“Laisren was willing to gamble that the Temnotta mages
wouldn’t be quick to light their own sails on fire, so he gave orders for the
vayash moru
to haul their kills aloft.”
“Ready your mages—there’s something in the water!” Laisren seemed to appear out of nowhere at Jonmarc’s side.
“What’s out there?”
“Several large forms, moving fast.”
Jonmarc lifted a burning brand, the signal to mages along the coastline to stand ready. He could see ominous ripples heading toward shore while the fight between the Temnottan ships and the merc navy raged on the water.
“Sweet Chenne, what are those?” But even as he spoke, he knew. Huge, sodden hulks rose from the bay in the shallow water, followed by smaller shapes. Reptilian heads sat atop powerfully built sea-slick bodies with muscular legs and clawed feet.
Magicked beasts
, he thought, as his blood ran cold.
Already, the mages and troops were responding. Jonmarc heard the cries of commanders rallying their men to battle stations and heard the crackle of lightning as mages sent volley after volley of red and blue magic fire against the lumbering beasts.
Smaller, quicker beasts ran from the water. They were black, thin, and fast, with long, taloned hands and wide, toothy maws. The small beasts set on the nearest ranks of soldiers with a shrill, unnatural cry.
“Torches, we need torches,” Jonmarc shouted, sending the aides scurrying to comply. He swung around to grab a runner who was awaiting instructions. “Fire’s the only thing that stops those beasts. I want a torch in every soldier’s hands, and I don’t care if you have to burn down the camp to do it.”
The runner took off to spread the word, shouting to other messengers to join him. Jonmarc turned back to Laisren.
“Call off your men. There’s nothing you can do with so much fire, and you’re as likely to burn as the beasts.”
Even as he spoke, a wall of flame rose from the deck of one of the Temnottan ships. It caught on the dry rigging and sailcloth and sent the masts ablaze. Fire rose from another and then another of the Temnottan ships. The Temnottans were dropping skiffs from the inland sides of their ships, leaving the burning hulks to keep the merc navy from intervening.
With a stricken expression, Laisren took flight to gather what remained of his
vayash moru
fighters.
The horrors that first waded from the ocean ignored the skiffs behind them. Now, Jonmarc saw why. What had looked to be men aboard the small landing craft blurred in the moonlight, dropping to all fours as they shifted into wolves and huge bears. Heedless of the clang of swords and the smoke that rose as brand after brand flared into flame, the enemy shifters launched themselves into the fray, scrambling around the larger magicked beasts.
“We’ve got big problems.” It was Serg, one of the
vyrkin
leaders. That he was still in uniform told Jonmarc the other had not yet shifted to fight.
“Really? You just noticed?”
“Sorry. I forget that you can’t feel magic as we do. Those aren’t normal shifters. They’ve been… compelled… to shift. Driven like rats at the edge of a forest fire. They’re more afraid of what’s behind them than what’s in front of them, and with those damn monsters out there, that’s saying a lot.”
“How many?”
“More than we have. If I had to bet, I’d say they’ve had mages playing at cursing normal men into animal form. Nasty stuff.”
“Make sure your people know that they’re a valuable asset. I don’t want them wasting their lives. We’re not going to win this hand-to-hand.”
“Done.”
The slope down to the beach was ablaze with torches and burning brands. Jonmarc drew his sword and looked at Gethin. The young man’s jaw was set with a grim expression.
“Any tricks your
Hojuns
have would be appreciated right about now. I’ve fought these things before, and they don’t go down easily.”
Gethin’s gaze flickered to the long scar that wound from Jonmarc’s ear down beneath his collar. “Then let’s get started.”
Jonmarc swung up to his battle steed and gave a cry to start the charge. Gethin and the
Hojun
priests were in their saddles and ready to go. Hoofbeats pounded in the night air, thunder to the lightning of the burning brands and the blazing ships. The air stank of smoke and blood. Jonmarc let battle coldness take him, let it drive out fear until nothing existed except the quarry in front of him. His horse charged forward, and Jonmarc rode for the smaller beasts. They were faster than the great lumbering monsters, and he hoped that meant easier to kill.
Not far to his right, one of the large beasts swung its great, clawed arm and swept three soldiers off their feet. A cluster of fighters rushed forward, torches thrust ahead of them, forcing the monster back. Jonmarc heard a
throaty growl and turned just as a huge wolf sprang at him. He swung his sword, catching the large wolf through the ribs, letting its forward motion drive the blade deeper. The wolf snarled and swiped its wide, powerful paws at him, forcing him to duck to avoid the sharp claws. Just for a moment, Jonmarc met the wolf’s eyes. These eyes were the shape and color of a man’s eyes, wild with rage and pain. The light in the wolf’s eyes dimmed, and it went limp, sliding dead from his blade.
To his left, Gethin dug his heels into the ribs of his battle stallion, rearing up to send the iron-shod hooves kicking into the swarm of small beasts that swarmed around him. Jonmarc reached the fray a moment later, slashing with all his might to cut through the magicked beasts’ tough, scaly skin.
The small beasts fell, but in their wake came a dozen wolves. They were larger than normal wolves, and Jonmarc wondered if the mage that forced them into their animal shapes had tinkered with their bodies, making them into weapons of war. Behind the wolves, Jonmarc saw a new wave of the deadly small beasts. All around them, the Principality soldiers fought in desperate bands of two and three, overwhelmed by the enemy advance. Neither the magicked beasts nor the Temnottan shifters seemed deterred by the threat of death, and so they pressed forward heedless as their fellows fell to the blades of the soldiers and the arrows of sharpshooters. Somewhere in the fray, Serg and the other
vyrkin
battled the alien shifters. The battleground was littered with bodies of men and
vyrkin
and horses, and the layer of smoke that hung over the land glowed red as blood by torchlight.
We could die here tonight
, Jonmarc thought grimly.
Just as the Temnottan wolves poised to spring, a wall of what appeared to be smoke rose from the ground between the wolves and where Jonmarc and Gethin readied for the onslaught. Unlike the torch smoke, the heavy mist did not waft with the wind. As Jonmarc watched, this new smoke swirled and began to take shape, forming into a ghostly line of powerful stawars. The smoke-stawars drew back on their powerful haunches and then launched themselves at the wolves with an otherworldly shriek.
The wolves ran, but not fast enough. Ghostly stawars pursued the fleeing wolves, and all-too-solid claws ripped through the wolves’ skin. Jonmarc and Gethin swept behind the stawar-spirits, delivering killing blows to the maimed and dying wolves in their wake. The
Hojun
priests stayed where they were, hands raised and faces set in concentration. Jonmarc wondered just how many of the ghost cats the
Hojun
could call, and how far their creations could range afield.
More of the gray-skinned monsters rose from the sea to take the place of those the soldiers slaughtered. The howling of wolves and the fearsome snarls of bears vied with the shrieks of dying horses and the cries of men.
Six of the small beasts surged after Gethin. The beasts had grown bolder, and smarter, and they eluded the prince’s deadly blades. Instead, they struck for the horse’s underbelly and left deep gashes in his mount’s hindquarters. Gethin leaped free of the saddle as the horse crumpled from its injuries, and with a curse, Jonmarc drove his stallion straight into the midst of the fray, sword swinging.
Around them, arrows and quarrels rained down from archers on higher ground, barely missing the soldiers as they struck the beasts and bears. Flaming arrows soared
through the night sky like falling stars. Jonmarc sincerely hoped someone had warned the archers that a number of the wolves were
vyrkin
.
Jonmarc jumped from his wounded horse, surrendering it as a diversion to draw off the beasts. He came after Gethin’s attackers swinging his sword in one hand and a burning torch in the other. One of the beasts turned and came after him, and Jonmarc wheeled into a high Eastmark kick, catching the beast in the ribs and sending it backward with enough force to take two more of its companions off their feet.
Jonmarc heard a cry from one of the
Hojun
priests. His Markian was rusty but good enough to catch the meaning of a hurried warning. A ring of flames shot up from the ground, circling Jonmarc and Gethin. The beasts shrieked in fury but withdrew a pace or two from the flames. As they drew back, a second outer ring rose out of nowhere, trapping the beasts between sheets of fire.
The flames were close enough that Jonmarc felt the heat ripple against his skin. Though the night was cool, within the protective circle it was as hot as a blacksmith’s forge.
“Wonderful. We’ve got the choice of being eaten or being roasted.”
Gethin was cursing under his breath in Markian. “I hadn’t really planned on either.”
As Jonmarc watched, the inner and outer rings of flame began to move toward each other, sandwiching the screaming beasts between them. Within a few heartbeats, the fire engulfed the beasts, sending noxious dark smoke into the air. When the beasts were dead, the flames vanished.
“My lord, are you hurt?” Tevin the fire mage emerged
from the smoke. His face was smudged with soot and his mage robes were stained with blood.
“We’ll live,” Jonmarc replied. “Thank you.” He looked out over the battlefield. A glance told him that the night was going badly for the Principality forces. Valjan’s trebuchets and catapults were lobbing large flaming projectiles where the beasts were massed, but it was an imprecise attack at best, likely to kill as many soldiers as it saved.
“Can you rally the mages? Do what you just did but on a much bigger scale?”
Tevin nodded. “Aye. What timing did you have in mind?”
“When we begin the retreat, lay down a line of fire to cover our backs and then set another at the edge of the beach. Maybe we can trap the majority of those damned beasts so they can’t follow us.”
Tevin nodded grimly. “What of the injured men in the strike zone? And the dead? You won’t be able to save the wounded or bring back bodies.”
Jonmarc looked down over the scarred slope at the battle that raged amid the blood-red smoke. “They’re beyond help. I want to save enough of the army to fight another day.”
How Tevin planned to communicate with the other mages Jonmarc did not know. He only hoped that the fire mage could rally his companions fast enough to avert a total rout. Fighting back to back, Jonmarc and Gethin managed to hold off another wave of beasts, and all around them, the
Hojuns
’ smoke-stawars snapped and clawed at the wolves and bears that slunk around the edges of the fight.
When Jonmarc was fairly sure Tevin had had the time he needed to get into position, he dropped the still-burning torch to the ground and reached for a horn that hung at his
belt. With a deep breath, he blew the four-note clarion that signaled retreat.
For a moment, he feared that the call could not be heard over the din of battle. Then down the line, he heard Valjan answer, and after a long pause, Gregor as well.
Retreat was as bitter as it was necessary. Jonmarc and Gethin stumbled over the fallen dead. Behind them, they heard the first curtain of fire roar into life. It sounded like a huge tide rushing in from sea, or the blast of a storm wind. A wall of fire rose high into the night, blocking their view of the burning hulks in the bay. Around them, men ran for safety. It was easy to spot the less-seasoned soldiers, who scrambled for their lives, compared to the experienced soldiers, who stayed in something resembling formation.
At first, beasts and shifters pursued the fleeing soldiers, taking a heavy toll on the rearmost line. Tevin’s second wall of flame flared from nowhere. Screams rose on the night air from the men and beasts caught in the conflagration. Jonmarc spotted three of Valjan’s killing machines aflame amid a mass of dead enemy bodies. The machines, Jonmarc thought grimly, had served their purpose.
The night air stank of roasting flesh, and Jonmarc’s stomach clenched as old memories threatened to resurface. He resolutely forced down any reaction except the cold logic needed to survive the retreat, and he bent to retrieve a torch that lay guttering on the ground. Seizing one of the abandoned horses, Jonmarc swung up in the saddle, the better to see his troops and be seen by them. He stopped on the slope midway between the battlefield and the camp, shouting at the soldiers to hurry, hoping that his visibility as a commanding officer might help the
panicked fighters remember their training and rise above their terror.
Smoke made visibility difficult, but as Jonmarc squinted to see, he was sure that Tevin and the mages had begun to move the concentric walls of flame toward each other. The death cries of men, shifters, maimed horses, and magicked beasts raised a nightmarish keen in the darkness. Above the howls of the dying, Jonmarc heard the sound of battle close at hand, and he rode toward it. The slope was bathed in firelight, hot as a midsummer noon. Set in the shifting red light and dancing shadows was a small group of soldiers battling about a dozen of the small magicked beasts that had slipped beyond the ring of flames.