reached a hand toward her, then pulled it back. “You've had a rough few days and it's only going to get worse."

Sullivan hit their marching column the following afternoon.

He had brought up his heavy cavalry and tried to sweep down on them just as their supply wagons cleared a small forest.

With light cavalry, the plan might have worked. With slow-moving knights, it was a slaughter. Mark's riflemen cut them to pieces with only the loss of two of the wagons.

That evening, the army was in slightly better spirits. They were still running, but they'd figured they weren't completely beaten, yet.

Ellie walked over to where Mark and Arnold were studying a map looking for potential ambush spots.

"Won't that display of shooting scare Sergius into staying in Moray?” she asked. Not that she wanted Sullivan to destroy their supply wagons. The army was going to be hungry enough as it was.

Arnold shook his head. “I thought you'd met the Duke of Sullivan."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, he'll report another great victory. His men first defeated your guerillas and now he burned most of our supply wagons. He's well on the way to defeating us single-handedly."

"Sergius is supposed to be the military genius,” Mark said. “The return of the Fell Prince. He'll want to get in on the easy pickings."

"At least we hope so,” Ellie observed.

Mark paused, then pressed his long finger into the soft vellum of the map. “He'll meet us here, at this river crossing. It's three days march for us. It's only one day out of Moray so Sergius will think he's got a bolt-hole if anything goes wrong. He'll have Sullivan harass us from the rear and cut us off. Even if he leaves an huge garrison in Moray, he'll outnumber us three to one."

Arnold shook his head. “I'm starting to think that dividing my army was a mistake after all."

That night, Ellie led what was left of her ninja division on a raid on Sullivan's camp, got a few more of her friends killed, and put at least a bit of fear back in Sullivan.

For the next couple of days, the Duke stayed further away. Like a jackal, he hunted for forage parties or for laggards but didn't dare attack their main column. Still, he stayed close, ready to close on them if they made a mistake.

As they crossed a low rise three days after they'd studied the map, Ellie saw a beautiful valley laid out before them.

Cornfields stretched as far as she could see, the young seedlings providing almost no cover.

Mark had judged correctly. Sergius's army manned the ancient stone bridge that crossed the river. His forces, all musket-armed with bright bayonets, lined both sides of the riverbank.

Mark rode up beside her and studied the field with a small telescope Lawgrave had found for him.

"I didn't think he'd have that many soldiers."

After a year in Lubica, Ellie recognized most of the mercenary banners. Every one she'd ever seen, along with some she'd never heard of, flew over Sergius's camp.

"I think we're in trouble."

Mark nodded. “All sorts of trouble. It's too late in the afternoon to fight but we need to camp. And Sergius's army is going to deny us access to water. So, we're going to be thirsty."

It wasn't as bad as that, but it was bad.

They found a farmhouse with a well, created a Roman-style legion camp with stakes and earthen walls, and set up a heavy guard.

Their war council was fairly grim.

The major road parallel to the river was on Sergius's side so he could march faster than they could if they tried to flank him. He controlled the bridge and had artillery as well as massed musket formations to keep it clear. And Sullivan was behind them, ready to attack if they gave him a chance.

"At least we know it can't get worse.” Arnold was trying a bit of humor, but nobody laughed. Especially when Lawgrave and two of the other mage leaders suddenly winced, then drew out their stones.

"What's happening?” Arnold demanded.

Ellie took out her own stones and cast a pattern. She moved them around, not liking the results she was getting, then nodded. “Things got worse. A Rissel army out of Dinan is sailing up the river now. They should arrive by noon tomorrow. Their mages just added their support to the attacks Sergius's mages are already launching.

"How many?” Arnold's voice was grim.

"I can't tell. Plenty."

"Another ten thousand,” Lawgrave groaned. “Minimum."

Dafed shook his head. “It's going to be ugly."

"Let's not give up hope,” Mark said.

"What hope?” Arnold demanded. “We're outnumbered four to one by Sergius alone. And another two to one by the Riesel. Not to mention Sullivan's army which is nearly half our size all by himself, and all heavy knights.