A Magic of Nightfall

Eneas cu’Kinnear

He was going to die here in the Hellins.

That feeling of an awful destiny washed over Eneas as he stood with the Holdings forces on the crest of a hill not far outside Munereo, as they watched the strangely-shaped banners of the Westlanders approaching from the direction of Lake Malik, as he heard the war-teni begin chanting in preparation for battle. A’Offizier Meric ca’Matin was with him, as well as the other offiziers of the battalion and several pages ready to run messages between the companies. The cornets and flags were set to relay orders. A hundred strides down the slope, the ranks of the Holdings army were arrayed, restless and nervous.

Eneas had been in a half dozen battles and countless skirmishes and confrontations in the last several years. This sense of impending doom was something he’d never felt before. He could feel sweat rolling down his face under the thick iron helmet, and it was not just the sun that caused the perspiration. He wanted to shout denial to the sky, but he could not. Not here. Not in front of his troops. Instead, he bowed his head and he prayed.

Oh, Great Cenzi, why do You send this premonition to me? What are You saying to me?

Eneas was an o’offizier with the Garde Civile of the Holdings. His commander in the field, A’Offizier ca’Matin, had told him only yesterday that he had put in the recommendation that Eneas be made Chevaritt, that the document was already on its way across the Strettosei to Nessantico. His vatarh would be proud-twenty-five years ago, Eneas’ vatarh had served with the Regent ca’Rudka at Passe a’Fiume and been badly burned, losing both an arm and an eye during that horrible siege. The Garde Civile had given him the citation and the pension he was due, and though their family had been raised from ce’Kinnear to ci’Kinnear as a result, his vatarh had always talked about how he could have become one of the chevarittai if he hadn’t been injured, how those aspirations had been taken from him by the Firenzcian teni-fire that had disfigured him and ended his career.

Eneas had never wanted to be either chevaritt or offizier. He would have preferred that his career path was that of a teni in the Concenzia Faith rather than the one he’d found in the Garde Civile. He’d felt the calling of Cenzi ever since he’d been a young boy; indeed, he’d petitioned his parents to send him to the temple as an acolyte. But his vatarh had insisted on the martial road. “We’re just ci’, my son, and barely that,” he’d said. “Our family doesn’t have the solas to send you to the teni. That’s for the ca’-and-cu’ who can afford it. You’ll join the Garde, as I did. You’ll do as I did…”

Eneas had done better than his vatarh. “Falsoteni,” his men dubbed him for his piousness, for his strict attention to the rules of the Divolonte, for his insistence that the men under his command attend the rites at the Munereo Temple on the proper Days of Observance. But they also claimed that Cenzi Himself protected Eneas-and through Eneas, themselves. In the Battle of the Mounds near Lake Malik, as an e’offizier in his second real battle, he’d been the only surviving offizier of his company as they were ripped apart by a far superior Westlander force. He’d managed to surprise the Westlanders by feigning retreat, then marching the remnants of his troops through marshland to attack the enemy from a flank unprotected by their nahualli-the terrifying spellcasters of the Westlanders, the ones who called the Ilmodo the X’in Ka.

Heretics, they were. False teni worshiping false gods. The thought of the nahualli enraged Eneas.

Eneas had managed to inflict severe losses on the Westlander flank and to hold the ground until reinforcements arrived. As a reward for his actions, he’d been promoted to o’offizier; a few months later, after the Campaign of the Deep Fens, A’Offizer ca’Matin had told him the Gardes a’Liste had raised their family to cu’.

When his tour was over a year from now, after his return to Nessantico, Eneas had promised Cenzi that he would resign from the Garde Civile and offer himself for training as teni, even though he would be much older than the usual acolytes. He was certain that this was what Cenzi wanted of him.

The Hellins War had been good for Eneas, though not for the Holdings.

At least, it had been so until this shadow came. This chill in his spine.

It’s not a premonition. It’s just fear…

He’d felt fear before. Every soldier felt fear unless he were an utter fool, but it had never touched him like this. Fear rattled the bones in your flesh; fear made the blood sing in your ears. Fear turned your bowels to foul brown water. Fear set your weapon to shaking in your hand. But Eneas didn’t tremble, his stomach was settled, and the tip of his sword didn’t waver in his grasp.

This wasn’t fear-or not any kind he’d experienced before. That worried him most of all.

What is that you send me, Cenzi? Tell me, so that I may serve You as you wish…

“O’Offizier cu’Kinnear!” A’Offizier ca’Matin barked, and Eneas shook his head to dispel the thoughts. He saluted his superior offizier, who was already astride his destrier. “I need you to drive your men into their right flank; push them into the valley for the war-teni to handle. We shouldn’t have their nahualli to worry about; the outriders have said they’re still back near the Tecuhtli at Lake Malik. Understood?”

Eneas nodded.

“Good,” ca’Matin said. “Then let’s get this started. Page, tell the horns to call the advance.” The boy he’d addressed ran toward the knoll where the horns and signal flags were clustered as ca’Matin saluted Eneas: the sign of Cenzi, that Eneas returned solemnly and devoutly. “Cenzi’s fortune to you, Eneas,” he said.

“And with all of us,” Eneas returned fervently. Ca’Matin yanked on the reins. He cantered away, the powerful warhorse moving carefully through the tall grass toward the center of the lines where the banners of the Holdings rippled in the afternoon breeze.

The cornets sounded then, harsh and bright. The call floated before them in challenge to the Westlanders, and the sound of weapons clashing against armor rushed after it. Eneas took the reins of his own destrier from a waiting page and mounted. His e’offiziers looked at him expectantly. “Make your peace with Cenzi,” he told them. “It’s time.”

He raised his hand, signaling them toward the right flank and the steep hills there.

A roar answered him, a thousand throats calling out. They began to move, slowly at first, then more rapidly, until they were rushing headlong down toward the spears of the enemy. As they charged, the war-fire of the teni behind them shrieked over their heads, smashing into the front ranks of the Westlander forces and gouging holes in their ragged lines. There didn’t seem to be an answer from the nahualli; Eneas thought that the sour fear would leave him with that, but it didn’t.

Eneas and his men surged into the fuming gaps. The clash of steel on steel echoed from the flanks of the lush hills, as did the screams of the wounded who went down under the hooves of the destriers they rode. Eneas struck at a short spear that thrust toward him, hacking away the barbed tip and chopping down with his saber at the hand that held it. Blood spurted and the savage face below him fell away. His horse pushed forward, and he cut at the Westlanders on either side of him, armored in chest plates of bamboo and heavy cloth sewn with small brass rings, their helmets adorned with the plumes of brightly-colored birds, their ruddy skin painted with orange-and-yellow streaks that made their faces look like skulls or tattooed with black-and-red lines. They were fierce opponents, the Westlanders, and no soldier of the Holdings who had faced them dared to belittle their skill or their bravery. Yet-oddly-they gave way now, retreating back toward the main mass of their army. Eneas saw a darkness under their sandaled feet: the soil directly in front of him was like a circle of sand, but that sand was as black as the charcoal of a burned log.

The unease that had afflicted Eneas before the battle deepened, settling like a deathly chill in his lungs so that he labored to breathe and his sword felt like a leaden weight in his hands. He urged his horse forward onto the sand and as he did so, he shouted: a wordless cry to banish the feeling with noise and rage.

He was answered by a sound he’d never heard before.

The sound… it was as if one of the Earth Moitidi-those unworthy children of Cenzi-had screamed an unearthly and deep roar, and the sound pulled Eneas’ head around to the left toward its source. Orange fire and foul, black smoke erupted from the ground. Dirt clods fell around Eneas like a solid rain, spattering him, and with it… with it were parts of bodies. A hand, still clutching a broken sword, rebounded from the neck of Enean’s destrier and fell to the ground. He stared at the gory object. He heard the screams then, belatedly.

“It’s the nahualli! Sorcery!” Eneas screamed in warning to his troops, to the awful hand that had fallen from the sky.

He was answered with a roar that was even louder than the first, a blast that blinded him with its light as the force of it lifted him bodily, tearing him from saddle and horse. A demigod had plucked him up-Eneas seemed to hover for a breath or more: this… this is Cenzi’s premonition and warning… -and flung him back down to earth as if in disgust.

The earth rose up to meet him.

He remembered nothing else after that.